Prepped to prep

The flat cars have taken a little hiatus while I figured out the best way to make paint stick to the plastic parts. My usual method is to give plastic models a good scrubbing with Vim under running warm water. But with parts made of wood and even paper, that method was going to lead […]

Drywall removal

Well, here we are, drying out the basement again. This time we chose to do some of the demolition ourselves. The contents were all out on Friday thanks to Laura and the kids (The Girl had a Pro-D day, and The Boy had been up in the middle of the night shifting boxes and furniture, […]

Not again!

Why are those balloons floating just off the floor like that? Remember the flood we had in January? Well, we thought we had fixed it all and capped off the floor drain. Tonight’s heavy rain has come in through the basement door instead. Because we discovered it at ten o’clock, we have really struggled to […]

Closing in on wheel castings

Thanks to Brian Pate, and to Don Mitchell who suggested I call him, I’ve started vacuuming my castings when I pour them. Brian indicated that he liked to vacuum before and after pouring, but I’ve found the pre-pour treatment makes little difference. The post-pour treatment, on the other hand, dislodges all sorts of bubbles from […]

A good effort at pressure

I’m still grappling with the problem of bubbles in my castings. The accepted wisdom indicates that you want to set polyurethane castings under pressure so the bubbles become very small. I think the Smooth-on site suggests 60 psi (413 Kia). Not having anything that holds pressure, and not wanting to spend a lot of money, […]

Backdrop epiphany

In response to my hack-job about composition, Neil Erickson sent over an in-progress photo of his layout that he likes. It is a simple, entirely railroady scene, quite similar to the painting of a train I showed in that post. I quite like the oil painting varnish on the photo; I’m not sure if that’s […]

Challenging composition

Some of the comments in Friday’s post lead the way to thinking about model railways as art, and it’s worth getting a book out of the library to refresh ourselves on the elements of composition. My favourite art book is Jeanne Dobie’s Making Color Sing. It changed my dabbling with watercolour dramatically. One of the […]

Of Accuracy and Realism

Lance Mindheim’s piece last week about prototype modelling strikes a chord for me. You should read it yourself, but to précis, it is an argument for flexibility in prototype modelling to augment appearance. Embedded in the essay, Lance says, Its taken me decades to realize this but the two, appearance and accuracy are, in fact, […]

And now we are two!

For many years, I was the only Canada Atlantic Railway modeller I had ever met. Then for a short while, Ron Newby was hoeing this very long row with me. Then, he found other, more accessible subjects, and then as far as I know, I was the only one again. A couple of weeks ago, Richard […]

Bubbly bolster

The wheel plan for 622 requires perfect castings. Unfortunately, every attempt so far using my test molds has resulted in large bubbles. These bubbles are not there when I pour the resin, but seem to be forming during the curing process. According to the Smooth-on website, this could be due to humidity, and I should […]