Looking at my last post, I had just attended the Temple Train Show in September. Fast forward 6 months, and I haven’t made all that much progress.
Funding remains my primary issue. I estimate I need at least 4 more turnouts to get the inner loop laid out and operational. At $14 a turnout, that’s rather expensive.
In the meantime, I’ve been working on buildings. I now have four buildings and a water tower pretty much “complete” (save for weathering/detailing). I’ve discovered that I really enjoy building wooden laser-cut kits—Somehow they just look more real than the plastic buildings (at least, if the building is meant to be made of wood).
Here’s my latest project that I finished. It’s a Northeastern Scale Models kit called “Valley Hardware and Plumbing.” Personally, it looks a bit big for a hardware store, so I’m not sure what it will be on my layout yet.
Anyway, it went together easily enough. I painted it a light grey, then when I went to paint another coat I used a darker grey by mistake. I was going to just sand it off, but I realized that by sanding lightly I let the lighter grey shine through, and it gave nice “aging paint” effect.
The shingles provided was just a graphic on a piece of light grey paper, and I wasn’t sure how to color it and preserve the shingles. I asked the folks on Trainboard, and they said to use chalk, so I broke out the chalks for the first time in a LONG while. I’ve forgotten how messy it is. Probably shouldn’t be doing it over carpet, either, but oh well!
I also found these great new paint brushes called “microbrushes,” which are basically one-time use brushes meant for tiny detail work—like the white cornerposts on the model here.
Building these wood kits takes lots of time and patience, but I think the end result is worthwhile.
Now my problem is that I’m almost out of structures to build. Oops? Guess I need to buy some more!
I’ve got a new locomotive on the way, so hopefully there will be another post soon. If not, see you in 6 months.
