I’d say bridges are the scratch builds that appear most on the blog – simple because most layouts need a bridge, they are fun to make, and relatively simple.
There are hundreds of builds on the blog, and it’s always a joy to see what lands in my inbox every morning. Even after all these years I’ll never tire of it.
Bob’s been in touch with his weathered HO scale locomotives:
“Hi Al, it’s Bobby again. I just wanted to share my GP38-2.
It’s my first major weathering job on an engine. I think it came out somewhat good but please let me know what you think.
I started by taking the model apart piece by piece, guardrails, cab, and trucks. I needed to take it all apart anyway because I’m going to make it DCC. Then started to make patches where paint had come off. After doing that to the engine body, trucks, and tank, I air brushed some really thine refer white and made it look faded. Then it was on to the rust on body and trucks.
After all was done, I used rail tie brown, really thinned, and sprayed the model and trucks again. I sealed it all with a dull coat and sort of put it back together because I’m waiting on the sound decoder. I’ll send you a video of the engine when that gets installed. Until next time hope you enjoy my weathered HO scale locomotives.
“Hi Al. I trust all is well with you. Here is another tip in the area of modeling “small vignettes” one at a time to relieve frustration of being overwhelmed by the big picture.
Not every small scene needs to be elaborate, time consuming or expensive. This “fire scene” was created in about an hour last night after dinner. Total cost (less the figures and ‘dozer) was about .50 cents for glue and paint.
There was an uninteresting, mostly bare, area above a tunnel that needed something. First you create the “lore” or reason for the scene. In this case “Brush fire from a lightning strike above Tunnel 6 on Eagle Mt., just north of Camp Carroll. Fire crew knocked it down with the help of D&RGW fire car. Able to get the crew and a ‘dozer in on the fire road. Minimal damage, no injuries.”
The Woodland Scenics figures are available on ebay, the rocks are from my garden, the “burnt” trees are the dead clippings from a garden plant called a “Foxtail” simply spray painted from a cheap can of brown spray paint, the rest of the deadwood are just clippings from the garden.
The inspiration to model this scene is to commemorate, in a very small way, all of the ongoing efforts by the fire fighters in my native state of California which at this very time going through one of the worst fire seasons in California history. So this is just my small effort to tip my hat and say “thanks for all you do” to firefighters everywhere.
Thanks for the encouraging comments!
Mark”
Big thanks to Bobby for sharing his weathered HO scale locomotives. I think I may add this one to the Beginner’s guide to go with all the other weathering tips. There’s quite a stack of them now.
That’s all this time folks. Don’t forget the ebay cheat sheet. Still going strong.
