It is HOT, so I am staying in to do Model Railroading

It has been really hot here for a couple weeks. Getting in as much modeling as possible, and finished up a few things.

Kelso Feed Stake Truck
Below if a Varney, I think, stake truck. The cab portion has Varney stamped on the bottom, but it looks like maybe the bed was added. The bed is poor enought quality, it probably is a Varney. I added a tail light, ourside rearview mirror, rear differential, and tail pipe, along with painting,

lettering and adding a load to the bed. The bed had previously had a load in it from the previous owner, so it needed something to cover up the scars. The signs on the side of the truck were photoshopped from a feed bag image I found, and the bags in the bed are decaled with products that would have been available at Kelso Feed in beautiful Pittsburg, KS. I also added seats, a windshield and steering wheel.

NV #5, 44 Ton

This is a Bachman GE 44 Ton switcher that I painted and decaled for my Nirvana Valley Railroad. I will be finishing up any projects for the NVRR and from now on, the vast majority of the standard gauge private road name items will be labeled for the Kansas City, Fort Smith and Gulf Railroad (KCFS&G). I have a couple more of these, and I may kitbash one to a 3' narrow gauge loco.

Farm Truck with Hay Load
This truck is a kitbash of a cab from an unknown manufacturer and a Maisto military truck. I think I used the cab from the Maisto truck on one of the Central Concrete trucks. The hay bales are made from glueing little piece of sisal twine to blocks of wood. One of the projects you think

is only going to take fifteen minutes, so, your are going to make a lifetime supply, so you don't have to do it ever again. Then you realize that you can only glue hay to half the sides at a time, as the bale has to lay on one dry side to let the other sides dry. And cutting all that twine takes a long time. Hate to think how much time I have involved in those hay bales, but I did make plenty, so I should not have to do that again. I added a tail pipe and the usual mirrors, licience plate and tail lights to the vehicle.

Holly Passenger Car

I built this a decade ago, okay more than that. I had it out for some reason, as I am working on another passenger car to which I want to also detail the interior. In particular, figureing out how much room I needed for the restroom. I have not built very many passenger cars, but I currently have four in the works along with a drover caboose. More next week, as it looks like I will have a couple evenings free this week to finish up some model railroad projects.

Not much time for Model Railroading this month

Or at least not in the mood. Holly and I have made several trips to Joplin since the disaster, and that, along with work, left little time for model railroading.

Hanrahan Reefer

This is a La Belle wood kit that I started a decade ago. I really like to older style wood kits. These kits are still available at labellemodels.com. Rick Steele, the owner of La Belle, recently purchased the old Red Ball line and will be reintroducing it. The Hanrahan Ice Bunker car is unique as far as I know, in that most ice bunk cars had ice bunkers as at both ends, and a loading door in the center, but the Hanrahan is basically the opposite.

Planes, yes, ya gotta have a few planes

This is a long discontinued AHM kit for a Bell P-39Q Airacobra. There are not a lot of 1/87 scale planes available. I have 6-8 planes, so I will have to model and airport.

HON3 Gondola

This is a Bachman standard gauge car, purchased ready-to-run. I took it apart but a section out of the middle to convert it in to a 3' gauge car. I did some fairly heavy weathering, and I lettered this for my Trees Unlimited logging line.

June has to be better than May

The tornado that split Joplin in half on the 22nd, has reset my view of life. You never know what is going to happen next, and it ain't always good. Everybody we know survived, but lots of people lost everything. The size of the devistation is more than I can comprehend.
On to model railroading, there is never enough time for model railroading.

Rutland Gondola

I built this from a Funaro and Camerlengo kit. Gee, I hope I spelled that right, but then I don't care enough to look it up. It was a resin kit that was warped and I spent a lot of time clamping, applying heat, clamping in another direction, actually weeks of playing around with it.

In the end, I finally got it straight, applied Scalecoat paint, and decals.

Fredonia Linseed Oil Works

1912 photo of the facility.

1925 ad in the Frisco employee magazine

One the neat industries I ran across in my research was the Fredonia Linseed Oil Works.ever would have though of Flaxseed being grown in Kansas. Also, back in the first half of the 20th century, Soybeans was a new crop. I took the picture below at the Fredonia historical society...they thought I was nuts.

I made my own rendetion of the huckster that was used to sell the farmers on growing Flaxseed and Soybeans using the Athearn Huckster model. I printed out the signs and the side panels showing the types of Flaxseed.

Model T

This is a Jordan styrene and metal kit. They are excellent kits, great detail, and a little fragile. The fenders and body sides are made from heavy aluminum foil. Really makes a good looking model.

Four Wheel Caboose

Nathan the Caboose

This is the second one of these I have built. This one, although based on the same Ye Olde Huff-n-puff kit as the previous one, uses very few of the kit parts. I scratch built the underframe from solid brass to git it lots of weight, and built the wall and roof out of styrene sheet so that the shell is removable. The end platforms are brass casting from Precision Scale. The roof for cupola is from the kit as are the windows, doors, stove roof vent and the roof beacon. For the interior detail, I used an Alpine Models kit, along with various pieces of wood and grab irons. As for the road number, that is the date of birth of my younger son, Nathan. The previous four wheel caboose was numbered for my older son, and that model one several model contests. This one, since it includes the interior details and is mostly scratch built, should get close to enough points to get an NMRA Merit award, should I ever get around to taking the time to write it up.

Until next time.

Modeling buildings

Been a while. Gonna try to make shorter entries, but more of them. I have way to many model railroad projects going, and need to complete a few and narrow the projects down to twenty or so. I have several buildings going, well more than several, probably 15 or so. Here are a couple laser cut wood practice kits I received for helping out at a clinic. I am planning on using the orange building as a used car lot office, and include a full interior and lighting. This will be used on my first Route 87 module, more on that later. The chair you can see through the window is scratch built from paper. The table in the corner will have a fiber-optic lamp in the center that will be the only light.


The white building below will be used in an eventual layout, and will either be the Long-Bell Lumber District Office in Winslow, AR or will be the law offices of Hugh Lewis Dewey, a.k.a. Hughie Louie Dewey. I used rubber cement to crate the peeling paint. OK, just decided, this is the law office, as Long-Bell Lumber would not let the siding get in to disrepair. In case anyone wonders about the paper building to the right in this picture, it is a copy of a building printed on the back cover of the May 1954 Toy Trains magazine, the predecessor of today's Model Railroad Craftsman. This was originally drawn by Hal Carstens, who just past away in the last few years. I have a scan of the original that I cleaned up in photoshop to make the building. If anyone wants a copy, I can email it to you. Here is the a shot of all three building.
Till next time.

It is cold in the basement, but I keep modeling anyway!

Adventures in HO model railraoding

I photo shopped a couple of pictures, a first for me. I am neither happy nor unhappy with the results. I think the biggest issue was the quality of the photographs to begin with. We bought a new camera, so as soon as I figure it out, I will try some pictures of this diorama again. Both the machine shop and the truck are Woodland Scenics white metal kits. As you can see below, I installed lighting, but not enough for the point and shoot camera to pick everything up. The forge and anvil are in the center of the shop and you can see the milling machine on the back wall. The W. L. W. Machine Shop is named in honor of William Larry Williamson, long time professor of Machine Tool Technology at Pittsburg State. (No, not the real Pittsburgh, the Pittsburg in KS.) As a side note, the spell checker shows the Pittsburg is an inccorrect spelling even though there are at least 22 Pittsburg's in the country and only one Pittsbugh. Go figure.

Gulf Tanker

This is an Eko model that I painted and decaled, and added a few details, like a mirror and license plate.

Roma Wine Six Dome Tanker

This is a model I complete years ago, but I got it out to use as an example on a current project. This car was rebuilt from an AHM car that I stripped the paint from and repainted and decaled. I really like to wine cars, even though I don't particularly care for wine...more of a beer guy.

J W Simerly Lumber, Union, MO

John Simerly was an acquaintance whose passing had a profound impact on my modeling. he was the manager of the Sutherlands Lumber in Moberly, MO and retired after 40 years with Sutherlands. John and is wife had lots of plans for what they were going to do in retirement, but both him and his wife passed away soon after he retired, fulfilling few of their dreams. It made me reevaluate how I was spending my free time. John was from Union, MO. The model is a Stoney Mountain Miniatures kit. The lettering was done with individual letters. It is a stock solid resin kit, with my usual additions, a mirror, tail light and license plate.

I am working on some building and some motive power for the eventual HO model railroad. Maybe I will actually get them done, them maybe not. I have vintage cabbose that is taking up a lot of my time. Till next time.

It is winter on the model railroad

Winter generally means it is going to be to cold to do much air brushing. We did have a 50+ degree day this week, so I took a long lunch and did a little painting. That just keeps the painting jobs from piling up over the winter.

Southern 2207

This car is a stock Athearn kit, a little weathering, and dual purpose load. I got this idea from an old Model Railroader magazine article from November 1976.

Pretty simple, but scale 2x4 uprights are a bit fragile.

NVX 369

This car, a kitbashed Steam Generator car, was inspired by an article in Railroad Modeler, September 1979. It started with an Athearn flat, and the rest came from the junk box. I know the ends are from an Accurail box car, and the tanks are from a Life-Like tank car, but the middle section, well, I have no idea.

NV 370

This is a model of a Hart Selective Ballast car that was featured in Model Railroader back in November of 1984. The article was by Andy Sperandeo and lettered for their Washita and Santa Fe project railroad. I lettered mine for my HO scale Nirvana Valley Railroad.

NV 72581

This caboose is a Ye Olde Huff-n-Puff wood kit. I made this many years ago, and I am working on scratch building one with full interior. The road number is the date of birth of my first son and the copy I am scratch building will be numbered for my second son.

Kelso Grain & Feed

I built this 1923 Mack from a Jordan kt, and printed custom decals for it. Jordan makes great kits, not easy, but great detail. Notice in the pictures you can see the chain drive going to the back wheels. In real life, these look like a service nightmare. Not that I know much about cars or trucks.
I have pictures taken for the next couple blog entries, so I should be able to update every couple weeks for a while.