Scattered Thoughts . . .

I n my previous blog entry, I wrote about my custom designed, homebuilt truss bridge that I have been working on lately for my little garden railroad.  I had applied far too many coats of paint in varying colors and shades in an attempt to get the color I had envisioned.  I eventually landed on a pale olive color for this bridge like many truss bridges in real life. After writing that previous blog entry, I also applied additional shades of green to this bridge to add some tonal depth to this paint job.  The single shade of green was a bit "flat".  I'm not referring to the finish of the paint...  ie, gloss, satin, matte, flat...  but referring to the tonal depth of the paint job.  I had applied one or two more shades of green lightly with a dry brushing technique to add some tonal depth.  Today, I applied some reddish washes very lightly to give the impression of rust developing on the bridge. In this photo, below, my locomotive is just departing ...

I had previously written about painting and weathering the new skirting that I had added to the trolley and mentioned that I wanted to do something about repainting the roof next.  I didn't really care for that molded-in cream with a slight green tint color of the roof (top photo at right).  It definitely appeared rather toy-like to me so I wanted to paint it to change the color to something more realistic.   My plan was to chose a color, mix the paint myself to attain the desired color and then paint the roof.  Upon looking more closely at the roof and some of the details that were installed on the roof, I realized that I would need to remove these details first so I removed the pantograph and then removed the wood plank walkways.  I always knew I wanted to make these plastic walkways appear as though they are wood so I figured I would need to remove them at some point anyway.  I originally wasn't thinking I need to remove them to paint the roof but ...

I 've spent the past few days adding more coats of paint to my locomotive project.  This is a large scale steam locomotive so it is a very large model and it is requiring a lot more paint than I expected.  I've been delayed while waiting on paint to arrive (the USPS is dog-slow lately).  Regardless of a few little problems, this project is slowly coming along. A couple of days ago, I painted everything using Krylon Anvil Gray.  I was hoping for a charcoal neutral color but this Anvil Gray turned out to be more closely resembling something I would call Midnight Blue.  Midnight Blue was definitely not in my plan for this project so I had to order a different color (and wait a bit longer for it to finally arrive).  I couldn't find a gray tone that I liked because they were all too light in tone so I settled for a flat black.  I plan to weather this locomotive so starting with a neutral black will work even though my preference was for a neutral dark gray/...

I t stopped raining long enough today to paint (primer only) all the locomotive parts.  It was still overcast most of the day but the radar was not showing any rain so today was the day to start painting all the locomotive parts.  I set up a couple of saw horses with an old piece of plywood as a makeshift table and then placed all the parts on the plywood.   I just barely covered everything with a nice coat of primer before the can went dry.  Perhaps I should have purchased two cans of primer!  I had only purchased a single can of the charcoal black paint too so now I know one can won't be enough especially since I'll be painting multiple coats of the charcoal.   All the parts fit nicely on this piece of plywood... Here are the leading wheels... The cab without the window panes installed... Below is the lower half of the locomotive including the driving wheels.  These wheels no long need to conduct electricity to power the motor because I am ...

Slowly, and in between health issues and medical appointments, we are making some headway on our summer home renovation plans.   Our latest project is to paint the house. Well... to at least paint the part of the house that is mostly finished!  We plan to finish another part of the exterior this summer but we wanted to get the design and colors right first. I think we are moving in the right direction but this little exercise has pointed out the need for some minor adjustments that weren't in the original plan. This current project is going well and it involves designing, building and installing some new architectural details for the exterior which match our new renovations on the interior. Between a drastic color change and adding these architectural details, the house is beginning to show some character! In this photo, below, we can see the new lighting at our front door... The weather has been rather wet this summer so I had to set up a little workshop outdoors u...