Friday afternoon I went to a local hobby shop and picked up a few paints – two each of spray paint cans and two of the bottle variety. I also went for a dig around the bargain bin and found an end loader for $20. It was a pewter model. So on Friday evening I broken open the pack and started to use super glue to put it together. On Saturday morning I gave it an etch primer and then later on I gave it a coat of yellow oxide with the etch dried. That yellow oxide is a close enough match for the base colour of all those pieces of heavy equipment. I gave the tyres a coating or etch primer, followed by matt black. In the afternoon, I used a brush to give the wheel rims a coating of yellow oxide and set these down to dry again.
Also on Friday afternoon I went looking for a few of my paper wagons and worked out which ones had opening doors. On Saturday morning I glued some rolls of paper into the wagon and left the door slightly open. So when these wagons are left in the Park Road Siding, passers by will see that there are paper rolls inside some wagons. I think that will be a nice detail scene.
During the week I also soldered up a few wires to my DFPlayer (basically a USB3 player in a single component). All I had to do was apply power and a couple of push buttons (next and previous track) and voila – an MP3 player for the layout. In this case my Fairy Lane Community Hall. However, I really want to have the tracks automatically play randomly and continuously. So I will do a bit more reading. Maybe one night this week.
Saturday afternoon I had to pull up stumps early, as I was attending a 40 year school reunion with about 30 other guys. Also at the venue were the 10, 20 and 50 year reunions. It was a very good evening catching up with former school mates. Quite a few I have run into in normal day life many times before. Some look exactly the same, although the hair might have thinned some.
So this afternoon, I superglued the wheels onto the chassis of the End loader and placed the end loader onto my Nammoona Ballast Siding loading bank.
Also today, I decided to do a bit more scenery between Old Cassino around to Lismore. So I completed more than two thirds of that area, and the plan is to complete that whole area between those locations next weekend. There are a number of areas on the layout where there is a base colouring of the plaster, but that is it. My plan over the next 3 or 4 weeks is to cover those areas with various coloured dirts and then various coloured scatters. Hopefully I will tick that off before the boys from Toowoomba come down the range in a few weeks for a catchup.
I have a few more whitemetal kits that I will try and put together at night over the next week. These are detail items that I have collected over the years and I really need to get them onto the layout.
Nice job on the loader Craig!
ReplyDeleteOpening doors on a model..phooey!
ReplyDeleteHey PK, did you know that doors on an ALY open!
ReplyDelete