February Progress

Posted Feb 28, 2020
Updated Oct 01, 2022

Sat Feb 1: Began BN SD9 DCC conversion.
Sun Feb 2: Continued SD9 conversion. Decoder was interfering with gears.
Sun Feb 9: On Building 2, painted contrasting brick colors on two sides, plus all window sills and window headers.

Sun Feb 16: Continued SD9 conversion. To make more room for the decoder and speaker, I removed weights that had been installed in the top of the shell. During testing, I noticed that the tiny incandescent lights in the front and rear were getting way too hot. The resistors I chose were based on getting a light intensity that looked about right, but I never tested for heat. Upon discovering this, I decided to replace them with LEDs so that (hopefully) I won’t have to tear this apart to replace bulbs in the future.

Sat Feb 22: UNW Train Show in Monroe. Picked up some 3/32″ heat-shrink tubing for the SD9 conversion, a used book titled “Guide to North American Steam Locomotives” (which includes railroad-by-railroad histories and rosters, which should be a great resource for planning what equipment to use), an old Athearn blue box B&O hopper car kit, an Accurail P&LE hopper kit, a P&LE/NYC caboose (which turns …

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January Progress

Posted Jan 31, 2020
Updated Oct 01, 2022

Sun Jan 12: Completed the painting of four figures. I began a spreadsheet to keep track of all of the figures I’m painting, including descriptions of the figures, a list of paint colors used on each one, and a name assigned to each one, since, after spending an hour or two painting a figure, I start to think of them as characters.

Sat Jan 18 Puyallup train show: Picked up a PanPastel Rust & Earth Weathering Kit, plus separate PanPastels in black, white and two shades of gray. As I was browsing the products, I told the vendor I had been using regular artist pastels that I grind off with a hobby knife, and asked if the PanPastels adhere to plastic better than regular pastels. He said he thinks they use a “proprietary” formula that helps it adhere, possibly containing CA. I spent about $40 on the kit, which contained some applicator tools, and the four grays. Later, I realized I was thinking of Bragdon weathering powders, which I had heard contain some form of CA.

Sun Jan 19: Completed painting of two figures (bald black dude and fat seated woman).

Mon Jan 20 (MLK Day): began prepping …

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Winter 18-19 Review

Posted Apr 30, 2019
Updated Mar 24, 2023

Since getting back into modeling a few years ago, I’ve done most of my hands-on work from approximately December through April each year, when I have a lot of free time to myself, as my husband spends most of those weekends snowboarding, and takes multiple week-long, or long weekend snowboarding trips outside of the area. Just as snowboarding season comes to an end, other priorities begin to take up our time. Gardening, projects around the house, hosting an annual Pride party, smaller rooftop gatherings, croquet at the park, and all the other fun things we do in the summer have to be crammed into the three months of gorgeous weather we get in Seattle before the clouds and drizzle return in October. As it’s now the end of April, I thought I’d put an official end to the Winter 2018-2019 modeling season by reviewing the accomplishments and noting what’s up next, when the 19-20 season begins later this year.

The season officially began in late August when I began purchasing my first model paint in decades (via eBay). I slowly built up some basic supplies, including paint, brushes, pipettes, thinner and decal solutions. At this point I realized I’d need …

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My First DCC System

Posted Feb 25, 2019
Updated Mar 04, 2019

I’ve never owned or used a DCC system before. From reading Model Railroader off and on since the 80s, Digitrax was a DCC brand name I was familiar with, and one that I’d most often notice on club layouts at train shows. So when I decided last November to look into DCC systems more closely, in order to get an idea of which brand’s system I’d want to eventually purchase, I first looked at the systems offered by Digitrax.

A starter set seemed the obvious choice, so I downloaded the user manual for their Evolution Advanced 5amp/8amp Duplex Starter Set and read the entire document to get a better understanding of how Digitrax, and DCC in general, works. The duplex version costs a couple hundred dollars more than the non-duplex version, which seemed a bit steep, especially considering I have the option of achieving wireless control via the Digitrax PR4 USB interface (sold separately) and JMRI. But after reading through the manual, I decided it’d be worth the extra $200 to have the option of going wireless while using the system’s main throttle. I also had a very good feeling about the Digitrax system, the additional circuits available for …

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