Mountian Momma

Progress on the mountain is, well, progressing. Albeit slowly. I have been working on the ship to get it ready for mounting. so I can call this dumb mountain done and go do something else.
So I started by stripping the paint and priming it with krylon gray primer, then drilled out the portholes(which took forever). masking and painting the hull and super structure was pretty straight forward.

Front boat is done, butt boat still needs work

I also stopped at the Great Scale Train Show in Timonum MD and picked up a little laser cut shed from Northeastern Scale Models Inc. The Purpose for this little shed is going to be a substation that will provide power to the 2 halves of the ship via "power" lines that connect to the masts on either end. The building is finished, as well as a little power pole that I scratch built using some spare bits I had just plotzing around.

 its a substation!

All that's left to do is slap on some paint and its good to go. Connecting up the power lines should be a piece of cake.

And speaking of power lines, here is a close up of what I have been dubbing "front boat" with all the rigging finished. Still needs a touch of weathering, but I'll do that once I get the other end(butt boat) done

Still not sure how it got in the mountain in the first place...

Here is the mountain in all its glory, I cleaned up the area around it a bit, but I think the next thing I'm going to work on is the sub dock. But we shall see, still a lot to do for the hotel and mountain. 

stay tuned!

Mountain building cont.

Well, Its coming along. I've decided to use an old model of the Titanic I got from a friend a while ago. was never really gonna finish the half built thing, but this I think is a better idea then just tossing it. I'm thinking a mountain top resort, or casino? I'm not to sure yet, but I am planing on drilling out the portholes and adding lights and signage eventually

T

It even came with a bow!

The ship was missing a lot of parts and was basically just the hull glued together and painted. It  seemed that this was a decent route to take. I couldn't think of anything else to do with it. (On a side note, I calculated the length of the Titanic in N scale, and it would come out to a nicely reasonable 8ish feet!)

But anyways, I put together what I could with the parts I had and got to chopping this puppy in half. If I'm gonna put a ship in a mountain, might as well see both ends right?

 Its a start right?

Cutting was a pain, I initially started with my dremel and a cutting head, but realize that even with the outer parts of the hull cut, there still were decks holding it together(shoulda realized the first time!).

I ended up using a little jewelers saw to cut it the rest of the way. Wasn't pretty, but, since the cut ends are gonna be hidden, it don't matter none.

 bet you've never seen a mountian like that before!

I stared to layer up the foam around the ship, using the piece before as a template for the next. I mentioned in a prior installment that I wanted an elevated trolley line to go from the city deck to the other end of the layout, but didn't really have a plan. Well now, I've got a plan, and the EL line is gonna end here, as a small(but exclusive) trolley line that will soon service the casino/hotel/resort.

 now I just gotta figure out the middle...

This last picture is a view of the whole thing(well most of it at least). I just dry fit all the funnels and masts to the ship to see what it will look like, and so far, I''m liking it. I'm thinking that the rigging would lead to a small electrical substation with a big ole' sign on the top of the mountain. but first I need to finish the ship, carve the mountain so its nice and smooth, and then toss on the plaster cloth.

theirs still a bunch to do!

Back at it

Eh, its been a while, been dealing with a lot of personal stuff lately that kept trains out of the picture for a bit, but things are slowly going back to normal, so I've decided to get back in the game.
I've had an idea floating around in my head for a while now, but I couldn't really figure out the best way to go about doing it. At first I thought it would be cool to build an N-trak module but I've since found a way to incorporate it into my own layout. I am of course talking about a big ole mountain. who doesn't want a nice mountain on their layout with trains running through it? I do, so the first step of course is cleaning the table.

 It was harder than it looks

I decided that it was best to make the mountain cover only a quarter of the curve, I was thinking at first to do the entire turnaround but thought that between the city deck and the soon to be mountain, the trains would spend too much time being covered, and were all here to see the trains so that would be lame.

that looks like a mountain right?

After some rightfully painful thinking(it hurts to use my brain that much sometimes) I decided to try my hand with foam. Hell, the layout is mostly foam so far, so why not? having never made a mountain before, I'm kinda doing this as I go. been using Elmer's glue to put it all together. should be using my adhesive caulk, but I'm lazy and this actually seems to be working quite well so far. We will have to wait and see if it holds together once theirs more mountain up. Hoping it wont collapse!

Oh! and I've got a new toy!! Very excited about this beastie!

CHOO CHOO MOTHERFLUFFER

Fleet Review: MicroAce C56 2-6-0 Mogul

What the dickens!? A new post? No were not dead yet. My computer needed to be rebuilt after catching a nasty virus, but its back online, and the blog is back on track(pun intended).

    What we have here today is a cute little engine produced by MicroAce. A Japanese N scale producer that I guess is analogous to Atlas here in the states. I dunno. Either way, what an engine!

    MicroAce makes a lot of high quality stuff from my research on them, and can sometimes be compared with Kato in quality standards(just like Atlas). But I never really had a sample to test that until now. Any ways, I picked this bad boy up at the scale show in Timonium MD. Nabbed it for $50 brand spanking new.

 New train smell,  mhmmmm...

Right out of the box the detail on this thing is amazing. I have a thing for Japanese locomotives now. My thinking being; since Japan modeled the way they run their railroads initially on the US, but based much their engineering on more European engines, they look to me like a perfect cross breed of Euro-American styles. Its got the boiler and cab shape of an American loco(and Japan uses knuckle couplers too) but the tender and smoke deflectors arguably give it that European vibe. I love it, you should love it, trains.

 "I cant decide if I like french fries or freedom fries" - Train probably

At first glance I was very impressed with the ornate detailing and paint on the boiler and running gear. It initial y came with a rapido on the back(the more popular coupler in Japan) but I replaced this with an MT knuckle(which was NOT easy). The motor is a tiny 5 poler squeezed into the cab with a brass worm that drives the center axle the rest being turned by the cranks. The main running gear on the wheels is metal but everything that connects to the pistons is plastic. This worried me at first, but after a few hours of run time they seem to be fairly reliable.

Got me a pair of goods wagons too, courtesy of Kato Trains

The engine is actually slightly larger than what it would be compared to everything else on the layout since Japanese N scale is 1:150(American is 1:160). but since there is nothing else like it that I own, I think I can get away with this one.  

    Running of this beast is simply sublime. It creeps along at a good slow pace and the top speed is not too bad. pulling power isn't great, there are no traction tires, but since its a small loco I don't really expect to be pulling the earths axis out of alignment with it, so I think were ok. I did notice that right out of the box the whole thing, and I mean everything, was very dry. There was a lot of binding and sticking, but once I basically gave it an oil bath, she ran like a watch. I don't know if this is common with MicroAce stuff since I only have one, but I plan on getting some more steam from the Orient so I will find out!

   Over all beautifully detailed and amazing running little engine. Its a real head turner on the club layout. I hope to get more Japanese steam because I'm really digging the look.

A resounding A for MicroAce on this one!

Sayōnara!

City Planing

Well Its been a few days/weeks/month, but I've done some work on the city deck. One of the main things holding me back right now is a lack of buildings. Because of the urban nature of this here layout, I need buildings in place so I can more easily plan out the roads (at least thats what I keep telling myself!). So what I've done is look around at some building I fancy and copied out the foundations (width/length) of the buildings on to some paper and placed them out to help visualize were to road and where to sidewalk.
This be what I got so far:

 N scale birds eye view

So you can see kinda what I'm looking at hopefully. Some of the buildings are actually paper buildings from Hawk Wargames which fit(roughly) the size of the buildings I'm interested in.

The little paper ant trail is actually what will hopefully be a future street car line that goes off the city deck and becomes an EL that runs through the other half of the layout. Using an engine shed as a stand in trolley barn.

 you might not be able to tell, but thats supposed to be a city...

Also, I was looking at the station, and was thinking of moving it back a little bit. I know I wanted the front facing out so I you can see the pillars, but I don't want it to look like a modeling "mistake" so to speak. I was thinking that if I pushed the station back a bit, that it would have more of a natural look to it.

I duno...I gotta sleep on that one before I start cutting.

 I duno man

 Also, stopped at The Timonium Trains Show this past weekend and picked up a few goodies. Expect a fleet review on one or more of the following:

 Atlas 4-4-0 American/2-6-0 Mogul

MicroAce C56 2-6-0 Mogul

Until next post <3

Fleet Review: Bachmann 2-6-6-2 USRA mallet

 This locomotive gives me all kinds of feelings. I wanna love it, but Bachmann just makes it so hard for this particular model. I bought this brand new from a show having really caught my eye. partly because of the big ole steamer factor and because it is of the same type of mallet that is currently under restoration not too far from me, Western Maryland's newly acquired  #1309.

At first sight this is truly a pretty model, and having messed with Bachmann stuff (the american stuff atleast) I was surprised at the level of detail they managed to squeeze into this little beast.  Its got a lot of nice separately applied parts and the white walls on the wheels are pretty cool to boot. Its got a dummy knuckle on front, and initially came with a rapido coupler on the back(which I replaced). The head light is low mounted on the pilot and when in operation can be disappointingly dim at the lower end speeds. There is also no back up light as per the prototype.

 It pronounced 'mal-ay' its a french thing

Under the hood its got what I though was a 5-pole motor, but is according to the internet is a 3-poler. All the tender wheels and all 12 drivers pickup power so there's no problems with stalling. the middle 2 drivers on each engine are geared, and the rest is turned by the cranks. Operation is over all, ok. Definitely not amazing, but it looks good with all the drivers pumping and the little 3-pole motor its got is surprisingly responsive. But there lies a dark side to this model, a secret so dark that...well ok, its not that bad, but its not great either.

the soft unprotected underbelly

This is the bottom. At first glance its nothing too noticeable, and it wouldn't be a problem if the engine itself wasn't a feather weight. not having traction tires is a big problem for this thing. If you like to run long trains, then this isn't for you. I can pull at most on my flat layout maybe 14-15 assorted freight cars. That and what ever Bachmann used for the boiler long weight isn't particularly...weighty. 

Perhaps slathering on some Bull Frog Snot to the geared drivers or somehow figuring out how to add more weight to the boiler you could get more out of it. But for me pulling a 15 car train with a mighty mallet that isn't so mighty, well, just doesn't do it. 

Like I said in the beginning of this review, I wanna love it, Its a beautiful model, and as long as you don't mind short trains, its a respectable one at that, but until I figure out how to make it heavier or get some traction tires on it, she'll be a shelf queen until then.

It really is pretty though...

A Small Update

Ah! its been a few days hasn't it? been keeping busy with a new job, but I've still made time for some N scale shenanigans. 

As you can tell from the nice picture I've added a small  'island' at deck level with a currently stand in light house. At some time in the future this will become the "port" section of New Port, but until then it will be a nice visual break in the otherwise flat track plan. I have ordered another building from Lunde studios, so when ever that comes I will be posting some build progress on that. also got a new Loco for my B-day so I should be putting up a fleet review on that as well as one later today! whoop whoop!

 Its a light house! Yes, there is a light in said house...

Also stopped at Ye Old Hobby Shope. and found these two jems: a 1:144 scale U boat and Aichi E13A. Since 1:144 Is close enough to N scale to get away with, (1:150-1:160) I decided to nab these babies. I'm thinking to keep the U-boat a U boat, and bash the Aichi into some kind of cargo plane. But we'll see.

Sideways picture is sideways