My Western Town | Building 6

Why not start at the end and work your way forward? I just happened upon this video while going back to look for other vidoes by this author.

The Coincidence of Combination’s

One of the factors that fascinates me about narrow gauge model railroading is all the different configurations one can come up with by using off the shelf track and mechanisms.

OO gauge is 36” in 1:48 scale-On3
HO gauge is 42” gauge in 1:64 scale-Sn3 ½
HO gauge is close to 30” gauge in 1:48 scale-On30
TT gauge is 30” gauge in 1:64 scale-Sn2 ½
N gauge is 30" gauge in 1:87 scale-HOn30
Z gauge is close to meter and 42” gauge in 1:160 scale-Nnm, Nn3 ½
N gauge is close to 15” gauge in 1:48 scale-On 1 ¼

Creative Model Railroad Design, John Armstrong, Kalmbach Books, 1990

Mattel's Micro Jurassic World Collection

Here are four out of the five dino miniatures from the Mattel Micro Jurassic World Collection. They are cute little gobs of plastic that I couldn't resist.

Dimetrodon

Stegosaurus

Triceratops

Velociraptor

The Hogwart Express

The grand Hogwart Express stream engine in its red and black livery. Every bit of her brass sparkels in the reflections of the sun.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardly

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The grand old structure of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardly. The school is a place of magic, of learning and a place of mystery. It is a place where the staircases mysteriouly move and change up. You may end up somewhere other then where you had intended.

Constructing the Windows

I have come to the most tedious part of construction, the assembly of the windows. I have already added the glazing to the interior of the windows and have 'framed' out the outside of the window. I have been experimenting with different methods for creating scale windows. All I have left to do is to add the shash, rails, and grills.

I had planned to use four pane windows of this portion of the structure as it represents the older part of the shack. I am giving this process some thought and am trying to come up with an efficient method for this very tedious next step.

Wood Boulders

I was walking down the trail the other day and I heard a wood pecker pecking at a tree. Once I got a bit closer I noticed that there were these bits of wood covering a bit of the trail. I got down and examined the bits and thought these bits might work well as wood debris of some sort, but after studying them for a time I realized they might make some very convincing boulders, that is after a little application of paint and a good wash.

The Legends of New Earth

“Wild on the wind rose the righteous wrath of Maalvin,
Borne like a brand to the burning of the Barrens.
Arms of hands of rebels perished then,
Stars nor moons bedecked that midnight.
IMT made the sky-
Fall!

…

Black with their blood was the brick of that barrow,
Toppled the tall towers, crushed to the clay.
None might live who flouted Mallvin,
Earth their souls spurned spaceward, wailing- IMT made the sky-
Fall!”

Cities in Flight, James Blish

Bulletin 100000: Blackett Dirac Equations

“Space flight got its start as a war weapon amid the collapse of the great Western culture of Earth. The invention of Muir’s tape-mass engine carried early explorers out as far as Jupiter. The building, by remote control, of the Bridge on the face of Jupiter itself, easily the most enormous engineering project ever undertaken by man, had made possible direct, close measurements of Jupiter’s magnetic field.

The measurements provided final confirmation of the Blackett Dirac equations, which as early as 1948 had proposed a direct relationship between magnetism, gravitation, and the rate of spin of any mass.”

Prologue, Earthmen Come Home, Cities in Flight, James Blish, 1955

National Geographic: Weathering

National Geographic features a page and a set of images that describe the process of how nature weathers all sorts objects.

"Water, ice, acids, salts, plants, animals, and changes in temperature are all agents of weathering. Weathering describes the process of materials on Earth breaking down."

Modelers mimic weathering in a number of ways. They represent aging, dirt and grime with paint and washes. To mimic aging they may use paint and washes or they may introduce aging during the building process. Broken boards, missing windows, sagging roofs are all methods that the builder can incorporate into the building process. These methods are usully more effective in representing the passage of time and neglect than paint and washe methods.

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Weathering using Washes

Working on the Last Section of the Shack

I have laid out and cut opening for the windows on the last section of the structure, its back wall. I decided to deal with the back door a little differently than the front door and is sits waiting for my glue it down. I should start cladding the subwalls with wood strips, later-on today.

Gold Mine Diorama #2

If you look down in the comments you will find a link to another mine diorama. This mine diorama was the inspiration for the one the author created in this video. It might not be as elaborate, but it is just as inspirational. What I especailly liked about this authors rendering was the authors use of balsa wood for the creation of his mining buildings top side and his skillfull use of styrofoam for his terrain, that is the mine.