James River Branch: News Archive

Website News Archive: June 2009

28 June 2009

A visitor to New Jersey this spring might have thought they were in Seattle—it has to have been one of the wettest seasons so far on record. And this has been holding me back on something I've been waiting to do all spring: shooting in the sun. The day was glorious, with only a few breaks to dodge some clouds. To see the reward for my patience (and consequent mild sunburn), see the first five images in the Gallery.

26 June 2009

I feel fortunate that I've been able to squeeze in as many modeling opportunities as I have lately, given my hectic schedule. The downside is that little bits of modeling time lead to fragmentation, making it hard to stay focused. For example, the firehouse has been coming along in spurts, but lately it's sort of been one little detail at a time—after making the siren earlier in the week, I then made an antenna tower. While they are two neat details that will flesh out the firehouse nicely, they haven't brought the building itself along much further.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to make some headway on the theater, which is tightly related to the firehouse in that they constitute swapped kits, but I've been stumped by a mistake I'd made: after damaging one of the animated signs, I ordered a replacement—only to find I'd ordered the wrong style; Miller Engineering offers two animated signs that are quite similar cosmetically, but quite different physically. There's an advantage to be gained in switching over to the "wrong" sign, because the electrical connector is placed much lower, resolving the issue of disguising the other sign's connector above the roof. The problem is that switching to the other sign means completely rebuilding the marquee from the ground up, and my inability to make the decision has left me at a standstill.

This is but one example of why my projects seem to take forever and a day to finish—I nearly always seem to arrive at some decision point that I have difficulty resolving. Still, it could be worse: I might not have any time to spare for modeling, and the layout could be just sitting there collecting dust. (Well, it's still collecting dust, but I do clean it off once in a while...) At least I have a bit of good news regarding the tree coloring experiment: I'm much happier with it today. Most of the overspray has magically disappeared, and what little that remained has been fairly easily removed with some alcohol. So, it looks like I won't be uprooting all of my trees after all.

25 June 2009

This evening I decided to try my idea of using green dye in a sprayer to improve the color of the trees. About a month ago I ran a quick test on some new, uninstalled trees, and I liked the results. But now that I've done it to the trees on the layout, I'm not lovin' it the way I thought I would. For one thing, the trees aren't evenly colored; for another, despite having masked the areas immediately surrounding the trees, the dye still went practically everywhere. So, I might just be yanking all of the trees out of the layout, touching up their color, doing my best to fix the overspray, and replanting them all. For the most part, though, I do like the color shift; compare the photos at right, which were taken with the same camera under the same lighting conditions—just ignore the overspray on the deck of the bridge...

21 June 2009

Well, no etching this weekend. In an effort to manually correct some of the flaws on the metal I'd prepared yesterday, I screwed it up beyond repair, and with a long list of household duties to perform today, I simply didn't have the time to start all over and make a new exposure. So, I consoled myself by making a siren for the firehouse instead.

Happy Father's Day, by the way. Having no children (aside from my three cats, that is), the day is only significant to me for being the son of a 90-year-old dad.

20 June 2009

I've made some real headway on the Naughtright Volunteer Fire Company. It turns out that the repair bay doors from the N scale version of Miller Engineering's Gulf Gas Station kit made absolutely perfect doors for the firehouse. It was truly remarkable—I could not have designed better doors myself. This will accelerate the project, and it may become the next structure to be completed.

19 June 2009

OK, so today I took my first serious crack at photo-etching... which, I regret to report, ended rather badly. After three tries, I still couldn't make it past the developer stage—I always ended up with sheet metal covered in goo. Obviously I'm doing one or more things wrong. I'll figure it out tomorrow; for now, I'm doing something totally mindless, like adding vines to a tunnel portal. I also added a fun new image to the Gallery.

13 June 2009

Yes, the website's been re-engineered. It's not a complete top-to-bottom overhaul; it's mainly cosmetic tweaks (that said, the code on every page has been edited, so be sure to hit Refresh so that images and style sheets are properly updated). The weather has been quite dreary, I've been feeling likewise, and it was one of those tedious round tuits that I'd been planning—and putting off—for months.

A bit of reorganizing was done to trim the burgeoning main menu down to a more manageable size. First, I rolled what used to be a separate page called "The Layout Today" into The Plan, presenting just the latest image of the layout (which, by the way, has been updated) at the end of the page. Then I placed all of the remaining Layout Today images into an archive. As for the change in visual style, it's not a sign that I'm switching the layout's railroad theme again; I just didn't feel the need for the website's graphic elements to conform so tightly to the Reading's livery any more.

11 June 2009

The Front Street Bank is done. Well... except for the stair rails, and I may not even bother with them, considering the front of the building faces the back of the layout. On reflection, it does seem a shame that this building is not front and center—it came out better than I'd expected. But its day will come; when more of the layout is finished, I'll begin taking photographs from every angle, and it will emerge as a little hidden gem.

9 June 2009

It's LED mania! The water tank aircraft warning beacon is complete—here's a brief video. The painting and weathering of the bank is nearly finished—I just need to let everything dry thoroughly so that I can complete the final assembly.

8 June 2009

Progress on the James River Branch has been deferred temporarily while I did some 1:450 modeling. It was a nice break and a good exercise that will help my 1:220 work. About all I've managed to do in the meantime is give the Front Street Bank a coat of paint.

In non-modeling news, regulars may have noticed that I've added a search box to the home page. Since the website has grown to 150+ pages, I thought it might prove useful.