SHASTA PACIFIC 3.0

[Rick_Marty]

Hi Cliff, thanks for the interest.
Yes the front bridge is from Dick’s railroad, just my way of showing some respect for a great modeler but more importantly a great friend.

The “water” is just latex house paint over extruded builders foam board, been out 2 years now and doing fine.

The Depot hotel, well first off it is named after a real structure that existed in Redding, CA behind the Southern Pacific depot in the 19th century. The model is a sheet of 1/4 inch PVC board made into a 2 story hotel flat. After install I decided it was too small and got lost behind the depot so I added a wood frame third story under construction to give it more background mass.
Thanks for asking, by the way, I’m loving your trestle build.

[Rick_Marty]

Well it has been a while since an update was posted on the railroad.
Just before Christmas and everything on the railroad is put to bed for the winter, and we are spending time in the shop on a few small projects before the start of the MIK Challenge and our possible participation.

So what have we been doing, first up is a model car kit.

I love these old Hubley kits, well actually this is a third generation Scale Models kit from the old Hubley molds. That still makes it at least 25 years old. The vinyl wood paneling had shrunk and wouldn’t fit correctly so I just opted for paint instead.

I scraped off all the original “brass” plating and repainted with Model Masters Buffable Brass, I think it gave it a more suitable finish.

I am now winding down a project that has been on the waiting list for at least 25 years’ plus or minus.

The North Western Pacific’s Caboose #6007. I pulled this picture from Fred Stindt’s book years ago and put it on my to build list and it just kept getting shuffled to the bottom but now it is finally being born It will come to life as a South Fork Timber Company caboose.

The flat car was the first part of the construction, built from Hemlock and Cedar and stained with a red wash.

The center section wasn’t finished as it will be covered by the cabin.

All the finish parts were scrounged from the parts boxes. I used Bachman trucks and metal wheels because that is what I had on hand. I prefer Delton archbar trucks but they are getting hard to come by.

The start of the cabin, obviously all Styrene construction.

Hope to have this wrapped up by MiK time, we will see.

[JRad (Jon Radder)]

I still have a fair supply of the Delton Archbars. Got them in bulk off eBay as parts years ago. The only thing is they did not come with springs. Ballpoint pen springs can be cut down and will work, but they aren’t as stiff.

I feel like I still owe you for all the help with Shay parts over the years, If you want a pair I’ll be happy to send them your way.

[Rick_Marty]

Thanks for the kind offer Jon, I will keep it in mind when I start another project that could use them.

[Rick_Marty]

Getting a little more done even with all the Holiday distractions. May be able to get this in under the wire before the MIK begins.

[WaverlySouthern (Dan Hilyer)]

Great progress, Rick. Another example of fine craftsmanship from the shops of the South Fork Timber Co.

Now, if your luck is anything like mine, Dave’s challenge instructions will go something like this:

Build the caboose of your choice but it must start from a flatcar

[Rick_Marty]

Well just made it in under the wire, finished just this morning.
Now I am free for the MIK if it tempts me this year.

A few pictures of the finished car

[Rick_Marty]

As I said elsewhere on the forum it has been cold and snowy the last week or two so I dug out another old Hubley (Gabriel) kit and spent some time in the warm shop building it up.

A few pictures.

The kit as it is supposed to look when completed. Of course I can’t do them like that, besides my RR date is 1939 so this little “T” has a little age and wear on it.

[Rick_Marty]

A new building flat for the Redding yards area.
I needed something to fill the blank wall behind the depot.

The Shasta County Bank was built from scrap/stash stuff on hand. A 1/4 inch plywood base board with 1/2 X 3/4 braces on the back and “concrete” columns on the front. The stone is for kitchen back splashes and the panels and windows are from PlastiStrut panels.

The “buttons” on the columns are just to hide the screws that secure it to the wall, the center two are just decorative.

Edit to add.
The lettering is the first from my new Cricut machine, Another new learning curve

[JRad (Jon Radder)]

@Rick_Marty

The lettering is the first from my new Cricut machine,

Looks like you are ahead of the curve. You managed to successfully cut and apply some very thin letters with serifs. Not an easy task.

Nice looking flat

[Eric_Mueller]

@Rick_Marty

The lettering is the first from my new Cricut machine, Another new learning curve

Yeah, these machines are not as easy as the store made them out to be! We’ve learned to test cut / print EVERYTHING with scrap paper first! Your lettering looks GREAT, as do the flats!

Eric

[Rick_Marty]

Posting a new video, not much of one I’m afraid. Since I am new to this video thing I was just using a not so great one to practice editing etc. I searched all over for simple editing software and then found out I already have a program installed on my computer. Jeeeze, how are you supposed to know these things?
Anyway, here it is.

#22 in Canyon Creek

[Cliff_Jennings]

@Rick_Marty

The stone is for kitchen back splashes

Another gorgeous model, Rick!

By “stone,” what product are you referring to?

The reason I ask is that I’ll be using a vinyl self-adhesive stone-looking product on the sides of my Sutro model, but you seem to be using something thicker, that you could gouge or cut (?) mortar lines on. Or are those lines Sharpied on? Or…?

Great work, as always!!

Cliff

[Rick_Marty]

Cliff,
The stone (real stone) along the bottom are pieces about 1/2 thick X 1/2 high and about 3/4 long they are glued to backing sheets and come in 12 inch square mats totally flexible. You just cut the size you need and glue them to the wall or in this case the building. I didn’t bother with any grout or sealer as this building is under the patio roof.

[Cliff_Jennings]

Rick, thanks, it looks great.

What is the main “stone” wall material? Same sort of thing?

[Rick_Marty]

@Cliff_Jennings

What is the main “stone” wall material? Same sort of thing?

No, that is PlastiStruct (spelling) embossed sheet. The windows are also from PLastiStruct sheets.

A fella showed up here a while back with 2 big boxes full of assorted sheets, roofings, sidings, stone and brick walls etc. Hey if you ever want to build a Castle I have lots of pieces to do that with.

[Rick_Marty]

A little change on the railroad that led to some additional real estate becoming available which led to an additional industry/support facility coming to life.

Every since building the switchback with lift bridge route into the Redding yards (way back in this thread somewhere) the main line has been plagued with a radius that was just a little to tight for locos like Consolidations and longer cars such as Combines, Couches, etc.

In this view the new route is completed. The switch in the foreground was moved back, towards the camera, about 18 inches and the buildouts on both sides for the bridge approach were torn out and rebuilt. This not only eased the approaches to the bridge but also eased the route into the yards to the right.

The new real estate came into being between the two realigned tracks.

Deciding on an ice house and icing platform we had to get a little creative to make it work in the space available, sound familiar? Anyway here is what I came up with.

The drone view.

Still playing with the new Cricut and am not real excited about some of the results. Check out the Lassen Ice lettering and notice how “ragged” some of the letters are. Maybe I am just going too small, those letters are about 1/2 inch in height.

Oh well, on to the next project.

[JRad (Jon Radder)]

Nice!

Even on professional vinyl cutters, getting good output on small letters is tough. We can get down under .25" tall, but then weeding becomes a real problem as the cuts are sometimes incomplete. I’m not familiar with the Cricut. Does it have a pressure setting? If so, you might experiment with lighter and heavier and see if it improves. A sharp cutting blade (stylus?) is also important.

The quality of vinyl you use can make a big difference too. Professional vinyl comes in 25 yard and larger rolls for big $. Fortunately you know a guy in the sign business that can send you scraps in standard flat envelopes. Color selection is limited to what I have in the basement!

[Rick_Marty]

Thanks Jon.
the Cricut does have pressure adjustments and I have been trying different settings with mixed results. The blades are new and specially made for making fine cuts on their Vinyl.

The Vinyl I have been using is made by them for this machine. Personally I think that the trouble may be that the machine is designed to do too many different things pretty good and no one thing perfectly.

Or more likely it is just operator error

The Vinyl on the refer car was cut by a sign shop, weeded and applied by me, it is a lot smaller but heavier font. I am thinking the more bold fonts will/do work better especially in the smaller sizes.

Looking back a few posts at the bank building, that lettering was cut on the same machine using the same Vinyl but a different and larger font and it turned out well in spite of me.

[RGSNH (Al Pomeroy)]

One thing i find helps with the silhouette studio i have is to cut at the slowest speed, and have your finger on the pause button, and be ready with a pair of tweezers to pull the cut letters. i find i have much better luck making paint masks with mine.

Al P.