Sunday Scenic Showcase February 9, 2025

Looks good Alan.

Weathering and window insertion this past week.

Window treatments later today and walls up this week.

Have a great and safe week, everyone!

Peter

Thank you Joe. It’s been a number of years since I went to a train show as a vendor.

Peter,

I am glad to see the weather improved for you to continue to paint. I had the same problem here.

@Alan Graziano posted:

Thank you Joe. It’s been a number of years since I went to a train show as a vendor.

Peter,

I am glad to see the weather improved for you to continue to paint. I had the same problem here.

Alan........January was so depressing! It's great to be able to be in the basement and garage again.

Your tanks are as I remember them when I used to see them at York.......Gorgeous!

Good luck at Edison in March.....

Peter

I do not know how you guys build so fast??? Wow am I a procrastinator!! Great looking work as usual Alan & Peter

Here’s a project I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. I had 2 Lionel bulkhead flat cars with BNSF road names. I purchased these a couple years ago with intention of adding the tractors and changing the road names. I immediately dove into the tractor project but was reluctant to remove the old lettering.
I very lightly wet sanded the old lettering off but unfortunately removed some of the paint from the plastic. I had Home Depot color match the paint, and with lots of masking I repainted the needed areas with a good quality artist brush.
I sprayed 2 coats of matte clear before and after the decals. It doesn’t compare to some of the quality repaint and decal work I’ve seen, but I was quite impressed with my results.

Gene

@Alan Graziano posted:

Good Morning Everyone,

I will start with a picture of the second batch of my completed models for the upcoming show. I have about 40 completed to this point. Let’s see what you have been working on.

Excellent work as usual Alan. I hope you do well at the show in March. Your quality craftsmanship will always be admired on my layout and I’m sure others will feel the same.

Gene

Thanks Gene

Hey guys great work.  I finally got back around to trains.  I'm am adding a redimix area to my cement plant.  It is loosely based on the botzum redimix in ohio.  Still have lots of details to add and stuff to do to finish it up.  The space was a little small but thats always the case lol.  

Several weeks ago someone posted modifications to their ceramic lighthouse, filled in windows, repainted and some other great details.  This got me thinking about modifying my LeMax Haverford lighthouse.  Well with an exterior spiral staircase and protruding windows the modifications demonstrated would not work on my lighthouse so I had to come up with some other ideas to improve the look of my lighthouse.  I came up with an island and a base for the lighthouse to built on.  Moved the lightbulb from the bottom of the base to as close to the lantern room as possible, there isn't a big enough access to the lantern room for the light bulb to pass through.  A dock and a boat finish it off.

BEFORE: UNLIT

LIT, bulb at the bottom.  Not a very bright beacon and if you look closely you can see the light bleeding through the walls giving the lighthouse a faint glow.

Island and base showing internal lamp parts to relocate the nightlight bulb closer to the lantern room.  Freshly finished dock mad with leftover lumber from a log cabin.  I scribed one of the roof panels every 1/8th of an inch (6 scale inches?) then cut it in half length wise for the decking.

AFTER: LIT

Even though some of the things didn't work out exactly as I had envisioned I like the way it came out.  The grass in some of the crevices is too much, apparently I didn't get the glue where I wanted it and the thin line of grass is more like a swath, I wanted a very thin line of dark green where the "island" meets the waterline but my attempts didn't look good so I wiped them off before they set. The dock needs some color, I'm not sure if I will paint or stain and whether it should be some shade of brown or gray, I'm open to suggestions.  I've got to try to find a blinking Christmas tree bulb to emulate a lighthouse flash pattern and maybe a lighthouse keeper on the stairs or the walk outside the lantern room.

I forgot to address the ight bleed through at the top of the tower.  The bleed through is more significant now than prior because the bulb is closer to the walls at the narrow part of the tower versus the wider base and some of the base is painted a gray color which also lessens the bleed through.  I plan on trying painting the lower part of the bulb black to direct the light up into the lantern room.

Played in this corner. Check out my YouTube channelhttps://youtube.com/@jdogaugemodeltrains522

@JDtrain posted:

Played in this corner.

Those are some incredible trees!!!!!!!

@coach joe posted:

Those are some incredible trees!!!!!!!

Thank you.

Nice job Coach. The base was a great idea.

@JDtrain posted:

Played in this corner. Check out my YouTube channelhttps://youtube.com/@jdogaugemodeltrains522

Would love to see a tutorial on how you made those trees. We'll done.

@Alan Graziano, thank you Alan.