WHAT’S ON THE WORKBENCH AT THE MOMENT

I decided to jump into another engine upgrade. My S2 is on hold while Lionel inspects the Flyerchief board they sent me. The motor output gets full voltage, with no speed control.
I'm putting a FC board into a BEEP. I have a board for a Great Northern GP-7 so the sounds will be appropriate.  I'm going to use this as a base engine that I can swap the shells on to. I'm using a Penn Central model and will be upgrading the lighting to LED's and adding sound. FC boards include electro-couplers so I'll be adding them as well.
I have several other BEEPs including extra shells that I can add the same LED's and speaker to and just plug and play.

Did a test run with the board powered to the motors.

Bob

Morning guys, nothing from me today, but I do want to comment if that is ok! LOL

@pault Paul nice job on the monorail! Things like weathering will come, don't rush it as there is going to be folks here to help along the way!

@darlander Dave thanks for the painting tips! You have done an amazing work with the autos and box car! I know I am going to need the info in the future and I have an MTH crane and crane car in purple that will need repainted! Sorry MTH I got a screaming deal on them! LOL

As for the train room, after talking with some locals here I plan on a 2x4 truss 16" O.C. non faced insulation and sheet rock, I plan on either 6 hanging dimmable hanging shop lights or 6 can lights. Not sure yet, as for the heat and A.C. I plan on getting a mini split for that and a small dehumidifier for the summer and a humidifier for during the winter!

@RSJB18 Bob, your first engine sound like an easy fix with a little lubricant, now the second one is over my head and sfter watching your video of a nice smooth-running engine I wonder to myself how is he going to fit all that stuff back under such a small cover! LOL I wish you the best of luck!

I hope your all having a wonderful weekend!

Made a few bottle-holders...I'm tired of spilling SolvaSet all over the workbench (worse, the dining room table):

PD

So this Williams Century Limited observation car arrived Friday.

It wasn't the Weaver observation car I was looking for but for $10.50 from eBay it was close enough.

Comparing it to a Weaver car the bodies appear to be from the same molds.  So close enough wouldn't be good enough and a future trip to the workbench would be inevitable.  I figured with a little black pant on the roof and some pin stripe tape to match the Weaver striping this car would complete my Advance Section of the 20th Century Limited.  I had my portable paint booth out yesterday doing some work for my wife so that future trip to the work bench turned into now.  I hadn't taken one of these aluminum cars apart in a long time, if ever, so what I thought would be quick roof removal turned into a total tear down and low and behold the roof isn't a separate piece, so no quick Saturday afternoon Step 1 in the transformation painted roof.  Instead it's a full blown work bench project on top of the 20-30 or so I've already got.

To paint the roof I'll have to mask off the sides and hit it with some rattle can satin black.  For the striping I hoped some auto pinstriping would work.  What I have on hand is a bit too wide.  I think 1/16" is what I need.  I notice the NEW YORK CENTRAL and CENTURY are not, painted, pad printed or decals but stickers, white lettering on gray background, that run the entire length of the car.  It appears that the panels under these stickers are painted like the rest of the car.  I do have some NEW YORK CENTRAL decals that are close to the Weaver cars, so I'm thinking of peeling the stickers off and using those decals.  Has anyone here ever peeled these stickers off a Williams car?  Any recommendations would be appreciated.  So I believe my game plan for the body work is:

1.Remove silhouettes

2. Remove NYC stickers, clean any residue.  Hopefully the Century stickers are not damaged while cleaning any residue.

3. Mask off roof.  Clean roof with alcohol wipes. Paint roof

4. Add NYC decals

5. Clear coat

6. Add pinstripe tape

7. Reinstall silhouettes

Before re-assembly I plan to do some mechanical work.  The trucks and the coupler are looser than the Weaver so the observation car rocks more and the coupler hangs a bit lower.  I will try using some C clips to fill the spaces and tighten this up some.  I don't really want to start drilling out rivets and replacing them.  I'll replace the two incandescent bulbs with some LED bulbs I purchased from Town and Country Hobbies years ago.  and put some of that shiny aluminum duct tape on the roof interior to help spread the light.

I even have a 20TH Century LTD "drumhead" on the way.  Hopefully it fits.

@coach joe You know if it went to easy something really bad would happen! This way it helps grow your to do bench and helps keep you busy longer! You know the old saying idle hands and mind can drive you crazy! LOL

Ok maybe they don't say that but it sure feels like that to me! Good luck and please keep us posted on your progress!

@mike g. I'll keep you posted Mike.

This was a very small project.  I saw a boxcar on the forum with a load of auto frames, and went out and bought the only car on eBay that had one.  I posted about it here.  I also liked that it had a route map on the side.  I try to buy more PRR cars than other road names, so I wanted to add an auto frame load to this PRR boxcar I recently bought.  There weren't many auto frame loads on eBay, but I did find one that I was able to get for a decent price.  Rather than securing it with elastic tie downs like the UPR one had, I saw that the auto frames sit on top of one another with a small plastic piece fitting into a hole in the frame below.  The bottom frame has those plastic things extending out, so I drilled some holes in the base of the car and used transparent scenic glue to keep them in place.  The picture below shows the final product.

Texgeekboy,Chances are those car frames in a PRR boxcar were manufactured by the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company at the Hunting Park Avenue plant in Philadelphia.

Jay

@mike g. posted:

Morning guys, nothing from me today, but I do want to comment if that is ok! LOL

@pault Paul nice job on the monorail! Things like weathering will come, don't rush it as there is going to be folks here to help along the way!

@darlander Dave thanks for the painting tips! You have done an amazing work with the autos and box car! I know I am going to need the info in the future and I have an MTH crane and crane car in purple that will need repainted! Sorry MTH I got a screaming deal on them! LOL

As for the train room, after talking with some locals here I plan on a 2x4 truss 16" O.C. non faced insulation and sheet rock, I plan on either 6 hanging dimmable hanging shop lights or 6 can lights. Not sure yet, as for the heat and A.C. I plan on getting a mini split for that and a small dehumidifier for the summer and a humidifier for during the winter!

@RSJB18 Bob, your first engine sound like an easy fix with a little lubricant, now the second one is over my head and sfter watching your video of a nice smooth-running engine I wonder to myself how is he going to fit all that stuff back under such a small cover! LOL I wish you the best of luck!

I hope your all having a wonderful weekend!

Mike, we have mini splits and we’re very happy with their efficiency. In the train room, since the ceiling was open during , the indoor unit was installed in the ceiling instead of the typical wall unit. I wanted this so that it wouldn’t interfere with the way I wanted to paint the walls , F-H cloudless, and any subsequent backdrop.

Jay

@Tranquil Hollow RR,

That is certainly one possibility. When I was a kid in the 60s my father took us to a tour of a GM plant in an area I believe is West Mifflin, a suburb of Pittsburgh. To me the plant seemed huge. I recall seeing sheets of metal being moved around the floor to pressing machines. I don’t recall much else, although I still have a souvenir bookmark from there. I don’t think they were doing the assembly there but am not sure.  It was also close to some rail lines. One was used to dump hot slag (?) on a big hill. When we drove by there in the evening and they were doing a dump, you could see the red hot stuff coming down. The hill was all slag, no vegetation.

While this project is still down the list of what's on the workbench that didn't stop me from making a trip to the local auto parts stores in search of the proper pinstriping tape.  I'll need 1/16" blue and 1/16" white the help transform this Williams observation into a suitable end to a Weaver Limited.

Well no luck in the pinstripe department.  Blue and white must not be popular in the Myrtle Beach area.  Beyond lack of proper color the thinnest stripe I've come across is 1/8", twice as wide as needed.  I  do have an old roll of blue double stripe tape.  The thinner stripe may work, I can't tell if it's too thin.  The thought of separating 4+ feet of the thin stipe from the second blue and white stripe is daunting. and even if I accomplish that the two white stripes in the window band are still too thin to match the Weaver.  Recently Peter, @Putnam Division, came across some 1/16" tape on Amazon that he is using for pavement markings.  I took a quick look and the 1/16" comes in a 4 pack of different widths which I don't need and the blue tape shown appears to be a very light blue, like painters tape blue.

Here's where things get a little interesting.  While researching another project, even further down the workbench, see why it takes me so long to finish these projects, I'm always looking 5-6 down the bench, I came across a NYCHS article about painting The Limited.  It appears the Weaver cars are dressed in the original Henry Dreyfus designed paint scheme, with Opex Blue stripes separating the dark gray window panel from the light gray side panels and two wide aluminum, yes aluminum not white, stripes running the length of the window panel.  All stripes and lettering were outlined in black to provide additional contrast.  Equipment for the Limited was painted this way in 1938and 1939.  The scheme was revised, replacing the Opex Blue stripes with aluminum and using two thinner aluminum stripes running the length of the window panel, much like the Williams car.  My quandary is now, do I continue to pursue the proper pinstripes to match the Weaver cars or does my advance section of the 20TH Century Limited leave Metro Terminal with a 1940+ observation car bringing up the rear of  a train of 1938 equipment.  Of course the roof still needs to be painted black and the New York Central sticker would need to be replace with a more appropriate font.

@coach joe posted:

While this project is still down the list of what's on the workbench that didn't stop me from making a trip to the local auto parts stores in search of the proper pinstriping tape.  I'll need 1/16" blue and 1/16" white the help transform this Williams observation into a suitable end to a Weaver Limited.

Well no luck in the pinstripe department.  Blue and white must not be popular in the Myrtle Beach area.  Beyond lack of proper color the thinnest stripe I've come across is 1/8", twice as wide as needed.  I  do have an old roll of blue double stripe tape.  The thinner stripe may work, I can't tell if it's too thin.  The thought of separating 4+ feet of the thin stipe from the second blue and white stripe is daunting. and even if I accomplish that the two white stripes in the window band are still too thin to match the Weaver.  Recently Peter, @Putnam Division, came across some 1/16" tape on Amazon that he is using for pavement markings.  I took a quick look and the 1/16" comes in a 4 pack of different widths which I don't need and the blue tape shown appears to be a very light blue, like painters tape blue.

Here's where things get a little interesting.  While researching another project, even further down the workbench, see why it takes me so long to finish these projects, I'm always looking 5-6 down the bench, I came across a NYCHS article about painting The Limited.  It appears the Weaver cars are dressed in the original Henry Dreyfus designed paint scheme, with Opex Blue stripes separating the dark gray window panel from the light gray side panels and two wide aluminum, yes aluminum not white, stripes running the length of the window panel.  All stripes and lettering were outlined in black to provide additional contrast.  Equipment for the Limited was painted this way in 1938and 1939.  The scheme was revised, replacing the Opex Blue stripes with aluminum and using two thinner aluminum stripes running the length of the window panel, much like the Williams car.  My quandary is now, do I continue to pursue the proper pinstripes to match the Weaver cars or does my advance section of the 20TH Century Limited leave Metro Terminal with a 1940+ observation car bringing up the rear of  a train of 1938 equipment.  Of course the roof still needs to be painted black and the New York Central sticker would need to be replace with a more appropriate font.

Joe- I'm sure the NYC purists would object but I think a "new" observation car behind the rest of the train would be fine. Just fix the lettering and paint the roof.

Bob

Ah, the easy way.  I like the thought of that.  Once I'm done masking, painting, peeling the Name Plate sticker and applying decals I'll see if I've got anything left for slice the two stripe blue pinstripe tape.  If not, 1940 bringing up the rear of 1938.  If so I'll give it a try and see how far I get.  Not sure about the white (aluminum) stripes in the window panel.

@coach joe posted:

While this project is still down the list of what's on the workbench that didn't stop me from making a trip to the local auto parts stores in search of the proper pinstriping tape.  I'll need 1/16" blue and 1/16" white the help transform this Williams observation into a suitable end to a Weaver Limited.

Well no luck in the pinstripe department.  Blue and white must not be popular in the Myrtle Beach area.  Beyond lack of proper color the thinnest stripe I've come across is 1/8", twice as wide as needed.  I  do have an old roll of blue double stripe tape.  The thinner stripe may work, I can't tell if it's too thin.  The thought of separating 4+ feet of the thin stipe from the second blue and white stripe is daunting. and even if I accomplish that the two white stripes in the window band are still too thin to match the Weaver.  Recently Peter, @Putnam Division, came across some 1/16" tape on Amazon that he is using for pavement markings.  I took a quick look and the 1/16" comes in a 4 pack of different widths which I don't need and the blue tape shown appears to be a very light blue, like painters tape blue.

Here's where things get a little interesting.  While researching another project, even further down the workbench, see why it takes me so long to finish these projects, I'm always looking 5-6 down the bench, I came across a NYCHS article about painting The Limited.  It appears the Weaver cars are dressed in the original Henry Dreyfus designed paint scheme, with Opex Blue stripes separating the dark gray window panel from the light gray side panels and two wide aluminum, yes aluminum not white, stripes running the length of the window panel.  All stripes and lettering were outlined in black to provide additional contrast.  Equipment for the Limited was painted this way in 1938and 1939.  The scheme was revised, replacing the Opex Blue stripes with aluminum and using two thinner aluminum stripes running the length of the window panel, much like the Williams car.  My quandary is now, do I continue to pursue the proper pinstripes to match the Weaver cars or does my advance section of the 20TH Century Limited leave Metro Terminal with a 1940+ observation car bringing up the rear of  a train of 1938 equipment.  Of course the roof still needs to be painted black and the New York Central sticker would need to be replace with a more appropriate font.

Here is the 1/16” yellow tape I found on Amazon……

……and, the link……

https://www.amazon.com/DOAY-Pa...Caps%2C79&sr=8-1

Peter

@mike g. posted:

As for the train room, after talking with some locals here I plan on a 2x4 truss 16" O.C. non faced insulation and sheet rock, I plan on either 6 hanging dimmable hanging shop lights or 6 can lights. Not sure yet, as for the heat and A.C. I plan on getting a mini split for that and a small dehumidifier for the summer and a humidifier for during the winter!

******

Mike as a life long midwesterner I would hold off on the humidifier and see if you really need it. They can be more trouble than they are worth with things like moisture inside the windows.

Thumbs up on the dehumidifier and mini split.

An FYI post - I am sure that most of you who have contemplated the Wms PA know this already.

Why Williams Alco PA's never look "quite right":

I used to think, at a glance, that the fuel tank was too short (and too shallow, which it is; easy fix). No, the tank's length is just fine - Wms put the trucks in the wrong place on the chassis, which is a whole bunch harder to fix, though I do plan to do it one day to my custom-painted GM&O PA's (painted by someone else; later corrected and weathered by me). The wheelbase is too long, by about an inch.

The early TMCC Lionel PA (great loco) below is correct. Note the length of both tanks and both bodies. All correct. But those Wms trucks (better-looking than the Lionel's, by a bit) are mounted too far outboard.

Swing and a miss. Sigh.

@coach joe posted:

While this project is still down the list of what's on the workbench that didn't stop me from making a trip to the local auto parts stores in search of the proper pinstriping tape.  I'll need 1/16" blue and 1/16" white the help transform this Williams observation into a suitable end to a Weaver Limited.

Well no luck in the pinstripe department.  Blue and white must not be popular in the Myrtle Beach area.  Beyond lack of proper color the thinnest stripe I've come across is 1/8", twice as wide as needed.  I  do have an old roll of blue double stripe tape.  The thinner stripe may work, I can't tell if it's too thin.  The thought of separating 4+ feet of the thin stipe from the second blue and white stripe is daunting. and even if I accomplish that the two white stripes in the window band are still too thin to match the Weaver.  Recently Peter, @Putnam Division, came across some 1/16" tape on Amazon that he is using for pavement markings.  I took a quick look and the 1/16" comes in a 4 pack of different widths which I don't need and the blue tape shown appears to be a very light blue, like painters tape blue.

Here's where things get a little interesting.  While researching another project, even further down the workbench, see why it takes me so long to finish these projects, I'm always looking 5-6 down the bench, I came across a NYCHS article about painting The Limited.  It appears the Weaver cars are dressed in the original Henry Dreyfus designed paint scheme, with Opex Blue stripes separating the dark gray window panel from the light gray side panels and two wide aluminum, yes aluminum not white, stripes running the length of the window panel.  All stripes and lettering were outlined in black to provide additional contrast.  Equipment for the Limited was painted this way in 1938and 1939.  The scheme was revised, replacing the Opex Blue stripes with aluminum and using two thinner aluminum stripes running the length of the window panel, much like the Williams car.  My quandary is now, do I continue to pursue the proper pinstripes to match the Weaver cars or does my advance section of the 20TH Century Limited leave Metro Terminal with a 1940+ observation car bringing up the rear of  a train of 1938 equipment.  Of course the roof still needs to be painted black and the New York Central sticker would need to be replace with a more appropriate font.

I've hit another snag and this one is an even bigger issue than pinstripes.  My color blind eyes saw the darker roof of the Weaver cars as black, however, using lighted magnification, a closer inspection of the Weaver cars indicates the roofs are actually a dark gray that matches the dark gray window panels.  I doubt I'll find a rattle can to match.  The only way I can think of to obtain a match is the paint department of a big box store.  Then I would have a latex paint and application becomes a big problem.  I don't think a brush application would work and I don't know if latex would work in my air brush. Oh by the way I haven't used the air brush in years.  Any ideas?

                                                                                                   Hi Coach you can always look up Scalecoat model paints. I got perfect match from them for my BNSF engine!

Scalecoat Paint Color Chart - Search Images (bing.com)

@coach joe posted:

I've hit another snag and this one is an even bigger issue than pinstripes.  My color blind eyes saw the darker roof of the Weaver cars as black, however, using lighted magnification, a closer inspection of the Weaver cars indicates the roofs are actually a dark gray that matches the dark gray window panels.  I doubt I'll find a rattle can to match.  The only way I can think of to obtain a match is the paint department of a big box store.  Then I would have a latex paint and application becomes a big problem.  I don't think a brush application would work and I don't know if latex would work in my air brush. Oh by the way I haven't used the air brush in years.  Any ideas?

Hey coach Joe, I just looked at their paint color chart and in the 3rd over from the left and up 6 from the bottom is says NYC Dark Gray!

I have use them in my cheap sprayer!

Good luck!

P.S. I hope I am ok with posting this chart. If not I am truly sorry for any violation.

Mike, I use to paint everything with Scalecoat. Great paint. But unfortunately they went out of business about 3 years ago. You may find some old stock still out there.

Coach Joe, you might want to checkout True Color paint. They should have the NYC colors. If you have a local hobby shop. Many carry Tamiya paint. You may be able to come up with a gray that’s close. By adding a bit of black you should be able to come up with a match. Both brands spray well through an airbrush.