La Mirada, CA Industrial Switching Layout Progress

[Green_Elite_Cab]

wow, i must be oblivious, i didn't realize you had a layout going (actually, i hadn't seen many posts by you lately, and i thought that was strange)

Cool stuff! I'm wishing i had a larger yard myself!

In any event, i notice you mentioning about making molds. I've made a few molds myself, but with resin.

that said, while hyrdocal is good for some buildings, resin is a little sturdier and lighter, and you might find it useful to make some structures (especially if you have a "piece" of something you want to duplicate and glue together/modify).

For example, suppose i wanted more wall sections from a kit like "magic pan bakeries", rather than buying a second kit (as i've frequently seen you do in kitbashes), you could simply make a mold box, lay your pieces in the box, and then cover them with RTV silicone. when that cures, just pull out your originals, and mix some resin and pour the cast. it takes no time, and the pieces will be hard enough to remove from the mold after an hour or so (though they will still need to cure for the night), and then the mold will be ready for the next batch. for the same cost of an additional "Magic Pan" kit, you could have ten times that many component pieces using Resin plastic instead.

This would definitely allow you to kitbash all those big buildings much more cheaply and efficiently. You could make as many pieces as you want, and they'd all fit together!

there are many possibilites, and it may be worth it to pick up a starter set either from Micro Mark or Alumillite.

[ocalicreek]

I'd play devil's advocate here and say "Ahem, don't you know that's illegal :evil: " and pitch a holier-than-thou fit, except I've done the same thing with the occasional part I want duplicated. AND, even though Model Railroader officially frowns upon such activity, they are just as guilty, as recently shown in an article by Andy Sperandeo, one of the old heads who should know better. :oops:

Whether or not you can morally justify copying someone else's hard work is up to you. There are many good reasons why making a casting is the way to go. Just don't go overboard and don't resell the castings you make as your own work.

But really it is a great way to make duplicates just as GEC described. I've used the Micro Mark casting kit and it's a good value for the money. Once you've made the mold you can cast using just about any material. I've had good luck with Durham's water putty for walls.

Any more layout construction to report?

Galen

[Russ Bellinis]

I'd play devil's advocate here and say "Ahem, don't you know that's illegal :evil: " and pitch a holier-than-thou fit, except I've done the same thing with the occasional part I want duplicated. AND, even though Model Railroader officially frowns upon such activity, they are just as guilty, as recently shown in an article by Andy Sperandeo, one of the old heads who should know better. :oops:

Whether or not you can morally justify copying someone else's hard work is up to you. There are many good reasons why making a casting is the way to go. Just don't go overboard and don't resell the castings you make as your own work.

But really it is a great way to make duplicates just as GEC described. I've used the Micro Mark casting kit and it's a good value for the money. Once you've made the mold you can cast using just about any material. I've had good luck with Durham's water putty for walls.

Any more layout construction to report?

Galen

I just read about Woodland Scenics/DPM suing MTH for copying the DPM buildings in O scale. I doubt a manufacturer will go after any modeler who copies their product for a kit bash for personal use as long as they don't go into business selling the castings. I understand that there is a guy who is making brass castings of the older style grabs from Intermountain plastic grabs and selling them at train shows. I haven't seen them. I would love to get a bunch to upgrade my P2K auto box cars delicate plastic grabs, but for obvious reasons the guy is keeping a low profile.

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I'd play devil's advocate here and say "Ahem, don't you know that's illegal :evil: " and pitch a holier-than-thou fit, except I've done the same thing with the occasional part I want duplicated. AND, even though Model Railroader officially frowns upon such activity, they are just as guilty, as recently shown in an article by Andy Sperandeo, one of the old heads who should know better. :oops:

Whether or not you can morally justify copying someone else's hard work is up to you. There are many good reasons why making a casting is the way to go. Just don't go overboard and don't resell the castings you make as your own work.

But really it is a great way to make duplicates just as GEC described. I've used the Micro Mark casting kit and it's a good value for the money. Once you've made the mold you can cast using just about any material. I've had good luck with Durham's water putty for walls.

Any more layout construction to report?

Galen

True enough, i was more trying to sell the Resin/silicone method, but you're right. I think the worst i've done as far as casting goes is i traded two casts i made of a locomotive shell as part of an agreement for another set of models, but i suppose its not so bad (I justify it by the fact that the maker of the shell has discontinued it and probably will not resell that model for sometime).

I do hope to eventually make molds of kitbashes i make, but i'm curious, if i were to cut up a RailPower Products SD45 and some other engines and make a totally different engine (using the pieces), does it still count as copying the original manufacturer's work (as i didn't individually build the thing from scratch)?

[Russ Bellinis]

I do hope to eventually make molds of kitbashes i make, but i'm curious, if i were to cut up a RailPower Products SD45 and some other engines and make a totally different engine (using the pieces), does it still count as copying the original manufacturer's work (as i didn't individually build the thing from scratch)?

It does not matter if you use part or all of a manufactured product, it is copyright infringement. The original manufacturer had to make grilles, fans, doors, and various small details to produce the model. If he hired a pattern maker to make it, he paid for the pattern maker's time. If he did it himself, he had his own time invested in it. It is common for the major manufacturers to reuse some detail in different models if a different model had the same type of grille or other detail, but the manufacturer had the original pattern made up. An example is the owner of Railmaster Hobbies who lives near me.

He bought railmaster Products, a line of S-scale kits, but he also makes some unique speakers for installing sound in locomotives. The speakers are not unique, but his are enclosed in small plastic boxes that makes them unique. He pays a pattern maker to make molds for the speaker boxes. The speaker boxes are absolutely necessary to get decent sound out of a model locomotive. If they aren't there, the sound going out the back of the speaker will tend to cancel out the sound coming out the front. If you use someone else's standard speakers in your sound locomotive, and don't provide some sort of baffle you will loose a lot of the base. He didn't say how much, but it costs him quite a bit for the tooling for those little speaker boxes. His newest one is small enough to fit below the fans above the gear tower over the rear truck of any Athearn with a scale width hood. I think it will also fit over the front gear tower of an Sw from almost any manufacturer in HO scale. Those speaker boxes are just that a small box open on one side for the speaker horn to face out, but if someone "knocked off" one of his speaker boxes and produced a competing product for a fraction of the price because they used his box as a pattern, they would be stealing his property.

The difference is that if you cut up an Athearn shell, an Atlas shell, and an Intermountain shell for instance to kitbash a single locomotive, you are now guilty of copyright infringement to three manufacturers instead of one with triple the possible damages!

[Trucklover]

Been a little while since i posted an update

Chris, I like the idea of casting walls from walls if I need more. That is something I am going to consider doing when I need more of them instead of getting another kit. But as Russ said, that could get you in some serious trouble, so I would only be doing that if I was using them for my own personal use on my layouts and not selling them.


I have done some work since I last posted, so the next couple posts will get this thread caught up

[Trucklover]

Got the WYE Turnout and the other 2 #6 LH's I needed to make the crossover on the left end of Module #5. Got them laid down and nailed in place. Now I can mask and weather the track/rail and then ballast the module.

I also got 2 of the BNSF GP60M's, I need 4 more lol. So far I have one BNSF in the H2 Paint and one in the BNSF Warbonnet Paint. I just bought the Warbonnet a few mins ago from Milepost 38 Trains, they had one sitting in the case and i could pass it up since it was one of the latest run units and i cant seem to find them anywhere

The numbers on both locomotives will be changed to match 2 of the engines that serve La Mirada

[Justinmiller171]

Nice work! I can't wait to see it completed!

Trainworld still has some GP-60's available:http://www.trainworldonline.com/catalog/...ion_id=792

[Trucklover]

Ive got my feeder wires soldered on for Module #5. One major dis-advantage of using Micro Engineering Weathered Rail is that it is nearly impossible to solder to without cleaning first. It is also the reason i will not be using pre-weathered rail anymore... I will be painting the ties anyways, so ill use regular rail, solder, and then weather the ties and rails... I was feeling lazy, so I ended up soldering most of the feeders to the ends of the turnouts on the left end of the module. They should provide plenty of power for the module so im not worried about the right end. Most of the right end will not have engines on it anyways since there is nothing that goes past the end of the tracks on the right module and will be full of cars most of the time. All the turnouts are only spiked in place, not glued. I also used 18 gauge wire for the feeders, all of them are just dangling down on the underside of the module until I can get some connectors and get them hooked up to the 12 gauge bus line

I also got my large ballast order in from Arizona Rock & Mineral yesterday. I have to say, that was some extremely fast service and I am very happy with the order. Everything arrived in great condition and un-damaged. i would highly recommend buying from them, there prices are a little high but Phil is a very nice guy and has a very quick turnaround after the order has been placed. His products are also made from REAL crushed rock, so you actually have a piece of the real thing on your layout. Here is what I ordered:

(4 bags) 1052 - Penn Fine
(4 bags) 1053 - Penn Mainline
(6 bags) 1172W - ATSF Fine
(3 bags) 1173 - ASTF Mainline
(3 bags) 1381 - CSX/SP Fine
(3 bags) 1382 - CSX/SP Medium

[Trucklover]

I just finished painting all the track. It took a long time (about 4 hours) but I got it down and I like how it turned out. I followed Lance Mindheim's blog entry for painting track, which can be found here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.shelflayouts.com/blog.htm">http://www.shelflayouts.com/blog.htm</a><!-- m --> (scroll down to the June 29, 2010 entry). He suggests using Floquil Roof Brown followed by a dusting of Floquil Grimy Black, so, that is exactly what I did and I am happy with the results. Cleaning the railtops was the most tedious and time consuming. I did small sections at a time because of the large amount of track, which ensured that the paint didnt completely dry to the tops of the rails.

I sorta came up with a little system to get the paint off the tops. As I have mentioned, im using Micro Engineering Code 70 Weathered rail. When its painted and you wipe the paint off the tops of the rails, you cant tell if its clean because it was pre-weathered. So I laid a small piece of papertowel down ontop of the track and took a putty knife and scrapped the paint off the railtops. After that, I took small pieces of papertowel's soaked in Paint Thinner and ran them along the railtops to remove the rest of the paint until the rail tops were smooth. Of coarse, doing small sections at a time meant overspray on sections that had already been painted/cleaned, so once everything was painted and cleaned, I re-cleaned the entire module by repeating the cleaning process. The Turnouts railtops are shinny as they should be. And as I mentioned before, I will NOT be using Weathered rail on the rest of the layout, too much of a headache when soldering and cleaning after painting


I also got the Ground Throws in place for the turnouts. One of them will have to be customized because there is not enough room for the throw to sit. Ill have to figure that one out a little later

Here are a few pictures











And this picture, you can see where i knocked over the paint thinner can and well, it ate a hole in my foam base So I will have to fill this hole before ballasting that section :oops:

[Trucklover]

Nice work! I can't wait to see it completed!

Trainworld still has some GP-60's available:http://www.trainworldonline.com/catalog/...ion_id=792

Thanks Justin!

Thanks for the link as well, but those are Walthers/Proto GP60's... I am looking for Athearn RTR GP60M's which is a different model then the regular GP60's

[Justinmiller171]

Nice work! I can't wait to see it completed!

Trainworld still has some GP-60's available:http://www.trainworldonline.com/catalog/...ion_id=792

Thanks Justin!

Thanks for the link as well, but those are Walthers/Proto GP60's... I am looking for Athearn RTR GP60M's which is a different model then the regular GP60's

Alright Here are the ones you are looking for:http://www.trainworldonline.com/catalog/...ion_id=833

[Trucklover]

Alright Here are the ones you are looking for:http://www.trainworldonline.com/catalog/...ion_id=833

Ohhh man, you did it now! I feel like I wasted $30.00 now when I bought the last one for $100 from one of the local shops lol

Thank you for that link, I will have to see if I can put the money together to get them. I think I may sell the BNSF Heritage II one that I have now since it is a 2002 run model and just buy 5 of them from Trainworld as they have all 3 paint schemes I need (BNSF Heritage II, BNSF Warbonnet, and SF Warbonnet)

Thank you again Justin!!

[nachoman]

That's looking real nice! Probably feels good to have some tracks with trains on them. BTW, amazing how fast paint thinner dissolves foam, eh?

[Gary S]

Josh, good to see you! Those locos look good and the yard does too. Keep up the good work.