149th Street Harlem Station

[faraway]

Matt, I am with you. All shops around here offer a wide selection of all colors in high gloss. The satin colors are much less (no gray at all!) and the availability of dull paint is simply lousy. In general is only white, light gray and brown primer and rally black in dull available. The next shop with a small selection of very expensive dull rattle cans is in about 70km.
I tried several times to use gloss rattle cans and for buildings, ground etc. and get it dull with a layer of dull coat. It never worked. Ones gloss ever gloss.

ps. You are making great progress. I wish I had a car float.

[Painkiller]

The speed on your progress is fast and very inspiring!

[sailormatlac]

Matt, I am with you. All shops around here offer a wide selection of all colors in high gloss. The satin colors are much less (no gray at all!) and the availability of dull paint is simply lousy. In general is only white, light gray and brown primer and rally black in dull available. The next shop with a small selection of very expensive dull rattle cans is in about 70km.
I tried several times to use gloss rattle cans and for buildings, ground etc. and get it dull with a layer of dull coat. It never worked. Ones gloss ever gloss.

ps. You are making great progress. I wish I had a car float.

Reinhard, I tried this morning with a scrap of material and ended in utter failure just like you did.

I'm seriously thinking about giving it a good spray of dull gray primer then move on building the color with FolkArt acrylic paints applied with a very large brush. Harlem Station was really dirty, so I guess lots of weathering could hide the fact I brush painted the whole thing...

So far, about 90% of the concrete curbs are installed. What a pain. I wish I had done this before gluing the concrete pads to the layout. However, they are so huge it would have made a mess.

Matt

[sailormatlac]

The speed on your progress is fast and very inspiring!

I'm on vacation and the layout is at home! That's the only explanation... The club layout isn't very accessible and I work about 2-3 hours per week which is less than enough to progress steadily.

Matt

[sailormatlac]

Harlem Station had a tremendous amount of paved surfaces. According to prototype pictures, it was all concrete and no asphalt. I tried to localize joints in pictures but couldn't The paved area date back to the late 20s. I find it odd there's no joint. I would at least expect one at each 12 feet increments.





Paved area are done with 2 mm thick cardboard, curb with 1.5mm styrene strips cemented with CA glue. It was time consuming, but I like the result a lot.





The next big challenge is painting the concrete. It will take a lot of masking tape to protect the tracks from the spray. I'm still evaluating my options.







Matt

[faraway]

.... FolkArt acrylic paints....

I do it at even less cost.
I do not know the correct terms you use I will explain therefor what I use.

Ordinary in house walls are often plain white painted. You buy it in large buckets. Lots of people like to paint some walls in a different color. e.g. the bedroom of a girl in pink (an awfully example). To do so you can buy the same paint like the white one in many colors but in smaller plastic bottles. For the girls room may be 99% white and 1% purple red.
I buy one of this bottle in black and one in white and mix my own gray. All my roads etc. are done that way. I add water to get a smoother surface. May be you have to paint two layers but it dries really fast. I add some brown if a really dirty gray is needed.

[sailormatlac]

.... FolkArt acrylic paints....

I do it at even less cost.
I do not know the correct terms you use I will explain therefor what I use.

Ordinary in house walls are often plain white painted. You buy it in large buckets. Lots of people like to paint some walls in a different color. e.g. the bedroom of a girl in pink (an awfully example). To do so you can buy the same paint like the white one in many colors but in smaller plastic bottles. For the girls room may be 99% white and 1% purple red.
I buy one of this bottle in black and one in white and mix my own gray. All my roads etc. are done that way. I add water to get a smoother surface. May be you have to paint two layers but it dries really fast. I add some brown if a really dirty gray is needed.

Thanks for the tips. When well thinned regular wall paints does wonder for scenery. Good idea to use is for other purpose.

Matt

[sailormatlac]

Brace yourself folks!



I gave myself two weeks to complete this project. The deadline was my own vacations. I'm glad to tell you I reach this step in a week. At a rate of 8 to 12 hours per day, it moved at a steady pace.



I consider I have now completed all the messy basic stuff including painting track and roads in basic colors. To me, this is a true achievement. Thought I started to build many layouts in my life - probably over 20 - this is the second time I reach that point where only building structures, scenery and detail cars remain. The first time was when I was 7 years old and I built my first 4' x 4' train layout with my father, sister and brother. Good to be back on track after a 25 years hiatus! Seriously, never reaching some level of achievement can be quite distressing at some point.



I've learned a few things bout myself while doing this project. I didn't over design the project, but took a decent amount of time to plan carefully the project. When I started to rip wood, I knew there was no turning point and decided to address issues as they appeared. I didn't let small things stop the project and thought about alternate way to get the job done in due time. I was ready to sacrifice my obsession for perfection which had always been my most major pitfall. Funnily, I can't say I cut corners on quality as the final product is quite good. Finally, I didn't set a real schedule but each time I started a job, I made a point I would complete it on the same day if possible. That was particularly important to get over boring or painstaking work.



So, what has been achieved today? Well, all the roads were painted. I became lazy and decided to give a try at Lance Mindheim spray can technic using grey primer. In fact, this is similar to what I did with my Quebec South Shore Railway. I didn't try to get a solid color but instead tried to keep some transparencies here and there to get color variation. The cardboard I used had a very nice color from the start. With what remained of my last can of Krylon Satin River Rock, I highlighted the concrete curbs and some other spots. It was merely a mist but it did improve the general look.



Next, I spray a good coat of Dullcote before airbrushing a mix of India ink and 70% isopropyl alcohol to give some wear and depth. When dry, I draw the concrete slab lines with a black color pencil. It may sound childish, but it really gave a lot of details with too much effort. It was also a good way to hide the unsightly real seams in my roads. Concrete slabs follow a rough 12 feet x 12 feet grid. I followed U.S. Highway practices from the 20s and 30s.



Finally, the last step was to add cracks here and there to represent old concrete slabs. I particularly detailed the grade crossing where a lot of stress is exerted by trucks and trains.



The most rewarding moment was when all the masking tape was removed and american cars were added to the scene. We can already have a good idea of the final product. Better, some scenes are instantly recognizable from old prototype pictures of Harlem Station. Oh, I didn't remember I had so much old U.S. cars. Lots of fun detailing projects in sight!



Now, the most urgent matter is to build a battery powered locomotives and operate the layout! Hope to get Jack's shells soon.



And now a few railfan shots!







And my favorite one today:



Matt

[faraway]

Matt, that is real speed and an impressive result. You modeled the prototype very well. The cost and effort to do the large concrete planes with the airbrush via the simpler methods we discussed payed well off.

[shortliner]

Matt - I really don't know why the Boxcabs are taking so long to get to you - they were posted from here on 03 July - I've heard that CanadaPost can be slow - but this is silly - Sorry they are keeping you waiting.
You have made/are making a great job of that - I couldn't find any info on/images of the concrete surface either

[Brakie]

Matt,Very nice..You could spend 2 hours switching that layout.. Well done

[sailormatlac]

Matt, that is real speed and an impressive result. You modeled the prototype very well. The cost and effort to do the large concrete planes with the airbrush via the simpler methods we discussed payed well off.

Drawing the lines took more time than painting the concrete. It's far to be perfect but it's a basic foundation to receive more weathering later.

Matt

[sailormatlac]

Matt,Very nice..You could spend 2 hours switching that layout.. Well done

That's already scheduled! Probably in DC but who cares???

Matt

[JaBear]

Now, the most urgent matter is to build a battery powered locomotives

Do you mean you're using the "Dead Rail" system?
Cheers, the Bear.

[sailormatlac]

Now, the most urgent matter is to build a battery powered locomotives

Do you mean you're using the "Dead Rail" system?
Cheers, the Bear.

Yes, I'd like to experiment a little bit with that system. It's the reason why I will use a boxcab, lots of place for the hardware.

Matt