Why do we build model railroads? Psychologically, what is at play that compels us to create something that, if viewed at face value, could be mistakenly taken for a detailed toy? Like many people, both in and out of the hobby, I’ve made the mistake of trivializing model railroading. Over the past several years I’ve […]
Category: Construction
Alclad II Metallic Paint
It’s amazing how long we can put off learning to use a new material or method only to find out how easy it is and how much better the results are. This was my case with learning to use the Alclad II line of metallic paints. For those not familiar with it, the Alclad 2 […]
Family Friendly Layouts
Simple steps can make the layout much more palatable to the rest of the family and make them more receptive to having it in the house. A clean Pullman green fascia, absence of clutter and junk, nice shelves, and not having tools scattered about are inexpensive ways to make the model railroad more family friendly. […]
The Rule of Three Tries
There has been a good thread on the Model Railroader Forum about the use of the Alclad 2 metalizer paints. For those that aren’t familiar with them, Alclad paints lay down a surface that is amazingly close to true metallic. Like everybody else, I suffer from inertia when it comes to teaching myself new skills. […]
Scratch Building
This scratch built structure cost less than five dollars to build and produced several weekends of modeling enjoyment. The simple box shape was not that difficult to build using sheet styrene. The end result was something unique, something that ‘fit’ with the layout, and wasn’t something I could ever find a kit for anyway. I […]