Model Railroad Blog

Miami Jai-Alai February 22

Things are finally taking shape to the point where you can see what the structure’s purpose is. This week I applied the front side photo laminates, completed the glass staircase, and fabricated the large billboard logo on top.

If you’ve ever tried working with individual letters (decals, etc.) you know how unforgiving the eye is if things are even slightly out of alignment. In addition, the lettering on the front billboard seems to be compressed vertically and horizontally making it unlikely I could find suitable lettering at a craft store. Time to pull out the cutting machine. The simple CAD program that came with my cutter makes it very easy to make these adjustments.

The billboard was cut out of .020″ styrene sheet. I intentionally created a sprue on the bottom to keep everything aligned.

I airbrushed the entire block red, glued alignment beams made from code 55 rail to the back, and then cut away the sprue.

Miami Jai-Alai February 17

Bing Birdseye view of the prototype roof.

Next up is painting the roof. Although it’s not that time consuming to deal with, it does need to be done carefully simply because of the large amount of surface area involved and how visible it is.

First, I painted the entire surface area with Rustoleum Light Gray Primer. Next I dusted on Rustoleum Matte Iced Gray from about fifteen inches away and using a back and forth, wand like motion. When that dried I took a soft, two inch wide brush, and applied an India Ink wash (2 tsp. per pint) using vertical strokes. Final, I took a slightly darker India Ink wash and air brushed on some light vertical streaks.

Miami Jai-Alai February 6

Work this week centered on getting a flat and firm base for the model and working on the bottom lip of the structure so it sat on the base with no visible gaps. The base itself is a sheet of .093″ acrylic (the shiny black area in the photo) picked up from The Home Depot. Also added was the sidewalk apron in front.

A Gondola for FP&T

It’s been awhile since I’ve done any rolling stock so I decided to do so in a way that added some local flavor. Ferrous Process and Trading (FP&T) is a scrap steel recycler and one of the larger industries on the layout. They have their own small fleet of gondolas with the odd reporting marks “ZVBX”. Here’s how I weathered the Athearn car above.

To create the dings and dents I applied thick CA gel with the blunt end of bamboo skewer and let it dry. These cars eventually fade from black to gray so I airbrushed the entire car Model Master Euro Gray and then painted the one re-letter panel black. The entire car was airbrushed with glosscoat and then the decals were applied. Next up was an airbrushing of acrylic flat. I didn’t use a solvent dulling agent because I’d be applying oils next. The entire car was given a thin wash of burnt umber artist oils with a 1″ wide soft brush using downward strokes. When that dried I hit it with Testors Dullcote. Finally, I sprayed it again with Dullcote and, while it was still wet, sprinkled brownish/black chalk onto the still wet Dullcote.