Spiders

Progress is at a minimum, meaning work on the layout is at a dead stop. I wish I could blame it on summer and all the time I'm spending out of doors, but I can't. I just haven't had the ambition. After getting the four track roadbed realigned and leveled out things came to a screeching halt. The only changes made since were constructed by spiders.

I haven't been completely dormant, however. This week I got it in my head to remove all the flotsam and jetsam that was hiding the workbench. Tools, materials, and everything else had been piled on this conveniently horizontal surface. I did my spring cleaning about three months too late and reorganized the whole shebang. After clearing the work top (a lot of stuff is now layed out on the layout) I started going through the three boxes that hold all my paints. I have always hated rummaging for the color I was looking for. I had the most commonly used colors towards the front in one box but it was still a matter of hunting when I needed the metalizer for a smoke box. To add to the aggravation the boxes rested on a shelf about 12" deep that got in the way of quite a few other things. To remedy this issue I removed said shelf and built VERY narrow shelves just deep enough to hold a paint bottle. At 42" in length each of the new shelves can hold a whole lot of those small bottles used for model paint...

99 Bottles of paint on the shelves, 99 bottles of paint...

With all the paints out of the way I started sorting the hundred or so tools I've collected over the years. I cast aside any tools that were not specifically for modeling. Things like a foot long bastard file and the three sets of duplicate pliers. I decided I only really needed one jewelers/coping saw and retired the other two. There was also a plethora of electrical parts, pens, plastic paperclips and a dozen Sharpees. Shouldn't forget to mention the overabundance of magnifers and other paraphenalia. I relocated some shelving that was at the side of the workbench and found I had a place for those drawer cabinets full of parts and projects. Hell, I even had room for my seldom used airbrush (more on the later). I went to Home Depot and picked up two magnetic bars to hold the tools I had decided to keep. The bars run along each side of the worktop. The tools stick like they were glued there...

Almost Organized

With everything in it's place I decided to start working on side projects that have been on hold for months, if not years. The new scheme of the Average Eastern involves a lot more that "just" the Pennsylvania Railroad so I decided I would repaint and re-letter some equipment for the other roads represented on the layout. The first step was removing paint from some of the locomotive shells I want to "re-purpose".

The first shells to be stripped were four ALCO cab units and a Fairbanks Morse road switcher. Two DL109's are destined to become New Haven Class DER-1a...

A Plethora of Paint Schemes

The biggest problem is choosing which of the plethora of New Haven paint schemes to use on these two locomotives. The two red liveries are easy. I won't use them. The red, black and white "McGuiness" paint did not appear until about 1956. The Average Eastern is set in an earlier time. The other red, the "Cranberry" was a one off that only appeared on a specific train that ran between Boston and Hyannis, Massachusetts...

The "Cranberry"

Lucky me...now I only have seven paint schemes to choose from.

Then two FA units are to be repainted for the Lehigh & New England and the Lehigh Valley. I was originally going to paint both units for the L&NE. I may still do that...

Lehigh & New England #701

Still, I think I'd like to have an LV engine to go with my new Lehigh Valley caboose...

LV # 95067

#95067 is just one of the several cabeese I've been gathering. The genericity of the Average Eastern allows me a bit of artistic license in choosing what to model...

Cabeeses

There is a Lehigh & New England "crummie" to the left of the Lehigh & Hudson River. The unlettered N5 will be repainted for the New York, New Haven & Hartford. There is also a Reading hack laying around here somewhere.

Anyway, the FM H-15-44 will become a Jersey Central FPSD-37 Class that was painted in a kind of "transition" paint scheme. The only locomotive to wear this livery, #1502 was dressed in "Seamist" blue with tangerine stripes...

"Seamist" Blue

I started with the DL109's first. Because Testors has decided to cancel most of their model railroad colors I had purchased some Badger "AccuFlex" paints. Badger still sells paints like "New Haven Pullman Green" and "Lackawanna Gray". That's the good news. The bad news is that the paint is not friendly to brush painters like me. For years now I have painted ALL my models using a brush and achieved flawless finishes. In my humble opinion, the Badger paint sets up too fast to work with a brush. This makes plenty of sense considering Badger specializes in air brush sales. So I switched to a dark green color from Floquil (I think) and it went on the way I thought it should. The paint is thin enough to flow evenly, but requires several coats. Thinking about it, I realized that if I gonna paint several coats I may as well dust off the air brush. That way I'll get nice even coverage. I'll also be able to paint multiple color and stripes, something that is a lot more work with a traditional brush. 

I'm constructing a paint booth so I don't airbrush the entire garage. Then there will have to be a bit of practice so I can relearn how to use the damnable thing.

Regards,

Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad