Ready to plant

 A hunt for a cream colour I liked lead me to a range of paints I had never heard of before, Americana. Like all things American they are larger than the rest (about twice the size) for a similar price. They are acrylics and cover nicely. Onto the houses.

 2 of the three get red-ish houses and the 3rd a silver grey roof (prototype pictures can be a pain). I assume this was replaced but had not been repainted. The window frames are white, again as thats the impression I get from the colour images I have. They have then had a coat of my favorite thined out Tamiya smoke and a light drybrush with Valejo Iraqi sand.

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it..

Whats in the box?

Last night at the local weekly geek meet Q handed me a box.

Inside was something both fascinating and terrifying.

Things mortal man was not ment to see.

 He had scaled down one of his early guards vans from S to NZ120. laying the parts out...

Everything has come out nicely including the brake gear and the detail on the solebars.

To cap it off, this is printed in PLA, no resin to be seen. Its not quite as good detail wise as a resin print, but awfully close, and its not brittle. 

Now, I wonder if he can do me a pair of jam trouses and a big hat that turns into a Subbuteo table.

Dropped off

A flying visit from the Cabbage flying circus this morning (at 7am) dropped off the part complete Waihao Downs from its slumber in a Wellington shed.

It seems to be in OK nik, though the track at the ends has seen better days.

 

 I'll also include a shot of the hardest piece of track I have even made, a crossover in code 40. Much swearing, sweat and blood was spilt during its soldering.

On another note, I'm currently looking to divest myself of most of my On30 collection if anyone is interested...

 

 I need the space to move Paekakariki out of the garage

Upgrading

 A couple of nights work adding corugated iron to the railway houses, as well as the front porches.

Again, they are a great base to start from and tart up quick. Now all I have to do is find a pale cream paint.

Banging them out.

Tonight I made a start on the 3 railway houses. In total less than an hour for a quick cleanup with a knife and file. Then I painted the floors a mid-brown, and the walls Tamiya buff (a dark beige...). The base got a coat of light grey. I then glued the walls onto the base.

The roofs are a bit more work to add the corrugated iron. I might cut the chimneys off this time to make a job a bit easier.

Again, they are not superdetailed and a bit rough, but they are a timesaver

A bit scattergun

This post is going to be a bit all over the place as I keep thinking about writing a post and then put it off.

So, in no particular order:

-I needed another 3 railway houses and picked them up on Trademe.

Again, they are a bit rough but a very good base and saves me quite a bit of work. Once I've got the Medieval Russians for DBA off the bench they will be next.

-Theres been a chat on the emails about some sort of Freemo setup for NZ120. There is a vibrant Ho Freemo movement in New Zealand now (certainly in the North island) and something that I could be talked into. Theres also interest locally on buiding S scale NZR modules to the same standard. Is there anything similar in country for N scale?