Superior & Seattle Railroad Build (Volume 3) Started 7/27/19

Started by S&S RR, July 27, 2019, 08:44:50 PM

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deemery

John, what's your process for deciding between servo turnout and Tortoise turnout?


dave
Modeling the Northeast in the 1890s - because the little voices told me to

S&S RR

Quote from: deemery on May 07, 2020, 07:10:04 PM
John, what's your process for deciding between servo turnout and Tortoise turnout?


dave


Dave


The majority of the turnouts are controlled by tortoise machines mounted in the traditional manor directly under the turnout.  I have a few locations where there is not easy access directly under the turnouts so I have fabricated wire linkages that run at an angel to a servo motor, sometimes as much as 12 inches away.  I had originally planned to use tortoise machines and custom mounting brackets for this purpose but discovered the servo motor option when I decided to use Barrett Hill Touch Control switches. The servo motors come with a variety of linkages to help with the control options.
John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

S&S RR

To follow up on a couple of open issues on my brick roundhouse we need to have a discussion on bricks.  Bob used standard bricks for his roundhouse kit which are 7 5/8 inch long by 3 5/8 inch high. The bricks on the castings that Jason painted in his video are over 12 inches long and 6 inches high. George described them as O scale bricks that just look good.  Now, before the rivet counters go crazy, manarch bricks, utility bricks, norman bricks  and many other speciality bricks come in the larger size so they are not out of scale. Here is a picture of one of the FSM castings next to the test castings I'm working with from the Brick Roundhouse. If you look at any of the brick buildings on the F&SM George usually used larger bricks and the mortar lines are deeper and wider. And I agree they look great. So I decided to scale down the process Jason described in his video to smaller standard bricks, as a test. Oh and before I forget to mention it, this painting technique is exactly the same as the one I used on all of the rocks for the mountains of the S&S RR.  Yeah, remember the 3400 lbs. of plaster for those of you that have been following along since Vol 1 of this thread.  I used a very small brush to make my blots of paint for this test. About half the size I would normally use for the FSM casting Jason used.


John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

S&S RR

So here is a blowup of a section of the wall using this scaled down technique on the standard size bricks.





At this magnification you can sure see the air bubblies.  These test castings are from a pour where I got called up for dinner and forgot to use my calibrated rubber hammer to shake the molds and purge the air bubbles. :-[
John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

S&S RR

So the test was successful - we achieved the color variation within the individual bricks. It looks like old brick.  The bottom line is that I have a 15 stall roundhouse to paint and a very large layout to finish. That's a lot of painting and I really like the look of the bricks on my original test sample. I made a few tests on adding some color variation to the larger stones on the lower part of the wall and really like how it looks.  I basically colored individual stones three different shades of grey and then dry brushed with a dark burnt umber to bring out the details in the stones.  Here is the test sample with one of the green window castings popped in to see the color combinations all together.


John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

S&S RR

Dave


I also tried a darker grey mortar - you can see it in this picture on the left top.





I like the lighter mortar with this casting because you start to loose the individual brick look.
John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

S&S RR

So tomorrow, I'm going to finish cleaning and fitting all the castings and start building some walls.
John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

Dennis Bourey

John, Your doing amazing work sir..............Dennis
Dennis Bourey
dpbourey@comcast.net

Lake's Region RR
(Happy Modeling)

Mark Dalrymple

Looks really good, John.

I agree that the lighter mortar works better.  Have you considered a darker grey mortar for the stonework?  You would have to do one part first, seal, and then do the other, I would think, but might be quite striking?  Enjoying your work, whatever you decide to do.

Cheers, Mark.

vinceg

Brick looks great, John. I especially love the keystones on the arched windows. Or, as we used to say in Philly....winduhz.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

S&S RR

Quote from: Dennis Bourey on May 07, 2020, 10:13:32 PM
John, Your doing amazing work sir..............Dennis


Dennis


Thank you for following along and the encouraging words.
John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

S&S RR

Quote from: mark dalrymple on May 08, 2020, 01:58:55 AM
Looks really good, John.

I agree that the lighter mortar works better.  Have you considered a darker grey mortar for the stonework?  You would have to do one part first, seal, and then do the other, I would think, but might be quite striking?  Enjoying your work, whatever you decide to do.

Cheers, Mark.


Mark


Thank you for following along and the great suggestions.  I have a couple smaller Roundhouses planed for my new area of the layout and I may use the "old brick" look on them.  I really do like how that looks.  A darker grey mortar on the bottom larger stones would highlight the individual stones. I need to try a couple things to see if I can make that work.
John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

S&S RR

Quote from: vinceg on May 08, 2020, 07:41:51 AM
Brick looks great, John. I especially love the keystones on the arched windows. Or, as we used to say in Philly....winduhz.


Vince


Thank you for the kind words - just a little dry brushing made the keystones look a lot better.
John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

S&S RR

I have three workbenches full of Brick Roundhouse castings getting them ready for painting.









I'm gluing one of the side walls together to see if I can paint it as a subassembly.




John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

Dennis Bourey

I'm watching very closely my friend. Your doing a phenomenal job.....Dennis
Dennis Bourey
dpbourey@comcast.net

Lake's Region RR
(Happy Modeling)

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