Sunday, May 8, 2016

New England Prototype Modelers Meet - June 3 & 4 2016

Work continues on the Demeritt Cannery and I hope to have some photos to share in the next day or two. 
I've also been getting my clinic ready for the New England Prototype Modelers Meet, which will be held in Enfield,  Connecticut June 3-4. 
This is one of my favorite model railroading events, and if you haven't gone I highly recommend it. 
You can see more details on the website - http://nerpm.org/index.html

What goes on at this meet? Well, there's the model display room. Think of it as the "town green" of the meet - where people hang out, get a chance to see some excellent models (hundreds of them!), talk with the builders, share techniques, and engage in a never ending series of bull sessions. One thing that will be nice this year is the chance to continue the bull sessions into the evening in the hotel bar/lounge!
Then there are the clinics. 
I'll be doing one clinic - my "Modeling the October Scene" clinic, an updated version of the presentation I gave at Portland NMRA last summer. 

But there are a LOT of excellent clinicians and clinics. 
One I'm looking forward to is Bill Gill's presentation (scheduled for 1:15 June 4th) on modeling specific, very common weeds found along right of ways across most of the country. Bill models in HO but says the methods are suitable across several scales. 

Here's an example of his ragweed (Three photos by Bill Gill):
He'll also cover making New England Asters (pale blue):
And common reeds:
Think I may need to take some allergy pills before sitting in on this one!




Sunday, May 1, 2016

Test-fitting Demeritt Cannery


 I've completed the basic buildings for the Demeritt Cannery in Waterbury. This is one of the key structures remaining to be finished in the "front door" scene - hence the reason for focusing on it. 
Entire building is Evergreen styrene - based on the two prototype photos I managed to turn up of the building. To fit the buildings I needed to adjust the hillside behind the structure and made a Gatorboard base for the building. Although the covered shed, which I assume is some sort of canopy over a dump pit, was on the right side of the gable end of the building, there was no way to fit it there with the track in place so I shifted the shed to the left side of the building. 
Although the pictures show the sections of the building loosely fit together, I plan to secure them to the Gatorboard base once they're painted and detailed. 
After I took these pictures I airbrushed the building with a base coat of Vallejo Pale Blue Gray.