As much as I hate cleaning the furshluginner thing, there's nothing that matches an air brush for sheer speed. I put a first coat on these two cars in less than the time it took to write two quick sentences about it.
But the second coat went on with a brush, because it's better that way. The first coat can go on any old way, but I need more control after that, and a brush is the only way to paint that makes me feel as though I'm in control. The air brush blasts paint all over the place, as you can see, unless I mask off the rest of the car body. Athearn molded these cars with rivets that stick out about six scale inches, though, which makes masking a bit of a problem, and I'm still trying to work it out.
If it seems as though I'm spending a lot of time painting, it's because I'm trying to decide on a scale. This makes a little bit of sense, so please bear with me.
I conceived of the Lost Continent Railway as an N-scale layout. I even laid a respectable amount of track for it, but when I began to paint the rolling stock I realized that there was no way I was made to work in that scale. Maybe I could have at one time, but now I'm wearing the strongest reading glasses available at the drug store for the up-close work, and they're not helping all that much in N.
In HO I feel I can actually see what I'm doing. I can get my hands around the car body and hold it still. The brush isn't as big as a vestibule door. Painting the larger cars takes longer, but satisfaction is up.
I'd love to try working in O, but we don't have enough room in our basement to give up for a layout in 1:48 (not that I have a layout now). I dabbled briefly with the idea of building in S, but my research showed me that the available rolling stock, track and building kits are priced far outside my budget. HO is at my upper limit of affordability, habitability and visibility.
But what to do with all that N-scale equipment?
2 comments:
Hi i have just started blogging on google and got my page right now, yours was the first profile i came to concerning model railways i see you, like me also kit build, i have just done two locos in O scale, your coaches look very good you must be very experienced-Cheers Chris.
Hi, Chris! I have very little practical experience building model rail cars. All my modeling experience was in plastic model aircraft, and that was more than thirty years ago! I think I can get back on that bike, though. Thanks for the encouraging words, they mean a lot to me, especially at this point.
Post a Comment