A journal following the history, design, construction and operation of Bernard Kempinski's O Scale model railroad depicting the U. S. Military Railroad (USMRR) Aquia-Falmouth line in 1863, and other model railroad projects.
©Bernard Kempinski All text and images, except as noted, on this blog are copyrighted by the author and may not be used without permission.
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January 30, 2013

Baby needs new shoes

As I mentioned a few days ago, the bridge needed some type of shoe where the lower chords touch the abutments. This required that I remove some of the stone on the abutment to allow room for the new bridge shoes.

The abutments are two layers of aspen wood, so it was fairly easy to cut away one course of the stone from the first layer. I sanded the cuts smooth and then added a thin layer of Milliput to simulate the cut stone face. Once that cured overnight, I repainted the abutments and the surgery is barely noticeable.

I made bridge shoes from a piece of 0.25 by .375 inch basswood stock using prototype photos as a guide. I glued the shoes on the chords and test fit the bridge. One abutment needed a minor tweak and it was done.

As I looked at the bridge installed, I decided I did not like the contrast between the dark burned laser-cut edges versus the uncut edges of each member. So I used my airbrush to spray a thin coat of Vallejo Light Brown over the laser cut edges to lighten them. I thinned the paint about 50 percent and sprayed in light passes trying not to obscure the detail and avoid overspray on other parts. In the end, the effect worked and I think the bridge looks much better.

Now it's ready to be glued in place and track spiked up to it.



1 comment:

  1. Bernie, I agree the bridge needed this small addition. Another detail, but a necessary one and well done!

    In your previous blog post, I looked at the pix of the bridge w/o the 'shoes', and it looks awkward or plain. Wasn't sure what was missing, but this addition is dead on.

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