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.

Truss Bridge Complete

I finished the truss bridge by fixing the reversed braces and adding the abutments. The braces now point in the correct direction.

The bridge was longer than we planned, so I had to do another iteration of shaving the left abutment to make room. I made the abutments with a double layer of 1/4 inch aspen wood. I laser cut the stone patterns. Then I added a layer of Milliput putty to the surface to simulate the rough stone typical of the era.

There is not a lot of clearance between the bottom of the bridge and the water, so I did not add a any type of bridge shoe.  However, there probably should be something. Adding a bridge shoe will require a slight modification to the abutment, but it is not impossible.

The bridge can currently be removed with the track since it is spiked on it. Once it is installed, we have to glue it in and attach the rail with joiners to keep it secure.

Next on the critical path is the turntable. I was planning on using my current turntable and popping in in place here. But now I think I will build a new one just for this layout.

One other task I wrapped up this evening was painting some figures. I started painting some of these Sash and Saber figures a few years ago, but never finished them. So tonight, I took two of the Trident miniatures and painted them along with finishing the other batch of Sash and Sabers. I painted these as African Americans with a Caucasian officer. These soldiers will represent part of the USCT infantry assigned to guard the depot. This was a typical mission for the newly raised USCT units at this time period. The Trident figures are very nicely sculpted. I would rank them as the best of the ACW 40mm figures I have tried.

Another Land Merrimack

I received a note from Greg Vigle, a collector of model artillery. He sent me some photos of an model of the Land Merrimack rail gun he bought from an estate sale. Here is what he said,

By chance I happened to find photos on the military railroad page of a remarkable model that you recently constructed of the famous Petersburg railroad cannon. I was utterly astounded, especially given the timing, to find this, because I very recently acquired an almost equally remarkable model of the same piece, made over 25 years ago! I am attaching a scan of two photos of this model, taken by the maker. The scale is probably about 1/24, with the entire model about 11 inches long
              The man who made it was named Joseph Sckripkunas, he was a former machinist who specialized in making incredibly detailed models of cannons. He made over 300 over a 30 year period, and was very well known in the model cannon world. I acquired a substantial number of his remaining smaller models last year from a friend of his who was the executor of his estate, he passed away early last year. This particular model was apparently one of his most prized, with good reason.
              Like you, he had only the two known photos to go on, plus similar amounts of additional historical information (he was an expert on cannons in general). But, he most likely only had access to photos reproduced in books, as opposed to high-res 8x10 prints (I now have the latter, of both of the known photos). 

It looks like a section of G gauge track under the model, so the scale is probably close to 1/32 assuming it was built on standard gauge track.

It is different from my model in some respects, but overall, it is a very attractive model.

Thanks Greg for sending the photos and story.

Star Power

Attention, Generals Grant and Sherman will be visiting Atlanta next summer. At least, 1/43rd scale versions of them will be. I worked on these two figures over the past two days. Here is a brief description of the work.

The Grant figure is a Foundry casting. They captured his face very well, along with the cigar in his hand. The pose is a bit strange as his feet splay wide apart.  I did not have the horse that came with the figure. So I scrounged around and used a 1/35th scale Cossack pony from a Dragon set. Grant's favorite horse, Cincinnati, was  big -- 17 hands tall -- and powerful, while Grant was 5'8" and slightly built. Nonetheless, the larger scale pony was a bit too big. To make the horse appear smaller I sanded the two halves by about 2mms thinning the body. I also took about 1 mm off the withers making it shorter. I added the general officer blanket to the saddle made with sheet pewter. Some two part epoxy created a saddle for the Army commander. I  added some reins using .010 by 0.030 inch styrene strip.

General Sherman started out ironically enough as the Trident Stonewall Jackson figure. He had Shermans'  6' tall, lean look. I did several modifications to the body. First I shaved off the buttons and replaced them with dots of putty in accordance with a Union general officer. I carved off Jackson's knee high boots and filed the legs to look like long trousers. I also lengthened the figure's frock coat using putty to look more like a Union officer's. I cut away the binoculars in the figure's right hand and reshaped the hand with epoxy putty. I made a new saddle and blanket using pewter and epoxy putty. I shaved off the cast on reins and added new ones with .010 by 0.030 inch styrene strip. I also used styrene strip to add shoulder bards. Finally, I swapped heads with a spare from a Trident set of Confederates. I had to reshape the hat, but the face was very close to Sherman's.

These figures will be placed on the road show, but for now I photographed them on my layout.

Rail Guns Delivered

Dan stands by one of the exhibits.

I delivered the model rail guns to Dan Toomey at the B&O Museum.  Dan is the curator in charge of designing the War Came by Train Exhibit at the B&O Museum. The exhibit changes each year to reflect the major events of that year 150 years ago in the ACW. The rail guns will be part of the third year exhibit.

The second year the exhibit focused on the Invasion of Maryland and the battle of Antietam, especially the aftermath in treating the casualties. Note the hospital car models behind Dan.

I also had the honor of buying the first copy of Dan's new book titled, "The War Came by Train -  the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad during the Civil War." It was hot off the press and Dan was graciously enough to sign it for me. I will do a detailed review once I have had a chance to read it. But in flipping through it I was excited to see it is not a dry economic description of the railroad, but a detailed account of the people, battles, equipment and operations of the railroad. There is a remarkable picture in it that I have never seen before of several B&O engines in front of the hotel in Grafton, WV.  I look forward to reading the book.

Dan gave me a  brief tour of  the museum to see what is new. The Mason is out getting a boiler refit, so it was replaced with a restored Camel engine.  It is a beautifully ugly beast -  resplendent in its red wheels and trim. I failed to get a picture of it. Doh!

Saying good bye to Dan, I drove to M.B. Kleins hobby store, now in Cockeysville, MD. I picked up some basic supplies, though MBK doesn't have a good supply of scratch building materials.

I purchased two new colors of the Woodland Scenics fine-foliage, light green and olive green, to test against the backdrop. I can't decide which color is best.

 After dinner I proceeded to work on the Truss bridge. I realized that the trusses visible in most of the photos we have were not pin-connected like my earlier arched truss, but "standard" Howe Trusses with counter braces and cast iron pockets for the diagonal members and wrought iron rods for the tension members. Note that the diagonals are doubled in one direction and single (the counter brace) in the other.
It took several hours of drawing to redesign the parts, but once I cut them on the laser, assembly proceeded quickly (including the 828 NBWs!) I need to finish the stringers, ties, rail and upper truss and it will be ready for placement on the abutments, which also need to be made.

In placing the bridge, over Muddy Creek it looks like we need to push the left abutment back about one more inch. That is easy with the foam construction we used.

I also realized that I have half of the diagonal bridge members reversed in the model. In a Howe truss the doubled diagonals should be symmetric to the vertical center line. So three panels are one way and three the other.

I laid them all out the same.  I hope that will not be too hard to fix.




Finally, to wrap up a big day, Andy at Train Troll sent me some photos of the packet boat that will be on the left hand part of the layout. This is an HO scale model of a scow-hull towboat that he will scale up for the O Scale packet boat. It is very similar to the Clinch that we decided to use on the layout.