A Most Enthusiastic Visitor

Mike Hart stopped by tonight to drop off three Washingtonia Palm trees that he made for the PoLA layout. Mike runs Hart of the South, a small company that makes the most realistic HO scale palm trees out there. I sent Mike some prototype photos of the trees I needed. He used his kits to make these three trees. They really look great in the ultimate location. If you need palm trees for your layout, check out his website.

Prototype shot

Luke's reaction on seeing the layout, priceless!

While Mike's trees are awesome, getting to meet his son Luke and showing him the Aquia Line was the highlight of the evening, if not the year. Luke is a precocious 9-year old that is already well versed in civil war history and is also a train fanatic.

 His reaction on seeing the Aquia Line was the best ever. It's times like this when all the work becomes worth while.

I asked him, "do you want to run steam or diesel?"

"Steam," was his rely.

Good boy.

He got to run a train from Falmouth to Aquia and back.

Running a train on the Aquia Line

He and his father posed with period clothing for a photo.  We had a great time and were it not a school night, we might still be here. Luke also enjoyed seeing the collection of dioramas I have.

He left with a box load of goodies including a bunch of excess Perry miniature zoave figures and several magazines to inspire him.

Mike and his son.

Busy week behind the scenes

The past week was very busy with work on the PoLA layout and other projects.

Laser cut test section of pier warehouse. The final
structure will be over 32 inches long.

First, I was dissatisfied with the results I was getting with the chain link fences I was making with Tulle wedding fabric for the PoLA layout. The layout will require over 30 linear feet of HO scale fencing -that is  nearly a half a scale mile of fencing. I looked around at what HO fencing is available and decided to make my own from photo etched stainless steel. So I did a drawing and they are now in production. If they work out, I'll be also selling them on my Alkem Scale Models website. So stayed tuned.


In the meantime, I started work developing a pierside wharf building based on a structure in Baltimore. The building will be used by Paul Dolkos on his Baltimore Harbor layout, but it will also be featured in the next Kalmbach book.

Speaking of books, I have been helping my brother with another book project. This is will be a military history of the Kempinski and Maxey families (Maxey is my brother's wife's maiden name). Members of the two families served in nearly all of United States wars from the War of 1812 through the Cold War. It is intended primarily as a family resource, but will also be available for sale to the general public as some of the stories  are quite compelling. The book takes the form of historical fiction. Each chapter uses a different format, such as 3rd person narrative, interview, letter home, and some other interesting formats including a  chapter as a graphic novel depicting our grandfather in WWI. The book should be out sometime early next year. Here is a short bit of the introduction to give you an idea of the project.

"Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory. "

General George Patton Cavalry Journal (September 1933)

Wearing ivory handled pistols, General George Patton directed convoy traffic at a critical road junction during the Third US Army’s thrust into the German flank at the Battle of the Bulge. This flamboyant feat along with many others by the colorful general have been recounted in numerous books and even transformed into a movie, “Patton” in 1974.
Another general, George Washington, the United States’ first president, suffered frigid temperatures and risk of drowning along with his men of the First Continental Army as they crossed the Delaware River. The middle of the night attack on the Hessians at Trenton highlighted his brilliant military career, and helped cement him as an American icon.
Yet another George, Colonel George Armstrong Custer, a charismatic US Army Cavalry officer, had his story replete with flowing golden locks and mortal battle at Little Big Horn carved into the American consciousness.
Each of these officers led soldiers into historic battle and in the process shaped the nation’s history. And while history has chosen to scrutinize and record the lives and actions of each of these leaders, they have something more basic in common. Each commanded soldiers, troops willing to follow orders, and each counted on those troops to enact their strategies and commands...

 I also went back to work on the Alexandria waterfront diorama. With the Pioneer Mills mostly complete, it's time to start on the sailing vessel.

Finally, I had a several  visitors the past week including Paul Dolkos, Mike Spoor, and his Army buddy Matt Allison.

Fixing Mistakes - A Key Modeling Skill

Revised weathering on UP 32190

One of the key skills I believe a modeler, especially a scatch-builder, needs to have is the ability to recognize and fix mistakes. This weekend I got several chances to test out my belief.

It started when I looked at some prototype photos of Union Pacific 32100 series gondolas on RRPictures Archive. I realized that the weathering I applied to my 32190 gondola was not realistic. So I put it back on the work bench and added a lot more rust. I toned down the graffiti with some acrylic rust colored washes. I made a new number patch with some decal paper and dry transfer letters. I added a few more tags. Now it looks a lot more like a prototypical car. By the way, any guesses to what the red and yellow graffiti says?

New fork lift ready for service

The next job was to build a model of the Kalmar Crane. This is a nice kit put out by Walthers. It is easy to assemble. I built it in a few hours. On this layout, the crane will be used to lift steel slabs and coils, so I did not add the container spreader. I painted it in a black and white scheme that is used on the Pasha Terminal. They paint the tires with white stripes in a tri-radial pattern. So I added those to my model.

Peeling paint - not what I wanted.

Next I tackled the ship, a model that has been sitting on the layout for a while. I had built the super structure a few months ago. I decided to paint it and get it ready to install on the hull. I had already primed it months ago with Krylon gray lacquer. So I touched up some rough spots with sandpaper and then gave it a coat of Vallejo White acrylic primer. After it dried a few hours I noticed a few spots that still needed some sanding. So I got out my 400 wet sand paper and started to work on it. That is when disaster hit.

The warm water I used in the wet sanding caused the white paint to peel. The gray primer held fine, but the white paint started bubbling up all over the model.  Yikes.  Looks like I have to strip all the white primer. That was not as easy as I would have liked, and a few details got broken in the process.

Note rounded windows (portholes)

At that point, I stopped and considered what to do. Apart from the paint problem, I was not that happy with the way the first superstructure came out. The soldered handrails were strong but were not perfect. Also, I cut all the windows as rectangles as that is what the Deans Marine kit instructions said to do. But in nearly every prototype ship photo I looked at the windows were rounded ovals. A few other minor errors convinced me to start over.

New superstructure stern  side - stair platforms are visible.

I redesigned the new superstructure to look more like the prototype ships I am trying to model. In particular, the bridge is a simpler shape with more windows, and there is an external stair way.

After several hours of drawing, laser cutting, and assembling, I got the most of the new superstructure complete. I'll add the details next. Then paint. But I will not be using the Vallejo Primers!

New superstructure bow side

Four More Weathered Cars

Who knew Alicia was a tagger!

This skull motif was based on a photo of Ich's 2000th tagged car.
Ich is a prolific tagger.

Lots of rust inside this one.

This car has coil racks inside. The tag is a home made decal.

I weathered 4 more cars tonight, 2 covered hoppers and two gondolas. I added graffiti to some of them and lots of rust on the gons.

I am not putting graffiti on both sides of most cars. That way I can have some variety when I take photos. I have a small number of HO cars,  so I can effectively double their photographic value with different weathering and graffiti on each side


I looked at some graffiti websites to get ideas. Then I made some of my own designs. I found it ironic that graffiti web sites ask you to "respect the artists" when the artists themselves has no respect for private property.

I don't like the idea of graffiti on rail cars, but as I have said before, it is an inescapable aspect of modern railroading.

Doing the model graffiti is kind of fun. The calligrapher in me finds the lettering styles interesting.

Another Weathered Car

I based this model on this photo from rrpicturesarchive.nethttp://www.rrpicturearchives.net/

I didn't have a photo of the other side of the car so I freelanced this weathering.