Air Brush Learnings

This tool is a need to have for modelers. I can't imagine not having it and it gets used alot. I got my first airbrush back in 1995. At that time I could already see that if I wanted CNR models they would have to be painted and decaled because back then there were very few proper models that were painted correctly. I started out with a Badger 200 single action, with gravity feed brush that I bought off a friend of mine for $30. I can't say enough good about dealing with Badger especially during the transition to acrylic paint. I then got a really good deal on a Testors Aztek 470 brush that worked ok but it is now hard to get tips for it. It is a double action side feed. I now have a Paasche VL double action side feed which I really like mostly because of the 3 different size needles that it has. It is also easy to clean as airbrushes go. 

Badger 200

Aztek 470

Paasche VL

 We will look at types of air brushes,paint, masking, cleaning, paint mixing, paint booths, air supply, material your painting, practise and some other tips for painting. There is also lots of info on line. The things I am covering here are the ways that I do things from having painted 200+ models. I have also done some custom work but only do charity work for people who need help.

 All brushes have a single trigger. All airbrushes fall into 4 categories of control. These are single and double action, pistol grip and automatic. I have have a single, double and pistol. The single action means you only control the paint flow. The double action means you control the paint and the air. This done by pushing down on the trigger for air and pulling it back to get paint flow so both are variable separately. The pistol grip is on a larger brush I have. I recommend a double action and with a little practise it is easy to do both at the same time and you have the versatility. Most brushes have an adjustable stop on the paint flow so you can't get to much.

There are 3 different types of feed. Gravity, siphon and side feed. Gravity has a paint cup on the top of the brush that holds the paint. The paint flows down with gravity and is mixed with the air and is atomized. With a siphon the paint can be pulled up through a tube from a jar under the brush. With the side feed the cup is mounted on the side of the brush may do both gravity and siphon.  My Badger was a gravity feed, my Testors and Paasche are both side feed. I do not use a bottle very often because there is more to clean. I use the smaller side cups. A nice touch with the Testor was that the cups had caps so the paint will not spill out as you change angles when painting. I have to be mindful of this with the Paasche as I can spill while try to paint at a difficult angle.

  There are 2 different types of mixing which are internal and external. With internal the air and paint is mixed inside the brush before it comes out of the tip. External the paint and air are mixed at the tip. I recommend the internal is old school and most brushes now come as internal. All my brushes are and have been internal. External is also cheaper but just not worth it.

So as a recap I would recommend a double action, side feed with internal mixing.

  

   Paint falls into 4 categories. Acrylic, lacquer, enamel and oil based. Each of these types of paint require their base used to thin the paint. Acrylic is becoming the most common these days and are the easiest to clean up. These will come up under a few brand names. People refer to it as water based which is not really correct and will make your search harder. Lacquer and enamel are similar in the fact that they are tougher to clean up and you will need to clean your brush with lacquer thinner. The most common enamel that people are used to would be the little bottles of Testors model paint. Nail polish would fall under the lacquer category. I use acrylic about 90% of the time on a multitude of surfaces and never have any problem. The thing that makes some paints better than others is how fine the grind is on their pigments. The finer the better, house paint is coarse, craft paint is next  and then model paints and nail polishes. 

  Painting. The reason why most people, myself included, really like solvent based paints over acrylics is the way they spay and the smoothness of the finish. You can achieve the same result with acrylics by adding some extender to the paint. I add an extender to the bottle of most of my acrylic colours that I want that fine finish. What this does is extend the drying time. The problem with acrylics is they dry fast, so fast that they are drying on the way to the model. The ruff finish is little pieces for paint that have dried on the way so they are ruff.  Too high an air pressure can cause this also being too far back from the model. Some models of brushes have special cones and needles for spraying  acrylics. Oh...before you buy a brush check to make what kind of paint you can use in it.

  There is 3 categories of finish. They are flat, semi gloss and gloss. The main diver in your choice is what type of decals you are going to be applying. You need to understand what your paint type sheen is as it is not always easy to know. If you are not sure, contact the manufacturer and they can tell you. For water slide decals you need gloss or semi gloss. Gloss will allow the decals to snuggle down 100% of the time. Semi gloss may or may not work as well and takes a little more care to get your decals not to glaze or be shiny. For dry transfer decals you want flat as it will work 100% of the time and about 10% of the time with gloss paint. Now to overcome this you can spray your model with a dull coat and then they will work fine. You can also spray your model with gloss to make wet slides work better. Make sure you spray the whole model so the finish is the same all over or you will see it. 

  There are 3 types of clear finish. They are flat, semi gloss and gloss. They can be applied after the model has been painted to get the affect you like. There are the same types as there is paint. 

There are 2 types of masking: they are liquid and tape.Masking is a bit of a personal thing, so these are the things I do. You can buy special masking tape but I use green or blue painters tape, plain tan coloured masking tape or tan coloured drafting tape. If you are masking a none painted surface say on the first coat you can use any of the above tapes. If you are protecting a painted surface use the painting tape or the drafting tape. Drafting tape has the least amount of glue on it as it is designed to be removed from paper. I will lay down a strip of tape on my glass desk top and lift it on and off a couple of time to remove some of the glue. Next I will make a clean cut on the edge of the tape on any edge that needs a crisp line. If you look at the tape under magnification it has a fuzzy edge to it that will show up when you remove it. Also make sure that the paint surface that you are masking has fully cured before putting tape on it. I use the dull side of an Exacto knife or a burnishing tool to get the tape to stick on the edge. The middle part on 1" wide tape doesn't matter, just the edges. It will take you 3 times longer to do a good mask job than it will to apply the paint. When painting an edge do a light coat spraying from behind the edge and let that dry. This will seal the edge then you can paint from any direction and not get bleed. Still try not to paint into an edge. As soon as the paint has cured you can remove the tape. By this I mean do not leave it on longer than you have to. When you remove the tape by getting hold of an end and pull it back  over itself and it will look like  C  this will help in not pulling up the paint that is under it. This trick also works for house painting. There is also liquid tape which can be use to cover odd shaped details or windows that have glass in them. Go slow and take your time to get right to the edge of a window with as clean a line as you can get with a brush. Then paint. Once it is dry you can pull it off with fine point tweezers or the tip of an Exacto knife.

Cleaning your brush. Next to masking this takes the most time and must be done well. Expect that it will take 20 min to do. Lest time to change colours if you are going from light to darker colour. For acrylics I use water and clear windex which has no NH3 (NH3 is bad for some brushes) or if you would like to use a bought product the best I have ever used is made by Iwata and is called Medea AirBrush Cleaner. For any other paints I just use lacquer thinner and flush it with water after. For my Paasche I flush it with water and add water to the cup, rinse it, dump it out a few times, flush with water again and spray it through the brush. I then remove the needle and wipe off what paint is on it. I clean the tip with a toothbrush and then put the needle back in and pull it out cleaning it again. I then run some cleaner down the shaft that the needle travels in. I then slide the needle in again and if it is clean then I tighten it and run some clean water through it. DONE

Mixing paint is only done by stirring as you do not want to introduce air bubbles. It should be the consistency of  milk when it drips off your stick. I only use distilled water to thin acrylic paint and whatever the medium is used for other paints. I have sprayed craft paint but it needs to be cut alot and I use a bigger needle and tip. They do not stick great but if it is going on a model that will really be touched it doesn't matter. Nail polish also needs to be thinned quite a bit.

My paint booth. The booth shell cost me about $10 to make. The ($100 at Acklands) fan is a centrifugal with the motor outside the cage which makes it intrinsically safe which means it will not blow up from solvent vapors. It is vented to the outside and the fan has the ability to move enough air based on the calculations I did, given the distance to the vent using corrugated piping. The air from the booth flows through a small furnace filter before it gets to the fan. The filter is common size and costs only $3-4. I also built the small turntable using a bought base and adding some plywood to it $15. There is a that goes across the top of the opening for hanging small parts to dry. There is a light installed, the  hot incandescent bulb helps the drying process. I have a curtain that I can hang on the front so dust doesn't get in while the paint dries. I use toilet paper cardboards to hold boxcars and engine shells for painting.

The nuts and little wood block are used to set a car on. The bolsters or trucks rest on these. The 2 little tubes on the left is large pieces of heat shrink tubing that I use to cover couplers

You can see the hook in the roof which I use to hang things to dry. If you look close you can see the wire across the front to hang parts on. The furnace filter at the back slides in from the top. The tooth brush is what I use to help clean my brush.

Shows the switch for the fan and the ducting coming off the fan

Shows the rest of the ducting

The hanger on the side for my brush

Shows the paper rolls as model holders. They are very stable.

Air supply comes from my little compressor that is in the garage that was piped into the basement when the house was built. There is a regulator and filter on the line in the basement. There is a quick connect to the basement line so I can easily use it for other things. The pressure on the compressor is set to about 50 psi and the one in the basement is set to around 40 psi. By having the 2 regulators the pressure doesn't fluctuate much. It also protects incase I have the compressor set for 110 psi and connect it to the basement. I can also control the amount of air I want right on my brush  because it is double acting.

Materials you are painting takes some consideration. I have painted plastics, cardstock, brass, styrene, abs, derilin, wood, resin, metal and beer cans. All with acrylics. I have never had many problems. The only one that can really give you problems is resin or any plastic that has mold release on it. This is an easy fix by just wash the parts with with soap and water and rubbing it with a toothbrush, then rinsing and putting it aside to dry so dust can't get on it. This step should be done with anything you are going to paint to get rid of dirt and finger oils. Then you are good to paint. You can paint brass with acrylics and doesn't need to be cooked in an oven. Let's think about the old school approach to brass. I have been told how you have to do all these steps and this and that to make the painted surface tough, mmmmm so it can sit on a shelf and never be touched??? Of all the models 150+ that I have painted and decaled including brass that run and are handled on my layout I have never had paint come off of anything ever nor have I ever even have a decal problem from handling. The only thing I ask is you use my wipes to clean your hands so I do not get greasy fingerprints on models.

Take the time to practise. This can be very enjoyable. You open 2 beer cans drink the first one wash it dry it with a cloth. Now start to paint the can trying different things as you go like distance from the can, air pressure, paint flow. You are still drinking the 2nd beer right... you will need that can to. Once the paint has dried you should try masking as square off and then paint the inside a different colour. The lesson here is about masking and not going under the edge with paint. Then remove the masking without pulling paint off the can. The paint doesn't stick well with acrylics so if  you can get the masking off this then you can get it off anything else. Have you finished  the 2nd beer...good now you can practice on this can. You may not want to open a 3rd beer right away. Pop can be substituted for beer. It should be an aluminum can though. 

There are some safety tips you should be aware of. Breathing atomized paint is not good for you. The vapours given off by solvent based paint is not good for you and can cause explosions if used in the vicinity of electrical spark from contacts or open flame appliances such as water heaters and furnaces. Over the years I now have an allergy to AC glue if I use very much of it. So if I have to do a lot  I will do that glueing using my paint booth to remove the vapours. Care also has to be taken if you are using lacquer thinner to clean up your brush.

I also have a post on How I make my paint and brushes last which is worth a read if you have not already.

Sand Blasting Learnings

Charlie and I built this sand blasting booth. It is one of those nice to have tools. Having some of these types of tools just makes things go faster. When I am looking at a car at the swap meet I am only looking at the car not the lettering. It should really be called a baking soda blasting booth as that is the medium I use most of the time. I have a couple of air erasers. One is from Badger and the other is a cheap one from the hardware store. This booth was easy to build costing approximately $60  and the erasers are easy to use. There are some safety things you should know. 

We bought a plastic wash tub at Home Hardware. It had an open top, with a drain on the bottom. Holes were cut for hand holes, another hole for the air line to come through on the left and another opening on the right to be used for hooking up a vacuum. In the end the vacuum one never gets used as the dust would be hard on the vacuum bearings. There is also a top that was cut from clear sheet acrylic which was cut to size. I cut the hand holes with a jig saw and  glued 4" PVC tube in the holes. There was enough sticking out on the inside to clamp the gloves to. There was a cap put on the drain on the bottom which can be removed to clean out the tub and retrieve the medium.  The legs on the tub are easily removable by design to make it easier to store if needed.

Every thing stores inside.

A look inside without the top on.

Here you can see how the gloves are clamped on.

This shows the cap on the bottom drain

As I said above I use baking soda most of the time. This works well enough that sand has not been really necessary. If you are going to use sand or aluminum oxide you have to be more careful as it can cause respiratory issues. The baking soda is also easier is on the parts of the eraser. In the picture below I will show some things that I have used it on. You will notice that you can just remove old decaling with no need for solvents. The underlying paint will not have to be removed and will look really flat. This makes repainting the model very simple. There may be times when cleaning brass you may need to use aluminum oxide but you must be careful not to pit the brass.
When using this booth I do have to stop at times to let the dust settle and take the plastic top off and clean it. When using the eraser the baking soda is prone to setting up in the container so you use smaller amounts at a time and shake it to keep it fluid so it flows up the straw to the eraser.
The baking soda method can also be used to weather or dull down a model if you are careful.

Here is the decorated Intermountain car before

Here is the car with most of the decals removed. This took about 15-20min

Here is the repainted car.

Walthers Airslide hopper car

Here is the repainted car

    

Laser Cutting Learnings Part 1

  I have had the opportunity to have access to a laser cutter not far from home. Ray a friend of mine has been mentoring me. The cutter is an Epilog Zing 16 that has a 16"x12" work area so it is a high quality cutter. Epilog  The comments I make here are based on building HO Scale things. I will cover drawings, materials, scale limitations, operation and conclusion.

  I have been drawing in 2D Cad for years and use it to design and print my projects see How I Build my Scratch Projects. I currently draw with a program called LibreCad and the files are saved as .dxf  and this format is more compatible to programs than the .dwg format. Drawing for the laser is different in a few ways, when I drew in the past I could make changes to the drawings on the fly as construction moved along and now  I must  have the drawing complete before starting to cut. When making my E Class Station it was the first time I had drawn windows and doors as opposed to buying commercial parts. When drawing on paper if there happened to be two lines one on top of the other it didn't matter now  with the laser you do not want this because it will pass over the line a 2nd time but not really cut anything. Now if the laser was at my place I could fix things on the fly but not when I have to travel to Ray's.  If  I had a laser here it would read right from my drawing program and read the dxf file direct. The other thing you have to keep in mind is having tabs on small parts so they do not blow around once they are cut. You also have to consider the order you want things cut in and how it is laid out on the page so there is a minimal amount of waste.

 The laser has the capability to cut a lot of different materials. The only ones that are of interest to me at this time are styrene, card stock, laser board, paper and wood.

I normally build in styrene and would like to keep on doing that but it does have some limitations when cutting. I like styrene because I find it easy to glue and paint because it is stable and has different types of scribing available and is easier for me to buy. The problem with styrene is that if you have cuts that are close together (<.03") it will/may cause the styrene to warp due to the heat from the laser. If you are cutting .01" it is almost too thin and .06" is almost too thick and requires more heat to cut. So you really can't place lines closer than scale 3" even then you may run into trouble. However cuts like building walls are amazing and everything fits just like it would in the drawing. If I was going to add holes for grabs on a freight car they would all be perfectly sized and aligned.

Card stock cuts nice but is a little harder to glue and paint. It may have stability issues over time due to changes in temperature and humidity. I know lots of people still use it. When we cut the E Class Station we did it in card stock first because I can get it for almost nothing and I wanted to see what mistakes there might be that I had not anticipated. I also wanted to see how the roofs would fit. I glued it together surprisingly fast and did find a couple of things that needed to be changed.  I now cut all new projects in card stock first so I can test fit.

Laser board is like a thin laminate, almost like arborite or a thin veneer, I do not know how else to describe it. It is very stable and you can cut it as thin as .01" and it has good structural strength with small pieces like the diamond harrows below. It has to be ordered and has a cost to it.

Paper is easy enough to cut, so on the next 2 E Class Stations we will cut out the sandpaper that will be used for the stucco finish. It will be glued to the styrene walls. This requires drawing two sets of walls. One for the styrene and one for the sandpaper which is easy to do. You can also cut out stencils for signs with 60# paper and use an airbrush to paint it on. For this I use a program called Inkscape which is a free graphic illustration program.

Wood is something that can also be cut and you see lots of wooden laser cut kits. I just have not had a chance to play with it much yet.

Scale limitations are still something that you have to adjust to and this really applies to doing drawings for 3D printing. I can draw anything to the exact dimensions but they do become unusable in some cases because they don't have any stability left. You can only go so small and so thin. In the drawing below of the station  I had to make some adjustments. The window parts and the front dormer walls had to be cut to minimum of scale 3 " depending how close other cuts were done because of heat. That is getting really thin. If you have a scale 8' 1x4 it will bend in the middle if you hold it at the end, which does not happen with a real 1x4. I had to increase the size of  some of the parts so that the cut lines were not as close together for the reasons that I had mentioned above. We could use card stock or laser board but would have had to laminate pieces together to get the right thickness which I really do not want to do but it can be done because each part will be exactly the same. The window parts for the stations had to be adjusted slightly larger for the above reasons. The good thing is that most of the time no one will ever notice. To help you understand this, Ray would hold up his caliper set at .01" or .02" saying can you really see the difference. In fact you really need back light to see the space of .01".   This theory applies to things you may even be building by hand. I have had comments that a wall on a structure looks too thin in .04" styrene which scales out to ~3.5" where the real wall would be 4.5" with 1/2" sheeting on each side which comes out to ~.05". You see the point if you hold up the caliper set for .01".  No one can see .01" at any distance without using a caliper. Why do I use .04" -  because I can't buy .05" and .06" would be too thick and is harder to cut by hand and keep your accuracy and it requires more heat from the laser. So in some cases like with my 16" cultivator shovels it is just easier to cut by hand out of .005" styrene! Also while we are talking about scale we have been conditioned to see things that are out of scale but have become so accustomed to it that they look correct.

Operation of this laser is not difficult but we are using a top of the line machine. What it has taught me is that I doubt I would be happy with a $500 machine. You may need an air supply, possibly water depending on the machine and exhaust system to the outside. The laser setup is really like setting up a printer and some of the commands look the same, as if you were printing. There are 2 types of line types you use Raster and Vector. Vector are the lines that you are going to cut and Raster are the lines you are going to engrave in  the material. You have to keep these 2 types of lines on different layers in your drawing. So with Raster you can take a plain sheet of styrene and Raster lines for boards on each side making the floor of a flatcar much easier to build for only a fraction of the price. You can not buy  this type of product from Evergreen. Now Raster works best if the lines go horizontally across the drawing. If you draw something like this | | | | | | |  the laser will go from left to right and only does a dot at a time on each line, each pass. If you were paying for the cutting this would cost a lot. Your printer would print the lines in the same way and also take far longer then say printing one long line across the page. When it is cutting it cuts vertically and horizontally. This laser is interesting to watch as it cuts because it jumps all over the place and you think it has missed a bunch of lines but what it is really doing is reducing the amount of heat to any one area, very smart. There is a given amount of waste and can be limited by how you lay out the drawing for cutting. When I am  cutting by hand there is very little waste just something else to consider. Lots of things to learn and I have found it very interesting.

In conclusion I am just trying to point out some of the issues with using a laser and these issues really come to life if you are going to send out something across the country to get cut. Now having said that, its capabilities are amazing and it simply speeds up construction and accuracy.  I really appreciate the time that Ray has spent with me. Ray is an NMRA MMR and has done lots of fantastic models and has produced his own runs (250) of construction models in his own shop. Thanks Ray for all the help.
I will do a 2nd post with more examples in the future.

Here is a picture of a diamond harrow that we cut out. I have to add the teeth on the holes and add chains to hook it up to the drawbar. That is just a regular wood pencil beside it

This station is all cut on a laser

3 Wood grain bin parts floor, roof and walls

Here is a picture of car sides cut with the holes for grabs, widow and  door

My Ops paper work and aids

Paper Work and Aids

Ops sessions take a reasonable amount of paperwork to have trains run on time and make it seem more realistic. Here are some examples of the paperwork and aids that I use or have for operators. Some of the aids have come about from discussions with operators that have been here and and are new to the layout. Everything is always clear to the owner but will not always be clear to operators that are already maybe feeling a little anxious. The brown book at the bottom of the above photo is a CN rule book.

All trains must have a clearance form before they can move. This gives them permission to be on the line. 

All extra trains will also receive orders and can't move without them. There are times there may be special instructions for scheduled trains also.

The paper work for the train crews such as manifests and switchlist for yard crews is covered in this post JMRI for Operations

AIDS
This train lineup shows at a glance what trains are going to be running for the day. There is a different one for (Mon, Wed, Fri) (Tues, Thur, Sat) and another one for Sun. This is useful to the yard crew as they can see what work they may have coming and when they need to try and be clear of the main. It is also used by the staging yard operator so he also knows what trains will leave and direction. His job is to mostly assist newer operators in getting the right train on the line on time.

This sheet is also used as an aid in staging. Ops can find what track their train is on and the number of the lead locomotive number which is not always easy to see.

This is the map of the yard that hangs above the yard in Melville.

This is the map of the layout so ops understand where they are coming and going to.

This is the CN system map and the little highlighted area is where we are operating and then I can also point out the 1cm piece on this map that is actually modeled.

The man is in case you need a flagman for your train to watch a crossing or the back of your train. There are the 3 coloured flags. The red is put out if there is track damage or work crew is on the track. The blue ones are used if personnel are working on equipment on the track. One would be placed in front and one at the rear of the work. The green flags are if you have to apply brakes for spotted cars.There are places where the grade will allow the car to roll so you can put this through the coupler and apply the brakes. The tiny white and green flags are spares for Extra or Section trains.

These are my layout rules that I expect/hope people will follow. They are posted in 3 different places so operators know what my expectations are.

Here is my Bad Order Sheet that hangs on the facia in the yard. I encourage operators to fill it in for things like couplers missing springs, cars that are acting up, locomotive problems, track issues and any other gremlins that come along. I can then go back and fix the items and sign off on them. It has worked very well to date.

I also have whistle signs across the layout so engineers know when they need to blow and the point to start their signal.

 95% of all my turnout controls are straight out from the switch throws and are labeled so they are easy to find. Boards with lots of switch throws on them with the little map are really not that intuitive especially to new yard ops that are already feeling rushed. It is a small thing but it really works. Little labels with numbers at the turnout that match to numbers on the panel works well especially in staging areas.

These are the engine cards that each operator is encouraged to take for the engines they are running. I have 4 different types of sound decoders. Most are Soundtraxx Tsunami, there are 4 ESU, 2 Tsunami2,1QSI and some of the above that have special or different configurations like ones that come from Rapido. Even I have trouble remembering what the differences are at times. One of my requests is that ops will make use of the sound, lights and braking. On the back side of these cards is some data on the engine for some light reading when you are waiting.

Here are what one of my timetables look like. The notes are not a 100% complete yet. The coloured section is what is modeled and the red are meets. This just makes it a little easier for new operators to understand.

I also have 6 carpenter cloth aprons for operators to store things in as they move around. A lot of the guys also have their own now.

There are also clip boards for all the train crews if they like. This one is for the yard crew and hangs on the facia.

I am also moving to using Cell phones as throttles by having my old desktop connected to my Digitrax system through JMRI and then use the Engine Driver Throttle app on my Android devices. There is an app for Apple also called  WI throttle. My system also has it own router that is not connected to my Wi-Fi network. This get you a few things. 1 it runs off my Wi-Fi network instead of the Digitrax radio. 2 you do not need to be plugged in to acquire engines. 3 it is easier to acquire an engine off the list on the screen, 4 you can easily access all 28 functions or more as they expand, 5 if the Wi-Fi is lost your or you receive a call your engine just comes to a stop, 6 is way more intuitive for new ops or ones that do not normally use Digitrax, 7 the battery in the phone is rechargeable by design, 8 almost  everyone comes with a phone nowadays, 9 You can see the fast clock from JMRI on the screen of each phone, 10 you have a Digitrax system and get caught between to two versions there are less problems and lastly you can buy a cheep smart phone for less than the cost of a throttle or sending one away to be fixed. This phone does not need data or a carrier just the ability to get WIFI which they all can do. There is no reason why you could not also use a tablet either. As each person connects to the network the name of their throttle appears on the computer screen. and shows what engine number  they are running.

Now this does not fix all the quirky things that happen even when you use a Digitrax throttle those are inherent to Digitrax and they have never been fixed. The new versions of either ap let you use the volume buttons on the phone to control speed. The next thing is if your computer goes to sleep then you loose the connection to the locomotives.

Using Textures and Pictures

Textures have become very easy to find on the internet these days. What do I mean by textures,  google "wood plank textures"or go to https://www.sketchuptextureclub.com/  Now most are free which is good. You can take the picture and scale it to your needs. Make sure when you are scaling that you keep the aspect ratio on so it does not become distorted. If you are making signs you know how big you want it so you can put in the numbers for either width or height. I have pictures of stone and brick walls, floor boards, room interiors, and even a wall with boards and studs. I have also used some for signs or designed the signs on my own and printed them . When I want to make  signs I print them on 20lb paper and cut them out and highlight the edge with a pencil or marker to cover the white. I then glue them with a kids glue stick to a building wall or to .05 styrene for signs that are mounted on posts. I printed the building interiors on  60lb paper. Not all will work as some will not repeat well when you join them together.What I  mean by this is if you have a sheet of plywood with a big knot in the middle it will repeat the knot which is ok unless you are doing a wall. Here are some examples of textures that I have used and played around with.

It would be next to impossible to weather ceder singles  to look like this in Ho scale

Here is a brick wall. Now you would maybe want to crop out the stain at  the bottom or flip the picture if you are going to start joining them together.

Here is some  tread plate that would be easy to scale and join together

Here are the old green 3 tab shingles that were on most houses in 1959. This one would have to be cropped to work right when you join the side edges.

Here is a sheet of OSB that will work well for a wall because it has no knots. If you scale it and glue it to say .005 sheet you can have a single sheet of plywood that you can put in  the back of a half ton truck.

 Here is a nice stone wall that I will be using on the exterior of the next farm house I build.

 Now walls with studs are hard to find and I intend to use this for inside of my wooden grainery.

I used these wood planks for the floor in my E Class Station. You can also change the colour, darkness and the tint if you would like to.

Here are some of the signs and other details that I have used. The RBC, Barbershop, Co-op signs, the thermometer on the barbershop wall, the interior on each building, the curtains in the windows, the licence plate on the truck.

Here are interiors that I have used. You have to find very specific pictures for this to work. Then play around with the scale, print, test and try again. The interior in the Bakery is curved so you get the perspective that you are looking way back into the store. The awnings are ones that I also created and then printed.

This is the interior of an F unit and it is scaled down to fit on the wall in my camera car. I now have an interiors for a GP9 long hood forward, SD9, FA1 and an SD40. I have to make a change to my car so each slide can be changed more easily.   

I also use this process for all my station, flanger, whistle, mileage, flags, yard limit and road signs. The big advantage being that you have very unique details that are not for sale to just anyone.

Any graphic art program will work to scale the textures and pictures you may have. There are a few programs that you can use. I use Inkscape or Gimp which are free and at times have used just a word doc to scale a picture to the size I want. Corel also makes a program but you have to pay for it. These programs are easy to find with a quick search on the internet. For this purpose they are not that hard to learn.

Follow me by email Part 2

I thought I would do an update to the part one of this post. It seems that Blogger finally made it simple and reliable to follow me. I am up to 19000 page views but was never able to set up any type of follower before. It is now just one click on the top right for you to be able to follow me. Please follow so I can see how many people are interested in the blog. I am also going to start having some guest writers do a few posts on railway things the relate to my layout so you can look forward to that. If you would like to submit something to post on the blog send me an email or make a comment. I will not post your comments as I get to review them first.