P51 Mustang Tamiya And Air Fix. One Of My Favorite Air Planes Of All Times.

P51 Mustang Tamiya and Air Fix. One of my favorite air planes of all times. 

I am getting back into scale model. It has been 35 years since I built a model. I picked up a couple Airfix 1/72 models to get started with. Watching YouTube videos and reading scale model blogs has really helped.

My first attempt at a canopy mask. I found that masking tape made for scale models works better than masking tape from the hardware store. Also, tried to do a little weathering. Though far from perfect, I learned a few things and had a lot of fun.

More model railroad content! I’m working on a new T-Trak module which will represent a small american town, and I’ve started by building the houses. None of them are complete yet, but I like how they turned out so far.

The first images are two kits by Woodlands Scenics, under their DPM brand. I’m not really impressed with these kits, since you have to file down parts of the walls and they lack such niceties as, I don’t know, roofs. They do include a piece of plastic; you have to cut out your own roof from that. I’ve shown the painting process of he second house in stages, so you get an idea what the default color of the plastic is. This really doesn’t work at all if not painted.

The final image is an integrated row of houses kit by Walther Cornerstone, in my opinion much better. Only the middle house there is painted yet; for the ones at the ends, I’ve only painted the windows, and will paint the bricks later. Of course it’s not fully assembled yet either.

All of them are made incredibly cheaply compared to german plastic model railroad house kits - even compared to communist-designed ones, and yes, I am speaking from experience here. In particular, the walls and windows are all just one big part, where german sets will have walls with holes, and the window frames will be another part in another color. You can build german kits without painting them at all, though over the years I’ve come to realise that you probably shouldn’t. It looks way, way better if you paint it, even though it is a bit of a pain. It gets better with practice. I’ve used mostly Revell Aqua Color paints here, about half the time straight out of the tub, and the other half mixed together to get a non-standard shade.

I did consider throwing in some coins or similar for scale, but then forgot. The cutting board does have a scale, though: The lines are all one centimetre apart (which means that the distance between the black lines is basically two inches).

The whole module is going to be a longer project. For one, I’m playing with the idea of putting some interior in at least some of these houses, which won’t be trivial in N scale. I’ll definitely put lights in them. The module is also going to have a level crossing, which means I need level crossing gates, and since there don’t seem to be good US level crossing gates commercially available, I guess I’ll have to create a 3D file and send it to Shapeways. And connect some cheap servo motors to make it work, and some LEDs to make it light up. And an Arduino (well, really just a bare ATmega328p) to control all of this and act as a DCC decoder. And so on…

For the record, I’m aiming for about 1950s to 1960s, though I also have a very beautiful Ford Model T from Artitec that’s definitely going to go on there. And I will, of course, absolutely run any and all trains I have along there, no matter from which era or country.

After 30 plus years of being in storage, it still works. Well kinda. I still remember setting it up on the concrete floor in the basement of my childhood home.