№ 135 ~ Shady Business

 Adding Window Shades

to our advantage.

Lots of lights, weights, wires, and a decoder hanging down from the ceiling. I would like to obscure as much of this as I can, while at the same time accentuate some of the details that I want to be seen. The solution to this are window shades.

San Diego's Class 1's didn't seem to have window shades at first but at some point they were added to help keep the sun off the riders. So I'm prototypically correct to use them here.

0.10" Sheet Styrene should work great for this. 

Instead of cutting individual window shades, I cut them as a group for ease of painting and installing. These are strategically cut for maximum exposure or concealment depending on if I'm trying to display what's behind that window or hide what's there. If a big ol' motor frame is there then the shade is mostly closed. If a pricey Preiser figure is behind the window then the shade is wide open. 

For these ladies admiring the powerful workings of № 135 I'll probably have the shades part way down so that the ladies are visible but the mechanism not so much. Note that I was able to slip a 1/4oz weight under the gears. Every bit of weight counts!

Painted, 50/50 mix of Roof Brown and White. Sealed with DullCote which did a nice job of killing the shine. 

Glued into place with canopy glue.

How's THAT for personality? № 135 is looking like one hard working streetcar! And the window shades are doing what they are designed to do, only show what I want to be seen and keeping the workings out of sight.

Yes sir!

One hard working streetcar!

Dandy

Backesto Block Bldg ~ Marquee Market

 Modeling a Turn-of-the-20th-Century Market.

Going ALL OUT on a FULLY DETAILED Interior.

Being situated at the very edge of the layout, my model of the Backesto Block Bldg can be scrutinized quite closely. So for the buildings first tenant I'm going to seriously deck-it-out with detail.

The market will occupy the storefront on the left. Good as place an any.

What I'm Thinking:

Bountiful produce spilling out of the store and right onto the sidewalk.

From baskets of fruit on the ground to boxes of fruit on barrels and benches to pyramids of cans rising in the windows - it just keeps going up and up and up!

Insanely neatly stacked produce and cans! Even the bananas are neatly fanned out. Cute place too.

What I've got:

Looking around at what's available in HO scale, I was able to pick these up on eBay:

Busch 1071 Marketstand. This has that big leafy produce as well as stackable fruit. Those Jams and Jelly jars really caught my eye. Stacking those in the window with the store lighting behind them may create a stunning stained glass effect.

Preiser 17501 Boxes of Fruit and Vegetables. Great variety of produce. The sacks of potatoes are nice too. I really like that floor scale, that could make for a nice detail in the store.

Preiser 17502 Baskets of Fruit and Vegetables. These are a must since they were quite prominent in those old timey photos.

Okay so this is what I have to work with, Let's see what I can do with them.

Yes sir!

Let's see what I can do!

Dandy

№ 135 ~ The Paying Passengers

How Many Passenger Figures Can I Pack In To This Model?

"...and for the carriage trade, I puts on my Hat!"

The 1915 Panama California Exposition is in full swing and the streetcars are filled to capacity with excited visitors. To try to capture the feel of this, I'm going to attempt to see how many figures I can fit in this model.

Space is terribly limited though by that big ol' motor and mechanism. So I'm squeezing in figures wherever I can.

The SDERy Class 1 cars are of the "California Car" style. That is one end is open to take advantage of the fair weather, and the other end is the enclosed "all-weather" section. This open-end section (above) is where I was able to add the most figures since it has only a few obstructions. Notice I did seat the woman on the left on the motor mount! The motorman will be standing on the platform on the right.

The enclosed section is a little more challenging with the mechanism being housed in that portion of the model. But I was able to fit a few figures in there. That seat has to go unfilled so as to have access to that screw hole.

Well I've been painting my motormen all wrong. A visit to the San Diego Electric Railway Museum in San Diego I learned that the motorman's uniforms were actually a dark brown (not blue). Which makes sense since the cars the men motor are yellow trimmed with brown. These guys are an accessory to accent the car! This is an Andrew Staddon figure.

Full Car! I don't think I can fit anymore figures in this car. For those of you keeping score, I was able to fit 14 figures in there. Almost time to close her up. But before I do that I will be fabricating some window shades to help hide the stuff I don't want seen and empasize what I do want seen. Until next time-

Car full- Next car please! 

Yes sir! 

Next car please!

Dandy

Backesto Block Bldg ~ Interior

Constructing the Interior Walls and Stairs

to Add Strength to the Structure.

It turns out that storing styrene as a roll is not at all a good idea.  Eventually the styrene won't roll out flat- it will have a permanent bend to it. So! To try to get the walls of this building as perfectly straight as possible before painting, I'm going to first add the interior walls to try to add strength to the overall structure.

But First - Stairs!

The Backesto has three stairwells.  Frustratingly, prefabricated stairs in HO scale are plentiful, but closed-tread stairs not so much.  I'm going to have to fabricate my own.

Evergreen #159 .060 x .250" styrene makes for a good tread size.

The next tread overlaps by about half. I kept adding and building up until...

Stairs! Styrene sheet the same thickness as the treads was used for the midway landing.

Floor, and ground floor walls are permanently glued into place. The grid pattern supplying a lot of rigidity to the model. The second floor and roof will be removable so that interior details and lighting can be accessed.

I think we are in a good spot to proceed to the painting of the building now.

Yes sir!

In a good spot!

Dandy

№ 135 ~ Fancy Footwear

Weathering and Installing Truck Side Frames.

One of those finishing touches the really brings the model to life.

№. 135 has got a new pair of shoes!

Side frameless. №. 135 has been running around the layout without proper footwear. It's time to rectify that.

Hard knocks life. The side frames are weathered with my tried and true technique of using a wash of Bragdon Weathering Powders mixed with alcohol. Then they were sealed with Testors Dullcote.

Obstructed. The newly installed side frame interfered with the free swinging trucks by contacting a couple of underbody details. Fortunately, careful filing back of these details allowed the trucks freedom of movement without losing the details.

Back in action with proper footwear.

Yes sir!

Back in action!

Dandy

Backesto Block Bldg ~ Color Management

Paint for the Backesto

Giving Mission Models Paint a Try.

Since I don't think Floquil is coming back and acrylics seem to be getting really good!

Painted!  Not the white ghost anymore. The building is looking much more grounded now.

Painting

Black Primer for the interior wall.  This is to help prevent the building walls from glowing when the interior lights are lit.  Styrene is rather translucent.

Tan Primer for the exterior of the building. This color is almost correct for the final color of the building!

White paint for the whole interior, including the walls that were painted black. This will help reflect the interior lighting back into the scene, illuminating the scene more fully.

Sandgrau RAL paint for the exterior. This color turned out a little 'dingier' than I expected so I think I'll try lightening it up a bit.

White and Sandgrau mix.  Ah- that did the trick! I think we are on the right track now.

Masked for the trim color. I can't paint straight lines. But I can tape straight lines! So I taped the Bejesus out of it. 

White trim. Yes its bright, but it'll tone down with a light wash of Bragdon weathering powders (mixed with alcohol). This will tone down the white and really bring out the details. (The blank walls on the bottom floor will eventually have a painted advertisement on it).

Brick Red for the window frames and doors.  Those I had to paint by hand- a rather painstaking and precise experience!   The Bragdon wash toned down the white trim nicely.

I really need to fix that broken span wire!

Gay Nineties Elegance? 

Yes sir! - Gay Nineties Elegance!

Dandy

№ 9 ~ Decoder for De Motor

 Installing a Tried and True TCS KAM4-LED Decoder

with built-in Keep Alive, auto-adjusting BEMF (Back Electro-Motive Force) motor control, Quiet Drive, and built-in resistors to power LED lighting, all in a tiny-tiny package.

Alright, № 9 has been running on the layout since 2020 (and is my best runner!). But apparently I neglected to write a post about installing its decoder. I found this out while performing some maintenance on the car and researched this blog to refresh my memory about it, but it wasn't there! So- here I am to right that wrong.

Stanton Drive installed. The two pairs of current collecting wipers can be seen rubbing on the back side of the wheels. One pair is wired to a red wire and the other pair to a black wire.

Grounded. Since I run off the overhead and not 2 rail, all 4 wheels are tied together electrically by simply soldering the red and black wires to the trolley car frame. 

Connected. The orange and grey wires from the Stanton's motor are wired to the decoder. Normally I would use a micro-connector here so that the floor could be disconnected from the body of the car. But I'm not sure that doing that is worth the extra effort. So- we'll see how it goes.

Positive and Negative Power Connections. The red wire from the decoder is soldered to the trolley pole bushing in the ceiling of the car. And the black wire from the decoder is soldered directly to the body of the car that is grounded to the wheels. Back in DC days the trolley pole was the positive (+) and the track was the negative( -) . But DCC is AC so "positive and negative" no longer applies really.

Decodered. The white wire is connected to the front headlight and the yellow wire to the rear headlight and both ground to the blue wire. Those lights I did post about. But the interior lighting I just realized I also neglected to post about! So I'll do a write-up about them when I refamiliarize myself with what the heck it did with them! Then the decoder is tucked up out of the way into the clerestory ceiling and glued into place.

Operation. Between the Stanton Drive and the KAM4, № 9 is a smooth operator.

Yes sir!

A smooth operator!

Dandy