Monday, December 30, 2019

The ongoing struggle to be organized


The world of model paint as undergone quite a few changes in the last couple of decades. There was a time where my paint rack was 90% Floquil, with a few Model Masters enamels thrown in for variety. However with the demise of the Floquil line, changes have been forced upon us.

Scalecoat paint is now my paint of choice for freight cars but acrylic paints are now being used by me more and more. For structures, scenery and weathering. I still don't trust acrylics to adhere to resin. And we are blessed with a plethora of model paint manufacturers. Tamiya, Vallejo, AK Interactive, Ammo Mig, etc. However all these options for paints creates a small problem. Storage. There's not a lot of commonality in the actual paint bottles. Which for me meant that my paint space was getting out of control.

This just wasn't working anymore.
I've been pondering this problem for sometime now and decided to solve the problem by throwing money at it. Enter https://www.hobbyzone.biz/ . This company offers a large array of work space storage solutions, including a variety of paint racks.



Such as the one shown here, sized for Tamiya paint bottles. There are other sizes to accommodate most of the currently available paint options on the market.
So I sat down and counted paint bottles and sizes, did a little planning and placed my order. Very quickly it was delivered.

The racks are made from MDF and Masonite, precision cut by CNC routers. Assembly is straight forward requiring only carpenters glue and the occasional clamp. The engineering is clever, resulting in very sturdy units that are modular in concept, allowing for an easy time mixing and matching the different bottle sizes.
I assembled the various units over a couple of days and finally bit the bullet and attacked the mess of paint bottles.

The only bottle I'm having an issue with is the very large Scalecoat 2 oz bottles, but I think I have a solution in hand.
All in all, I'm very pleased with this investment and would urge you to consider this system for your own needs.


Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Peak Vinegar Tank Car?

Three more of these Sunshine kits have just been finished and will be mailed to happy customers in a couple of days.
I've lost count of how many of these kits I've built over the years, but I'm sure it's now over a dozen. And I think I've had enough of them.
I know that a number of people are intimidated by the sheer number of parts that are in this kit, but it's not that bad when you step back and think through the process. But it is a lot of work.
The tank wrapper alone takes a couple of hours to get right, and it's only that quick because I figured out a long time ago to have metal cores milled upon which the wrapper is formed and fitted.

I'll think long and hard before taking on this car again.

Monday, December 9, 2019

Who's Next?

In response to my last blog post,
Chris Vanko sent me this image;
I really like his weathering style.
Anyone else want to share images of assembled Yarmouth Model Works kits?

Friday, December 6, 2019

Don't get enough of these

In yesterday's email this photo was sent to me,






It's from my friend and fellow resinator Bill Darnaby. As he describes it, it's his resin efforts for 2019. It's of special significance to me, since other than the "Southern" Double Door car, all of the cars were built from Yarmouth Model Works kits.

It's heartening to see modelers get the kits they buy out of the boxes and onto their layouts. I would love to see more of this kind of thing from my customers.

Thanks for sharing Bill.