My latest scratchbuild -- Serenity's Sandwich Shop. Made of Sintra PVC board and styrene, with corrugated metal. The door and window are from Grandt Line:

Hi, just wanted to mention that you can read about my In-ko-pah Railroad in the June issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine! It's free and can be read online or downloaded to your computer, kindle, iPad, etc.


http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/magazine/mrh-2015-06-jun

Here's a quick photo I shot recently of myself in front of the layout. My Bachmann 4-6-0 is prominently featured:

Thanks Jonathan! It all holds up pretty well. The buildings are mostly PVC which is weatherproof and UV-resistant. After painting, I also spray everything with Krylon UV-resistant matte clear, and that helps too.

Here are some shots of the building in place on the layout. Note the worn, old sign on the foundation next to the stairs. I painted that mostly by hand, which was a pain. It wasn't very sharp either but didn't need to be. Then I roughed it up with sandpaper:




Here it is shortly after sunset...







Imagine how great this scene will look when all the buildings have interiors and lights:









Enjoy!

Thanks, everyone!

I wanted my scratch-built radio repair shop to have fluorescent lights, but of course there are no working fluorescent lights in 1/24th scale. However I had an idea for a way to possibly simulate the appearance of working fluorescents...

I started by using 1/16" acrylic rods to represent the tubes. Small rounded bits of styrene strip were glued to the ends:




The base of the fixture was made from a strip of .100" x .250" styrene. Three 1/8" holes were drilled through it:




I used thin sheet brass to make the reflectors:




After painting the fixture white, I glued on the tubes. To help disperse the light and to give the tubes a somewhat frosted look, I brushed on a very thin coat of fluorescent white paint that I had leftover from a Halloween project years ago:




I marked the positions of the three holes and drilled three larger holes in the ceiling. Then the fixture was glued in place. Three 3mm LEDs were inserted into the fixture, through the holes in the ceiling. You can just barely see the rounded ends of the LEDs showing through in this photo:




When I first connected a battery to the leads I was disappointed... the beam from the LEDs simply made three bright spots on the acrylic rods. However, when I tried photographing it, I found that it looks perfect in photos! Here are some test shots, looking through the windows of the building:
















At this point I think I'm done with the radio shop. Next will be the barbershop details.

Here's a little peek at what I've been working on lately... These are some interior details I made for a scratch-built radio repair shop on my In-ko-pah Railroad:



You can see the whole build in progress here: 

http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_3.html

Thanks guys! Jonathan, my condolences to you and your family on the loss of your grandfather.

Happy New Year, and happy modeling!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Here's my all-time favorite YouTube Christmas video:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vnt7euRF5Pg

Welcome back, Bill!

Good luck with the move, Bill!

I just finished making a 1/24th scale replica of my wife's 104-year-old grandmother, to ride in the back of my scratch-built rail bus:






After sculpting the figure, I decided to make a mold and cast it in resin so I could make duplicates to use elsewhere, or to replace this one if ever got damaged. I have the step-by-step on making the two-part mold and casting the figure on my website:

http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Figures.html

(This process can be used to mold anything, not just figures.)

So that's what rain looks like. Been so long since we've had any here I was starting to forget.