Archive for the ‘Tips and Tricks’ Category

Rust Revisited

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

 

Floquil Track Pack Paint Pens

Floquil Track Pack Paint Pens

I previously wrote about using craft store paints for inexpensively simulating rusty rails. At usually under a dollar each, these paints are a bargain. However, I recently learned of an even easier way to rust your rails — Floquil makes “Weathering Colors” available in the form of a pen. The Track Pack includes Rail Brown, Tie Brown and Rust in a package of “magic markes” that makes quick and neat work of painting rails with little waste or mess.

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Driftwood Stain

Tuesday, January 10th, 2006

Layout Construction Progress, originally uploaded by gerenm.

Many people are trying to replicate Floquil’s Driftwood stain color. Here’s a recipe that is nearly a dead ringer for the original.

Start with 1 qt of Sherwin Williams “Pickled White” Interior Wood Oil Stain Wood Classic.” Have the following tint added:

W1-20
B1-16
Y3-11
Y1-2

The only requirement is that the Sherwin Williams outlet you get this from must have the computerized mixing setup.

[This information originally appeared on the On30Conspiracy on August 7, 2000.]

In use, the stain needs to be thinned with approximately 1 1/2 quarts of Diosol.

I’m also told that the mixture works equally well using the newer water-based variant of the Pickled White stain. Again, it will need to be thinned prior to use, using water and a little rubbing alcohol.

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How to Program a DCC Decoder

Friday, November 18th, 2005

I’ve found the best way to program a DCC decoder, and it’s free (depending upon your DCC system)!

DecoderPro is a free application that runs on pretty much any Windows98, WindowsXP, MacOS or Linux computer. If you have an NCE Powerhouse Pro system of just about any vintage, you can simply plug your computer into the serial port and you’re ready to program just about any decoder currently on the market. Other systems will require some sort of computer interface (for Digitrax users, that’s the MS100).

Decoder settings, including those pesky custom speed curve tables, can be easily adjusted and sent to the loco, along with literally every other setting in the decoder, and all through easy to read and understand screens.

Once you’ve got all your settings for a particular loco set, you can save it off for future reference, or, if you’ve got a “fleet” of one particular loco type, simply change the address and download all the same parameters to each loco.

Did I mention this is free software? What more could you ask for?

Posted in DCC, Tips and Tricks | 4 Comments »

Enlarging and Reducing Plans

Thursday, August 26th, 2004

What I’m about to mention here, many modelers already know. However, I figure it’s a useful thing to have in one, handy place, like my web site.

We all know that HO is the most popular modeling scale out there. So, many published plans and drawings are in HO (1:87) scale. Here are some simple rules to convert HO scale drawings to other scales:

HO to Z (1:220): Multiply dimensions by 40% (0.40)
HO to N (1:160): Multiply dimensions by 55% (0.55)
HO to S (1:64): Multiply dimensions by 137% (1.37)
HO to O (1:48): Multiply dimensions by 183% (1.83)

Now, some of you may have drawings in electronic format on your computers, and wish to print them out. You can use these same percentages to scale the drawing to get an O-scale full-sized drawing.

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