Running Bear's Coffee Shop LXI


Good morning. Ready for a cup. 26 degrees to start off the day here
Louis - Glad to hear that your grandson is such a trooper. Nice to hear that he's doing better.

Ken in MD - Happy to see you on the forum. Hope the back is doing a lot better. You should post a photo of your kit baching project.

Ken in VA - Jeeze, you have enough room on your empire to build a good size city. What's the plan?

Jim - You sure gave Johnny a lot of options for a bank. Forgot about the Walthers bank.

Garry - Nice photo of the bank. Nice city scene.

I can't really post a city scene, so here's a more rural photo of the Woodland Scenics home and some of their figures.

IMAG1060.jpg

Later
 
Wow all you guys make really nice scenes for you rr's. I see many of you make kits (or buy premade) from Walthers, DPM. Are they the best, who else makes them? They are all so nice.
 
Tony - There are a lot of great buildings available. My town of Logan is a mix of Walthers, DPM, Woodland Scenics and laser cut kits. They are fairly simple to assemble but it can be a pain when it comes to painting all of the window and doors, but with a little effort you'll have some really nice buildings. Woodland Scenics has some excellent fully built structures like the one I posted earlier, plus they have what they call Pre-fab kits which do require some assembly and painting. DPM has a fairly good selection of buildings that are really nice for the transition era, and these building will also fit the modern area also. Willie has also build quite a few of these kits for his layout.

In this photo, the first three building on the left are DPM kits and the last one is a Woodland Scenics Pre-Fab kit with the red awning..

Main Street.jpg IMAG0824.jpg

In this photo, the building to the left is a Woodland Scenics fully assembled and painted building. They are a bit pricey, but it sure saves my old eyeballs when it comes to painting all of the details. The market is a laser cut wood kit and the three buildings to the left is Walthers Merchants Row 4 kit.

IMAG0828.jpg

There are lot of choices out there.
 
Johnny .... Thanks for commenting .

Tony ... Most of my buildings were made from kits, and the bank is an exception being already built by the manufacturer. Some of my buildings are "kit shed" meaning a modified kits to make a unique building. Also, I have a few scratch built buildings. WQalthers is both a manufacturer and a distributor for other manufacturers. .... If you go to weathers.com you can look at what is available .

Chet ... More great photos from you.
 
montanan said:
Tony - There are a lot of great buildings available. My town of Logan is a mix of Walthers, DPM, Woodland Scenics and laser cut kits. They are fairly simple to assemble but it can be a pain when it comes to painting all of the window and doors, but with a little effort you'll have some really nice buildings. Woodland Scenics has some excellent fully built structures like the one I posted earlier, plus they have what they call Pre-fab kits which do require some assembly and painting. DPM has a fairly good selection of buildings that are really nice for the transition era, and these building will also fit the modern area also. Willie has also build quite a few of these kits for his layout.

In this photo, the first three building on the left are DPM kits and the last one is a Woodland Scenics Pre-Fab kit with the red awning..

View attachment 60616 View attachment 60617

In this photo, the building to the left is a Woodland Scenics fully assembled and painted building. They are a bit pricey, but it sure saves my old eyeballs when it comes to painting all of the details. The market is a laser cut wood kit and the three buildings to the left is Walthers Merchants Row 4 kit.

View attachment 60618

There are lot of choices out there.
Click to expand...
Wow, just amazing and thank you both (Willie and Garry as well) for the tips with buildings. I also checked out your "Logans Valley" utube Chet and its so cool! I see the meat market at the end next to the station, and the trains just blow my mind. I did do a bit of modeling many years ago. (both custom flying rockets and static stuff from Revell and so forth) so kits would be right up my alley.

The laser cut meat market looks cool and the stuff I am googling as we speak. I may consider doing my Dads garage as scratch. I know I have some evergreen sheets around somewhere when I did my V2 rocket engine mod back in the 90's.

But maybe to get back into it, a nice kit from walthers or the few you guys know so much about would be better than jumping in too cold at the moment. Thanks again for sharing from all you guys, it really is so much appreciated!!
 
Tony .... A couple more thoughts..... In some kits the window frames are molded into the walls which makes it tedious to paint the window frames with a fine paint brush. Other kits have the window frames molded individually making it easier to paint them If you are just beginning, I suggest the kind with window frames cast as individual parts. ...

Another thought, look for kits in clearance sales to save money.
 
Garry - Come on. Don't make things too easy for Tony. If he's wanting to scratch build his dad's garage from scratch, I think he can handle painting the windows. I lost count on how many I had to paint for all the buildings in the town.
 
GarryCBQ said:
Tony .... A couple more thoughts..... In some kits the window frames are molded into the walls which makes it tedious to paint the window frames with a fine paint brush. Other kits have the window frames molded individually making it easier to paint them If you are just beginning, I suggest the kind with window frames cast as individual parts. ...

Another thought, look for kits in clearance sales to save money.
Click to expand...
Oh good Idea! Hmm yea, never had windows on my rockets lol!! Here is a picture I found this weekend of my Dads garage and many of these scenes I am going to look at may be from my childhood. Back in the late 50's-60s. I wish his 55 ford pickup truck was in this shot.
Gulf Station (small).jpg
Notice my german shepherd next to the pumps (who has dogs!! LOL!!)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Saturn5tony said:
Oh good Idea! Hmm yea, never had windows on my rockets lol!! Here is a picture I found this weekend of my Dads garage and many of these scenes I am going to look at may be from my childhood. Back in the late 50's-60s. I wish his 55 ford pickup truck was in this shot.
View attachment 60622
Notice my german shepherd next to the pumps (who has dogs!! LOL!!)
Click to expand...
Tony, my uncle ran a gulf station in Holly Hill, Florida, and I ran a Sunoco station in Pennsylvania. While his station has been long gone, torn down for condo development, mine still exists. Though the pumps have been removed, and it is now an auto glass center.

For your layout, when you get started, try getting some good pre-built buildings. Maybe a half dozen, and place them around the layout. After you get things going, you can get some kits, and build them. As you learn, you can try to make them as good-looking as the prefab ones. After a while, you can start exceeding that quality, and eventually, you can go back and update them.
 
Tony - Greg makes a good point when it comes to some pre built structures. I was wanting to get this town moving forward and picked up the two homes in the right of this photo. They are Woodland Scenics pre builts. It saved me many hours of work painting and detailing these buildings that I was able to put into other parts of the town. The detail is excellent on these buildings. Guess you could call it cheating. Grin.gif

IMAG0719.jpg
 
I think we should reinstate Lupercalia on February 14, and get rid of the blasphemous Valentine's Day.

Lupercalia; the reason for the season.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk
 
bnsf971 said:
Tony, my uncle ran a gulf station in Holly Hill, Florida, and I ran a Sunoco station in Pennsylvania. While his station has been long gone, torn down for condo development, mine still exists. Though the pumps have been removed, and it is now an auto glass center.

For your layout, when you get started, try getting some good pre-built buildings. Maybe a half dozen, and place them around the layout. After you get things going, you can get some kits, and build them. As you learn, you can try to make them as good-looking as the prefab ones. After a while, you can start exceeding that quality, and eventually, you can go back and update them.
Click to expand...
Very good Idea about prebuilds, My Dads Gulf station is gone as well. I think it turned into a 7/11 or something. Thank you Terry about this route. Chet also said this was important and I know you guys are both right. I have to keep in mind, Ive never built a railroad before other than my tyco (I think) figure 8 HO on the floor back in the early 60's. Even tho I played around allot with models, I need to plan this whole thing.

I see your from NC! I hope you weathered out that flood from Hurricane Matt you guys had last year. Wow that was so bad! I have a few friends from many years ago from Midway Park NC, (Near Jacksonville). I hope they are OK as well. Well thanks to all of you as usual, this is fun! :cool:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Raincoat2 said:
Good morning, everyone. A big cuppa regular and a sweet roll, please. 40 and cloudy here in SW MO. Hope it rains - - we need it. heading for 50s today and all week.

Ken in MD - Show us a photo of that car you're kitbashing!!!

Jim - thanks for those links and info on bank buildings and trucks. The individual bank buildings are all possibilities. So is MR V, I think. I checked out the Walthers links you sent - they have some good prices there, incl some specials. Those two-fers are a pretty good deal.

See ya later. have a good day, everyone.
Johnny
Click to expand...

Watch the scale on those "two-fers" If you are looking at one of the pages for Classic Metalworks, its showing both N and HO scale. Probably the best buys on HO scale autos right now is the line of Oxford diecast cars in 1/87 scale (and they have a few more 50's and early 60's American cars due out later this year). https://www.walthers.com/oxford-diecast/scale/ho-scale
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Afternoon All,

Feeling better today. I had just started working on my first platform when my daughter called (school teacher). She had forgot to get something for her students today and wanted something specific. I went to 3 stores without success. After I got back home I cut out 62 planks and glued them on the base and they are drying now. Tomorrow I will sand the edges and build a ramp for it, before moving on to the next one which is longer.

Chet- Very nice scenes and pictures.

Ray- Both scenes are outstanding.

VA Ken- Sorry to hear about your friend, she sounds like a real trooper.

Karl- Your grandson's birthday looks like fun.

Terry- That's very cool.

Garry- Excellent attention to detail on the farm scene.

Eric- Very sorry to hear about the MRSA. I hope you are doing better.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Lurking in the shadows!
Glad to see that everyone seems to have survived the past few days - including Eric; and even Louis seems to be in a better frame of mind. Maybe this is because his "little man" is feeling better.

TONS of photos, Guys! All good! I'm not going to give individual kudos, because I might forget someone and that might hurt their feelings. These days everyone seems to get their feelings hurt too damn easy!

FOUR days and 120 posts! Don't dare miss a couple days - you might say something bad about me (as if I care) lol.

TONY - new kid; welcome. Oh how I wish that I had taken the time to make more photos around where I spent my first 19 years, including the KCS, Arkansas and Louisiana, Missouri Pacific and the Cotton Belt - and not to forget the Reader Railroad where I sat in my fathers lap in the cab while they were switching the refinery tank cars.

On the medical front - thanks for all the well wishes from you all. Both good news and still some clouds to weather out:
1. The cancer surgery doctor said he did not want to see me again for a year (good); but then I just had a call to get another colonoscopy next month (bah-humbug).
2. Have an appointment with the oncologist for tomorrow (hopefully good).
3. The cancer doctor looked at the CT Scan (for me) and said that I needed to see the heart doctor again about the Aneurysm which is next to my heart - that it really stood out (don't like the sound -bad)!
Needless to say - I am in a down mood - forgive me - just very tired of it all. I know that there are many, many folks out there who are in much worse off positions ... I just never thought I would spend the last few years of my life constantly on the road for the medical issues.

Well, lo and behold ... just had a call from the heart doctor's receptionist setting up an appointment for the 10th of April. So we'll see what he has to say then.

HAPPY Model Railroading everyone!
 
Sirfoldalot said:
Lurking in the shadows!
Glad to see that everyone seems to have survived the past few days - including Eric; and even Louis seems to be in a better frame of mind. Maybe this is because his "little man" is feeling better.

TONS of photos, Guys! All good! I'm not going to give individual kudos, because I might forget someone and that might hurt their feelings. These days everyone seems to get their feelings hurt too damn easy!

FOUR days and 120 posts! Don't dare miss a couple days - you might say something bad about me (as if I care) lol.

TONY - new kid; welcome. Oh how I wish that I had taken the time to make more photos around where I spent my first 19 years, including the KCS, Arkansas and Louisiana, Missouri Pacific and the Cotton Belt - and not to forget the Reader Railroad where I sat in my fathers lap in the cab while they were switching the refinery tank cars.

On the medical front - thanks for all the well wishes from you all. Both good news and still some clouds to weather out:
1. The cancer surgery doctor said he did not want to see me again for a year (good); but then I just had a call to get another colonoscopy next month (bah-humbug).
2. Have an appointment with the oncologist for tomorrow (hopefully good).
3. The cancer doctor looked at the CT Scan (for me) and said that I needed to see the heart doctor again about the Aneurysm which is next to my heart - that it really stood out (don't like the sound -bad)!
Needless to say - I am in a down mood - forgive me - just very tired of it all. I know that there are many, many folks out there who are in much worse off positions ... I just never thought I would spend the last few years of my life constantly on the road for the medical issues.

Well, lo and behold ... just had a call from the heart doctor's receptionist setting up an appointment for the 10th of April. So we'll see what he has to say then.

HAPPY Model Railroading everyone!
Click to expand...
Thank you for the welcome as well Sherrel!! Wow so many people Im meeting here and already Ive taken in 37 donuts in the past few days. hehe!! Its getting hard to remember half of you! But I do appreciate all the cool stuff your talking about. I wish you well by April 10th and will put a prayer in for you as well. So many we need to do that for these days.
 
Sherrel - Good to hear from you today. It does sound like things are at least steady. Aneurysm can't be too bad if they don't want to see you for two more months. Or is that just the wait time out there in CA?
FOUR days and 120 posts! Don't dare miss a couple days - you might say something bad about me (as if I care) lol.
Click to expand...
How on earth could you think that anyone here would say something bad about you? We are all too busy welcoming new visitors!!! :D
Hang in there buddy...it still is better than the alternative.

Willie
 
Raincoat2 said:
Eric - Just saw your post - sorry to hear you're in the hospital again, but we're praying for you and hope you'll recover quickly and get back to your new layout!

Guys (and any ladies, too) I never know whether to ask specific layout questions on this forum or on one of the others, 'cause I know this site has forums on Structures and Buildings, Vehicles, Layouts, etc. So if this is too far afield for the coffee shop, just tell me to shut up and I'll repeat my Q's over on the other forums :)

I have two specific questions about scenery. 1) Many of you have done the Merchants Row structures - they're great for a small town and the era I'm modeling (late 50's to late 60's). I've got MR IV done and want to do at least one more for our town (plus some individual buildings). My question is whether in your experience any of the MR buildings would look right for a small town bank? 2) I need some semis (18 wheelers) from that era and the stuff on MBKlein look too new. Are there other websites that have a wider selection that might have semis from my era? For example, Chet's layout has numerous old-time vehicles - where did you get the semis?

Thanks.
Johnny
Click to expand...

Another option for the semi trucks is the Bachmann 1950's White trucks with trailers. The trailers are a little newer style than those by Classic Metalworks, but are still old enough to have the rounded front corners.
https://www.walthers.com/white-trac...-tractor-silver-red-trailers-script-lettering

Based on this 1957 White brochure, the Bachmann truck looks about right except for the thickness of the fenders around the front wheels. But the model looks rather generic as it appears to be overly simplified. A bit more detail might help the model alot. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amazing-1957-WHITE-4000TD-Tractor-Diesel-Powered-Brochure-/351182687994
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top