Postmarks Letters to the Editor Send your Comments to:
spriest@rrmodelcraftsman.com I very much enjoyed the article in the May
2015 RMC by Paul Lally about the Youngstown & Southern. I live about 30 miles from Smiths Ferry on the
Ohio River at the Ohio–Pennsylvania state line and have looked around there recently. The base for the whirly is about the only thing still visible today. Mr. Wayne Cole has written of the history of this local coal business with a few fuzzy gray photos now nearly a century old. It was exciting to see in modern color modeling how that machinery must have worked, lifting coal from barges that would fit under the PRR Bridge over the river for the north- bound ride to the steel mills of Youngstown. The fi- nancially troubled Y&S still exists even after several name changes in recent decades. Most business today is construction demolition material recycling, or steel pipe for the oil fracking business. Ray Lora
I want to thank you for the Perspective page on
the blue flag use. I think that will really help mod- elers understand more about how real railroads work. Mike and Bill’s column on CTC was very informative as well. The article on creating a Bicentennial scheme
was interesting, but I think there is an easier way to remove lettering from locomotives. The following idea is not mine, but one I learned long ago from the hobby press. Use a regular eraser and Solvaset to remove lettering. This technique worked great while I was in HO when I relettered most of my lo- comotives and cabooses. In 1995, I got into large scale, and a regular
eraser didn’t even dent the lettering in large scale. I discovered the old solid-core typewriter eras- ers Sanford used to make and now Faber-Castell makes, Solvaset, and an old dishrag will remove the lettering from about every manufacturer except MTH. As a large scale custom painter, I have used this method of erasing lettering for almost 20 years with great success. Most of my work is in large scale; however, I also model in On30 and Z scale. I have successfully used the method to remove letter- ing from pieces in these scales to reletter as well. The method is quite straightforward. I put a
drop of Solvaset on the lettering I don’t want and gently remove it with the eraser. The dishrag is used to wipe away the residue. I can remove the let- tering from an Aristocraft or USA Trains locomotive in 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the original lettering. The article mentioned soaking the number
boards in Wash Away solution for a few hours. With my eraser, I can erase the numbers on the number boards. I am not sure how HO or N scale manufac- turers print their number boards. In large scale, the number is first printed on the clear plastic whether it be white or black. Then the contrast-
The Look Both Ways column by Mike Schafer
and Bill Navigato in the June issue extolled the vir- tues of model railroad clubs. I’m glad it worked out for them. My experience was quite the opposite. Once, when my son was 9 or 10, and again in his mid-teens, we went to a local model railroad club intending to join. In both cases, we went to meet- and-greet events and were thoroughly ignored by the members. One club was in Illinois and the other in a suburb of Houston. In this latter club especial- ly, no one so much as said, “Hello,” and it seemed we weren’t welcome. My surmise was that the club existed for the benefit of the hard-core members. The club events seen at the big auditoriums, with
50-foot long modular layouts, have no outreach for new members. Naturally, those members there have their hands full just making the trains run, but why not a recruiting effort as well? There is probably more pressure on model
railroad clubs today than at any time since slot cars hit like a tornado in the 1960s. Video games and smartphones distract so many young people — the very ones the hobby needs to prosper. If any club boards read my letter, I want to implore them to abandon their clannish ways and welcome newcomers. I’ve learned from what I experienced at that
club so many years ago. Whether I was master of a lodge, the elder of a church, or president of a village historical group, I never let a visitor leave unacknowledged. Gary Stewart
CORRECTION: Joe Hedl was not credited for the lead photo in
Jack Varadi’s “Recycling Decoders” article in the June 2015 issue. Joe also took the hobo campfire image as credited.
AUGUST 2015 11
ing color is applied over the top of the first layer. Finally, the number color of choice is printed again on top. The number board must be erased down to clear plastic to keep from having the original num- ber show through. Vinyl is used a lot for lettering large scale loco-
motives. Years ago, when I started custom painting, I used Wash Away to strip an old Mobilgas Aristo- craft tank car. In two days, the paint was completely off the car except a nice white Mobilgas, which was vinyl. Many large scale locomotive paint schemes have their wide stripes in a thin printable vinyl with thin stripes pad-painted on top of the vinyl. I have discovered this the hard way, trying to remove the stripes.
Having custom painted hundreds of large scale
pieces, including 15 to 20 smaller scale pieces, I have found erasing the lettering to be the quickest method. Jeffrey Damerst
HEAD END
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100