Waterville & Washington Railroad

 I worked with my friend with the 3D printer to try to print the signal number board with raised numbers like the prototype, but the results were not clear enough to read the numbers for my block signal. He suggested to print them out on my home HP printer. I played around with the settings and created the numbers in Word and then imported the file in to Abobe Acrobat Pro to size it to scale. I spray painted a plain piece of paper the same color as the signal and then had to run the paper through the printer about 5-6 times to get the ink dark enough to clearly show. It's not the best printer, but it printed exactly the same spot on the paper each print to darken the letters, but not ghost them. I stick glued it to the signal and I think it turned out really good. Cheaper method then decaling and learned a new skill of painting paper and prints. Hopefully longevity isn't an issue, but if it's is, should be easy to scrap off the metal plate and then decal. It look...

So I am nearly at the point to apply scenery to my diorama. Why the procrastination you ask? It's because I have various scenery products that I used in the past and I'm working to relearn how to apply or use the techniques again. I'm a turtle at modeling at times, but I continue to make forward progress which is the goal.  I decided to trim the track back to where it only covers the ground and not the 8" diorama tube. This way if I want, I can push the scenery disk down in to the tube to give a border. I'll have to move the block signal base holes closer to the track after measuring the prototype. The signals are spaced at 6' 6" and 7' from the rail. One thing I had to fix was the glass insulator color on my line pole. I wasn't happy with it as it appeared too green. I happened to see Tom Johnson's post and he recommended using Metallic Green color so I picked up a spray can of Tamiya color paint. It definitely helped to achieve the color ...