C&NW and Erie Steam Power

[R.K. Maroon]

Bob and I were discussing decals for his Erie Berkshire last night. I mentioned that I have the artwork for the herald, and Bob said that was all he needed -- the rest can be done with a lettering set. The Erie herald is fairly simple, so it didn't take long to re-draw it as a vector graphics file. The decals printed on the Alps with no problem, so they will go off in the mail to Bob tomorrow, along with decals for the mongrel mogul and a few other goodies:



Jim

[up148]

Those are great looking. There are a lot of decals no longer available, which maybe has to do with the lack of customers.

[bob turner]

Working on the half-round wire at the top of the tender sides.

The "Amazon" wire I got is not clearly "half-round;" it appears to just be flattened wire. The wire from WT Rogers back in the day was truly half-round, and quite easy to work. This stuff has a tendency to twist when forced around corners, and it is difficult to see if it is laying flat while holding and soldering.

One thing is clear: I need a new tinned tip for the Ungar - I am now having to file and tin on an almost daily basis, and am not getting the instant heat I am used to.

But what I have completed looks acceptable, so there is that. Heading to the airport, where today's project is rib-stitching the spare Stearman wing.

[bob turner]

This one was painted and decaled this week, with Maroon's decals. We may brighten up the tender logo, but you get the idea. Sorry about the tender truck, that is posed for Scale Craft Dave. Also note the modern roller bearing trucks, approximating what we now do for excursion locomotives.



To my knowledge, the Erie never had a Consolidation in this number series - Maroon's model (repeated below) was the inspiration - way back in 2018, which is when I assembled this thing. I had forgotten about it until Maroon re-posted this one from eight years ago:



I am not an "Erie" kind of guy - I suspect the pale yellow is prototypical, but we are going for brighter, just because.

[up148]

That looks great! If you were to hit with some dull coat or minor weather like #584 you might mind the yellow. Yellows can be a hard match.

[bob turner]

I do weather stuff - my favorite is Floquil "Weathered Black" applied with the Paasche. A light coat. Greg gave me a whole bunch of chalk about a quarter century ago, and that plus very light coats of Dullcote always produces nice weathering.

I only get serious about weathering when contemplating a contest. You cannot win a contest with a well built scratch brass locomotive; you can win by purchasing a factory painted import and weathering it. I know I can do it, so I am not driven to weather every single thing that rolls out of my shop.

But the Erie Berk will probably get the treatment somewhere along the line. I wanted to bump this thread with the pretty much finished Berk.

It has flaws - a big one is the location of the tender logo. How I missed that is beyond me - I seem to have gotten it right on the above 2-8-0. (By the way, I raised the headlight on the 2-8-0 to better match Jim's model)

And it still needs a bit of mechanism work, and a motor/gearbox. It does have an axle gear, which is a start . . .



Anyway, happy with this thing. I guess this pretty much closes this topic.

[SWrailroader]

That Berkshire looks fantastic. I presume that you used SEM black primer. The decal faux pas is not so bad, IMO.