Mellow Mike's Most Recent Project

[Mellow Mike]

Been working on this thing since Thanksgiving! What a pain. But it came out as I envisioned it. My camera took a dump on me - so I'm experimenting with other people's cameras at the moment.

It was an MDC bulkhead flat that I stripped, painted, and decaled as a BN log-hauler which frequent the NW. Every log was custom made from various sized dowels. No two are alike.

 

[chrismoore93]

Wow Mike, another peice of excellently weathered work! Keep us posted.
Chris

 

[RCH]

Stunning, Mike. Are those the Details West log bunks or something of your own creation? I'll tell you, I'm eager for all the views of this one to appear on your site! Call it "required viewing" for the aspiring weather-meister...

 

[modelbob]

What a great looking car, nice job!

 

[tenwheeler]

Absolutely awesome, Mike !!!!

 

[jbaakko]

AWSOME, just AWSOME, I'd love to be that creative! All i can do is follow the details!

 

[Mellow Mike]

Thanks guys.

Ryan - they are indeed the metal DW log bunks.

Needless to say, I did not use the MDC flat car weight. This puppy's heavy enough as is!

The grabs are metal, even the vertical ones on the right side. And the stirrups. Plus the long horizontal grab bar on each end.

About the only details I left off were etched metal coupler platforms and air hoses. Otherwise, it's pretty involved. I did the white center stripe, even though it's virtually undetectable with the car loaded like this.

I've seen few models done of log cars, other than guys cutting twigs and branches from outside. Walthers makes plastic logs - but they are like the same log (or two) molds. Repetition.

Some of the real cars have neatly stacked, larger logs. Others have random mixtures of thin and medium ones just piled in. I went for something inbetween.

 

[RCH]

I took a few photos this summer of a couple bad ordered pulpwood cars, one of which appears to be a near perfect match for the MDC car (fortunately, I have a ton of these for bashing fodder). Not exactly the same thing you've got here, but similar enough that I thought of it right away upon seeing your photo.

http://www.pbase.com/mecrharris/image/47423354/large.jpg

My favorite thing in this photo? The chain marks on the uprights. I can't think of anything besides a steady hand that could do that in HO... One day, someday, I'll get to it...

Question for you: do I remember you saying something a long time ago about being an N scale modeler or am I hallucinating? If I'm right and you do N scale, I can't imagine how it must look.

 

[Mellow Mike]

Question for you: do I remember you saying something a long time ago about being an N scale modeler or am I hallucinating? If I'm right and you do N scale, I can't imagine how it must look.

Yep.... a die-hard N Scaler from back in it's infancy (late 60's). And I am not really painting any up at this point. I did some stuff for practice here and there (cheap cars, etc)... but I switched over to weathering HO to get my chops up before touching my N collection inappropriately.

The steady hand isn't a problem - it's just having much less in the way of surface area to work with. In terms of shading and stuff. I sincerely doubt that I could replicate any of my well-known HO cars in 1/160th. But I will try someday.

 

[uspscsx]

Another fantastic model, Mike.

Someone get this guy an agent...


[EDIT]Also, thanks for the "wake-up-call"(You should know what I'm talking about)the other day. It's helped me a bit. Thanks.

[EDITING THE EDITED]iQuestion! Is that 15 link-per-inch chain?

 

[Mellow Mike]

By the way... all of the logs are "pinned" together in some angle or another. Using stiff metal wire and glue. Rather than globbing white glue over the logs and having it squirt out or puddle up. I had to drill little holes through two adjoining logs, and then insert a pin with a drop of glue into the hole.

It's kinda like Tinkertoys, or atom models, the way they are interconnected.

This is something I NEVER want to build again.

 

[RCH]

The steady hand isn't a problem - it's just having much less in the way of surface area to work with. In terms of shading and stuff. I sincerely doubt that I could replicate any of my well-known HO cars in 1/160th. But I will try someday.

I had this painting professor one semester who didn't say much, but instead would just kind of "observe" and make the rare "suggestion." He saw me painting this 24" x 36" surreal landscape with a 00 brush (it took me months to do), stepped away, and returned with some photos of paintings done under microscopes. "That's ridiculous" says I, and he just laughed, saying, "man, you're already halfway there..."

It's always stuck with me, and as I'm getting older (knock-knock-knocking on thirty-three...) and noticing my eyes just don't work as well as they did a few years ago, a microscope doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore!

 

[NWR #200]

You gonna have this guy up for sale?

 

[Mellow Mike]

You gonna have this guy up for sale?

Of course. Worst time of the year though. But I had nothing up for over a month now. I also have two centerflows more than half done, including a BNSF albino 2-bay, that got shoved aside so that I could concentrate on this log car.

The log car gallery should be ready by Friday, and the listing soon after.

 

[enjineerbill]

Hello Mike,

Incredible looking car. I dig following your work. Very inspirational.

Johnny

 

[modelbob]

You gonna have this guy up for sale?

I'd love to buy it but it would make every other car on my railroad look terrible by comparision!

 

[Mellow Mike]

I'd love to buy it but it would make every other car on my railroad look terrible by comparision!

My regular buyers don't have that problem!

Unless they've been cheating on me. Hee hee.

 

[IronBeltKen]

Mike, I'm sure that by now everybody here has all seen [and drooled over] your weathered HO cars. How about posting some pics of your N-scale empire?

 

[uspscsx]

Well would ya lookie there, I'm the high bidder.

 

[Mellow Mike]

Well would ya lookie there, I'm the high bidder.

Your max was $25 ???

Matt... that might buy you the couple of logs I had left over.