The fall colors are up, but with gas prices high and already having about a zillion CSX or NS Dash 9 prototype shots I decided to stay home and work on Ardley Bridge. Kit building seemed like a good preoccupation on this fine, sunny weekend, since I could put the fan in the window and minimize the inhalation of toxic gasses…
The first kit was a Walthers Single-Track Truss Bridge Part # 933-3185. It’s a neat kit that goes together easily and didn’t cost an arm and a leg either. A quick spray with light grey primer and it’s ready for weathering. I was going to order one of those sections of track with guard rails as well as some sort of abutment before weathering the bridge. I’ll add foam ends with some scenery around the abutments so it looks the part. I want to be able to pick it up and move it on a whim…
The second kit that I worked on was already assembled, but it needed paint. The Walthers Gas Storage Tank Part # 933-2907 was split down the middle last month and assembled as two kits for the background. There are extra parts for the tank in either the full or slightly full versions that allow you to build two half kits with 180° of tank. Of course when you do this the missing truss which should form a ring over the tank becomes readily apparent in certain shots!?!?! I’m toying with adding a flat truss structure, which would just be 30 thou plasticard, to provide the visual sense of something there, but we will see. The trouble is that the viewers perspective would change relative to the tank.
I also squeezed in a fourth 48” double bulb fixture, which required relocating all the lights to get them to fit. Four 48" long shop lights are longer than my 16' workshop. The extra light keeps the ends as bright as the middle and generally makes photographing the sky easier. I also added a new end to “sky” at one end so that it is as high as the backdrop. I obviously had a brain fart the first time around when I made the backdrop lower on one end… |
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