A Sign of the Times 

Last week I began experimenting with making Civil War era signs, posters, & broadsides using Microsoft Word. I also continued my internet search for images of these that could possibly be used on my railroad. In the process, I decided that other Civil War & 19th century modelers might find the results of my searches useful. So, I put together the following two word documents (these are scans of the originals) and uploaded the documents to my groups.io Civil War Rail Road group files section. In the original word documents, anyone can download and save the documents. Then open the document on their personal computer and click on an image. Then, using a cursor, the user can grab a corner of the image and enlarge or shrink it to the needed size. 

Unfortunately, the light on my Epson 4180 is past its prime and that is why there is a pinkish hue on the right side of the above images and a bluish tinge to the background of the documents.

Well, I spent this morning remeasuring and reprocessing the curtain images. I also spent time processing and printing additional curtains that I did not get to yesterday.

 The above are the new curtains.

On the above left are the curtains I printed yesterday while on the right are the resized curtains I printed out this morning. I can certainly get a lot more curtains per sheet with the smaller size.

Next, I will be finding images of valences that I can use as curtains in a windowfront for some of my built and to be built stores.

It's curtains for the Delaware Central Rail Road!

And some Venetian blinds as well!!!!! 

I spent quite a bit of time these last few days searching the internet for images of curtains, drapes, and venetian blinds suitable for the 1860s. I am trying to finish up a resin store and 3 house kits I began decades ago. It took forever to process the images 1st in Lightroom and then in Topaz Studio. Lightroom wasn't bad but I couldn't get it to accept the change from a tiff file to a jpeg file every time I copied the file to Topaz. The exact same amount of time was eaten up exporting the Topaz processed images back into Lightroom. 

And now I find that I sized the images are too large for the windows I have used. I am going to have to resize the curtains even smaller and print them out again. This should not take as long as the previous processing. I love learning how to do new things in model railroading.

I will post photos of the completed models once I have them done.

p.s. These curtains will be going into my "possibly someday" drawer.

 I completed building a RailroadKITS' "Dannen Feeds" this morning. Of course, I can never leave well enough alone. I replaced the kit's roll roofing with shake shingles from Bar Mills. I built the office extension to the right of the main part of the structure from clapboard scraps from some unknown previous structure build. The office door was a metal casting scrounged from my drawer of doors. Likewise, the large double doors. The kits' double door just didn't look right on the unpainted structure I built. The door seemed too modern & pristine. The hinges on the large doors are strap hinges from Tichy Train. I made the scale 12" door handles from .0125" Tichy wire. I tried my best to get the "wood" of the plastic door to match the stained Northeastern Scale Lumber 2x6" trim. The flag is prototypically correct for the Civil War. To make it I photocopied a decal sheet of Microscale Civil War Union flags. Then I reduced the image size on my computer, placed the image on a word document, and printed out the results. It took me 2 tries to get the appropriate size. The flag pole is a broken #78 drill bit.

The workbench on barrels is a 3D print. The two sacks on the bench is a metal casting from a Fine Scale Miniatures clone. 

Here is how the manufacturer advertises the kit.

And here are some other examples of the kit as built by others.

I thought I'd already posted images of the other DC&F kits I've built recently. I thought wrong so here are a few images of the 2 B&O RR style pot hoppers and 2 PRR stock cars, both lettered for the DCRR.

 

Earlier today I sprayed Dulcote on the 2 newest pieces of rolling stock to run on the Delaware Central, two 28'8" B&O RR cotton cars. I built these from Dykstra Car & Foundry kits. 

 

I just completed an American Model Builders, Inc., Laserkit Xpress Loft Barn kit.  The 1st image is of an O scale version of the kit as intended to be built and used for advertising. The 2nd 3 images show the kit almost ready to install on the layout. I am not sure of the final location for the installation, and I still need to remove some of the fuzz and further weather the kit before I hit the model will Dulcote.

I replaced the kit's sub roof with 1/64th" thick plywood from Northeastern Scale Lumber. I used Bar Mills shingles for the roof rather than the roll roofing supplied with the kit. I also added scratch-built door handles to the side doors and the pulley mechanism over the upper loft door. The pulley mechanism is a metal casting. I am not sure of the manufacturer.