Public Service Announcement!
Hello to everyone. Google's takeover of Blogspot and the continuing decline of service is going to take another step this July. To the 138 of you following the NightOwlModeler blog via the email subscriptions, unfortunately, I just received the following notice on my account for those using the email notification of my new blog posts.
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| Notice on blogspot accounts, April 15, 2021. |
So... It looks like my email can't accept the exported email list... so for those wishing to continue to receive email notifications, send me an email at nightowlmodeler at g-mail and I'll set up a group email to BCC everyone who wants to continue receiving blog posting notifications.
Now, Back to Working on the Railroad!
Since the last post update on the Jawbone Branch, let's look quickly at the main updates... Don't worry, I'll do a full right up, but let's just look at a bit of eye-candy to wash out the bad Google-taste out of our minds.
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| Owenyo wye skin layout done. Centerlines marked. (old lighting) |
I finally dug into the 'spar-keel' of the removable wye tail. I cut into the last piece of 1/4" MDF sheet to fashion the top skin for the wye. The spar is about 40+" long, 23" are buried in the Owenyo #1 module. The tail is almost 19" long! Enough to turn the two passenger cars from the mixed train, or easily the larger Mk-2/4 class 2-8-2s used into the 1950s.
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| Flex track installed on the wye, while SP 3203 with a 120-C-2 tender hanging out on the mainline. (old lighting) |
Here's a view with the flex track layed in place around the wye. This took a couple of evenings, but looks nice. The Sunset Mk-4 3203 barely is able to navigate the 26" curve, but it looks like it can do it.
New Lighting!
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| Here's the 16.5ft (5 meter) string of LEDs installed. (none of the old lighting used) |
A couple rolls of 4000-4500K LED lighting strip arrived today. So I went out and cut a couple of 3/4" strips of plywood with a 25 degree angle to point the LED strip down onto the layout.
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| Here's how the single line of 4000-4500K LED lighting and my other "warm" LED lights turned off. |
I'll get into how I made this lighting strip more over the next few days in a following post. This is just the sneak peek of what happened, just today! I'm thinking it could actually use a bit more light... but I'll hold that judgement until I get a couple more lighting strips up and see if the color balance shifts with a bluish backdrop.
How do the models look?
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| Balboa SP 3259 with MDC cab, one of my favorite weathering jobs seen on the LMRC, here under new Jawbone lighting. |
One of my main concerns with shifting to more 'blue' lighting is how my fleet of weathered engines for service at LMRC will look. The club is also moving towards more blue lighting, but I weathered most of the models to look good on 2800-3200k (yellow) lighting.
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| SP 3266 photographed in 4000-4500k lighting |
The cameras and color balancing in these photos do a good job of making the lighting look better... However, in person, I think that the 4000-4500K lighting is a bit too "cool blue" in color. I'm going to look into getting a set of LEDs in the 2800-3200K range, which should match my warmer yellow work lights, which I think look a bit better.
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| A couple of boxcars under the 4000-4500K lights |
I also decided to test some of this lighting pulled through the front edge of the Mojave staging yard. this is plenty of light for the staging!
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| Mojave Staging Yard - with some passenger cars. |
The single strip is certainly enough lighting for the staging yard. Don't mind the Daylight Baggage... that's an MDC-Athearn, which I don't believe is wearing the right number for a Daylight painted car - it also doesn't have the right doors for the Daylight painted cars, which were had all smaller doors, not the large and small doors.
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| Looking down the Mojave Staging Yard - Five tracks of stashing space! |
In Closing
Well, I hope everyone's enjoyed this off-the-cuff post. Later this evening I've done some more experimenting "after dark", which is when most NightOwlModelers do their work... and I do like mixing in the 2800-3200k lights.
Not bad lighting... getting more 'fill' around the layout space, but it's too blue-green-ish. The equipment looks too 'cold'. Owenyo always seems to have had a "golden glow" in the air... at least if it wasn't freezing with a 40 MPH wind!
This is better... the tail of the wye looks nice and a bit warmer.
I also tested a strip of "Warm White" LED strip, which I use in the passenger cars. I hand-held it up next to the new 4500k strip. I think that really helped warm up the lighting a bit, but only in the corner of the room where I used the little 9" strip. Adding the work lamp in with the "warm" color really helps, but even it is too limited in area. So I'm going to work on getting more 'warm' lighting, I think it is needed.
Next step, get another roll of the "Warm White" and put it up on the ceiling too. That should add some more light to the problem!
Jason Hill
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| Old Lighting: "Warm" LED bars, "Work Lamp" LED, no 4500k LED strip |
The Work Lamp is needed to add more lighting in general, but it is limited to how much of the layout can be lit this way.
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| 4000-4500K "new" lighting only |
Not bad lighting... getting more 'fill' around the layout space, but it's too blue-green-ish. The equipment looks too 'cold'. Owenyo always seems to have had a "golden glow" in the air... at least if it wasn't freezing with a 40 MPH wind!
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| 4000-4500k "new" LEDs with warm LED light bars. |
This is better... the tail of the wye looks nice and a bit warmer.
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| "All-up" lighting: 4000-4500k "new" LED, with "Warm" light bars, and "Work Lamp" LED. |
I also tested a strip of "Warm White" LED strip, which I use in the passenger cars. I hand-held it up next to the new 4500k strip. I think that really helped warm up the lighting a bit, but only in the corner of the room where I used the little 9" strip. Adding the work lamp in with the "warm" color really helps, but even it is too limited in area. So I'm going to work on getting more 'warm' lighting, I think it is needed.
Next step, get another roll of the "Warm White" and put it up on the ceiling too. That should add some more light to the problem!
Jason Hill
Related Articles:
SP "Jawbone" Branch Index Page - Links to all my blog posts on my new Jawbone Branch layout.
A Year of Modeling in Review (2017)
First Steps - A new modeling blog posting (2016 - The first post)
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