Airbrushing – The greatest thing since sliced cheese. Well, almost. I bought a Paasche airbrush last year when a local hobby shop was closing on sale, and used it for the first time a few months ago. I instantly fell in love. I’ve gotten some awesome results on my structures built so far. However, I find that keeping the thing clean is a pain in the ass. The bottle tops are a pain to the clean, the little nozzle the paint flows through on the airbrush… pain. Color changing… pain. I just can’t seem to keep it working decently.

Sure, it’s probably something I’m doing wrong, but I’m not pro at this. So, I’ve been seeing some good things about Testor’s bottom of the barrel airbrush, the external mixing Aztek A220.

The main thing I like about this airbrush is that the there’s no paint flowing through the brush. It’s straight up from the bottle to the air flow. This makes color changes a snap, and cleaning simple. The bottles all come with caps too, so when you’re done you just pop a cap on the bottom and voila! No need to swap caps, clean tubes, or whatever (at least I hope so).

I’ve read the results you get from the A220 are good for doing structures and what not, and works just as well as my $70+ Paasche. If you wanna get into more detailed airbrushing, you’ll need something else for the job, but for $23 at Tower Hobbies, I figured I’d give it a shot for my structures.

I’ll post up some thoughts once I get it and give it a test drive.

Shaun Previous Layout

This weekend I worked on laying down the roadbed and track on the lower level for the entryway into the helix. I’ll get pics up later in the week, but here’s a video showing of an intermodal on the helix.

Shaun Previous Layout

I sent an email yesterday to Tony’s Trains to check up on the ETA for Athearn’s N-Scale 4-8-8-4 (Big Boy) Steam engine. The reply was Athearn is expecting them February, 2008 now. Their original target was December, then January, now February. At least Tony’s doesn’t bill until the item ships.

In other news, in case you haven’t seen BLMA’s HO-Scale Cantilever Signal and their upcoming Dual-Head Pole Signal, go check ‘em out. IMO, they are probably the best looking signal I’ve seen on the planet. Only problem is, they’re HO! So I sent an email to BLMA saying that (planet bit and all) last night, and an hour or so later I got a reply from Craig Martyn, the man behind BLMA. Awesome.

Hi Shaun,

Thank you for the great note and kind words. We really appreciate hearing feedback as it helps motivate us to make additional products.
Coincidentally, I’m leaving for China this Saturday morning to visit with our factories. While there, we’re going to discuss the feasibility of
producing the Modern Cantilever Bridge in N along with the other signal products. While I can’t say exactly how things will go, we’ll do everything
we can to get something to market by the end of 2008. Because the Modern Cantilever bridge would be so fragile if done in plastic, we’re looking at
producing it as a RTR assembled brass model… more on this later.

Keep tabs on the website for future announcements and keep in touch!

Thanks Shaun!

Craig Martyn
BLMA Models
www.BLMAmodels.com

So here’s hoping things go well and we see some N-Scale signals later this year. *crosses fingers and toes*

Shaun Previous Layout

Here’s the latest track plan for the lower level showing the most recent changes and what I currently have in mind.

Shaun Previous Layout