July 2026
Things slowed down a little in July.
Daniel came home with us after Nicholas' wedding, working from home for the first few days, then taking in the Stampede opening weekend. It is always great to have him home and we really enjoyed the time he spent with us. He even managed to persuade us to visit the stampede grounds. For the first time in at least 20 years, Marie and I headed to down to the grounds, and even attended the grandstand show.
Christine has been plugging away at the job search. She started the month with a couple of solid leads that progressed well. One is in Calgary with Alberta Health, designing new facilities, while the other is in Kelowna with a design/build construction company. Then, in the last two days of the month, both kicked into high gear and she received offers from both organizations. She has the long weekend to think about it and has to make a final decision by end of day next Tuesday. All those years of hard work and study are paying off.
Nicholas and Jill headed to Hawaii for their honeymoon, cruising the islands for the first week in July. Sounds like it was a fabulous trip.
Marie headed east the last week of the month to reconnect with two school friends. With Christine at work most days, I was suddenly the dogs' favourite person.
Vet visits continued this month. Riley's routine blood test came back with elevated liver enzymes. Follow up testing with a specialist vet, a couple weeks later, found the enzyme levels back to normal. They suspect it may have been caused by the steroids he was taking for a lip infection, but still want to do a liver ultrasound. The estimated cost caused a serious intake of breath. Ember's meds have been modified to use a more canine compatible version. She is still a challenge to walk but we did have a break through towards the end of the month. Bruno was outside, causing her to bark a few times, grab the big orange ball and shake it, then she returned to playing ball. We played ball for another 15 minutes, while Bruno was in plain sight, with no further reactions. We will take victories when we get them.
The Railway
A vote was held a couple blogs ago to name the second town "Woodward". It was the name of the street we lived on, in Fort McMurray, for 21 years. It is a great name, but it never quite seemed right to me.
Daniel and I got to discussing railway plans while he was here. The second town came up, and he mentioned how much he enjoyed living on Woodward Lane. He said something about street names, when we both had the same thought. "Hillside", part of the name of our current street, felt like a better town name. It has two syllables, is easy to say, has a nice ring to it, and seems believable. So I am going to ignore the vote and name the second town Hillside.
Woodward remains a good name, and I like the historic relationship to our family. I am thinking the proposed manufacturing facility, at the west end of Oulton, will become Woodward Pet Foods. Stay tuned for more as I have been doing a little research as to what the facility could look like. Doesn't this look like a great industry to model?
I have been giving more thought as to what Hillside should look like. After roughing out Oulton, I will place the Hillside's elevators at the back of the scene. Up front, they create a dramatic effect but are too much of an obstacle to work around. I still haven't decided how much of the town to model, after the railway station and grain elevators are in place? Space is a consideration, and a deeper scene either reduces free space in the middle of the layout, which needs to be used for operators, or it will reduce the size of the adjacent staging yard. Oulton is 3 feet deep to allow a main street, with full depth buildings, to be modelled. I am thinking this isn't necessary at Hillside. It has all been a mental exercise so far - a great way to fall asleep as it turns out - but really needs a tape measure, pencil and paper. It would be nice to get the bench work completed before it gets too cold to keep the garage door open while cutting wood.
Alaskan Kittyhawk
The Alaskan Kittyhawk was finally ready for the paint shop. Lots of intentions to take photos through the painting process but momentum/eagerness to paint resulted in some gaps in documentation.
The plane has white code letters, which are easiest to paint before camouflage. The roundels needed to be placed to ensure the squadron and registration letters are in the correct spot, so they were also painted before the camouflage colours. In hindsight, I wonder if it would be better to place a blank disk to represent the roundel, then set the code letter masks and paint the letters, then paint the camouflage, and finally come back to the roundels. This might reduce the potential for gaps around the roundel's outside perimeter.
The upper camouflage was masked using a combination of Tamiya flexible vinyl tape and masking tape. This worked well, and was much faster than creating vinyl masks with the cutter. Pictures were planned but were forgotten.
Photo 1 - White applied and masked
Photo 2 - Red and yellow applied
Photo 3 - Blue applied
Photo 4 - Finally remembered to take a photo, once painting was complete and the masking was removed
Photo 5 - Main gear legs installed
Photo 6 - Wheels weathered and installed. They look much better in person than what is captured in the photo.
Weathering began with oil washes to highlight the panel lines. Once dry, neat oil paints were scrubbed into the panels to represent dirt, oil, and wear, creating some nice colour variations. The oils were give a couple days to dry and then sealed with a semi-gloss clear coat. The semi-gloss has just enough "tooth" to allow pastel chalks to "bite". The pastels were used to create further wear and dirt.
The semi-gloss also gives enough tooth for coloured pencils to bite. Wing root wear was modelled by first sponging silver, hoping to achive a suitably random appearance. The coloured pencils were then used, first silver, then grey and green, to represent smaller chips and to blend in the silver paint. Once done, a thin brown oil wash was applied over these areas to represent dirt and grime from crew and pilot boots. This also helped tone down the silver so it didn't look so shockingly bright.
Gunpowder and exhaust stains were created using appropriately coloured pastels. A flat clear coat was then applied to seal in all the weathering.
The wheels have a wonderfully defined tread pattern that cried out for weathering. The Alaskan Kittyhawks appear to have been based at airfields with concrete runways, but may also have used matting or grass fields. A medium brown oil paint was scrubbed into the treads, with excess wiped off the wheel surface. Pastels where then used to emphasis the tread further. Finally, a lighter brown was used to weather the sides of the tires so they didn't look so new. The effect doesn't show well in the photos but was very pleasing in person.
Weathering pencils were now used to create oil streaks, especially on the underside. Photos show the Kittyhawks accumulated dirty/oily streaks either side of the bottom hump. Darker grey and black pastels were used to capture this effect.
Canopy masks could then be removed and the final bits and pieces added. The instructions show a radio aerial strung between the vertical stabilizer and the antenna, but there is no way the kit antenna could support it.
And suddenly it's finished. Enjoy the pictures.
Desert Kittyhawk
The Desert Kittyhawk actually progressed ahead of the Alaskan version. The same process outlined above was used to paint and weather the plane. I was a little better taking pictures of the weathering process.
Photo 1 - Starship Filth oil wash has been applied to highlight panel lines and details
Photo 2 - Starship Filth oil wash has also been applied to the underside to highlight panel lines and details
Photo 3 - Chipping and dirt effects were created using oil paints, coloured pencils and pastels
Photo 4 - Wheels weathered and installed
Photo 5 - Weathering and paint chipping complete on top side
Photo 6 - Weathering and paint chipping complete on bottom side
The instructions don't show an antenna or aerials/wires. One build I found had aerials strung between the vertical stabilizer and both wing tips. I couldn't find any documentation as to what the real plane used, so turned a blind eye and didn't add anything.
And just like that, another one was finished. Enjoy the pictures.
I enjoyed these builds, but found that Eduard often added complexity and/or additional parts simply for the sake of extra parts. The large number of parts took quite a bit of extra time to paint and install. The kit fit well, and didn't need much filler or sanding. The clear parts were a real pain to install without gaps, and even with extra care, gaps still resulted. Overall, I am happy with how it turned out.
That's it for another month. I have already started planning what to build next. Stay tuned for month details and progress.
Stay safe and enjoy the warm weather.
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