muleskinner Posted March 7, 2010 Posted March 7, 2010 (edited) Well gang, here she is in all her Pacific Northwest glory! I finally got her up and looking like she was used and abused in the woods during a long logging career. I had to rely on photos and my own expeeriance working behind one of these as a chocker setter and as an operator later on, to put her into perspective. I chose to put a wheeled arch behind her, rather than take any more time casting links for a tracked version, which will come later on, as I left the wheels removable, so I could add the tracks later. Most of the Protos of these archs were interchangable from wheeled to track any how so the feel is there in this one. The whole cat and arch was painted with Tamiya Camel yellow (1 and Half cans) and left under a lamp to dry real good. After the drying phase was completed I went in and did the small detail work with various colored acrylic paints. Once this was completed, the engine was given a wash down with watered down Black Calligraphy ink to darken and shade the details. Ink was also used on the various details on the cat and arch. Once this stage was completed I used a watered down ceramic acrylic color called Cinnamon (used in Pottery) and washed the whole unit down with it in various shades to give it the surface rust effect that cats this old and now days show after years in the woods. The next step after this, I used Polly Scale Acrylic mud (#505206) and watered it down to various stages and washed over the lower parts of the cat and Arch. Once this was all completed I gave the whole model a light shot of Testers dull coat to flatten any shine left to the units. The lift line to the blade and main line of the winch were made out of Nylon archetectual twine stained and weathered to look like haywire and then wound around the winches. To give the Cat a working look I relied on my past memories of Choker setting and made the Chokers with working bells and stubs, then permanently attached them to the lead line dog. The pictues will show the chockers attached to some plastic logs I used to illistrate a turn of logs about to be winched and snugged for transport. Over alll this was a model to be reconed with, as it contained a lot of small detail parts which had to be made under a magnified light, but was a lot of fun to complete. Now that I look back on my own days in the woods and this model, I can almost hear the roar of the engine, clanking, cracking and straining of the lead line, while working as a Catskinner and choker setter here in Oregon and Northern California. Edited May 27, 2010 by muleskinner
muleskinner Posted March 8, 2010 Author Posted March 8, 2010 The front detail picture is the wrong one for this set. I will make the detail correction for the front of the CAT here.
Tony Bryan Posted March 8, 2010 Posted March 8, 2010 Hang on a sec, you modified a AMT D8 kit and made this???? outstanding work William That unit looks as if it has just been brought back from a job But I am a little confused with your terminology catskinner?? muleskinner?? are these logging terms?
muleskinner Posted March 8, 2010 Author Posted March 8, 2010 Tony back in the early days of logging here in the Northwest and else where in the states, they used teams of horses, Mules and Oxen to skid logs to the landings. The nickname given to these Loggers were Mule Skinner or mule, horse team herder, Bull Whacker or Oxen team herder and when the tracked cat came along, the term for the Cat operator just carried over to CAT the type of machine Skinner as in herder or operator. Hence forth Cat Skinner. If I use a term which doesn't quite come out understanding to anyone out there, let me know and I will try and explain it. Here in the Pacific Northwest we have a habit of using some very weird slang when discussuing or talking about the good old days of logging or general logging to be specific.. There are also other slang words which were used, but this forum is not the place to mention them!!!!
falcongeorge Posted March 8, 2010 Posted March 8, 2010 Cat skinner is what i always heard. My uncle Rollie was a "cat skinner". VERY nice work.
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