Well we are back from another weekend and break from the daily grind. Let's see how we did. Saturday: Friday night, I made the decision to not bring the small table top switching layout but instead bring my portion of the Galesburg City Job. I was hopping at best to bring the two modules that represented the Butler complex but to my surprise, my Little Focus swallowed up all three modules, the legs, support equipment, tool box and the train box. Wow, just as good as my old Cherokee but my gas mileage was 33 MPG. I love this car! With the little car packed, I left early Saturday morning to the show which was roughly an hour north of me in Normal Illinois. The show organizer gave me my own room, so set up was a breeze and was finished in about an hour. The highlight on Saturday was having a gentleman stop by and point to one of the Butler buildings and say that he worked in that building as a college kid one summer. It was great to talk to folks who were familiar with the area. Later that night after the show closed to the general public, we had a club meeting, then Pizza and finally ran trains until about 8:00 before calling it a day. Sunday: I slept in till 6:30 then after getting ready met up with my friends for breakfast before heading into the show. Attendance was down this year, only about 124, so a new venue will not hurt. I still had a great time and got to run trains. It was a little odd running without my co-modeler Bill but many of the folks I talked to this past weekend are now making plans to see the both of us and the complete layout at this years Galesburg RR Days in June. Before we knew it, it was time to take everything down and yes, that clock on the wall really bothered my OCD. Soon my car was packed and I was headed home. So how about you? What did you accomplish this past weekend? Shows? Trees? Painting? Let us know! We'll assemble again on Friday the 16th to start the process all over again. Until then, have a great week, stay safe and as always... High Greens!
Saturday: Painted my S-12. Worked on my IM AC-12.... She pulls!! LOL. After reading about a few other folks dealings with these locomotives. I tried one of their solutions to a problem mine was having --- major wheel slippage and general lack of pulling power. So, I removed the spring from the trailing truck and cutting the spring on the leading truck. (I couldn't get the truck's mounting pin out). Now she pulls my little 20+ car train without a problem. By the way she is a first run N Scale model. -- Now, I am considering picking 1 or 2 more -- can't have too many cab forwards!! LOL... My S-12 ready for decals: Sunday: Started decaling the S-12. I am about 85-90% done. Other than watching the Phoenix race -- that's about all I accomplished. -- Oh, I am also working on an Ice Cream truck -- fun little project!! (It's behind the S-12) Hope Y'all had a great weekend!! Wolf
Well I did a little bit. Friday I made 18 trees. Now they just need their foliage. Saturday was my down day. Sunday I started my scrap yard. Today I will continue work on it and hopefully it will be finished by tomorrow.
Completed my circuit board work stand and began building a prototype of Rob Paisley's capacitive discharge turnout control. I still need to put together the toggle switch/LED portion of the circuit. This is just a test to see if I can build something that works. It's been decades since I built a circuit and I've really enjoyed this so far.
Painted about 10ft of double track + 2 sidings and got the ballast down. Wired... when I finished that, I wired some more. When that was over, I went online and ordered more wire. The good news was I found my ballast. I've settled on Arizona Rock and Mineral CSX, So Pacific, Wabash grade, simple HO scale. I tried the HO mainline scale but it was too big. Just ordered "buku" bags of the regular HO scale stuff.
Been working on a coal yard and now working on the bins. Being of limited funds, I'm using stuff from around the house. Using an old Tyco bridge and its trestles, wood from my wife's craft sticks, and jewelry wire. Shown here a couple of older pics of the bridge and trestles, and temporarily installed hand rails. And now of cut wood strips and the start of coal bins. Since it will be of old construction, gaps are left as is!
My first attempt failed, I think because I tried to pack too much on the small perfboard. Per my photos below, my second attempt openly laid out the circuit sans the LEDs and it works great! In fact, the Kato turnout moves so quietly that I didn't realize that it was working. My next attempt will be to build the full-featured circuit with LEDs on a bigger perfboard. A friend also suggested using flux paste to promote solder flow and a lower wattage iron to protect the components from heat during assembly and I like the ideas.
