Good Morning, good evening, where ever you may be. Welcome back everyone. I hope you had a great weekend, let's see how we did. Saturday: Since Friday was nice, I went ahead and took the Mustang to my "not so local hobby shop" and picked up all my track and tools that I needed. Still feels odd that the Mustang gets better gas mileage then Jess. It was a nice ride as always. Saturday, I slept in until 7:00, got started on what would become a car day. Long story short, Angela needed a new battery and Fiat decided the best place for said battery was in the front lower fascia of the bumper. This required the removal of the front drivers side wheel and the removal of the inner fender. Suddenly the thoughts of buying that old '64 Falcon entered into my brain, but between her dad and I, we got it done in an hour and a half. I got 50% of the trailer fixed, Jess got new oil and a filter and the Mustang got hand washed in prep for the cruise. It must have been a battery theme today as Angela's dad said the battery in the Cobra was DOA. So Jess got to go to the cruise along with Callie the Stang. It was a great turnout with many beautiful cars of all types and the weather was perfect. Sunday: I slept in again. I spent some time reading my new book from Lance Mindheim and worked on the HO track plan. I then went to a craft show with Angela and enjoyed lunch at one of our favorite spots. Once home, the dreaded lawn was calling and that took me the rest of the day to do. After that, we enjoyed the cool front that came in and I enjoyed a frosty beverage while burning one of the stumps. A busy weekend. So how about you? Did you get everything done you set out to do on Friday? Let us know. We'll assemble again on Friday, October 2nd. Until then, have a great week, stay safe, be healthy and as always... High Greens!
Well - I finished the REA van. Started on a friends Model T touring (1:48th). And, made slow but good progress on the 2-10-2 Hope Y'all had a wonderful weekend, Wolf
Good morning all, Things were going well with the yard ladder and by Saturday afternoon I was connecting the linkages to the Tortoise motor. On the last turnout the moving tie came loose and both point rails fell out, Oh NO ! %*&# ! Here's what happened. Peco changed the design of their turnouts since the last time I had bought any. The spring now puts a tension on the moving tie that holds everything together. I normally remove the spring when using the turnouts with Tortoise motors and did the same with these. All of the turnouts at the other end of the yard were using the MTB MP5 motors and I did not remove the springs. I did figure out a fix and here it is. This photo below shows the one I repaired. Placing a .060 x .040 styrene strip between the moving tie and the head tie prevents the moving tie from moving toward the head tie and keeps the tabs on the point rails locked into place. Two others had not fallen apart so I only had to slide in the .060 x .040 strip. I had only spiked down the turnouts and had not yet glued any of the track down. I did have to remove the entire yard ladder and bring it back to the bench to make the repairs and modifications, then clean up all the rail ends and re-install. Everything still fit as it did before and by Sunday evening it was done with track glued down, linkages connected, motors in place and tested. I didn't get to anything else this weekend.
I definitely understand slow but good progress. I now have coupler/ truck combo's ready and have drilled out the main frame in prep for wheel mounting. Other components are standing by for installation on cabooses and boxcar. Onward and upward.
Wound up doing some office work this weekend that cut into modeling time. Nonetheless I did manage to: 1. Get the major wall glued together with a chimney base for the new "Highland Paint Co" building I am kitbashing. 2. Also planted some static grass over about an 8' edge of track. The shrubs on top of it have to be done now.
I spent the weekend working on my Lester WA Coal Dock. I got started building it, then decided to fix some bugs and start a second model Here is where I stopped on the first: And here is how far I got on the 2nd attempt:
Weekend went about as expected. After fixing the issue with the scenic divide last weekend, it was time to finally finish working on hiding the seams where it met the scenery. With that done, I added some additional trees near the scenic divide and then returned my attention to the other side where I began building the access road for the chemical plant and power sub station. All in all, a good weekend of progress.
I experimented with creating headlight lenses using clear silicone. (BTW- No powered bulb inside.) Once I got the brand new tube unplugged, it worked fairly well.
Couldn’t get a hold of the computer to draw up the plans needed for modules. However I did have a gentleman and his son come over to see the layout. They only run DC so after the tour I talked DCC then handed each of them a throttle and let them play for a bit. The 13 year old was blown away with what can be done with DCC.
I got ties laid under the turnouts on my layout as well as under everyplace I joined the track sections. I also got my gap cut to isolate the frogs and gapped all of the PCB ties with the Dremel. Now I need to figure out my blocks and gap for those and then fine some plastic to fill the gaps in the rails. My Pennsy layout is going along slowly, but it is going along. I can't wait to get the track wired and try out the NCE DCC system I purchased.
Ran My First Train On New Layout Friday; Early morning I put in couple hours breaking down in coming pallets of supplies at the petfood pantry. Late morning into late afternoon finished up flower bed removal. Evening I took up industrial tracks and installed insulated rail joiners on all frog end rails. Run feeds to spur tacks. Saturday; Early morning coffee, finished relaying industrial tracks. Dug out some equipment for testing track work. Burned brush pile and bees. After lunch I took a three hour senior siesta. After dinner cleaned off layout. Sunday; Bundled all feeders together and installed temp power and throttle. Tried to run first train around layout. Discovered bad conductivity on sagging unsupported Kato expandable track. Wiggled, jiggled and shimmed up and got it working. This is temp track to be replaced with covered bridge. Took a two hour senior siesta Late Sunday into Early Monday, Tested the rest of the track. RAN 1ST TRAIN ON ENTIRE HCD LAYOUT! Found one Kato No4 needs frog shimmed up. 40' cars with body mount Z scale couplers navigated industrial track S turns flawlessly! Celebrated first train of logs with a tasty beverage! Very stong iced ginger tea, alcohol and sugar free. Brewed with enough fresh ginger to have some heat!
Thanks Boxcab. It was a present from my wife, when they first came out. She liked it because it was like the locomotive on the Durbin Rocket which we rode. The wheel base is solid no swivel trucks. Looks almost like a frame from a 0-12-0 with center axles removed. It runs really well with my old MCR 55 transistor throttle. Noisy as all get out with old wire wound rheostat power pack throttles.
