Fairly productive night by the crew of the RGW. Wain brought in his scratch built RGW Rip shed and began affixing the foundation. Scott continued adding details to the Edwards and Bradford lumber mill. Here he is making a woodchip load using sifted sawdust: In the foreground you can see the first bark load container. I understand he intends to put small chips in as well. Here's a closeup. Ed has moved on to the next electrical project, our coal scale in Franklin. The Cornerstone scale and platform needed to be cut to fit, I believe he stated he took off about 3/8 inch from the back of the platform and scale house. Here he is cleaning up the rail so the platform fits perfectly. I started my evening off with installing more backdrop photos. In this case a first attempt to give the viewer the sense the warehouses are in a freight district. We'll let that sit there for a while and chew on the composition to see if it works or whether we need to change anything. After that was done, I set out to paint the majority of the crane. Later in the evening I brought it into the train room for some prep and a test fit. Well, that's it for tonight. Thanks for checking in.
My update tonight actually begins two days ago. I spent some time working on the traveling crane. I wanted to add a trolley festoon and a pendant festoon. I fashioned the parts of the conductor tracks using a combination of 020 and 032 brass wire. I added 1/16th brass tube to make the festoon. I laid it all out on my soldering base (an old piece of scrap homosote) and soldered all the parts in place. I later added JB Weld to the tube sections to mimic connections to the tracks. I drilled holes in the front bridge section and just used a press fit to secure the festoon in place. This morning I gave the bridge a second coat of primer so that it would be ready to work on this evening. I rusted up the bridge, specifically the rails, then began to form the cabling of the festoon using 24 gauge wire. It took a while and the wire broke several times, but in the end it fit like a glove. I can now consider this piece all but done. Just need to connect the cable to the hoist frame and add the pendant control and it's a wrap. Once I had that set aside I started putting the styrene on the building front. In other action tonight, Wain began working on the roads in Maple Valley. They're just lines on the cork at this point, but then he carved away some ballast in preparation for a curbed alley along the road bed. Ed completed his prep for the scale house and platform. It took a lot of work to remove ballast that had been in place for years, but it's ready for the next stage. Rey was also busy finalizing a Dash 9 upgrade; new lights and a new decoder. We were short staffed tonight, but the evening was productive, so we'll gather again next week. Hope you'll join us!
Just a couple of updates. Wain dropped by early this evening to bring over and put in place the RGW RIP shed. He's all smiles as the build has gone very well. This structure will make an excellent addition to the layout and to the Renton Yard in specific. I'm very impressed. He hopes to have all the track connected and the surrounding scenery complete by next Tuesday. I have been working on the PACCAR building. As you can see it is a combination of Masonite for the main building and foamcore for the loading area. I finished adding the primary styrene layer and giving the building two coats of primer. I have the lower portion of the structure cut out, but it will be painted a completely different color so I'll install it after painting. The bay on the left will be where the crane goes. On the right will be a standard loading dock with three rolltop doors. More on this building soon. Thanks for checking in.
Here's a quick recap of tonight's work. Scott continued building loads, in this case woodchips using sawdust from my garage workshop collector. Doug started using the Woodland Scenics road system by laying out the foam edging. He also put in the first of four crossing ramps. I took the night off from building structures to try my hand at scratchbuilding this: Using Northeastern dimensional lumber and Nn3 wheels, here is what I came up with: There will be two of these, one at each entrance to the town of Black Diamond. That's all there is tonight fellas, thanks for checking in.
A quick update from Tuesday. Wain began the process of adding scenery around the RGW rip shed. I'll have to go out again this weekend and get shots after the glue dries. As for me, I put the final coats of white on the PACCAR building and finished the lower trim. I tried for a speckled look on the trim, as if there was texture on the panels. Not sure I accomplished that but I like the randomness of the look anyway. Earlier in the day I spoke with a good friend of mine about using his 3d printer to make stacks of pallets for the Edwards and Bradford lumber mill. I sent him this pic of what I'm trying to replicate. He's going to print a mock up and we'll see how it goes. Well, that's all for now.
A quick update on the status of the PACCAR building. Today I made good progress on the warehouse area. It will have 4 separate rolltop doors. I'm using Plastruct shapes to simulate the door roller supports. I then fabricated the loading dock where the trucks will depart the building to be loaded on flat cars. I really like using the magnetic gluing jig from Micromark. Here is where we stand tonight. As you can see I've incorporated a photo of stacked shelving units behind the freight doors. I still have to paint the new sections and add the rolltop doors at the freight dock, but we're getting close.
In the age of social distancing, I did what any hobbyist would do, I rearranged my sock drawer. In this case, I previously ordered these two acrylic paint racks from Model Designs and decided today was as good a day as any to freshen up the workspace. I clearly need more Tamiya paint.