MODELING It's Monday, January 11th 2021: Weekend Modeling Accomplishments

Jim Wiggin Jan 11, 2021

  1. Jim Wiggin

    Jim Wiggin Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Welcome back everyone. I hope your weekend was a good one and busy. Let's see how we all did.

    Saturday: What is that quote? The best plans of mice and men? It took ALL day to get everything from Christmas down. I had purchased new plastic bins to "help" with this process and my goal was to organize and put everything away in an orderly fashion. Well, I did, but it took all day to accomplish this. I got a call from a good friend of mine and we spent the evening enjoying some N scale talk over dinner while the wives caught up. So the only model railroading I got done was in verbal form.

    Sunday: I called and checked in with my dad in NH to see how he was doing then Ang and I decided to go to town and stock up on provisions as this time of year is good for disruptions. After getting back, I continued with getting all the Christmas stuff organized and put away. I still have a bunch of cleaning to do before the studio area is ready. Just not enough time and energy to get everything done anymore.

    So how about you? What did you get done? Let us know. We'll start the process all over again on Friday the 15th. Until then, have a great week, be safe and stay healthy and as always...

    High Greens!
     
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  2. Kevin Anderson

    Kevin Anderson TrainBoard Member

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    Sunday started my weekend and it was very productive.

    Since I am revisiting my old west module to add a few enhancements, it was all detail stuff that need completion. I added a light effect in the Indian village. Problem is it failed after a few minutes. I contacted the manufacturer and since it has a two year warranty they are sending me a replacement. Built a signal system, made the coal in the loco tenders more believable than what Bachmann had done. It’s now more to scale and not so shiny. I used woodland scenics fine cinders. Got a little
    Morbid. Instead of just antlers I added a whole dees head to one of the engines. Whey what can I say it’s N scale. The US military load worked out great. Fits right in.

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  3. Tim Holmes

    Tim Holmes TrainBoard Member

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    Hi Guys:

    Unfortunately I havent felt real great this weekend, so I didnt get much physical done on the layout, but I did get all the cars input into JMRI and I am starting to build the necessary operations screens to get all of that running

    Hope to do some track work today, we'll see how it goes
    TIM
     
  4. BNSF FAN

    BNSF FAN TrainBoard Supporter

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    Like Jim, my weekend never made it around to working on the layout at all. Saturday, we replaced all the door hardware on the upstairs doors. Took way longer than I thought it would .I started on the exterior door locks on the main floor. One wouldn't work so a trip back to HD. Sunday was the rest of the main floor and all but that one exterior door. The one HD fixed worked at he store but once assembled on the door, no go so back to HD. They replaced it but the person who keys locks was out so I still have yet another trip to HD. And just like that, the weekend is over. I did at least get my order placed for the January planet series release. Guess that may count just a little.
     
  5. Tompm

    Tompm TrainBoard Supporter

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    This was one of those weekends where it seemed like no matter how hard you tried nothing got done. We did get all the inside Christmas decorations into their appropriate bins. Still have the tree and outside to do. Other than that, nothing. I did not even get a moment to do any modeling.

    We did not get to the appliance store to look at refrigerators this weekend. The wife is dealing with a sinus infection. We will try again next weekend.
     
  6. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Worked Saturday, as usual. Sunday put away Christmas decorations. Did the laundry. Other small chores. Suddenly the day was gone... :( Maybe a few minutes of model RR time today, I HOPE!!!
     
  7. Kitbash

    Kitbash TrainBoard Supporter

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    Well, like many above on this thread, I didn't get done what I wanted. I spent a couple of hours putting a circuit for security cameras/lights and Saturday AM wound up running many "domestic" errands for stuff that needed to be done. Also started organizing income tax information for filing. I think this year will be one we can file way early so I am trying to pull that together.

    HOWEVER, it wasn't a total failure in the train room as I did manage to:
    1. Reset several functions on the MTH Allegheny I have. The sound and volume somehow had tracked off and I fiddled around and got it squared away.
    2 Worked on the Highland Paint and Coat building.
    3. Started changing out all of the wall outlets in the train room. When I built the room, I used heavy-duty commercial outlets that I got from an electrical distributor I know. When I had the room inspected, the electrical inspector had me replace them all with w/ the "Kiddy-Proof" tamperproof outlets. So I got the cheapest ones I could find since I have 20 of them in there. I don't like the kiddy outlets, they can be a pain to plug stuff in and out. So I am pulling them out and putting back the good outlets. I have been meaning to do this for a couple of years and finally got around to starting.
     
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  8. Philip H

    Philip H TrainBoard Member

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    The domestic COO had hand surgery on friday to repair a fractured Radius. Two plates, 9 screws and a ton of pain meds later its monday. Needless to say I'm not training or taking down Christmas decorations yet. But its all good otherwise.
     
  9. Joe Lovett

    Joe Lovett TrainBoard Member

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    I finished cutting the walls for Ft. Scott Depot and the windows should be here this afternoon. Next step is cutting out door and window openings. It really felt great to be working on a project again after about a month of nothing.

    My work bench is a TV tray.

    Joe

    20210111_090745.jpg 00695992.jpg
     
  10. SP-Wolf

    SP-Wolf TrainBoard Supporter

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    My weekend went as planned - kind of.

    Saturday: Got off to a slow start. I worked on my new project - yet to be announced. It is an FT A-B-B-A set.

    Sunday: We put away Christmas.
    Did some more work on the FT's

    Did not work on the layout -

    Hope Y'all had a great weekend,
    Wolf
     
  11. Joe Lovett

    Joe Lovett TrainBoard Member

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    The HO depot is going to be a large building to me after working with N scale for the last 37 years.

    Joe
     
  12. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    I installed some decoders in my new Kato NYC E7s. I used some Digitrax decoders made for older Kato E units. I had to modify the LED headlights a bit but otherwise they fit OK. The new E7s have a different light board with surface mount LEDs. I cut the stock LEDs off the Digitrax decoder boards leaving about 0.3 inches of the leads sticking out from the end of the boards. I extracted the surface mounted LEDs off the new Kato boards and soldered them to the ends of the leads. I had to flip them to get the proper polarity. Worked out fine.
     
  13. Atani

    Atani TrainBoard Member

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    Friday night was spent with work related on-call activities.

    On Saturday we got outside to work on our garden prep a bit, we were able to get our rabbit enclosure cleaned out and will be scattering some wheat straw later today and kicking our rabbit outside for the day. I also cleared our the seed starting setup so it is ready to go when we have the seeds and soil mix which I'll be ordering this week. We will be starting ~500 seedlings around Feb 13/14 with a goal of planting them the first weekend of April (six weeks is bare minimum for tomatoes and we should have warm weather by April).

    Sunday was spent working on ESP32 CS to add support for defining a virtual DCC turnout which broadcasts OpenLCB (LCC) events instead of a DCC Accessory packet. This couples with the TCS UWT-100 which sends out a DCC Accessory event pair which the CS intercepts and translates to DCC packets.
     
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  14. nscalestation

    nscalestation TrainBoard Supporter

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    Hi everyone,

    With the bridge abutments installed in the Palisade Ranch area of my layout, I masked them and started to apply plaster cloth and wallboard joint compound on the west side of the river. Still working with the insulation board land forms on the east side. Did not get around to painting anything this weekend. Wife and I finished two more dinning room chairs, now 4 down and 2 to go.

    TBWMA10Jan21a.jpg
     
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  15. mrhedley

    mrhedley TrainBoard Member

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    I played around with CadRail a bit as a regular CAD program and once I was able to ignore the rail related functions and just rely on lines, shapes, and texts I drafted a few Control Panel styles. I had to experiment with scaling to get both the panel size and line weights I desired because the program automatically scales them unless you choose a specific line thickness, which then means you have to make sure the drawing is scaled accurately or they will be scaled based on the size of the printout. After fooling around a bit, I came up with these, printed them on matte photo paper glued to hardboard, and covered them with fairly thin rigid plastic. I have some Lexan, but put together with the hardboard the assembly is too thick for the small toggle switches. Anyhow, here's the finished product. I'm kind happy with it. Next step is to trim the edges with wood moldings I'll make with my router. I am always amazed at the skills needed to be even marginally average at this hobby!

    I know it doesn't look it, but they are mounted straight and level, the location of the camera distorted the angle and the shape.

    DSCN1262.JPG DSCN1263.JPG
     
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  16. gmorider

    gmorider TrainBoard Member

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    Neat looking projects. Others like me had to do other things or simply did not get to it. I am still puzzling out caboose windows and I let the "trees" continue to dry. This is going to be a learning curve experience too. :eek::D
     
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  17. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    I actually got something done this weekend, and still had time to spend most of the weekend in the snow with the family. We rented a cabin in McCall, and did some sledding on the lake:
    3.jpg

    And in the evenings did some hot tubbing in the snow, where we found guests waiting for us:
    2.jpg

    And when I got home yesterday afternoon, my Alps printer was warm from the sun shining through the bedroom window, so I took the opportunity to print out the decals for my scratchbuild 42' GS Drop Bottom Coal Gondolas. The ink don't stick well when the printer is cold, but in a 70 degree bedroom sitting in the sun, the wax heated up to probably 85 inside the printer, and the white wax ink sticks well. I printed 2 overlayed layers:
    1.jpg
     
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  18. dti406

    dti406 TrainBoard Member

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    Weather was nice and sunny on Saturday, so I went outside and took down the Christmas lights on the bushes in front of the house, also took down the tree and packed up all the other Christmas decorations and stored them in the basement. On Friday I did my normal bowling league, did not bowl spectacularly, but was trying out a reguvinated ball, had some problems with how much more it breaks than my normal ball.

    Finished up building an IMRC 50' PS1 Boxcar kit and painted a 52'6" gon and PS 4000 CF Covered Hopper. Started decaling the covered hopper along with a 40' boxcar that I painted earlier.

    Rick Jesionowski
     
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  19. Tim Holmes

    Tim Holmes TrainBoard Member

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    HI -- Where is McCall -- it looks beautiful and actually has proper snow!

    Take care
    TIM
     
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  20. Mark St Clair

    Mark St Clair TrainBoard Member

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    Got my one big objective completed this weekend. Almost feel guilty though, with so many of you getting derailed on your own projects. Most mornings I look at the backyard game camera pictures to see if anything interesting wandered through. It was foggy Saturday morning, which usually means I won't see anything but gray. To my surprise there was a very bright band of light in one photo. Another showed a faint large box being carried by the equally faint outline of a person. A third showed what was obviously a reflective safety harness. These were all done with the infrared mode, so low resolution black and white. Took me a few seconds to realize that the cabinets I ordered had been delivered. Our house is fronted by and addressed on a curved "Place" within the subdivision. The backyard borders on a residential street which is part of a different neighborhood technically. The delivery driver ended up behind our house and chose to carry the boxes through our backyard, around the garage and leave them on the front porch. Likely before sunrise on Saturday morning.

    In any case, the cabinets arrived for my Tom Knapp inspired workbench. I was able to start working on them Saturday and finish assembly on Sunday. Still need to adjust the drawers. Then I will put a work surface between them. I already replaced the casters with a more robust set. Several details to add before I fill the drawers, but got done what I hoped for.
    cabinets.jpg

    Like Joe Lovett, my workbench is a TV tray, seen on the right in the photo. It's done yeoman work the past three years, but I hope to improve the accessible storage with the new setup.

    Stay safe,
     

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