Well here we are again. How did you do? Saturday: We’ll, domestic duties took over most of my morning as I had feared, so I did. To get to any model railroad items until 1:00 that afternoon. The garage was still way to cold but I did manage to get one modules legs glued together. Because the garage was so cold, I had to bring the legs in to dry. The biggest project of the day was the pile of paper that needed to be filed, all left over from before Thanksgiving. It was Sunday night before I saw my work bench again. Sunday: Being colder then Saturday, I didn’t even attempt to go to the garage. Instead, I turned my attention to the cleaning, organizing and filing that took me until the start of the Super Bowl. Alas my boys didn’t win, but the Eagles played a great game and they deserve a Super Bowl for as hard as they have fought this season. All in all, not a very fun or productive weekend, but there is always next weekend. So how about you? What did you get done? Let us know. We’ll be back on Friday the 9th to start all over again. Until then, have a great week, stay safe and as always... High Greens!
Saturday: I made progress on the decoder install into my Key N-Scale GS-5. First decoder - was bad - DZ-126T's (right out of the bag). Second one -- smoked it (Due to wires touching the motor's metal case --- doh!!) Third one --- good to go. Now - I am going to change the lights around. I will remove the tender light and make it the upper signal light (On the firebox door). Don't need no stinking back up light!! LOL. Then I went to work on my F-7's -- sound decoders in the A's (I opted for the Soundtraxx ECO-100's). I installed DZ-126's in the B's. Sunday: Finished up the sound decoder install. Had to modify the frames for the speakers. Then I painted the trucks and fuel tanks. Reassembled them all -- still have to program all of them. Next -- adding details to them. Windshield wipers, coupler lift bars, air hoses, ladder grabs on the nose, grabs above on the cab roof, wind deflectors, cab shades, sun shades (inside - on the windshields) and new air grills (on the sides of the car bodies). Perhaps more -- that I may have forgotten. Hope Y'all had a great weekend!! Wolf
Well Friday night I made 56 more trees. They are now awaiting trimming and foliage but I seem to be having trouble getting off my lazy butt today to go work on them. These will be the last ones for a while until I move to the next section needing scenicking.
1. Put in the last 12' of homasote roadbed this weekend to complete the mainline. It's been a gruel. 130ft of double main-line is 260' of the stuff. Have about 60LF of track to put down and the mainline is done, ready to finish wiring. 2. Also started painting track. I got a couple of the Joes Model Trains track painter. Thing works really well. I like it since, while I love air brushing, don't want to air-brush in a finished room. Very happy w/ new gadget from "Joes". Have a great week all.
Posted this originally in the Friday, Weekend Plans thread, but decided it fit better here. Hard to believe, but I have never painted or ballasted track. So Friday I decided to give it a try. Jumped right in and didn't bother to check out "how to" threads here or elsewhere, knowing I knew everything I needed to know. WRONG! I used my test track that I use to program my decoders or to test running of engines with my Raspberry Pi 3 and JMRI. First big mistake was I didn't wet the ballast properly with the right solution and then didn't bother to scrap, research, and do it right. It turned "eh" but was happy with the painting. Used flat dirt for rails and then brown for the ties, but wiped the ties to get some of the darker plastic to show. Texture turned out pretty good. Lessons learned, read the instructions! Make sure ballast is level or lower than the ties. Use airbrush, not paint brush for rails! It is HARD to remove glued on ballast! Anyway, here the pics in sequence from bare track to finished product. Starting test track. And a closeup. Brush painted Prepped for ballast. And final result!
