Well it has happened again, Friday is here and we anxiously await the weekend for some modeling time. For me, I get to stay at my apartment for the entire weekend. Something I have not been able to do for close to a month thanks to trade shows and travel. I'll have to make the best of it however, as I will be away again the following two weekends. The work shop project I have been working on is almost done. The bench will be cleared and the start of my GP38-2's will begin. I also have plans to work on one corner of the layout. If the weekend goes the way I want, that means I'll have the siding installed, track painted, hill and overpass shaped, rocks cast and installed and maybe basic scenery. We'll see. So how about you? Who else has plans to work on some locomotive detailing and painting? Anyone working on their layouts or modules? How about some trains shows this weekend? Whatever your plans may be, tell us here. Post your plans below and feel free to ad a picture. We'll join up on Monday the 12th and see how we all did. High Greens!
I am going to do some wiring on the museum layout I have been working on. Later I have to do some scenicking on some of my T-Trak modules for a show next weekend and replace some rapido couplers on a pair of Bachmann 2-8-0's I recently purchased. Last weekend at a Greenberg show in Middletown NY I had one of my n scale Bachmann 2-8-0's derail on a switch and the command station did not detect the short circuit resulting in both tender trucks and axles melting down beyond repair. Bachmann has no stock on the trucks, but in looking at a Kato caboose that has power pickups in the trucks I found that they are almost an exact fit on the Bachmanns tender. I ran it at my club Wednasday night and it performed great. Now I find out Kato has no stock on the caboose trucks. Only a nit picker with a magnifier with the power of the Hubble Space Telescope may be able to tell the difference.
Trainboard gave me my first birthday greeting of the day this morning. I decided, on this momentous occasion, to take a vacation day, relax, and get a bit done on the layout. We are going up skiing again later in the day, so this will be pretty much it for modeling for the weekend. As soon as the coffee was ready, I poured a cup and mixed up some Gypsolite. (Hmmm. That reads badly. The coffee and the Gypsolite are not mixed together.) I spooned it on between the long sidings at the back of Mooseport. These are the tracks that will serve as the yard for carfloat operations. They've been glued down to Woodland Scenics foam roadbed for years, but I never ballasted them. I wanted to get the Gypsolite between the tracks so I didn't have an unbroken sea of ballast in that corner. The location of the tracks in the very back of the layout pretty much demands that I finish them up before I do final placement of the foreground structures. Now, I think I'll go cut the last couple of pieces of masonite for the next section of laying girder rail. I learned a lot of what to do, and what not to do, when putting this stuff in. Hopefully, the next section will go more smoothly, both in terms of the work to be done and the rolling quality of the track itself.
NTRAK train show at the public library this weekend......we'll set up tonight (friday) after 5 and run all day saturday and sunday.........pretty much ties up the entire weekend. I enjoy it since I can run big trains I can't run on my home layout.
Hoping to finish the hillside construction on the bottom level end section. Need to wad newspaper and glue down cardboard cross pieces for the lattice... should get to that tonight. Need to buy hydrocal at AC Moore tomorrow so I can start the plaster shell and have that done this weekend. I am also planning on making a home-made sieve from some wood scraps and metal window screen I have left over. I have some soil samples of varying colors that need to be dried to a constant weight and put through the sieve to make a fairly fine material for scenery. I also need to start rounding up tea leaves and small sticks for forest ground cover.
