Well another weekend has come and gone. Were you able to stay on the course and finish some of those projects? Saturday held the most promise for me. Saturday morning I headed to Bloomington to help work on the clubs N-Trak yard modules. The four of us talked about a multi-purpous front that would hold both the plexiglass "sneeze guard" and the velcro for the skirt. After a bit of talking things out, we reached a decision and two members went to the local hardware store to purchase the required material. Looking at my watch I saw it was 10:45, a little bit earlier than I had planned on leaving and thought, "Perfect, I'll get my supplies and run home and work on the layout." I headed to the shop about 45 minutes away and picked up the required flex and turn outs, talked with the owner and started down the road. This time I took the long way home and explored some more of route 66 and some abandoned right of ways. I ended up getting home around 3:00 and just as I was getting some work done on the layout, the girlfriend came home and wanted dinner and that was the end of my modeling progress for the weekend. Sunday was spent on the dreaded Christmas shopping, so no work was done yesterday. So how about you? Did track work, scenery or bench work take priority to Christmas shopping? Any paint and decal work this week? How about new structures from kits or scratch built? Whatever you got done this weekend, big or small, let us know! We'll come back on Friday, December 7th, and do it all over again. Until then... High Greens!
Over Saturday afternoon and early Sunday morning, I got all of the buss wire installed and leads attached. Somehow, yard track 3 is completely dead, so I'll have to work on that. Nice to have trains running!
Did a little soldering iron work on a Walthers FA1 that let out some smoke. The wires from the trucks to the board on the right side were melted.:startled: Also lubed up an old Athearn GP35 that seems to be getting slower (and warmer) with time... I see a motor change in the future...
I only got a bit done, more assembly work on the carfloat apron. The weather, as predicted, was damp and cold, so I didn't want to do any spray painting. I should have an hour or so this afternoon after work, though, so I will extend the weekend just a bit.
No pics this week. I spent more time testing the new track with a variety of long and short cars - the Bluford 86' autobox is actually a pretty good turnout problem detector. Still need to clean the track, but it's all working well. I started laying a major scenic feature - U.S. Highway 61, which is known in Baton Rouge as Scenic Highway (even though it originates downtown within the Large Exxon Refinery). It's 4 lane divided up in the part of the parish I'm modeling, so it will be rather substantial. I've also got my version of the Hard Hat laid out (banner printed) and I spent some time on this website http://www.kurumi.com/roads/signmaker/signmaker.html making road signs. Finally, I am doing a BLair Line laser cut wood modern billboard - the BLMA one is too big for the space, and i bought this one years ago. We'll see how it takes paint.
My club had an open house for about 20 children and their parents who attended a breakfast with Santa at the VFW Post in Walden NY. While there I wired a new HO module for an upcoming Greenberg show next weekend.
A bit of track laying, associated with the change from Kato #4 pointwork to Peco, and wiring in the Peco motors. Regards, Pete Davies
