Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend and got a lot accomplished. Let's dig in. Saturday: I woke up to a beautiful sunrise and warm temps. Once up, coffee was made then off to the workshop. I worked a little on the N scale layout then got ready for the day. Since the weather was warm, the lawn needed to be cut for the first time this year. Out came my antique John Deere tractor and started with making the lawn looked like a lawn again. I stopped in between mowing to be the guest on Ray Arnot's Around The Layout Podcast and talked to Ray and Tony Cook about the new Athearn website then finished the lawn. I then was granted permission to get my battery for the motorcycle but not to dilly dally as her dad and grandmother would be here soon. Once back from the dealership I visited with Angela's dad and grandma then we loaded up in the truck and headed to one of our favorite restaurants in Bloomington. We had a great surprise in that Jared joined us, so it was a nice visit. Once home, Ang dished out her German chocolate cake and ice cream and it was a hit. She did a great job. After everyone left, we relaxed from the busy day and went to bed. Sunday: Was the exact opposite of the day before. Gone was the sun and the warm weather was replaced with winter air - YUK. With coffee made, upstairs I went and started working on the N scale switching layout. I took a break to make a dinner in the crock pot then resumed the activities with a podcast playing. I was able to complete the mainline of the layout and most of the passing siding when I stopped for the night. Next, Ang and I completed our first tax return as a married couple. After a late dinner we quickly realized the weekend was over. So how about you? What did you get done this past weekend? Let us know. We'll assemble again on Friday the 21st to do it all over again. Until then, have a great week, be safe and as always... High Greens!
Good morning all and happy IR$ Tax week! The weekend was spent mostly on modeling although it didn't go as planned. The oil platform took longer than I thought. I really wasn't happy w/ the Walthers model so I had to spend time "tweaking and tweaking". I added roofs over each valve station which were not part of the kit and spent quite a bit of time on the valve handles. I tried to use the oversized handles that came w/ the kit and they didn't look all that good. So I spent time bending .020 phosphor bronze wire, shaping them into valve handles. It worked like a charm. Also, yesterday I planned on painting outdoors. We woke up and it was cloudy all day threatening rain so I ditched the painting. Finally around 2 or so we started getting some small showers here and there, so I am glad I didn't set up and have to take all that stuff down. The good thing that happened was I got a phone call from the person that has agreed to print my control panels. She is close relative of a friend of mine and has agreed to do this as a favor. She will print each panel and mount it on a board for me to ultimately drill and add toggles and LED's. I have one more panel to finish drawing up and she will get started w/ the printing. I'll knock that out today or tomorrow. Have a great week all!!
Morning all! Hope everyone had a productive weekend. I spent part of Saturday updating this enclosure and working on a few bug fixes for the firmware: The front side has two buttons and two RJ45 jacks for the cab bus and the back side has two RJ45 for LCC and a power supply connection. I have a few more tests to conduct on the PCB / enclosure but it is nearly ready for sending off for FCC testing. Testing on the throttle has started but a new enclosure is still being worked on: this is showing the existing enclosure that I printed around a week ago with the current PCB and the possible battery for it. The "top" half of the enclosure will ultimately have the PCB attached directly to it and the battery / charging circuit will be below the PCB roughly in the location it is now in the throttle.
Good mornin to Y'all - hope Y'all had a great weekend, Saturday: - The OPS session went great. Very few hick ups. Fun was had by all Sunday: -- Painted the Model T. That's about it. Couldn't get motivated to do any MRRing Y'all have a great week, Wolf
Finished weathering a few tanks around packing for the move to Virginia. Have a great week! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My weekend went about as I expected. Friday, we had dinner with our son (the local one) Friday as I mentioned, and... Saturday, instead of our daughter coming over for the day my wife and I went to Menard's (big box hardware) and bought some decorative fence to replace temporary plastic fence we've been using to keep our dogs from killing the grass. Since Menards is near our daughter's house, we stopped there on the way home and did some chores for her since she currently has doctors' orders limiting her activity. I also continued doing research for my upcoming paper and will continue this week with a likely trip to the seminary library. Sunday was church, a nice lunch of chicken alfredo, then train club where Imanaed to get a second coat of primer on our new water feature befire going back to church to join a Zoom meeting for our Liberia mission board. Plans are proceeding, and we are're hoping to open our new high school this fall, but I'm a little concerned that our fundraising won't raise enough soon enough. The good news is that whether the high school officially opens or not, there will be students in the classrooms since the middle school is already using every available classroom. Here is our new port in bare wood. With one coat of primer on the "water"... And two coats of primer. And here is the decorative fence we put up. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk
Finished my HOn30 caboose project. Need to get a picture. It matches a previous attempt, so nothing really new to view. Then I somehow was diverted to scanning more of my train order collection, (a bunch of hours went by, quickly!), and built several new web pages for those JPGs.
Hey All, On Saturday, made it to the New Braunfels, TX train show. I picked up a couple of hoppers for the Wichita & Northwestern project, and a couple of 1900-ish cars for the growing set of cars there for an ops session. I also worked to edit/improve decal sets for the W&NW hoppers and with a data only two bay hopper and an Athearn Genesis PS-2 2893 to come (removing CNW lettering), we are starting to converge on a style. A few more stencil detail decals are in the mail, so more soon. Have a great week. See you next weekend! -Bob T.
As I suspected I only managed to get some decalling done on Friday but got the sides done on two cars so only the end lettering is left. Saturday and Sunday were spent at the bowling tournament 13 hours each day and then home to rest along with a libation before hitting the sack. Only two more weeks and then we’re done. Rick Jesionowski
Moose's weekend... Saturday: - Sprayed first coat of varnish on some [barely passable] refinished furniture and promptly ran out of varnish - Fired up the Quattro (paint booth) and set about trying to use the new single action siphon feed airbrush for first time. - Grew more than a wee bit frustrated with airbrush compressor as it does not seem to provide enough air pressure for a siphon feed airbrush. - Decided much more light is needed for the paint booth... Sunday: - Ordered an open top paint cup for the siphon feed airbrush, hoping that will help with paint issues, and ordered some additional paints and a battery operated paint mixer to boot. - Researched lighting options for the paint booth as well as possible ways to improve Moose's airbrush operations. - Heard a VERY loud thunder clap! - Removed the cat from Moose's leg... Monday: - Off to the store to purchase lighting for paint booth... Hope everyone has a great week!
I cleaned a bit in the train room, continued weathering a couple of 50 ft hi cube boxcars, and staged a roster shot of my current KCS holdings as I make my way thought the mourning period for the KCS-CP merger. No sack cloth or ashes involved this weekend.
All plans for the weekend went out the window literally. Our downstair window air conditioner which cools the entire first floor died on Thursday. It was pumping air but the compressor was dead. I ordered a new one Friday was told it would come on Tuesday. To my surprise it was delivered Sunday. My daughter and I spent about four hours installing it. It was an hour and a half for the new one and two and a half hours removing the old one. Saturday, we did some running. Went to the post office, Staples, and Kohl’s to make some returns. I spent the better part of the day finishing taxes. I was supposed to go to the grocery store but I did not make it until Sunday evening. Nothing got done on the layout, or workbench. I did enter and edit a few cars in my inventory program.
We completed a very successful run of our N Scale Asian themed layout on Sunday. It was amazing how many visitors attended this event, even with a $19.00 adult / $12.00 children museum admission. There were 6 layouts at this event, 2 of those were there for 10 days, and 4 more including us were there for 5 day each. We got a bit of help with the setup and tear down but the running of the layout was just Paul and myself so kept on our feet the whole time. So lots of fun but it wore us out. By sundown on Sunday I was back home and had the truck unloaded. Shot of the layout during one of the few slack times.
Cake and ice cream! Wise decisions on the oil platforms. My idea is that if you don't like it now, you will like it less later. The PCB "party" looks like a huge success! Fun had by all. Couldn't be better. Good to be "tanked" up. They do look sharp! Big port in the making! I get "somehow diverted" myself. Outstanding covered hoppers! Decals are the icing on the cake. Seems like new tech sometimes has a learning curve. (Adhesive cat?) KCS's! "Entering and editing" counts. N scale layouts look impressive. I enjoyed visiting the Gadsden train show. However, the show seemed lightly attended. Very nice weather and an art show at the falls park may have influenced this. At this point one set of reporting marks are on and I am working out the next two sets. A finicky process. Have a good week all.
Well, I finally decided to take a couple of pictures. First the recent caboose. The next my (ha ha) "fleet" of HOn30 crummies:
