Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend and I hope you all managed to get a lot done. Let's see how we all did. Saturday: As predicted, I got up early and waited for Angela's dad to pick me up. Ang decided to stay and make Christmas candy with her grandma, so We left early and made the 5 plus hour journey to Kentucky. Long story short, the car was everything I was looking for, right down to the color. The car is literally a time capsule and will not take much to be a reliable daily driver. The previous owner already installed a new fuel tank, fuel line, breaks, master cylinder, tires and battery. All I need to do is rebuild the carburetor and repair the radiator. I was shocked at how peppy the little straight six is and she handles great. I paid the gentleman, loaded the Falcon on the trailer and we headed back to Illinois. We arrived late so I stayed with the father-in-law. Sunday: We unloaded the Falcon and headed to meet Ang for breakfast. After breakfast we visited for a bit before her dad had to go, then I was drafted into Christmas shopping. After that, I called my dad and touched base with him then finally went to finish the Christmas train which turned into hours of Frustration. I had forgotten that last year we had a power surge, and it may have damaged the MTH DCS TIU. After fighting with it for hours, I gave up and went analog with an old Lionel steamer. This only made the dogs go crazy, so I shelved it and called it a night. I guess next year I'll go another route as MTH is no more. So how about you? What did you get done? Let us know. We'll gather again on Friday the 23rd or Christmas Eve, Eve and start planning again. Until then, have a great week, be safe, stay healthy and as always... HAPPY 1st DAY OF HANUKKAH! & High Greens!
Howdy folks My weekend plan is fulfilled. The glue needed more time to dry. Whatever....the connection between the two helixes is made. Look here: The track radii here are from 21' to 24' and larger. My wife is happy that I am building the model railway until late at night. Model railroad moonshiner
Happy Monday and a very happy Christmas Week!!! This weekend I finished putting mobile decoders in the last Atlas RSD12 as well as the Lifelike Proto2000 GP9 (#5813) I purchased in November at the Raleigh train show. Paid next to nothing for it at the show and have gotten it running perfect. 5813 now needs a 5 chime horn as well. Also pulled out all of the Geeps I have. Next up I'll rip out the old Quantum sound decoder from 5903 and put in a WOW sound. That will be an easy conversion given it is already set up for sound. Also ran these guys quite a bit this weekend.
Not much happening around the house. I did winterize a couple of the windows and deal with some of the backlog of laundry from when I had COVID the week before. I ran some trains and sorted some of my coal hoppers.
Good mornin to Y'all, Made some progress on the FA's. They are ready fro decals. I tried to start with the stripes. However, every one of the decal sheets (Of stripes) are bad. All of them started to crack (In numerous places) every time I tried to apply them. So, I ordered more. Thanks, and Y'all have a great week, Wolf
Good morning all, Had a full productive weekend here as well. Much of Friday was spent getting Christmas cards done but then later in the day I was able to program the DS-64 for the routes needed on the upper loop. I had kept good notes from last time I had programmed one of these so it went smoothly. Then on Saturday I got the DS64 mounted and wired all the inputs. In this photo my output test board is still connected to it. Yellow is indicating an aligned and red is indicating a closed. The panel itself got mounted temporarily on a scrap of hard board. Later it will be installed on the fascia when that is in. By Sunday all of the outputs had been connected and were working correctly. The route LED's (green) came next. Did find one minor design error in my use of one of the turnouts contacts to route power to the staging spurs. So at that point being Sunday evening I called it a good weekend.
My weekend pretty much went as expected, but my productivity surprised me a little. Friday, I caught up on a fair number of chores and started looking at the box of trains I got last week from the forum Swap Meet. I only needed to add weight to the Southern Pacific caboose and it was almost done so I left it for the night for the glue to dry. Saturday, my wife and I drove to our former town in southern Ohio to pick up our new glasses, our visit friends were not home so we came directly home and stopped for lunch at a diner we like in Canton. In the evening I worked on some coupler conversions but the glue I was using to secure new weight in the caboose wasn't curing. So, I wiped it off and used a different glue. I was frustrated that a) I couldn't access the innards of the tank car to add weight, b) the tank car couplers were fiddly and didn't lend themselves easily to conversion to Kadee couplers (that should have been an easy swap), and c) even the newer Athearn plug door boxcar was being a problem. It had Bachmann style, plastic, knuckle couplers but one wasn't working well. It looked like I could easily swap them out for some Kadee #178 "whisker" couplers, but the profile of the coupler box was too thin and once you screwed the lid on the coupler box, the kadees were pinched and wouldn't move. In frustration, I quit for the night. Sunday, was church, then train club where I got caught up on some bookkeeping before heading home for a Zoom board meeting for our Liberia mission. That meeting has often been an enormous frustration, but went surprisingly well and we made good progress. Sunday evening I went back to my workbench and looked at my earlier frustrations with fresh eyes. The glue on the caboose was dry so it was done. Upon full disassembly, I found a seam and was able to open up the tank car and add weight and also found that a narrow Kadee coupler pocket fit inside the existing coupler pocket, so with a little cutting and fiddling, it got that conversion done as well. Finally, I looked at the Athearn boxcar. Using a narrow coupler pocket wouldn't work because the center post in the coupler contained the threads needed to screw the lid on the coupler box. Worse, I couldn't just drill out a new hole, because there were metal parts underneath it. I was finally able to glue some 0.08" shims in the corners of the coupler box to give the Kadee couplers enough clearance to pivot properly. It isn't perfect, but it'll do. Overall, a productive and successful weekend.
Happy Monday all, Well, it was a busy weekend and didn't get much done train wise. Did about 3/4 of my Christmas shopping Saturday. Took my son with me and he got all of his finished up. Grocery shopping on the way home just about finished me off. My knee was aching so didn't make it down to the train room Saturday. Sunday, I did make it to the train room. Did a good bit of cleaning while a couple of trains ran around the layout. Picked out the two victim Atlas engines for DCC install. Popped the hoods and then shiny object syndrome hit and that was it for trains for the day. Here's hoping you all have a great week! Merry Christmas
Friday, did not get much done with the trains, and Friday night bowling was pretty bad as we only won 2 points. Saturday went to the club and collected dues for next year along with shirt money as we finally got new club shirts which I paid for. Went to a new restaurant for my 75th birthday party with the local family members including my older brother from Toledo. After we got home I got some decaling done. Sunday, worked on getting some Christmas decorations up and the laundry done. Did some more work on the decals and finished the ore jimmy’s and got one side of an RBL done. Also worked on another 100 ton 3 bay coal hopper to 65 ton 2 bay coal hopper conversion. Rick Jesionowski
Alright, that's a new one. Please explain? So I posted in the Modeling plan area that I wouldn't list items cause there was too much to do. Well I barely started on my long list of items to take care of, but at least I started. And as usual I began to tangent from the original items I wanted to focus on, and started on items I wasn't even planning. That seems to be the way I roll. This is the reason I didn't really actually list anything in the Modeling Plans thread. I have issues with focus
Wow! I hate the draft. I hate frustration. I hate dogs going crazy! Good luck. (Maybe this was not as bad as it sounds?) Once again, I am impressed with the crisp carpentry and track laying. I really like Geeps. Laundry keeps rearing its head. Keep the hoppers rolling. I hate cracking decals. It is a wise man who makes/keeps notes. Fine electronics job. @Pastor John, I am not surprised at your productivity. It is good to take a break when the frustration rises. Good perseverance. Got 'er all done. I hate knee problems. I have dealt with it myself. I actually like "shiny object syndrome". Decaling Days! (and more laundry) "Issues with focus". I can definitely relate. Surprisingly, I got a good bit done by this morning. The poultry construction and installation are done. I am not completely satisfied with the result but at least the folks will have eggs... All that remains is Jersey cow building. Have a safe and happy pre-holiday week.
Pretty much as I expected. Almost nothing due to work and fatigue from too many long shifts. Trying to make a quick jig to keep a twelve inch piece of Atlas flex straight. Goes in my engine house, and the flooring being laser cut, needs to be pretty much exact to get the piece in between rails.and not pinch flanges. Started reading my new V&O book. Fell asleep too easily...
You actually answered your own question there. Shiny object syndrome is when I don't stay focused and something else gets my attention and I'm off to that. Seems like some days it takes me far enough off track that I forget where I started
