Good morning wherever you may be. I hope you all had a great weekend and got a lot accomplished. I'm reminded by the Carpenters Christmas song as all the Christmas cards are sent and most of the gifts are wrapped and under the tree, guarded from wild beagles by a Christmas train. Christmas took over this weekend, but it was a wonderful weekend. Saturday: I had taken Friday off, but it was still a typical, get up at 5:00am day. I went to town and successfully finished my Christmas shopping and came home. I spent the rest of the day setting up the Christmas wrapping station as I am the weird one in the family who enjoys wrapping gifts. On Saturday, Ang asked me if I could go with her to the local Harley Davidson dealership and help her with finding something for her dad. Very little arm twisting was necessary for me to go, and they had free hot popcorn and cold adult beverages. Now that is Christmas shopping! Once home I set off to firing up my podcasts and wrapping gifts while Ang left with a friend to finish her shopping. Later we relaxed with a light dinner and watched the Polar Express which was the closest thing to model railroading this day. Sunday: I slept in until 6:20 and got up and started where I left off the day before. With all my gifts wrapped, I started wrapping Angela's while she was busy making homemade candy in the kitchen. By 3:30, I had all the gifts except the granddaughters wrapped so I went to the garage and cut 24 1/2-inch squares that will be part of the leg leveling system. I measure a 2-inch-wide strip, drill a 5/16-inch hole 3/4-inch from the edge and cut the piece just under 2-inches long. I set my radial arm saw so that no measuring was required, and I got consistent cuts each time. 12 of the blocks get 5/16-inch T nuts. This assembly line method worked great, and I got all the pieces ready to mount on the legs. Because I only have 5 clamps that will work on building this part of the assembly, I can use the week to glue and clamp each leg throughout the work week and have them ready by the weekend. Bite size modeling if you will. Once this was done, I started wrapping the granddaughter's gifts and soon dinner was done. We enjoyed a great homemade dinner and Ang let me try one of her peanut butter cups, yum! Before I knew it, the weekend had evaporated...Poof! So how about you? How did you do? Are you done with all the Christmas shopping, decorating and wrapping? Did you have an opportunity to work on any model railroading projects? Let us know. Now because Saturday is Christmas, a few of us have Friday the 24th off. So, we will assemble this week on Thursday, the 23rd for our weekend modeling plans thread, so don't miss out. For those of you off this week or retired, you'll just have to remember it's the 5th Saturday of the week this week! Until then, have a great week, stay safe, be healthy and as always... High Greens!
Good morning to Y'all, Well, my weekend didn't go quite as planned. Saturday: Ended up with a small list of Honey-Do's - Not a problem - got 'em done. However, no MRRing. Sunday: Got back to my F7 project. B units are ready for paint. A units - -coming along. Still need to drill holes and add some details. Hope Y'all had a great weekend, Wolf
The weekend flew by. Saturday was a wash with all the things the wife needed done, some errands, and taking her mom and aunt out to see Christmas lights. Sunday was slightly calmer. Fixed a big breakfast for everyone and then headed to the train room for a bit before having to dive in to other activities. Started to rework a pump jack from my leftovers box. Spent some time cutting some styrene shapes for a project, and changed out the consist of the train I let run on the mainline. All in all, a decent weekend but was gone by way to fast, Here's hoping you all have a great week!!!!!
I unboxed my first order of N Scale Kato Unitrack and greatly enjoyed piecing things together, testing fit and revising this and that. Was able to finalize a uniform oval and yard ladder, firming up the location of fundamental elements in my track plan. After many years and long delays, it's so nice to be back into this hobby.
I did a little further planning on my new mini-T-Trak empire. Otherwise, decided to concentrate on just scanning more from my slide collection, and buidling yet another web page for one company, which should be uploaded later today.....
Good morning all. It was cold all weekend here but I still pushed on with the west end of Carlin yard using my little heat dish to keep warm in the train room. Finished the last turnout that can be put in on the west end and also finished the controls and wiring. Ran a test switcher around and everything seems to work as it should. Next I'll need to build some more turnouts for the spurs that will come off the siding.
Morning all! Saturday didn’t get much done. After the division meeting I hit the LHS. Bought another loco that needs relettering and ordered the decals. Found they sold the decoder I ordered to someone else so they will order me another one. Sunday I a was s able to assemble my lightning storm effect. Impressed I am. Next is to start installing it on the layout. I have the whole week off so I plan to get a bunch of things finished. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
More great projects here! Looks sharp! As for me, I now have a historic wood sheathed boxcar on the property. This is another “warts and all” pic. The boxcar is not actually complete. I am debating about a vertical stanchion brake wheel or and end car one. Also, adding stirrup steps is in the debate too. “We shall see” as I have said before. Christmas will soon be here. I have a list a yard long of things to do for the model railroad. I am not exactly sure what will take precedent yet. I will probably piddle and nap this week. Then gear up. All have holiday fun!
The wife has been getting better. She is trying to do more things around the house that she has done in a quite some time. She ran the vacuum cleaner on the throw rugs on the first floor. She has been sweeping the floors. It is strange to realize how many normal chores that she has been unable to do for so long. I finally got a chance to clear the dead plants out of the front garden and the flower bed under the rear living room windows. I did not get much done on the layout. I did clear some stuff off the layout that had accumulated during the latest construction phase. I spent time on organizing my collection of kits and unweathered RTR cars. I began to enter them into my inventory program.
Dominos Falling Ever change just 1 thing and you have to change 5 more to accommodate it? Argh! Love / hate ti when that happens. Took down the Shinkansen Line, (last week or so). It was just toooo much. Realized I could run shorter Shinkansen on the Main Line *and* have two open staging / terminal tracks for them. Ooops, Realized I would have to expand the radius. So I start the process. Ooops, that will require breaking the link to the 'Interchange' with the 'Grey and Grandure'. Sigh, never did like that anyway. Sour Grapes. Ooops, THE Tree went up per orders of the Minister of the Interior and demands of the general populous. Now Access is sorta blocked but I have more room in that corner. So, I finish ripping and re-doing. Great! I now have a pair of 3 car Shinkasen running and a 'parking' space for them. The 1, (Dec 23), year old loves it and is very vocal about pointing and making a noise that must mean 'make them go!'. Sunny morning on Solstice Eve and the shadow on 'Steve Henge' is not where I expect it to be. Oh, I see, the open staging is blockign it. Argh! I will have to move the staging or omit it temporarily. That is where I am now. Pics to foillow but I need to get out in the sun.
Personally bowling went well for me as I had a 603 series after a bad first game. Had a great time at the railroad club with my fellow club members on Saturday morning. In the evening I finished up the 86’ Hi Cube and managed to paint the R70-15 Reefer. I also mixed the paints for Ann Arbor orange and Canadian Wheat Board salmon. The Tamiya mixing bottles are great as the have gradations on the side of the bottle so you don’t have to guess 3 parts to 1 part. Also managed to complete the decals on an Intermountain 1958cf covered hopper and the Red Caboose R70-15 reefer along with the first coat of paint on the 86’ high cube and the Canadian Wheat Board covered hopper. Also installed the rodding for a Bowser N8 caboose kit brake gear. Rick Jesionowski
Ended up spending the weekend buying stuff from the Swap Meet, and also once again a very nice member of Trainboad is sending me some freebies, as in decoders for my Atlas U25B's Ran some trains, and Sunday night the nieces came over ( actually my nieces, daughters, kids, but that's too complicated ). You can say what you want about my Bachmann EZ Command Control, ( given to me by a Trainboard member years ago ), but for my small 2' x 4' layout and for them to just Select a number to run a locomotive, turn on lights, change direction, is awesome for them, and me. Not to mention the Big knob for controlling the speed. I love that thing, but now I am starting to get locomotives that have Mars lights, etc... as well as other options that I need a better DCC system for changing CV's, so in 2022, I am getting the NCE Power Cab Starter kit. So basically entire weekend spent playing, and spending money!
Happy Christmas week all!! This weekend went exactly as I thought Saturday: Family reunion party. No modeling. I did smoke 7 pounds of split turkey breasts on the Big Green Egg. Used 1/3 Hickory, 1/3 Mesquite, and 1/3 Jack Daniels cask wood. Flavor was awesome. Good party, tons of clean up, but we were done Saturday night. Sunday: Did a little bit of office work and then broke out some tank cars. I weathered 2 Tangent Scale tankers out of the box. I had issues when I first took them out of the box. The Tangent details are so delicate, if you breath on them they'll break. I put on Tangent replacement stirrups I ordered and then touched them up yesterday before weathering. No harm, no foul as it were. Then I pulled out a "Gould" (now Tichy) tank car I built in December of 1986. I mucked it all up being all thumbs back in the day and stored it away in the box. Pulled it out last spring and ordered parts from Tichy and repaired it. I used Tichy parts along with phosphor bronze railings. Used Detail Associates stirrups. This weekend I pulled it out, weathered it with chalks and gave it a dullcote overspray. So, after 35 years, it FINALLY is on line for service. I really enjoy taking desperate and abandoned projects like that an ultimately making them better. A really great part of this hobby. The Tangent Cars: The 35 YO tank car project:
Most of the weekend layout progress was spent on working on the mountain side and rock cut at the south end of the yard at Charleston. The deepest part of the layout is here at 42”. It is necessary to go ahead and get scenery started here before installing the upper level benchwork, etc. There are two #8 turnouts I built a couple months ago that were installed right at the yard throat. I used the #6 point tool to make the #8 frog, but I didn’t pay attention to the over sized gap in the frog. That became a big problem when testing as the wheels dropped into the frog and derailed or jammed. Using an stainless steel ruler as a base, I added solder into the frog, then reopened the flange clearances very carefully with a Dremel and cut off wheel. The switches perform much better, and should look better with ties, weathering and ballast. I had planned to work on some freight cars, but the 500ft spool of buss wire arrived a couple days early on Saturday. So this morning, I finished up the buss installation for the lower level and attached some more feeders. So far, so good! I should be able to run trains from staging to lower level in a couple more days. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Congratulations! I know exactly how you feel. After my divorce, I was in a hobby hiatus for a number of years. When my life settled down again and I could unbox what was left of my collection, it felt great to be modeling again. Keep up the good work!
