Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend and got a lot more done then your author. Let's get started. Saturday: Technically, Friday night I went to the lumber store and picked up the plywood needed for a new HO project for work, that was the extent of my Model Railroading this weekend. We left for up north meeting Angela's Dad on the way and we all went to Tinley Park to a very busy HD dealership. Window shopping at a place like this is fun and the sales rep tried his best for me to trade my Sportster for a nice Dyna but I was good. New battery picked up and a nice dinner latter followed by getting the bike ready for spring. Sunday: We went back up north to celebrate Angela's Grandmothers 89th birthday. We had a small crowd of relatives from Chicago and enjoyed some homemade lasagna. Angela's Dad and I took advantage of the 64 degree and sunny day and took a walk that included some neat rail lines that went through town. Once home, we both crashed and had seen, yet another weekend was gone. So how about you? What did you get done this weekend? Let us know. We'll all assemble once again on Friday the 26th to start the process all over again. Until then, have a great week, be safe, stay healthy and as always... High Greens!
Finally work progresses on the modules. Friday: I worked on four grain bins for the ethanol plant. Finished assembly of the main parts and elevators. Attached the bins to sheet styrene bases. I will attach the elevators and piping at home. Ok did the rest of the work in a hotel in northern NV. Saturday: NMRA zoom meeting Sunday: I started to ballast the track. I completed the ballasting on two modules. A third was set up and repair work begun on some track. Once that is completed I will ballast that. Monday: ballasting continues. Repairs continue. Hope to have repairs completed by tonight so I can finish up the ballasting. Also structure placement will commence so I can plan out where all the scenery will go. Once ballasting starts the scenery will go fast.
I got balsa decks installed on 2 flatcars, there was just too much going on around here. I'll just keep plugging away at it this week. I did a little more track imagineering for a potential 4x8, I have a clearer idea of it now. I'm still looking for someplace to put it. Have a Safe week all.
This weekend I spent modeling and working on "office stuff" as predicted. As for modeling. "Tuned" about 5 cars for coupler height, stirrup issues, etc. Put in a berm or "ridge wall" adjacent to the east tunnel out of Albemarle City. The photo's chronicle the progress. Not a big scenery project, but something I could tackle and still put in work I had to get done on an office project.
I got the houses move forward Italian HO scale modular layout - WIP | Page 6 | TrainBoard.com - The Internet's Original
I had a decent weekend, however, my static grass attempt failed. The strands did not stand up, when applied. Not sure of the issue. Not enough juice from the applicator-? (A cheapo from EBay) So, I dropped 5 and punted. Went back to usual ground cover application. Oxnard depot's grounds is coming along. Added some plants and palm trees. Have a bit more to do. Hope Y'all had a great weekend, Wolf
Not much modeling wise. It was sunny and warm and Lori had no side effects from the second Vaccine, so we got outdoors, except for watching Syracuse make another surprising run to the Sweet 16. I did work on changing over the last of my fleet to MT couplers and now I need to scour the online hobby shops for a couple of conversion kits for the last three locos still needing to be converted. I didn't like how the color of the shingles turned out on the station kit, so I used isopropyl alcohol to clean it off and repainted it with a lighter green shade, then I painted the replacement canopy pieces and pressed them under a few books to limit warping. Still quite a bit of work left to do.
Got our 2nd vaccine on Friday morning expecting side effects to be worse than on the 1st one. It actually was not as bad and now we are planning on catching up on dentist and doctor appointments that we have been putting off and I will visit the hobby shop which I have not been to in months. Work this weekend focused on getting the final touches on the window box. I am quite happy with the results, photo below. The horizontal seam behind the back row of line poles is hardly noticeable and if a train is in the picture it would be blocked. I don't expect to take this window box out very often but it I do I wanted the line poles to be removable so they don't get broken. So each of the line poles in this section plugs into a 1/8" Styrene tube that is glued into the scenery. Photos of this are shown below. While the glue was drying I started work on another batch of Atlas line poles, the ones shown in the photos are raw. So a good weekend here, hope you all had the same.
Good weekend for modeling. Typical rain for spring in this part of the world. Here is where the modeling project is: Both tender and pilot have been sprayed with primer since the picture was taken. I did not like my first attempt and removed about half the decals for a redo. Much happier with the current arrangement. The prototype was more complicated than I first thought. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, there are ample photographs available on the web to guide the placement. Actual rivet counting! It is not a perfect match. Only got this side done since I did it twice. On the pilot, the adapted Z-gauge coupler matched for height so I moved on with the steps, handrail and cut lever. I have been experimenting with low-temp, lead-free solder paste recently with good success. Used it again on the cut lever and steps. I got an early start on boiler design because I needed to at least estimate the diameter before finalizing the placement of the steps. Rivets only half done, boiler design started early. It was a tradeoff. Reading mostly positive reports on weekend accomplishments. Glad to read about folks getting those vaccinations. It was a good weekend. Stay safe,
Excellent results by fellow members! Saturday was "chore" day but I did get some planning and designing done. One tender done with the associated loco in the works. Then, only Mogul and tender to go. Spring is here and it is time to get outside for sure. All be safe.
Had a good weekend. I trimmed down one of the bushes. Got it away from the house and out of the neighbor’s driveway. Took off the long single shoots that were growing out of the top. Also cleared the path to the electric meter. Yesterday we went to the nursery and picked up some plants for the pots in the front yard and the pond in the back. Got home and planted them and I also got under the Japanese maple next to the pond raked out. My wife ordered window boxes that were supposed to arrive Friday but did not. Actually, they are coming today. Doing the pots yesterday helped with her disappointment and frustrations. I finished building the coaling tower. I almost did not. I tried several ways to rig the coal chutes, but nothing looked good. I also encountered a couple more parts that would not go together correctly. At one point I seriously considered throwing it against a wall. I took a long break from the tower. When I returned, I did some painting and finished the stairs. Next is weathering and placing the tracks in it. A couple of photos of the built coaling tower.
Got a few decals applied and painted some wheels on a truck model. That was about all the fun part of the weekend. I have to admit, it seems like it was over before it even got started good. Time just seems to be slipping away all to fast lately. Hope you all have a great week!
Still working on the H39 hopper car, a lot of parts to make into subassemblies and attach to the car. Finished an Athearn PC&F RBL and painted it this weekend. Also did some cleanup in my workbench area, always a needed project to do. Rick Jesionowski
That looks totally awesome. If it's N Scale next time you want to throw it against the wall throw it to me J/K No matter the scale it looks really nice! Nice work everyone!
That is what happens when you acquire kits over a ten plus year span and don't build any. I will admit it was much worse. Almost up to the rafters until I weathered all the RTR cars that were in the pile and built all the reefer kits I had. Of course since then I have added a few more reefer kits and RTR cars, and curse Bowser for coming out with new RTR cabooses. Somehow a bunch or PRSL and PRR cabooses found their way into the wall along with a long sought after RTR non Coast Guard scheme CNJ caboose from Athearn.
Sorry it is HO scale. The kit frustrations were added onto a day of driving frustrations from a 45 minute driving taking an hour and a half earlier in the day.
