This weekend - Poker tonight and I expect to arrive home at 2 am. Golf tomorrow at about 10 and then home for a nap. Either shim all sensitive turns or rip up track. Then, put together my C-Liner as per instructions from our kind board members. How about you folks?
Going camping in northern New Mexico. In style--our friends just bought a 32-foot fifth wheel, and this will be its inaugural trip.
Mark: I'm playing golf Saturday and Sunday. I plan to add some deatil parts on two SP SD-9's. Otherwise it's another relaxing weekend. Hmmm... when you're retired everyday is the weekend... Stay cool and hit a long drive for me...
4-day long weekend this weekend... trip to Heathrow to deliver the mother-in-law for her flight back to Oz on Saturday, 3 Kato SD40-2 snoots to lose their snoots, two cut down and one replacement to 81" nose w/ratchet handbrake, a start on the ex-Southern EMD rebuilt GP30 to a BN GP39-2E, strip a few locomotives, possibly look at putting a DB blister into a SD40-2 early without one... sometime across the weekend. oh, yeah.... buy some ACC and fine brass tubing.
Packing for my move on Thursday / Friday. [ 09. October 2004, 00:03: Message edited by: Grey Gryphin ]
I have my kids this weekend, so we'll be doing what we always do...my son will be playing Playstation 2 and my daughter will watch Disney Channel! I bet I get talked into bbqing hot dogs again. First, though, we'll stop at Chuck's (will he be open this weekend? *note to self* check to see if Chuck is open Sat*) and then I'll do some work on my IM FTs. Probably will work a bit more on my Nissan Skyline model as well.
Hoping to shoot the CN bridge across the Richelieu River tomorrow afternoon for some autumn colours but the weather forecast does not look good. Then Sunday it is Thanksgiving dinner.
3 day weekend for myself.Started today by working on my bathroom I'm remodeling.Built the tub surround,got the tub/jacuzzi put in,dry wall and hardi backer. Tomorrow,go and watch my 3 daughters in our Columbus Day parade,look at the cool trucks in the car show,come and tape,mud,and sand all the sheet rock while dreaming of getting my 93 Suburban lowered and customed out(that's what car shows are good for) Sunday morning,NOTHING!Sunday afternooon,football(my chiefs have a bye this week)and surf the web for info on building my layout.
I've a six foot NTRAK module that was stripped down to bare wood, and tracks removed some years ago. Am thinking of setting it up, dusting the years away, and maybe doing something with it...... Boxcab E50
I have to revise my plans. After returning from the art store with with a red oxide light wash color in a tube, my wife greeted me with a plea to help her find a stud finder. After a very snappy retort from me which was not found as funny to the audience as it was by the utterer, I had to listen about how she could not find anything since I have my tools, parts, and all things train related all over the place. I now have to neaten up and find her a stud.
Now, that could be taken a few different ways! Glad to see the other golfers here. I played in my church tourney today, and will play in a friends fund raiser tomorrow......It's my wife's birthday this weekend, so we are going to dinner and a movie. If I get any modeling done, it will be installng a spur track on my urban branch line....
Best way to find that kind of stud: find electrical outlet or switch somewhere near middle of wall. If you can't tell which side of the box the stud is on by rapping your knuckles on the wall, remove the cover and look inside. You should be able to see a stud. Other studs should be at 16-inch intervals. Best way to find the other kind of stud--well, I won't go there.
"Camping" trip was a success. This was a new world for us, as well as our friends who just bought the trailer.Why they are called "fifth wheels" is beyond me, with about 350 square feet of living space. All the comforts of home, except for the optional clothes washer/dryer. Now the wife wants a 32-foot trailer too. Had to explain that meant a diesel monster pickup truck to pull it. Let's see, my last five cars were an Alfa Guiletta Superleggera, a Ferrari 246, a Maserati Ghibli, a Toyota MR2 Turbo, and a Chrysler Concorde (for the 190-mile commute to Los Alamos), which will be traded soon for a Nissan Z car. I don't think I want to be sitting in some 3-ton pickup pulling a 5-ton trailer! Oh, train-related? You could fit one pretty nice layout inside of one of them, especially up high. I'd have to devise some pretty nifty hold-downs to keep the trains on the track while moving. And, with a satellite dish, she cooed, I could watch the Patriots every Sunday on my 36-inch flat screen TV. New dimension to the 200-mile blast back home in her overpowered Altima: instead of sleeping, she was commenting on every trailer we passed.
Pretty cool cars there Pete. Mine is not so nice but, I just bought a '77 Lancia beta coupe that I am going to restore and use as my daily driver. I would dearly love to own a Giulietta, that must have been a sweet car. Oh yeah trains. I did the 50 dollar shopping trip.
Trains? In its second incarnation (see below) the nose of the Alfa was parked under my fourth layout. This was in a single stall of a divided garage, with my saw table on the long side. Tight? I had to put down the top and the window and jump out of the car because I couldn't open the door. What we railroaders will put up with! I used to run that road while standing on the floor—literally, since the Alfa's floorboards were corroded through when I retrieved it. That layout never got past the track on risers stage, so I ruined a few good engines (for then) when they plunged to the concrete floor or, sometimes, onto the aluminum hood of the Alfa. That car was the sweetest I've ever owned. About 1700 pounds dry, with a 146 hp 1750 rail motor--all on skinny tires. A mechanic friend and I raced it in the early 70s. Then we sold it to a USAF Major from AFB Robbins after Road Atlanta. Fifteen years and a few moves later, I found a mechanic who would work on my Maserati Ghibli. In his parking lot was a beater Alfa with an AFB Robbins sticker still on the windshield. Yep, same car! Of course I had to buy it for $400. Same serial number. The new mechanic and I restored it, including welding in new floorboards and, of course, a new engine (and just about everything else). $$$$$$ But I sold it for more. Actually, I forgot a car. After (and also before) the Alfa was a Lancia Scorpion, bought new in 1976. Not a bad car--if you could find a mechanic capable of servicing it. I couldn't. Going further back, there was also a Lamborghini Espada, bought for a song when all it needed was a carburator synch. And then there was the GT40 Mark III that my first wife wouldn't let me buy . . . for $14K. What did you buy on your N scale trains shopping trip?
WOw a Scorpion. Very cool. Like a speudo ferrari. It's funny I hear so many people say lancias are hard to work on but basically they are a fiat, and the trick to those is adjusting your rotor points every once in a while. My current lancia was almost never in the shop. I'm actually moving the engine from it to the body I just bought. Here's the link to my current project car from the previous owners site: http://www.lancisti.net/forum/modules.php?set_albumName=albun70&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php Oh yeah trains... I posted my purchases on the 50 dollar thread.
The Scorpion had the same 2.0 DOHC engine as a Fiat 131 (which I also owned). The local Fiat dealership was just BAD. The Scorp was just horrible in snow and ice (much like the MR2 Turbo). The 131 was just a joy, once I found a private mechanic. Goofy electrical problems on both, and rocker switches falling out of the dashboard, and things like bellcranks for the carb breaking. I got the Scorp home one night by jamming a screwdriver into the carb so it ran at a constant 3000 RPM. Trains? Well, selling some of these cars financed a move from Boston to NM, where I really started building my layouts. I'd liken many of the exotics I've owned to early N scale steamers--perpetually balky, but capable of smooth running at high speeds. Besides, I learned just enough Italian to swear at them.
Outside the train room, here's one weekend project from this summer: I built the adobe wall in 1994--that is, I made the adobes myself out of mud from the small fish pond, poured the foundation, laid it up, stuccoed it, etc. It is not a constant curve. Two years ago my neighbor built his house on the next lot up. His bedroom looks directly into our bedroom. So I built the arbor to block the view. A little geometry, anyone?
