MODELING It's Monday, February 22nd 2021: Weekend Modeling Accomplishments

Jim Wiggin Feb 22, 2021

  1. Jim Wiggin

    Jim Wiggin Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Welcome back everyone. It looks like we had a busy weekend planed for working on various layout projects and that is always good to hear. Let's get started.

    Saturday: Went as planned, and at 25 degrees and full sun, spring fever was in full affect. It was nice to see Angela's dad again. We hooked up the battery tender to the Mustang and went man shopping. New grips and oil were purchased as I slowly get things ready for the annual spring maintenance of vehicles in March or April. We enjoyed a nice day visiting and came home and rested.

    Sunday: I slept in and after a nice breakfast, started working on the HO switching layout. Using AnyRail, I started working through a mirror version of Lance Mindheim's Palmetto Spur. After a bit I had roughed in where the bakery I picked up on Friday would go and also noted the different lengths of flex track. This will come in handy when cutting flex and reducing waste. At noon, I was wearing my Athearn shirt as I was interviewed by Lorne of Otter Creek, a large model Railroad shop in Canada. He was hosting a virtual train show and myself as well as Rapido were guests of his train show as well as some great clinics and layouts. After the interview, it was back to the layout. I finally painted the top an earth brown and while it dried, took advantage of the 30 degree weather to remove the snow that had piled up. I finished the evening by starting to use a black marker to draw out my centerlines for the track before calling it a day and spending the evening with Angela and the dogs. All in all, a good weekend.

    So how about you? What did you get accomplished over the weekend? Let us know. We'll do it all over again starting on Friday the 26th. Until then, have a great week, be safe, stay healthy and as always...

    High Greens!
     
  2. Tompm

    Tompm TrainBoard Supporter

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    Saturday turned out to be a recovery day. I did get anything done as I was stiff from removing the foam on the layout.

    Sunday, I spent some time searching unsuccessfully for vaccine appointments for my wife. I then had to run some errands. After dinner I had a burst of energy and I finished the framework on the second board. After some clean up it will time to start laying pink foam.

    This is what I started with Sunday.

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    And this is the end result.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
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  3. Tim Holmes

    Tim Holmes TrainBoard Member

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    Hi Guys: I actually got a bit done this weekend -- I was able to pull up the old track near the interchange switch and near the arrival and departure switch -- I'm hoping to put down the switches and the new track over the course of the week this week -- stretching and bending is still slow and sore but I'm getting there

    TIM
     
  4. minesweeper

    minesweeper TrainBoard Member

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    Not really much done, some details here and there and preliminary work to install light on the buildings and streets.
     
  5. BNSF FAN

    BNSF FAN TrainBoard Supporter

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    Despite myself, I managed to a good bit this weekend.

    Got a new roof for the silos cut out and attached. Just need to finish sanding a couple of spots. Put some filled in the seams between the flat strips I put between the silos and the silos themselves. Made a rough cut paper top house for the silos just to see if what I have in mind will work. Just need a warm enough day to do some rattle can painting of the silos now.

    Originally, the head house for the grain elevator was going to be on the opposite end of where it is now. I had already installed a light for the interior at that spot. Removed it and reinstalled it in the new location.

    Replaced a bad interior light in the guard house for the chemical dealer scene.

    Had two used Kato Unitrack switches that had connector plugs that had bad connector plugs. Finally got around to fixing those and once again, all switches are back in working order.

    Found several packs of M/T 1015 and 1016 pre assemble couplers and after fighting with screwdrivers and thanks to some great info from fellow members, I was able to find one that worked and got 7 1/2 Atlas locos upgraded to M/T's. Would have been 8 but one of the 1015's blew apart during install.

    Updated some ConCor passenger trucks to Unimate couplers for now on my ConCor N&W passenger train. Some day they will get M/T's. The first car and last car now have M/T's on one end and Unimates on the other and all the in between cars now have Unimates instead or the old rapido couplers. Looks much better.

    Spent a good bit of time going through the projects bucket to decide what I had to work on and what I had finished and could get rid of the leftovers. Posted a bunch of the finds in the swap meet forum.

    Added some additional small trees to the layout.

    Assembled two GHQ bull dozers and one GHQ road grader. All are ready and waiting for paint. Just need a nice warm day to get a rattle can base coat on them.

    20210221_140833.jpg

    All in all, a very busy and reasonably productive weekend.

    Hope you all have a safe and good week!
     
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  6. nscalestation

    nscalestation TrainBoard Supporter

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    Saturday morning walked to the local True Value Hardware which is where I bought my last can of smoke gray enamel for fascia. They did not have it in the store anymore but I was able to order on line then will pick it up at the store when it comes in. So I started to get some scenery into the areas on the right side of the river between the tracks and along the front. Also throughout the weekend I worked on the hillside building it up with insulation board. Seeing I was not going to have enough plaster cloth to finish this I ordered some more.

    TBWMA22Feb21a.jpg


    When waiting for things to dry on the layout I went to the work bench and did some tire and track painting on the fleet of military vehicles I am making as loads for the Micro-Trains DoD flat cars. Still more to do on these but some were close enough that set them on a flat car to see how they were going to look. Also started the yard work season with filling my pair of 100 gallon yard barrels to be put out today. Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend.
    TBWOYW21Feb21b.jpg
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2021
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  7. Helitac

    Helitac TrainBoard Member

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    On the positive side I got a bunch of 1/32 balsa strips cut for flatcar decks, and a package with Tichy flatcars arrived, so next weekend I'll probably start an assembly line. On the handrail projects I hadn't gotten very far on prepping the SW1 when it became apparent that the measurements I had for the stanchion spacing weren't right. Luckily I have a cousin that lives in Portola, CA, (lucky him), so when the stars line up I'll get him to go measure #501 and I can move forward. Meantime there's plenty more to do. Sooo... on to the work caboose. Drilled the 4 holes for the end handrail, bent the wire to shape, and got everything pre fit, one last look before gluing and the stanchions looked BAD. They're just too big. It's a blessing in disguise kind of, I know how not to do it, and it's not a big setback. I'll order different parts this week and go to plan C, I think it is. However I enjoyed playing trains, even if it was two steps back this time. Also working on relearning how to post pictures, I just don't remember, so I'll mess with that this week.
     
  8. Kevin Anderson

    Kevin Anderson TrainBoard Member

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    Other than the clinic I gave on Saturday I got nothing done. Although I have started writing up a sequel to the clinic due to popular demand.
     
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  9. Kitbash

    Kitbash TrainBoard Supporter

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    It was one of those weekends I went down a 2 day rabbit hole and got nothing done I set out to do. Late Friday UPS delivered a BLI steam engine I had sent off to Tony's to have the decoder/sound totally replaced. I wasn't happy w/ the BLI Paragon thing. Anyway, it came back and Saturday AM I figured I'd take an hour, change a few CV's, sounds, tweak the lights, etc. Took a little longer. Then I put another engine on the programming track and tweaked that one. Then another. Sunday, I took out a 2-8-0 Bachmann and tackled the sound again. The engine has a short somewhere. Spend a long time tracing it, to no avail. Finally, I disconnected the tender and worked on that and got it working fairly well. Sound, chuff, bells, etc. When I went to hook up the engine to it again, I found the short that had been driving me crazy. The pin connector between the engine wheel contacts and the tender had come disconnected. Nothing I can do about that until I get a new connector.

    Sunday was over. I got several engines "tweaked", that was about it.
     
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  10. gmorider

    gmorider TrainBoard Member

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    Saturday was chore day. I did start planning parts needed for railcar upgrades. Today I am starting to make parts and will rotate cars into the "shop" for upgrades. Initial single car testing is promising. Keeping my fingers crossed. Have a fun and safe week. (y)
     
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  11. bigGG1fan

    bigGG1fan TrainBoard Member

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    If I may ask, which steamer, and how's that working for you?
     
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  12. Kitbash

    Kitbash TrainBoard Supporter

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    The C&O L1 Hudson. Yellow trimmed job w/ the stainless steel shroud/cowling. The BLI brass hybrid. They just re-released in the last 6 months. I have one from the first version. Ran like a dog on 1 leg. I sent it to BLI twice and they FINALLY fixed the drive. Still did not like the sound, so I finally sent to Tony's for a decoder retrofit. Used a Tsunami2. Apparently, my first choice of the TCS was problematic due to the power draw of the BLI motor/drive.

    Unit sounds good and runs great now. I also had the smoke unit permanently disabled. Too toy-like for my taste, but that's a personal preference.
     
  13. SP-Wolf

    SP-Wolf TrainBoard Supporter

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    I had a very productive and aggravating weekend.

    I reinstalled 4 switch motors. First - they were the blue point switch machines. Didn't care for them. So, out they came. I then installed a tortoise and 3 DCC concepts Cobalt motors. Much better.
    I then started wiring -- a short -- damn!! Spent most of Sunday tracing it. Finally found the culprit. One of the switches that I modified had the short. (I tested all of them, prior to installation - no conflicts - so, what the heck-?) Oh well - it was found and fixed.

    Hope Y'all had a great weekend,
    Wolf
     
  14. rch

    rch TrainBoard Member

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    Last summer I worked on lowering a pair of Atlas Pressureaide covered hoppers. The model sits on bolsters that are about 0.7" too tall and the coupler box is beefed up by about the same amount. So, I decided to take out that extra height and replace the coupler boxes with some from Moloco. The result is a carbody that sits at the correct height and still has a good coupler height. Here's a before and after (factory model on the left, modified car on the right):

    [​IMG]

    And here's the modified car next to a coupler height gauge:

    [​IMG]

    Alright, so that was August. The prototype Pressureaide hoppers ride on low profile Barber trucks, which have a bolster that sits lower than the bolster on a standard truck. Our friends at Tangent happen to offer this truck, so I ordered a couple pair for my two Pressureaide cars. They are a definite improvement over the Atlas trucks, but there's just one problem: the screw head on the Atlas car is a smaller diameter than the screw hole in the Tangent truck. I didn't have a different screw I could use with a larger head and I didn't have any washers that would fit, either. But then it occurred to me I could modify some Kadee fiber washers to fit so that's what I did.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Here is the first truck installed:

    [​IMG]

    And trucks installed on both cars. Coupler height is still good!

    [​IMG]
     
  15. Chris Hall

    Chris Hall TrainBoard Member

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    It was a successful failure weekend for me,

    Saturday was mostly shopping for a new mountain bike, which aint easy with the randomness of shop closures here. Turns out there must be a European wide shortage of large mountain bikes in my price range - none of the shops had them in stock despite all saying so on their websites. So about 5 hours of shopping and driving wasted. Did manage to get the DCC++ system running on the layout that evening, which was really pleasing.

    Sunday was terrible. Long story short - I fried 6 of the Fleishmann turnout motors (out of 14 on the layout), a 170usd mistake. Decided to swap them all out for micro servo's so the afternoon was spent online shopping and planning on how to replace them all.
     
  16. logging loco

    logging loco TrainBoard Supporter

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    1. I blew off snow removal. I figure why bother we don't go anywhere and the house is very close to the road if we need medical attention.
    2. Trouble shot and fixed dead track block power.
    3. Ran some trains for a little while before making layout in operable once again.
    4. Figured out how to easily reconfigure track to facilitate future second loop of track. I'm one track switch short.
    5. Made a template for removable scenery section.
    6. Laid out plan to bisect layout. Started on electrical modification needed to rip door lengthwise.
    Have A Good One!
     
  17. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    (y)(y)(y)(y)(y)
     
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  18. mrhedley

    mrhedley TrainBoard Member

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    A day late, but here's an update on the Industrial Switching layout. I completed the kitbash of the administrative building using parts from one Brach's Candy factory, a George Roberts Printing, some stryene for columns, brick sheet, and doors and windows from the spare parts boxes. I'm pretty happy with it, but the roof needs weathering and detail. Then I weathered and ballasted the track and put down the base scenery and a few details. It's coming along. And the best part is, it works as intended! I can switch the industries without fouling the mainline at all. I played around with it for an hour or so, There's a lot of variety to keep an operator entertained for quite a while.

    This is the "overall" scene. I still have work to do on the shoe plant at the far left, and the scenery for the admin building (on the right). IMG_2453.jpg

    IMG_2430.jpg

    A few closer in to show more detail.
    IMG_2431 (1).jpg IMG_2432.jpg
     
  19. logging loco

    logging loco TrainBoard Supporter

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    Looking good MrHedley!
    That scene really draws the viewer in.
     
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  20. mrhedley

    mrhedley TrainBoard Member

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    Thank you. I appreciate the feedback.

    Ron
     
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