Well another weekend is in the books, hope you got all that you wanted done this weekend. My weekend was busy once again with various activities that were not railroad related. Sunday, however, I had the day to myself and stopped into a friends place to check out his new garden layout featuring a beautiful live steam Mikado. On the way home I found a stretch of the old Illinois Terminal ROW had been converted to a nice trail and took Jess the Railfan Jeep down the trail. To my surprise a Farmer I met up with had been keeping this section of ROW open for horses and said I was welcome anytime. That was nice surprise and we talked for about 20 minutes. I did some railfaning but had 0 results. The last bit of the day, I was able to get the track cleaned and had trains running on the layout again. I resumed work on the roads for the layout just as Angela and everybody else returned which signaled my modeling day was done. So how about you? Any shows this weekend? Track work or bench work? How are your structures coming? Post your response and any pictures you may have. We'll get together and do it again on Friday, May 25th. ​High Greens!
Well, I did get that final traffic light installed. This one is suspended from poles, so it hangs in the middle of the street. Instead of tubular plastic coffee stirrers for the poles, which I'd planned to use, I decided I needed something a bit stronger. This light is near the front of the layout, and it might get bumped, most likely by my own elbows, so I went with brass tubing instead. It came out fine, and when I plugged it in the whole intersection worked to perfection. Not so one of the other lights on the other side of the layout. I must have dislogded a wire from the light controller while installing the new ones, so I've got a small project for another time. I'm doing some frog work. No, not turnouts, but rather those beloved amphibians. My wife Penny came to me with a broken frog, a ceramic one which she'd brought to art class to pose as a model. The kids had gotten a little carried away, and broke off one leg, which I quickly repaired with a bit of CA. But, in looking at the frog's twin, I noticed that it was missing 3 of 4 feet, and the broken parts were nowhere to be found. So, I pulled out some latex rubber and started making molds of the feet on the "healthy" frog. When they're done, I'll transfer the molds to the broken one, and hopefully cast new limbs in Hydrocal.
I got down to my towns museum to work on the layout but I didn't get any work done. I did get to see a slide presentation on the NYC's Putnam Division in it's last days. Later there was a tour of the old station which is one of the last buildings remaining intact and still in it's original location. It is closed to the public most of the time. I thought that the interior would have been a little more ornate being built in the late 1800's but it was just 1"X 3" beadboard with some unusually mortised trim.
Well, I've been very busy working on my layout, although a lot of it has been "not very photo worthy". Last week and this weekend that has changed though. I printed out a backdrop flat that I have been working on that depicts one of the large grain elevators in the area I model. I also mocked up a Walthers Red Wing Milling structure and some random silos that will represent the Light Crust flour mill. Also, you'll notice no track in the photo and that is because I have everything pulled up and have been painting/weathering all weekend, and now I'm starting the process of soldering feeders and routing the feeder wires and turnout control wires under the layout. I still have some painting and weathering left to do but the "first pass" is complete.
I managed to squeeze in some modeling time this week, and cross a couple more quick and easy projects off the list. I started with adding metal wheels and knuckle couplers to the 5 cars on the front track in the fiddle yard: Then I set about printing, cutting and laminating backdrop building images from TomKat's thread here on Train Board for some strategic use. I find that using a scale ruler on the screen, viewing the images at full size, means I have to do reductions of between 55% and 70% to get the windows and doors the right size. A shack in the woods - who knows what's behind the metal "fence": A garage behind the house - shade tree mechanic to be sure: Finally, I took an order of Arizona Rock & Mineral ballast, limestone "dirt" and coke to take my scenery up a notch. I got two grey ballast's (NP & CSX Kenisaw) for a custom blend for my KCS/BRS track work - they closely math photos I have on Hand, and I'll be home this coming Friday to get more and verify the colors. Having not worked with these materials before, I started a small experiment on my still unfinished 1x2 Challenge diorama: I'd say it looks pretty good. And, being real rock, it doesn't float . . .
Got a lot done. Painted some clouds on the walls and put the plywood top on the benchwork. Next I need to add the 1" foam board to the plywood.
The last 5 pieces of track before line 3 switches back into 2 were laid in. This leaves room for one final Left hand switch. However now I'm in a space dilema. as I need to build and bracket a corner shelf extension on the layout and get my flex track in NOW for the custom curves. if the passenger cars bind while turning it's too tight. Their my benchmarks as their close coupled. I started painting one of my roofs of the pikestuff shed and applied a third coat of white to the opposite shed wall. Doing the hand painting simply because it creates a weathered look that's more pleasing to me. And speaking of the shed, I went to pick up some thin styrene to build a sign for the shed and ended up with .005 Clear Styrene. First attempt at building windows ever and it turned out great. Just laid the sheet on the backside and used my utility knife to cut them literally to shape. Slow jet for the win. I also tinkered with some photography tricks that will be blogged later today.
Long holiday weekend, between outings got started repainting an Atlas RS-11 from CV green and yellow noodle-and-stripes (ick) to a proper DW&P classic green and yellow scheme. I just have to get a few more details back on - I stopped because the cuss jar is full.:cute:
