Welcome back everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend. My dad took a turn for the worse over the weekend so I spent the majority of my time at the hospital. By Sunday afternoon, they had him stabilized and were trying antibiotics and hopefully he is on the road to recovery. I'll be leaving again early Monday morning to go to the hospital and see what his progress is so I wanted to start this thread tonight so that everyone has something to report to Monday morning. Let us know how you did. We'll assemble again on Friday the 18th to start the process all over again. Until ten, have a great week, stay safe and as always... High Greens!
Finished my Roundhouse old-timer three-car set! Had some misadventures with a mixup between clear matte coat and spray adhesive on two of the three cars... A test on a scrap showed no bad reaction, so after I let the adhesive "dry" for a bit, I crossed as many fingers and toes I could and tried the clear coat again. Major relief! Moral of the story, don't leave two rattle cans that look at lot like each other in the work area. 2nd moral, finger-crossing is enough; attempting to cross toes is painful. See my post in the August 11th Weekend Foto Fun for a photo. Newsreel at 11.
Lots of chores down-pictures on all the walls, more curtains hung, groceries, laundry etc. I also organized my laundry room/utility room so I can find all my tools. So that was a big win. Even bigger win-while I didn’t do any modeling, I did prepare to model. I went down to the train room and unpacked and (sort of) organized most of my stuff-the rolling stock and locomotives. Workbench and my smaller modeling tools need to get organized, but may be able to do that tonight after work. Was faced with what I already knew-I have too much to reasonably believe I’ll run/remember I have. Good problem to have-so in the coming weeks I will be posting some weathered and non-weathered n scale stuff on the swap page. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
@Jim Wiggin -- I am so sorry, to read about your Father. Y'all have my prayers that the antibiotics do their job. St.-LSW F7's are coming along The starting point: Paint removed: Some details added - almost ready for black paint: Ready for decals: Thanks, Wolf
@Jim Wiggin , Still praying for your dad's recovery. Sorry to hear he had a bad weekend. Take care of him and yourself. Most of my weekend went as planned except the modeling. In place of the few hours I had set aside for the train room, my son and I went out in search of a CSX nearby that had been "vandalized" late last week. We did not find it as it went out out overnight Friday night. Apparently, it returned yesterday but we were off moving the kid into his dorm. He forgot a few things so afterwork today, we will be making another trip. Hope you all have a great week!
Monday AM greetings. This weekend went by fast or my tasks were too slow, can't figure out which. Anyway I only about 60% of the plaster applied to the new mountain project. Also spent time moving building stock, long wood strips, and other lumber away from the back of the mountain where I had it stored. Some I moved to an attic where I have similar stuff stored for the house. Much of it I will never use again so I cut it up to fit in the trash can. @Jim Wiggin - Prayers for your dad's health and a very upward, positive recovery.
Hey All, @Jim Wiggin, all the best for your Dad. A busy and HOT weekend here in S. Texas. Saturday, we had our NMRA LSR Division 6 hosted luncheon and a visit to Don Scott's "Katy Southern". Just over two dozen attendees with an excellent clinic from John Lowrance. If you are in the San Antonio area, contact me to join the FB group/mailing list and come to a luncheon...open to all. In between moving sons for college and related tasks, I managed a bit of weathering (and prep for weathering) for some cars for the "Wichita & Northwestern." A shipment of Accurail (data only hoppers) and several Athearn cars arrived from the Trainz store, rounding out the freight roster for the project. I won't buy more (Ha). I'll highlight that I tried the VMS "Matt" varnish topcoat over some custom decals on these boxcars. Following a recommendation that this stuff hides the edges of the decals remarkably well, I gave it a try (I found some on eBay). I have to say, I am pretty impressed. You have to spray it with an airbrush, but the results are much better that I have had before. These are two Athearn RTR cars that I stripped and repainted. Decals were from Precision Design Co. (my artwork). Hope you all had a good one... -Bob T.
Good Monday morning everyone, @Jim Wiggin - We are all pulling for your dads recovery. As expected, spent most of the weekend getting things ready for a long RV trip. Washed the truck and installed new windshield wiper blades which ended up being more involved than I had planned for, but I got it done. Got a quote from a contractor for some new fencing in the back yard that was crazy high so will try again when we get back. Did get a little more done on the model railroad electronics projects and ran some trains.
Jim, sorry about your dad's relapse, I know I was sure happy when everything went well with my heart surgery. Over the weekend, I had a good first night bowling with a 169-215-240 for a 624 series. Good start for the new season. Went out to dinner with my son and his wife, also saw their new patio and fencing at the house and it looked great. I manage to almost complete the decaling on the ART reefer and did finish the Wabash hopper car. Came within glueing the wine door locks on the Tichy hopper car from finishing that car. I did start on another 80' piggyback flat car by drilling all the holes for the 5th wheels and other parts. Managed to get the laundry done along with an executive board meeting for the bowling association. Rick Jesionowski
Jim- Best wishes for your dad and a speedy recovery! I accomplished very little with this hobby. Filed some boat racing buttons and pins from this season. Ready to place an order with Shapeways. Tired from work, so just eased through the rest of the weekend.
@Jim Wiggin, I am sorry to hear about your dad's setback. I am trusting that good progress can be made and that he soon recovers completely. I have mixed up stuff myself. Preparing to model is very, very important. F7's looking cool! "Vandalized" CSX. Sounds horrible. I am the Mayor of "Slow Tasks". Not mowing weeds is why I like my apartment. @rjthomas909, great results. "Ran some trains.", my own erstwhile goal. "Gluing on door locks." Sounds odd. "Easing" is very, very important. First of all, there is too much moving going on. Some folks on here and I helped my daughter move Saturday. Very hot and very humid. Sunday saw grandson's desk/bed assembly being done. Three hours at this! I vaguely remember maybe doing some stuff on the loco's Friday. It's all a blur. Earlier today, I glued on front boiler supports for the 2-8-0's. Now on to the rest. Maybe running boards next? Have a cool, great week.
@Jim Wiggin praying for a speedy recovery for your father. Weekend started out good. Saturday my wife and I went out. Our first stop was the produce store. My wife ventured into the store and walked around. This was the first time she has done so since her blood clot back in November of 2021. She has gone into stores where she can use a scooter but not into one where she had to rely on her own power. The produce store is small. It was a former gas station. This was a good first step. We then took a drive through Valley Forge National Park. We found the park very empty, something unusual for a Saturday. Then we realized this was the last weekend before high school sports begin preseason and many colleges students begin reporting. This would be the last chance for vacation for many of them. Sunday, we stayed around the house. I did some of the dreaded laundry and went through some things that had accumulated and threw out what wasn’t needed any longer. I was not very successful with my modeling plans. I did open and test my Rapido New Haven PA1 that had been sitting in its box since I purchased it at the Greenberg Show in January. It is a sweet runner. I removed about two feet of track and glued down the foam road base. I was planning to attached the track but I just couldn’t find the time.
@Jim Wiggin Hoping this Monday morning post finds your dad feeling better. Saturday: Water test revealed a leak in the Honda's inner fender. Looks like a chunk of the original undercoating got knocked off sometime in the last 26 years. Cleaned up the wound and put some urethane seam sealer in the gap. Thinned apples from as much of the trees as I could reach on the ladder. Trees are way overdue for pruning. At this point I will wait until after harvest and do what I can. We got some groceries and picked up a gift for Sharon's aunt. In the evening I got out the lightboards from Lowell Smith and installed a few into passenger cars. The coaches went together with minimal fuss. I struggled getting the sleepers properly reassembled. Decided to let the project sit and go to bed at a reasonable hour. Sunday: European soccer season started for us with a resounding thud. 1-1 draw. Met our son at a local cafe for a cup of coffee and a snack. Then we were off to the birthday party for Sharon's aunt. Great fun really. Small group including her son's family, Sharon's other two aunts and a cousin. Relaxing chat catching up with family and sharing food. After arriving home, I repeated the Honda water test. No leaks! I will cover the patch with additional undercoat and call it a success. Sharon and I took a nice walk down by the bay. Been relatively warm here so there were plenty of folks out enjoying the water. Later I turned my attention back to the lightboards. After a bit more fiddling, I was able to get the sleepers working. As part of that effort, I also made progress on my goal to build a test track. Not done yet, but step in the right direction. I like the color temperature and brightness of Lowell's lightboards. The coaches need some shades and people. A good weekend. Stay safe,
@Jim Wiggin Sorry to hear about your father, hopefully things start turning for the better! Over the weekend I was able to get some of the project work tested, including the mostly final design for one: There has been a couple minor changes since these were captured in FreeCAD, mostly adjusting for printer tolerances. Overall it's coming together nicely and I'm hoping to have one assembled later this week so I can do some testing with it controlling a train on a test track using a command station the throttle wasn't designed for (another project sits in the middle to translate between protocols). After I have one assembled and get some testing done I'll share some pictures of the assembled unit. As for the layout, I'm very slowly making some progress on research on possible prototypes, or maybe more of areas to model as a freelance setup. I'll also be building a few bits of rolling stock in the next me months and very likely some sort of mini layout to run them on, these will *NOT* be my typical N scale items but instead likely be On30.
