Another weekend is in the books, how did you spend it? Mine was not as planned. As many of you know by now, Carstens Publications, publishers of Railfan & Railroad and Railroad Model Craftsman, shut it's doors on Friday. What many of you don't know, is that Carstens also published a model airplane magazine known as Flying Models. It was this publication that I was the Associate Editor for three years. So after Friday's e-mail that went out to employees, I spent most of my time looking for a job. Not how I wanted to spend my weekend. Times are tough, but I'm sure I'll find something soon. What about you? Hopefully no one else lost a job this weekend. What progress did you make on your railroad? Let us know! We'll come back here on Friday the 29th and start the process all over again. Until then... High Greens!
We had company Saturday and Sunday, but I did find the time to clean up the work area a bit. I applied yellow striping to the sills of an Atlas ALCO S4 #435 and GE U23B #2061. I also prepared H16-44 #820 for frame striping as well as prepared GP35 #2623 for a bath in paint stripper later in the week. Still didn't find my pin vise, I think I'm going to have to buy a new one.... still considering a jewelers drill press in the near future, however.
Finished my 3 log bunk cars and started my Boulder Valley Models Sidewinder Shay kit. It converts a Bachmann HO scale 3 truck Shay into an On30 2 truck Shay.
Jim. Sorry to hear about Carstens. Hadn't kept up and didn't realize they were in the scrapes. Pretty sobering news. Best of luck to you in your search. As for the weekend, I continue to "chip away" at my AVRAM's project. This weekend I got the metal roof weathered and installed. Plus installed all of those cursed rafters under 5 overhangs. I think that will be the most tedious part of the project and I'm grateful its behind me. Plus, I got some (not all) of the roof details done and got the buildings mounted on an 18"x17" diorama board.
Well I started one of my structure kits. It's a metal building so lots of soldering. I need to buy more solder to finish it, then do a little painting and weathering. I also started laying out more track and the stout is looking like something. I tweaked my plan again and put my siding back in that was drawn out last spring/winter. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
I was sorry to hear about Carstens last week. They are looking for someone to pick up some of their publications, so we may yet see them on the stand again at some point. Good luck with your job search, Jim. I took full advantage of a female-free weekend. I went to Home Depot Saturday morning for wood and spent the day building another "domino" section to add to the end of my staging yard. By evening I had it built, sanded and stained. I gave it 3 coats of polyurethane on Sunday, taking advantage of a half-empty garage, and did some furniture re-arranging while it dried. This morning (Monday) I brought the unit in, put on the adjusters on the legs, and loosely set it in place. Tonight I'll add the bus wires and fasten the new section in place. I never got to the bridge superstructure, but I was happy with what I got done.
Thanks all on the well wishes on getting a job. I've spent over 16 years working in the hobby industry and it's been tough sometimes but I'm optimistic. Hobby wise, we still live in good times and there is plenty of good's out there for us modeler railroaders.
