Welcome back everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend and managed to stay cool. Let's get started. Friday: After work, I was able to sand the corners of the module stands and give them a few coats of stain. I also applied another layer of black paint to the fascia and a coat of poly to the fifth leg before retiring for dinner inside. Saturday: The day started with coffee and planning in the upstairs workshop. I worked on the module stands by adding poly to the leg and corner pieces as well as cleaned up the garage and workshop a bit. By 10:30 I was at a stopping point, so we fired up the Falcon and made our way to Angela's dads an hour away. I love driving that car, it just feels "right". Once at her dads we started to help him with a job he was finishing up on his F-150. A simple task of bleeding the brakes however became an exercise in frustration when the last brake had a leak. Further investigation showed it was a bad banjo bolt and wouldn't you know it, no automotive stores still open had one. So, I uncovered the Mustang for the first time since October last year and switched out the Mustang for the Falcon and we went to Grandmas for a visit and to take her out for dinner. It was a nice visit and Ang and I enjoyed a nice ride home. Once home, I applied the second coat to the corner trim and called it a night. Sunday: Once again, coffee was in hand and soon I was cleaning the home office. All the paint and trim were dry, so I took down the last two modules left of the old City Job and started to assemble the module stands. Once set up, I glued the corner molding onto all four corners and put the small HO Inglenook I built for Athearn shows up. You may notice that the stands are 18-inches wide while the layout is barely a foot wide. I built the module stand that wide for stability and so a future layout of 18-inches wide can be placed on top. The space behind the layout is a tabletop made of 1/8 hardboard and is removable with 6 screws per side. I still have to build the four corner braces for the legs and wrap the tabletop with contact paper, but this project is largely done and ready for the St. Louis RPM and subsequent Concord Model Railroad show in August. Now to program that new Athearn Genesis MP15AC into the Proto Throttle. So how about you? What did you get done this hot weekend? Let us know. We'll come back on Friday the 28th to start the process all over again. Until then, have a good week, stay safe and as always... High Greens!
For those of us in the Oshkosh, WI area we will have a big distraction. The EAA AirVenture festival is all week. This past weekend we had the famous Pulaski, WI 'Polka Fest'.
As expected, nothing directly train related but in the interest of putting a positive spin on it, we got the whole living room unpacked and furniture arranged in its final spots. All books are unpacked, a lot of cardboard boxes and useless trash the previous owners left in corners all went to the dump and I got about halfway done building a shed for bicycle storage. What that means is I can now move around my basement and start to see the end of unpacking and the beginning of putting the layout together! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Good mornin to Y'all, Sat: We tried a new grocery store -- it is kind of pricey. We then got new tires for my Wife's car. When we got home from the tire store - -I mowed and edged the back yard. For the rest of the weekend, I made some great progress on the RSD15's. I will have to rethink some of the LED's. Longer lead wires, or the light tubes - or both. (No photos -- yet) Y'all have a great week, Wolf
Happy Monday. This weekend went as I thought. I got the first control panel installed on the fascia and then wired to a 12V power source and out to the individual turnouts. This was the smallest panel which I did first so it would be easier to work out what went well and what didn't. Turned out pretty well. So now I'll start thinking about the next panel. Also, I went to one corner of the layout where the coal branch "up in the mountains" will be located. I started the wood and foam super structure that will eventually hold the cardboard strips/plaster. The train room is a messy wreck from that effort, but I'll try to get it finished up this week and cleaned up. Have a great week everyone!
Good morning and Happy Monday all! Not much to report from the weekend! Did get to spend a little time working on some of the wiring for the layout. Long way to go on that project. Errands and a late lunch/early dinner at a little Italian place we had never tried consumed the rest of the day. Food was decent but it was a tad over priced and the service ranged somewhere between terrible and non existent. Will not return. Sunday I helped put up a new curtain rod in one of the upstairs bedrooms and filled out the rest of the afternoon starting trough a stack of railroad related magazines a good friend gave me. Now it's already Monday again. Hope you all enjoy the week!
Did not get a whole lot done over the weekend, managed to build a couple of Bowser PRR H21a hopper car kits and did some work on a Tichy Hopper car kit along with decaling a GP7, but I did do some cleanup of the modeling area putting a lot of stuff away in drawers etc. Also managed to paint a Red Caboose X29 boxcar. Saturday, went to club for an extended bull session and to come up with an order for the Scaletrains Thrall 86' Auto Parts boxcars. Sunday, did the laundry and went to see "Oppenheimer". Rick Jesionowski
Saturday was a good day. We got to the produce store and to one of them big box places and the wife was able to get the plants she wanted. She and my daughter were able to plant about half the plants she got. My daughter and I carried the new vanity and sink for the hallway bathroom. The plumber is coming today to install it. I finally pulled the new TV for our bedroom out of its box and set it up. It took me a little longer than I expected due to a couple of forgotten passwords. I did find time to inventory and put away into the appropriate bins 20 pieces of rolling stock and one locomotive. Sunday was a tough day. We suffered from a lack of motivation. My wife did clean the Guinea pigs’ cage and I did a heavy cleaning of the foyer floor and in front of the piggies’ cage after she was done. After some debate we decided to toss the foyer area rug. It was showing its age and had developed that old rug smell. No amount of cleaning seemed to work. I had to water the gardens and replanted the pot at the backdoor. Later the kids and I cleared out the stuff from the hall bathroom so the plumber can work. No trains.
Good morning everyone, Had a nice, hot weekend here. Vegetable garden is finally taking off with the warmer weather. The broken point rail in Carlin Yard got repaired and I finished the re-patch of one of my Scale Trains covered hoppers. Used a photo of SSW 99722 as a guide. Still need to give the car a light spray of Dulcoat. And got a start on one of the control panels I am making for a friends layout. Acrylic and back panel are cut and drilled. This panel is 4 x 11 inches. Have our nephew visiting for a few days this week so have also been doing some house cleaning and on Sunday we cooked some pork ribs on the smoker. Those came out great.
Outstanding finish carpentry, @Jim Wiggin. Polka and Air Show. It just gets better and better. Layout coming together soon! Alert! RSD-15's imminent! Undoing the mess. Cool! Can't beat railroad mags! @dti406 = Man of Steel. No trains! Oh, the humanity! Rust! Lastly, I was able to get correct laser cuts for the locomotive cabs. This was Sunday. At this point, said cabs have been cleaned up for installation. Also, earlier, front and back cab walls are being made. This is a little tedious. But it is what I do. Have a great week.
Polka and an air show? I'm picturing someone dancing on top of the wing of a plane in flight... I found the trouble with the corner street light that stopped working after I installed the three new ones last week. There must have been a wire break somewhere between the auto service garage and the street light. Instead of tearing up half the layout to find some buried wires, I rewired the lamppost into the building lighting circuit, and rewired the building on the corner too, with some heavier gauge wire instead of the stuff that's thinner than my moustache hair. Also, I used a screw-down connector to create a sort of "junction box" that distributes the 12 volts around and makes it easier to diagnose any problems. A deeper hole was dug under the corner building to house that. Very happy with the result!
I was able to finish the new control panel Friday night late. I have two layouts at home now, and the control panel is built to be transferable between them (only one is out at a time). The original version had a steel base plate, and 45 degree angle, and was heavy. The power strip and transformers were located on the bottom. It fitted into a slot built into the base of each of the layouts. The new version has an aluminum base with a 25 degree bend (easier to see at this height) and less 'stuff' on it, all DCC. The old: The new:
Diddly squat. At least that's how I feel about this weekends progress. The heat really puts stopper on garage activities.
Got my log cars all ready to paint. Did something to my back. End of model railroading for the weekend. Ouch.
Oooh, ouch! Sorry to hear that @BoxcabE50 , been there, done that! Usually a simple task throws it out too, d'oh!!
Very late to the party. On the road. Weekend went much as I expected. Watched the World Cup game at Doyle's Pub in Tacoma before picking up our son at SeaTac on Friday. Saturday, I did get some time to work on the MRC Pacific. Sufficient reassembly for DC testing. Without a track to test on, testing will have to wait. Sunday we were off to Shelton. Traffic remained abnormally heavy. From the level of travelers, it appears we are putting the pandemic behind us and making up for lost time. The two Taylor Swift performances may have had an impact. Stay safe,
