Welcome back everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend. I'm tired, but it was a great weekend. Let's get started. Saturday: Friday night, Steve and I worked until midnight to get the modules up and running. Once we were happy with all three lines, we called it a night. I woke up the next morning and gathered all my N scale and some sample HO locomotives for the FreeMo members to use. We had a great turnout and trains running on HO FreeMo, N scale NTrak and TTrak and a 2-Rail O switching layout. I finished the day by meeting Ang for dinner. Sunday: I arrived a bit earlier and ran some SD70MAC's I had not run since 2004! It was nice to see them run a long train again. Steve and I may have also recruited a new member who is thinking about adopting one of the modules and becoming a contributing member. Now we start the real work of organizing as an actual club. We started to take things down at 2:30pm and I adopted a former club owners straight module. This gentleman was one of the founding members of the recently disbanded NTrak club. He is moving so he has graciously donated his three straight modules. So now I have an NTrak module and yes, it fits in the Railfan Wrangler! Still no real determination on Galesburg RR Days but if we do have it, I can Railfan there in my Jeep and still have my module. So how about you? Besides enjoying a new found retirement, or celebrating a big 5-oh, what did you get done this weekend? Let us know. We will come back again on Friday the 7th to start the process all over again. Until then, have a great week (especially you retried guys), be safe, stay healthy and as always... High Greens!
I made good progress on the two projects I worked on. The three freight cars are ready for paint. (Photos soon) My friends Model T is prepped and ready for assembly. Hope Y'all had a great weekend, Wolf
Saturday AM, as predicted, spent all morning w/ the Mrs. preparing the herb garden bed for planting next weekend. Trips for top soil, cleaning out from last season, and putting the garden top soil took some doing. But it is done. Saturday afternoon and yesterday, I worked on the long dirt road scene that will be at the front of the layout. I intended on doing a couple of other things, but forget how tedious detailing a dirt road can be. I am about 65% done w/ the effort, but there is still quite a bit of time consuming detail to follow. But it is starting to come along. Have a great week all!
Good Monday morning all. I did lots of yard work this weekend but still made good progress on the modeling projects that I had wanted to. Re-sprayed the military vehicles with the Model Master Gulf Armor Sand, painted in the details, and gave them a detail wash. Unfortunately one of the previously finished vehicles had a mishap, falling from the layout. One of the mirrors, 2 wheels, and the boom on the back all broke off the HEMTT truck. The wheels are the only critical parts and I glued one back on but can not find the other. Got some detail painting and most of the decals done on the 45 ft Golden Pig trailer. As I already have the stock number on the decal set (250009), I am having to use individual numbers to give this one a unique number. Also get a few more things listed on the auction site and started to swap the equipment on the layout over from the 1989-96 era to the 1975-82 era. I swap eras every couple months. Overall a good weekend. Made plans to meet some friends for dinner next Saturday. It will be the first time my wife and I have been out for a meal since the pandemic started. Also made reservations at an RV park for a mid week trip in June so things are slowly returning to some kind of normal here. Everyone continue to stay safe and see you here again on Friday.
Did what I needed to do. Friday I worked on all my N scale rolling stock replacing wheels and marking them for identification later. (I put a drop of fingernail polish on the knuckles). I still have three cars giving me fits about new wheels. Also need to replace a coupler that broke. Sunday I finished 156 trees. I now have 285 trees reading for planting Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
One of my favorite logos is that happy Golden Pig, complete with pinstriped SP cap. Nice work as always Brad. Though I've not bought the first stick of lumber, I made layout progress in important ways. Made good progress on springtime lawn cleanup and as importantly, my wife went through a bulky box in the garage full of church-related kid's choir music. That frees up floor space to store lumber and my benchwork as I build it. The last impediment to layout construction are a few pieces of furniture that should be gone within the month.
Last week I dumped all my intermodal equipment (55 pieces) onto the floor : Today : Most damage was axles popped out of side frames, a couple of side frames split in 1/2 at the bolster and mounting screws stripped out, and some containers & trailers knocked loose. Be well, Carl
Did some 3D printing this weekend to test out a design idea. I wanted to see if interchangeable nose parts was a good idea for my n scale Metroliner to cover the various configurations seen over the years. I'd say it was a successful effort. Top row from left to right is the same model - standard config, doors open diaphragm extended, doors removed cab car config, and plated over diaphragm. Bottom left is the plain vanilla Metroliner, bottom right is the old Bachmann thrown in for a family portrait. Cheers -Mike
Saturday I made some progress on my modeling activities. My first go at putting "drain channels" on the Vandy tender did not pan out, but I had a rethink about my approach and will try again this week. I also worked on the Mike's boiler with good results. No pictures to share at this point. Sunday was all about family. My son dropped by in the morning. The three of us had a good walk and lunch. After lunch, Sharon and I went to her aunt's house for some flower bed work. It was nice enough when we returned home to enjoy a beer on the deck before leftover pizza with TV soccer. Looks like several folks had good modeling weekends, in spite of a couple setbacks. Stay safe,
Re: missing wheel. The lost wheel comes under the heading of "part launching". It is widely believed that parts that leave the workbench or equipment, especially "at velocity" enter another dimension. These parts often show up in the future. Sometimes even at another residence if one moves. fyi.
Wow! Dumped in the floor. We must be related. Work displayed above looks great! Lots of folks getting outside. Me also. And with that in mind, I am still not where I want to be with the structure. Sunday afternoon's effort has been moved to today, tomorrow and beyond due to rainy weather. I think this will help. Have a great week and be safe.
After my running of trains on Friday night I did not get much else done. Saturday, we ran some errands and moved a few things around the yard. By the time we were done it was getting dark and I was tired. I did go downstairs and look at the layout, but I could not come up with the motivation to get anything done. Apparently, I unknowingly pulled/strained a muscle in my chest and shoulder on Saturday. I did not find out until early Sunday morning when the pain woke me up. Took it easy yesterday. Helped the wife replant some bulbs. My daughter did the heavy lifting. I dug the holes without bending over. I spent the rest of the day moving from uncomfortable chair to another. Needless to say I never made it to the basement and the layout. Today things feel better with only a small amount of pain left.
Good on you, Carl! Glad to see the intermodal cars are on the RIP track getting attention. Those Metroliner ends are awesome, Mike. I liked seeing the CAD but seeing the prints is even better. I brought a couple hoppers to the hotel with me to see if I could a) safely transport models in my grip, and b) get some simple modeling task done like applying decals. Well it was a success, although I only had enough decals to do one car or in this case one side each of two cars. The other decal sheet is enroute (along with the missing outlet gates) so hopefully I can finish these cars up in the next week or so.
Didn't get a lot done to his weekend. After adjusting couplers and properly weighting my well cars last Tuesday, I decided that I needed more containers. So since I'm far too cheap to buy lots of scale models all at once, this week I printed a variety of common brands/logos on cardstock and started making my own. Each one takes between 30 minutes to an hour depending on how careful I am and what kind of a bottom I build for it. Sent from my moto g(7) play using Tapatalk
No pictures, but some good progress: assembled and put on the platforms all station lights, got the news kiosk done, especially the guy inside it. also had to move one of the signals as it was inside the loading gaud Next week more pictures....
I used a bit of drone time to catch the track gang beginning the track work at Wizard of the Woods Railcar, a David K. Smith Company. I'll have two tracks out in back of the building, one of which will be the programming track from my DCC. The rails don't run through the building, but a sthe wiring coming out the bottom attests, it is lit.
