Finished up a Milwaukee Road Olympian Tap-Lounge and Dining car for a customer this week. These are brass car sides on a core kit with many added details. Note the frosted glass in the kitchen windows was only about 3/4 of the window. Here are a couple of photos comparing the custom built cars with brass cars from Railway Classics
Whats not on the work bench!!! Just went to the Roundhouse gang swap meet. So I added 5 new projects to the long list!!! Got a rivarossi tender to bash up. 3 switcher shells to beat up and weather and a 44 tonner to decal up!!!!
'Waynes World'... A movie classic !!! Wayne drove a sky blue 1976 AMC Pacer in the movie ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne's_World_(film)
Kevin, I don't know if you already know, but there is a AEM-7 shell on Shapeways now: www.shapeways.com/shops/ihphobby Chris
My "workbench" In answer to the question, "What's on your workbench?"...well, my workbench is on my workbench. That is to say, "I now have a workbench!" The CFO got tired of me using her quilting table as a workbench so I bought a pair of Accuride 7597 drawer glides and built a pull-out workbench. It turned out better than I'd hoped. The next step is to put a smooth, solid color surface on it and start replacing the couplers on my UP F7 A+B uits - one of which is shown in two of the pics. I think this will be (close to) awesome and I'm getting excited to start laying out track!
I started work on my own version of an SD60E. I have most of the long hood work done and just waiting on my spare Atlas cabs before I start working on the rest of the model. View attachment 52278 View attachment 52279 View attachment 52280 View attachment 52281
Finally I have a workbench of sorts (a tablesaw) and now my first project: Peco double-slip + Atlas 15 degree crossing = ? hopefully an American looking double-slip that still works like it should. The plan is to cut the Peco piece right after the switch points before the frog on both ends, then shave the lower portion of the rail and plastic to allow standard rail joiners. Next will be to cut out the ties in the middle and on the sides and replace them with some from the Atlas track. Then the Atlas frogs will be added and some rail shaving will need to take place. The Peco railheads are rounded and the Atlas/ME heads are flat. With one train potentially having to cross 6 of these, there's little room for a slight bump. My layout will use a mix of Atlas, ME and these Peco double slips (and 3 triple switches), with the Peco being the most out of line. If I can solve this problem this way, I won't have to go to an early grave attempting to handcraft 23 double-slips for the Ogilvie Transportation Center portion of my layout. I'm much better at Frankensteining things than building from scratch anyway.
Sorry, no photos, but my workbench is a 400 ton steel desk I "adopted" while in the USN. As of right now, I have 53 Diesels that all need SOMETHING, 17 cabooses that want interiors, four passenger trains that need to be populated, and MTL Red Circus Train that needs to made into something I can actually run. OH !!! I almost forgot !!! A lighted magnifier with a burned out bulb !!!
Nice trees Neal, I like em. B&M buggy C452 runner for up coming shows this spring and summer. No details, just a runner. Based on a B&M Pennsy N5 Clone.
Having cleared the workbench of 4-4-0s and 4-4-2s it is time to start refurbishing two Minitrix 4-6-2s that the previous owner had made a mess out of. Never knew anyone who put weights at the top of the tender below the coal load. Weights go on the subframe at the bottom or else one is looking to lift the wheels going into a curve at 50 smph and derailing. And then the wiring mess plus one tender was so bad it has been scrapped. Fortunately another Minitrix tender resided in my spare tender box. So at this point installing an oil bunk and then time to replace some wiring.
