Let's see, if my calculations are correct, Sue has carefully positioned her rook, bishop and shay so that the next one who posts on this thread ends up at the top of the page.
Yup. OK, everyone, cold drinks are on me. Set 'em up, Joe, and plenty of ice for anything that doesn't already come out of a frosty tap. Strumpet Summer Ale for me. Thanks.
Looking at weather dot com over the weekend, I realized that it was hotter up here in the Burbs of Boston than it was at my in-laws place in southern Florida. Ugly and sweaty. Fortunately, the basement is still relatively cool, and the train room upstairs has AC. So, with that true innovative yankee spirit, I started working on my ice house.
It's actually a rather simple kit, but I'm not happy with the colors. The building itself is all in brilliant white styrene, while the platform is a dark gray. Yes, it really needs paint. I made a very thin wash of a light gray to tone down the white building a bit, and used the same gray for most of the support work on the platform. After 2 coats on everything, still on the sprue, I've set it aside. I still need to get another can of speckled spray paint for the roof. That came in a glossy black, which I doubt would have been used for an ice-house roof.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Does Strumpet have a nice dark beer? If it does, I will have one of those, Joe. Rain today is keeping me inside.
MrB, I am new to plastic kits. If you paint them first, will the plastic still bond well? When I painted the floor for the RH, I had already connected the floor pieces.
Later, Sue
Anything is possible if you do not know what you are talking about.
Sorry to take so long. I was all set to reply, and then somebody came into my office and reminded me that I was still at work. Oh, well.
Yeah, the paint does get in the way of the glue. Still, it's usually easier to paint first and then glue later, particularly to get better color separation between the parts.
Sure, Joe. I'll have another Strumpet Summer, and maybe Sue would like the Porter? A bit bitter for my taste, but worth a try if you've never had one. A couple of ice waters, too, and something salty, if you don't mind. Are onion rings salty? Well, bring some anyway.
I got back to the ice house this afternoon, since the basement was the only place in the house where the devil himself would have felt uncomfortable. I glued the building walls on to the base, and started attaching the supports to the icing deck. That's where the glue/paint problem showed up. I scraped any excess paint off the wall edges easily enough for the building itself, but the deck and its supports were another matter. Walthers fit these pretty tight, so glue is hardly necessary, but if you follow the usual procedure of painting first, then the assembly process will scrape some of the paint off. On the other hand, it doesn't look half bad for a structure that's seen its share of weather.
Ugh, those bases. Black. Why not something neutral, or, like, dirt colored? I couldn't find any sprays of light tan, and I was too lazy for brush-painting. So, another project deferred for a couple of days. Still, this is real progress. It's pushing the scenery past old territorial boundries. Devil or no, I'm in train heaven.
Good morning...A coffee to go please. I have many projects today and really must stay busy with them!
It's been a whirl-wind of sorts around here the past week or so with the Reif Spring Show (Raeanne danced divinely by the way) and a house full of company with in-laws coming and going since last Thursday.
Most all is back to normal (as normal as it gets) with demands for time in the garden and wood lot here at home and of course work in town. I'm thinking that if it weren't for the money....I wouldn't really need to have outside employment. I have plenty on my plate right here at home to keep busy with.
More later.
Happy Friday the 13th, everybody. Joe, I'll have a Kirin, and see who needs a refill.
Well, just as I had about convinced the CFO that we should spring for a nice, shiny photocopier/printer/scanner the washing machine up and died. (Not that it shouldn't have. I think that its first load included the robe Moses was wearing when he lugged those stone tablets out of the wilderness...) So, maybe next month - or the one after that.
While shopping for said machine, we stopped in at the new Lowe's that just opened a few miles down the road, so I picked up some small steel studs for continued construction. Seems Lowe's supplier decided that the stud surface should be dimpled all over - which does make it easier to start screws, but probably won't do much for caulk consumption when I try to anchor foam roadbed to the inside of one. Have to check and see what Home Despot has in stock.
Good old Mother Nature (red of tooth and claw) seems to be showing everyone her bad side. After seeing severe floods and reading about the tornado that blew away that Boy Scout camp, our century-plus temperatures (which are normal for this time of year, and will be until Labor Day) seem like pretty small potatoes.
Not much progress to report, unfortunately. I need to re-calibrate my metabolism so that I wake up early enough to get into the layout space before it turns into a sauna. Mostly, I've been pulling old rolling stock out of storage and getting it ready to roll - necessary, but tedious.
Well, I just got told that it's time to see a man about a mail box...
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - when I get a round tuit!)
Good one, Chuck. It didn't even catch Friday the 13th.
Please pour me a Porter, Joe. It's been warm here today. We will see if someone slides in here this evening.
Tomorrow, I am volunteering at our local mission dental clinic. It is part of giving back to my profession. I will let you know how that goes.
Sue
to those of you fathers out there.
Some coffee for me, Joe. A lot of excitement here in Beantown last night. My daughter was out past midnight (school's over) watching the big game. As I drove in from my own hockey game, I got to thinking about how lucky she's been, seeing her home-town favorites win Superbowls, World Series championships and now regaining the crown in the NBA.
Thanks for the Fathers' Day wishes, Sue. Nothing train related (except some time off to do layout work) but I did get a great T-shirt from Pirate's Cove mini-golf down on Cape Cod. Daughter Annie was down there a month or two ago, so I'll have to give her credit on thinking ahead in the gift department.
I love it when a plan comes together. I've been promised a larger share of the family room for my layout when the youngest third of the family takes off for college next year. I've been trying to plan a reasonable extension for some time now. I want some staging, a longer main-line run and another passing siding, so I can run two trains in opposite directions. It just wasn't working out, but over the weekend I had one of those "suppose I did this?" moments. The current layout is on wheels, so instead of building the extension into the newly-available space, I moved the existing layout there, and put the extension in where the layout used to be. Perfect. Another side benefit will be the ability to run a spur off the subway line, so that aspect of the railroad will be more interesting, too.
I've got the ice house and loading platform on the layout. It's not really finished yet, because I'm not at all happy with the roof. I wanted to use a speckled spray paint in a light gray color, but I couldn't find any. I have a can of dark gray, which does a great job of looking like dark asphalt shingles, but I don't think they'd have used a dark roof on an ice house. With the gritty texture on there now, though, I might try misting over it with some gray primer, and then hit it up with weathering powders. After I put some figures on the platform, I decided it really needed a couple of lights for good nighttime appearance, so that will be another little project one of these days.
Chuck, I saw your comment on the Helper Engine thread. I seriously think the whole bunch of you on that thread should get together and write an article for MR. I'm jealous of any layout where the trains are long enough to need helpers, but the whole idea of actually doing operations in that environment is pretty fascinating.
Good morning. Strong coffee to help the eyelids stay open. I am on my way to a seminar 4 hours away. 3:30 came too early, but I am up and running.
MrB, I am excited for you with your expansion hopes and dreams. Did you plan for that when you originally put track down? I would look for textured paint. I think we have some. When I get back on Sunday, I will try to remember to ask Larry about that and let you know.
Ah, nothing like truck stop coffee. Another cup for me, please, Joe. Funny how the Beer Barn is serving up so much of this stuff. Well, it's Friday, so hopefully we'll get back to the real stuff once the work week is over. (My work has been pretty weak for a while now.)
I went to Rustoleum's web site, and they don't make a speckled paint in gray at all. So, after 3 hardware stores and a web search, I went to Plan B and hit the roof up with gray primer. Because the speckled dark gray (almost black) was already there, I ended up with the texture I wanted. I added my own color speckling with powder, and it came out just about the way I wanted it. I'll have to get a photo up this weekend.
Yes, Sue, my original plans did have a couple of stub tracks that ended up in almost the right place. That's actually what made the new alignment work. One of the "future expansion" lines was this stub-end track at Scollay Square:
The station was still under construction in this photo, but it's finished now. If I get my way with the extension, then I'll extend this line outward and down the length of the new section. Nice thing about subways - you don't need to turn them around, just kick them into reverse.
Chuck, this one's for you, and for anyone else who's a Shakespeare fan. (OK, beers are on me. This is confusing enough already. How on earth is he going to link these together?)
We just watched the Kenneth Branagh interpretation of The Bard's "As You Like It," one of those plot-twist comedies. He chose to set this not in Elizabethan England, but rather in 19th century Japan. So, while the Duke, Jacques and the rest of his retenue went off to exile in the Forest of Arden, Orlando brought down his opponent Charles in court - in a Sumo wrestling match. It would have been perfect if they'd had a train running through the forest, but, as it was, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable performance.
"Arden," by coincidence, is the middle name shared by my wife, mother-in-law and daughter.
And so, my friends, to sleep, perchance to dream.
Afternoon gang: I'll have a cold one and buy the next round too!
It's been busy again (so, what else is new) and I haven't gotten to the Trainroom at all this week. I'm booked for the weekend and then on Monday I'm running four kids from our H.S. Jazz Choir down to Phil Mattson's Vocal Jazz Workshop in Creston IA for the week....
Mr. Beasley, I realize you already have the roof done on the ice house and I hadn't chimed in earlier, but here is a thought for other roofs down the line.
Phil from Arizona Rock & Mineral has some VERY fine ground mineral in at least red, green, black and light gray that is wonderful for mineral roofing.
I don't see it much any more, but as a kid I saw a lot of rolled roofing, not only on roofs but as a siding too. This stuff is a heavy tar impregnated felt with a mineral top surface. Seems to me we called it 60 lb. (standard tar-paper comes in 15 and 30 lb.) salvage or roofing.
To shorten my rambling here.....I put on a coat of acrylic paint, most often black, and then sprinkle on the mineral. When it's dry I dust off the access and end up with a very nice looking roofing material. On my last project, I used the light gray with just a touch of the black mixed in. I'm thinking that I got the speckled look you were looking for on the ice house. I'll see if I can get a good picture to share....But it seems my close ups don't come out all that well.
Hi, there! I'm Ba-ack!
(After two weeks, it's about time!) Still trying to deal with the lemons life has been throwing at all of us. My lemonade squeezer is running full blast, but the pitcher is still dry...
Most jurisdictions have banned anything based on tarpaper, which included many types of roll roofing. The excuse is that the stuff is insect-friendly and inflammable. (The same jurisdictions allow split cedar shakes. Go figure...)
I wonder if strips of vinyl electrical tape would do a good job of simulating the rubber membrane roofing used on industrial and commercial buildings. And how would one go about modeling the flat solar panels that are gaining popularity in 'green' developments locally. That's one type of roofing that will definitely date a model as way too late for the steam era.
Pulled Tetsudo Mokei Shumi out of my mail box, and it knocked my socks off. The cover photo story is a really nice HOj module, only 360 x 910 mm (about as big as the working surface of my desk!) Small as it is, it has a remarkably natural, open look. The big feature is a deck girder swing bridge over a narrow water course. It looks like a misplaced turntable - but there is a prototype. Almost makes me wish I had some navigable water to cross, to justify modeling it.
Best of all, the building styles and details are very close to things I remember from the early 1960s, when I was wandering around with a notebook and a camera - including some things that I've had on my Have to have list for all the years since.
Over on the prototype forums, I've been having fun with the folks who want to resurrect the steam locomotive, 'privatize' Amtrak and otherwise reinvent the square wheel. One thing is obvious. Our MR forums are MUCH busier than the others!
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Just rolled back home from the Jazz Workshop...What a blast!
Now, however, I'm going to have to catch up around the place with the biggest push being the mowing and the garden!
OTOH, I got my passengers and bolster conversions and I will spend two hours today in the Trainroom...No matter! As I want to listen to Garrison and the Prairie Home Companion while working on the passenger cars a bit.
I'll also see if I can get a picture of the "mineral roofing" to post.
Hi - happy Monday. (Oh, sorry.) I'll have some coffee. Thanks.
We spent the weekend on Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts. It's become a resort area, pretty much exclusively. Boats and airplanes are the only real ways to get there, so the prices of everything are pretty high. Regular gas on the mainland was $4.09, but over there it was $4.84. Sure, you could take the ferry over, fill up and come back, but at $70 each way for your car, well, most people just pay the bandits and drive away.
The town of Oak Bluffs had a summer religious community back around the time of the Civil War. Most of these little cottages are still there, lovingly maintained by their owners. Many were built with a "gingerbread house" style, full of doo-dads and cirlicues on the outside, and they are brightly colored in pastels of all shades. It's an interesting area to bike through, or walk where they ask you not to bike. At one point, I noticed a short section of old rails, so I looked online after I got home and found out a bit of history on the Martha's Vineyard Railroad:
http://www.mvrr.freeservers.com/
I think this article may have been a high school project, but it's clearly the winner among the Google search results. None of the others even mentioned the locomotive's trip to the bottom of the harbor when the brakes failed on the barge delivering it from the mainland.
Hope everyone has plenty of down time. We will have a couple of tall cold brews, Joe. It may be quiet around here today.
Sue & Larry
'Morning, Joe. Coffee and a donut, thanks.
It's going to be a GREAT day. Mark Newton is back, attacking swelled heads and pompous donkeys with great gusto. I've missed him.
Sue, it wasn't anything like quiet here two nights ago. Several casinos (under one management) put on a ten minute fireworks display that was impressive, even at several miles range. Sounded like a WWI artillery barrage, and lit up the southern sky.
Mister B, have you ever considered a small mod to Scollay Square's end-of-track to accept cassettes? It would be one way to provide off-layout staging now, not in the indefinite future. (My question was prompted by my own efforts - I converted some of my new steel studs to four 1.4 meter cassettes, designed to mate with the short end of the Mikasa staging lead and needed to store the freight cars I've been reactivating.)
Pretty obviously, this is the season when a lot of folks get involved in non-model-railroading activities. In my case, I've been helping my wife in the garden - quite a change for someone who grew to maturity in the concrete jungle and spent his working life elbows deep in machinery. It does make sense, though. The layout room is only inhabitable for a short time right after dawn.
On the up side, latex caulk cures quickly in the heat. On the down side, working time for fresh caulk is measured in seconds.
Time to go. See ya later.
I'll have a cup of joe, Joe. Sunday in the AM here. The train room is occupied by the Wimbledon Watchers right now. The DVR is mostly filled with the previous days' action, and I know that I'll be telling the ladies that some of these unwatched hours will have to go before any more can be recorded.
I'm trying to get started on Weimer's Mill, my Christmas present from 2005. It's a wood craftsman kit, and I haven't been ready for it yet. First, it's going to be in the "final frontier" section of the current layout, that last open pink prairie that hasn't received scenery yet, and, maybe more important, I've been kind of intimidated by it ever since I opened the box. But, after Simon's tutorial, I've been inspired to start. I've been doing paint tests on a piece of balsa, and I'm about ready to start for real.
The subway tunnels do not meet NMRA height specs, so I can't run anything down there but subway trains. Also, I set the platforms right up close to the trains, to reduce passenger injuries. In retrospect, maybe that wasn't such a good idea, but the extra tunnel height would have meant either steeper or longer grades in and out of the tunnels, and they're already pushing 5%. That's not a problem for the subways or trolleys, but I wouldn't want to be pulling a freight on them.
Today, though, is a bright, sunny day, and I might just go out for a bike ride before the clouds come back in.
Good evening, Joe. Larry and I will have a tall mug of what you have on tap. We will buy for anyone who shows up this evening.
We did a little landscape work today. It is amazing how a little beauty bark will spruce things up. The Mallet got some exercise while we worked out.
Chuck, We too had louder than usual fireworks both Friday and Saturday nights. It went on for hours. Someone has too much money in their pockets. I hope that we are spared tonight since it is a work night.
MrB, Is your kit a laser-kit? I started with a few small ones, and they seem easier than the plastic kits.
On a sad note, when looking for my 2008 Walthers catalog, it has dissapeared. It may have slipped into the recycled phone book pile. I haven't given up yet, but it is not looking good.
Well, it is time for dinner.
Hope everybody had a great 4th of July weekend.
We took off the time and spent the weekend at Whispering Wings (the cabin over by Itasca State Park) and did pretty much nothing but enjoy the quiet and the birds!
Nothing, other than the bolster conversions, to report from the Trainroom.....But that is the way of the season.
Have a great one!
Well...I see it's been a bit on the slow side of things here at the Barn. I'll have a coffee straight up this morning.
And, a good morning to you all. Hope all is right on your slice these days.
I've been as busy as ever with the garden and with work. I dodged the bullet again this year and still have a job for next, all though it may have some changes. Even with nearly 20 years in with the school district....Seems I'm always in limbo when it comes time for cuts!
I did play a bit in the Trainroom the other day and finished the bolster conversions for the two Con-Cor 72 footers. I also got started with the placement of the seating in the coach and played with some window shading too. It's always a long, slow project this time of year....Just not taking or making the time to model.
And speaking of time....It's time I get into the garden! I have a few "must does" out there before a birthday celebration this afternoon.
Coffee for me, too, Joe. Hopefully, I'll be able to drop by later with some pictures, and have something a little more cool and fizzy.
We had our first home swim meet yesterday, at least the first one we made it to. (We were out of town for the last one.) The team lost, but Annie did place second in the backstroke. Last year, our coach had a serious accident while bicycling home, and it was questionable for a while about whether he would make it, and then for a while longer about whether he would keep his leg. In the end, though, he recovered reasonably well, and, to our dismay, was hired away by a rival club. In the spirit of sportsmanship, though, we were all glad to hear his voice and see him striding along with his swimmers at poolside, even though it was the wrong side of the pool.
After two weeks of effort on the Weimer's Mill kit, I'm almost ready for Step 1. The instructions, of course, briefly mention painting and other weathering, but the first step is to glue parts together. Before I can do that, of course, I have to get the beat-up paint job done. Once I started looking at the kit, I realized that the big doors gave me an opportunity for interior detailing as well, so I've been adding beams to the interior, and figuring out how to model the old millworks inside as well. And, even though the mill will be long abandoned, I've decided to add a bit of lighting so that the interior can be seen.
Back again, as promised, or was it "as threatened?" Anyway, a Sam Summer for me. Gee, even wife Penny likes that stuff. Surprising, because her tastes usually run more to Bud Light. Not sure if she'd go for a Strumpet Summer Ale, though. Hops are a bit strong for her.
Anyway, I did get to spend some time in the cool, dark basement, and I've made a lot of progress on the inside of the mill. I got all the interior frame done, plus the structure for the working part of the mill itself. I took this shot before doing the ink-and-alcohol thing on it.
I gave some thought to more gear work, but that would typically have been down in the basement, according to the bit of research I did on what gristmills would have looked like inside. However, don't be surprised if one day I knock down the basement wall and add some more detail down there. In the upper story, I've got the top bearing for the main gear shaft, and I am putting in a big gear up there, made from a bottle cap. I don't think it's prototypical, but the cap was just about the right size.
No peeking at the "You made THAT out of WHAT?" thread. Can anyone guess what the millstones used to be?
Good morning, coffee for everyone, Joe. I know that MrB is at the top of the page, but that was several days ago.
With my 2 jobs, I am almost up to full time again. That was not my intention. What am I to do?
MrB, I am still thinking about the millstone. Cool. The interiors for your buildings are always so well done.
Good morning...A coffee and the special for me please.
I too, am pondering the mill stone. I keep coming back to an eraser, remover from a pencil.
The garden is producing some and looking better except for the peppers (it may just be the year of no peppers), the wood shed is almost full (all though I still need to build another) and today I WILL spend some time in the Trainroom with one project or another!
I'm in your camp Sue...Jobs seem to get in the way of the things I REALLY want to do!
You all have a great day!
How about a Bud, Joe? It may the end of an era for that most well-known of American beers. Bought out by a Belgian company. Well, let's be cautiously optimistic, and hope that they will take it upon themselves to bring better beer to the masses.
End of an era for us, today, too, JB. Our daughter has been on the swim team at our local summer swim and tennis club since we joined, maybe 10 years ago now. But, the highest age classification is 17-and-under, and she won't qualify next year. She'll miss the last two meets because she'll be away, first with friends on Cape Cod, and then in an intensive French language program up in Canada. So, as she left the blocks for the 200 yard free relay, it was likely her last competitive swim. For me, well, it was my last turn as a race timer.
It's been hot here, but I made a little progress on the mill. The glue is drying on an edge seam now, so I don't want to go any further. I added the two small light bulbs, taking care to disguise the wires inside some "rusty piping" against the wall.
And here's another clue for you all: The "millstones" came from Italy.
The bottom of Page 10? TEN? Gack, what do they think this is, some dry piece about economic policy or something? Well, Joe, set 'em up, because I"M ON VACATION!
We're taking off for a week of camping in Nova Scotia early, early on Saturday, catching the catamaran ferry from Portland, Maine. No modelling on this vacation, I'm afraid, but we'll have fun being away from work, home, computers and cell phones. (Yeah, the phones will work there, but at 79 cents a minute I don't plan to use them much.)
I did get to do a bit more on the mill. The windows are installed, along with the interior lights, and I've put on the loading docks as well. The roof, not shown, is put together but not shingled yet, and then I've still got to do the water tank, mill wheel and sluice channels. Still, it's come a long way and will probably be only a few more working sessions until it's done.
I'm really having fun with this kit. This shot is through one of the open doors, with a bit of help (not much) from the interior lighting on the first floor. Click on it for a better view, and then look very carefully and find the black cat.
I thought I'd add a closeup of the stairs in back. The stair treads are individually cut pieces, backed with self-stick adhesive for assembly. The stringers are laser-cut wood, and everything fits together very precisely.
I hope everyone is having a great time this summer, whether modelling, operating or just enjoying some fine weather.
Hey, Joe, I will have a cold one, please.
MrB, That mill is first class. And the stairs, Wow.
I have been on vacation this week. The weather has not been as nice as last week, or next week, of course. Today I ordered the Walthers Empire Leather Tanning kit and their 3-in-1 Building set #2 from the sale catalog. I have patiently waited for the price reduction. I plan to scratch build background buildings with the 3-in-1 kit. I know that they are winter projects, but I am learning that if I don't buy it when I see it, I will never see it again.
Ibeamlicker wrote:Set em,up Joe drinks on me.Mr B looks real nice,is that a kit or scratchbuilt?Me and my wife will be in Portland second week of august visiting the childrens museum with the kids.everyone be good and safe.
Thanks for the good wishes and the round. It's a kit, Weimer's Mill from Branchline Trains. A bit pricey these days, I'm afraid, but when I count up the hours of fun I've already had building it, well, it's cheaper per hour than renting a video from Blockbuster, and I don't even have to bring it back!
It's a laser-cut wood kit, so all the parts are very precisely shaped and fit together beautifully. It did not come with an interior, though, other than the floors, so I had to scratch that. Go back a couple of pages and there are some earlier work-in-progress photos.
I put the roof on and brought the whole thing up to its future home on the layout. I'll have to do some significant scenery base work just to put it down, because the mill sluices will have to be up a couple of inches from the base, meaning that the mill itself has to be a couple of inches down from where the layout surface currently rests. Unfortunately, I now realize that the wheel will be facing the wrong way, although it's close to the front and can still be seen. Well, I'll correct that when I put on the second extension to my layout. (The first is still in the planning stage, but it won't have a space for the mill.)
Joe, I will have coffee with a cinnamon roll this morning. Thanks.
MrB, Branchline Trains kits are very nice. I love that you take the time to do the interiors. Thanks for the mentoring. Hope that you have a great vacation.