Thanks Sue…Glad the pizza hit the spot! With that, I’ll buy a night-cap for those of us here for the moment, but soon heading for bed!!
I’ve got to figure out how to take care of that new “silhouette thing” going on with the new format of the forum….The darn thing doesn’t look anything like me and looks just like everybody else!!!
Also need to find “my forums” if it’s still out there.
Coffee and Cinnamon rolls, please, Joe, for anyone who shows up early.
JB, The new format brought my signature photo, but it was huge so Bergie deleted it. Everything else stayed the same. The silhouette is weird.
Sue
Anything is possible if you do not know what you are talking about.
I'll have what she's having, Joe. Smells good.
JB, you need to find a picture and upload it as your Avatar. The picture does not have to be hosted - you can take it right off your hard drive. These get stored in Milwaukee. They really compress the images, though, so you're better off with a logo like Sue's than with a photo like mine. The better your monitor, the worse these things look.
I got into engine maintenance this week, after cleaning my tracks a couple of weeks back. By the way, the lacquer thinner really does work better than alcohol, and it doesn't smell much at all when you're running the car or afterwards. I'd fill the car outside, though. I brought out my GP-9's to give them some road time, and discovered that the second one had developed the same clunk as the first. That was the old cracked-axle issue common with older P2K's, and I'd already gotten the replacement axles (free!) from Walthers. The hard part, of course, was finding the dang things, but last night I located them and replaced the axles. No more clunk.
Then I hauled out my F7's, and their traditional passenger cars. With 5 long coaches and an A-B-A power consist, that's the longest train I usually ever run. I was just sitting by the Moose Bay Bridge railfanning, when I realized just how much I loved watching these old F7's. Now, I'm looking into re-motoring them to get the noise down, so adding sound would make sense.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
We have to love those F7's don't we, MrB. I will try the lacquer thinner, Thanks.
Ah, Monday. Keep the coffee coming, Joe. How about a bowl of some mixed fruit, with plenty of cantalope? Thanks.
Well, what started out as a routine maintenance run for my F7 fleet turned into quite a project. Since I've been doing nothing but scenery for the last month or two, it was nice to work on trains again for a change. I sent my usual e-mail in to my LHS to order one of those Athearn F7 chassis, and he sent back a note that he had one in the shop. So, I hustled on down there and picked it up. He gave me a great deal, since it wasn't in a box, but it was brand new and tested fine.
The shell is so old that it didn't fit quite the same way. I had to shave a bit off the window unit inside the shell, since it interfered with the base. I've still got to do something about the shell mounting, because there's nothing really holding it on. As I found out last night, the shell can shift enough that the pilot drops down and hits one of my uncoupler ramps - pretty hard, but no damage done.
Remember the old jungle movies? "It's quiet." "Too quiet." Well, that was my F7's, too. So, I put sound into the dummy B unit, because that was easy and it would give me a big interior space to work with. I fabricated a baffle box out of styrene, using the motor well space of the dummy B for most of it, and just gluing on a face plate for the speaker. Last night, I got to run those old things around again, but this time with engine noise and a diesel horn. It's the "generic" Digitrax diesel sound, so maybe I'll play with programming again, too.
Then there's the old story of the carpenter who had his hammer for 50 years. "Yup," he said. "50 years. Replaced the handle a few times, and I've put on a couple of new heads, but that hammer is 50 years old." Well, that's my 50-year-old F7, too. Back when I was a teenager, I put a new shell on it, it got a LED and Kadees a few years back, and now I've replaced the old noisy mechanism. But, that's still my 50-year-old engine, right?
Good Evening, Joe. I will have a Strumpet Ale.
MrB, You put us all to shame with your endless work.
I worked on a background building from walthers modulars. You know make it us as you go. I was going to take a photo, but the focus on my camera is not working.
Later, Sue
Happy election day, Sue. I just got informed that there's some ladder climbing in my future (repainting the trim on the house) so I'll be sticking to coffee.
Just encountered my first Moderated Forum notice - not on the election day thread (where I might have expected it) but on the Slot Car thread. I wonder if it was my joking reference to slot cars as, "Little bandits?"
Just think. No more political trash on the tube for a while. Maybe I'll be able to watch next weekend's NASCAR races in peace. (Nicest thing about watching sumo? NO COMMERCIALS!!!)
Layout construction progress has taken a temporary back seat to redoing and printing out all of my electrical documentation. The original hard copy (in pencil) is pretty dog-eared, so I decided to make the record copy pretty. My file folder is filling up fast - and that's just for one zone so far.
Well, the breakfast bell just rang, so I'm off to the races...
Enjoy,
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - eventually)
Good evening, All. One more work day this week and I can get back to my background building.
Chuck, I agree. I can't wait to get back to normal programming. This year politics have been mean spirited. I miss the days when the candidates told you what they stood for instead of negatives on their opponents.
I am waiting for a Walthers order with the adapter for the badger 350. Guess what we might be doing this weekend.
Morning all, I just had to stop in and buy Sue a coffee or beer or whatever she wants. I so agree with her on the politics this year! Better stop there!
Anyway, Joe I'll have toast and coffee this morning and drinks for anyone that shows up here this morning.
I got 2 Kato SD45 last week (They are DC for now until my decoders come in) and running them at a normal speed of I wold guess around 45 mph I have the throttle on about 15. I am wondering what they are going to do when I get them on DCC. The only problem is I am having trouble getting them to stay coupled with any other rolling stock, I figure I need to change the couplers on the rolling stock. All the couplers are knuckel couplers but some are a little bigger than the ones on the SD45's. I am not looking forward to changing 60+ couplers,One a day will get it done someday.
Have a good day. Mike
Hey, Joe. Is Mike's tab still open from this morning? JB sure made the Bloody Mary sound good. It is 8:00 here, and coffee doesn't sound like a good idea.
Mike, Have you taken any photos of the progress on your layout lately. Now that you are back on track we will be watching for them.
JB, Glad to see you in today. We will let MrB be our inspiration to get more done on our layouts. I have a haircut tomorrow. That is a good excuse to pick up that styrene for the floor on my background building.
Good morning. I'd like some scrambled eggs, and a side of ham with fresh pineapple. Yeah, coffee, too, of course. It's Thursday, almost Friday. Here at work, a few of us have the Hawaiian shirt Thursday tradition, so it's a colorful place and the pineapple will do just fine. Make that Kona coffee, too, if you please.
Mike, which layout are you working on? Are you still concentrating on the N-gauge one, or do you still keep improving your HO layout?
I tried downloading the E8 sound project into my F7B last night, but it was silent afterwards. I put back the original sounds, and those still work, so it's something about that package. I put up a post on Electronics and DCC, and had a "D'oh!" moment - it may be that I've still got the bit set to go to the second sound set, because the decoder comes with the diesel-or-steam option originally, and the E8 project likely only has one set. I'll have to try that when I get home.
I also did a bit more work on Lady Buc's, the seashore bar. The original roof was thin wood covered with a glued-on printed shingle pattern, and that was in bad shape. I peeled the paper off, and last night I spent some time laying down a Campbell shingle roof on top of the original wood. I've got 2 of the 3 sides of the deck railing done, too, so the whole thing is moving along.
I picked up some gloss acrylic gel, too. Once the bar is in place, the large body of water that's called Moose Bay will be defined. That will need ripples, waves even, and I found I couldn't get the effect I wanted with Modge Podge. It's just too thin, and it settles out too much. So, playing with that will be the next step in learning about "making water."
Good morning….I’ll take the same as Mr. B. It sounds good and I could stand for some really good coffee.
Well, it’s raining so I may get some time in the Trainroom today. I need to continue the sorting / clean up routine.
Mr. B: I used a combination of Woodland Scenics Water Effects and a Gloss medium for the rushing water at Greenwood Falls on my Greenwood River, Long bridge diorama. I think it turned out real nice.
I haven’t done the lake yet, but hope to be able to give it some texture / ripple with the same products and methods.
You guys have seen the pic a while back (the one with the long timber trestle and the fisherman in front of the falls) so I won’t post it again.
BTW, thanks for the info regarding the Avatar. I’ll have to get after that one of these days.
Joe, I NEED a beer. Not just want one, need one. Bah. The camera broke.
I've been working on Lady Buc's, the local clam shack down by the waterfront. It's an old building from my youth, the only one with an interior from my childhood. Not much to look at - just a clapboard building with a glued-on paper shingle pattern roof. I painted up all the tables and chairs last night, and spent some time this morning (Saturday! Yay!) gluing down the tables, chairs, beer bottles, kegs, etc. on the deck outside. Really wanted to post a shot, but when I turn on the camera, I get an image that looks like an aurora with a hangover. Think it's time for a new camera.
Sue, I saw that you're working on a gas station, or assumed that from your info-seeking post. I got all the parts for my Texaco station from J.L. Innovative. Some of the toolboxes ended up in the engine house, and at least one of the tires ended up in the river, just downstream from the trestle.
EDIT: I borrowed daughter Annie's camera:
The female pirate is carrying a lacrosse stick at port arms, by the way. The "Lady Bucs" are Annie's high school lacrosse team, and the graphic belongs to them.
I need 3 beers.
My latest project is a background building made from Walthers modulars. It went together nicely, however, when it came to filling in the cracks I had some experimental errors. To put that in english, I tried green putty. I found it not very user friendly. I went back to spackle. It at least gives me some working time.
Does anyone have any advice for future projects? The putty just didn't clean up well.
Larry said that his trestle is ready for a photo of the next stage. The bents are glued in, and the girder and bridge deck are just resting in place.
Here is Larry's trestle.
Coffee for me, Joe, and some bacon and eggs. Yeah, took my Lipitor this morning, so it's OK.
Wow, that's one fine trestle. I love the decking. Are you hand-laying that turnout? Let me guess - it's the only way you could get one with bridge-track tie spacing, right?
EDIT: Later in the day, the words every electronics owner loves to hear: It's under warantee. At lunch, I asked for suggestions on what kind of camera to buy to replace the Sony, and someone suggested I check their web site for recalls. Sure enough, they've got a screen shot on there with exactly the symptoms I see when I try to take a picture. So, I'll get it fixed for a $15 service charge. Not bad.
Oh, and since it's now half-past-beer-thirty, a celebratory round on me!
It is late enough that I will have an Irish Coffee. Let's make it wil decaf so that I am not up looking at the insides of my eye lids.
MrB, Thanks. Yes, Larry will be hand laying the track with an extra pair of hands that would be mine. I can hardly wait to run the shay from the logging camp down to town.
I thought that I should rescue this bar stool from page 5. Looks like I am still buying.
MrB, I should take your advice and check the Nikon Recall list. Maybe the problem with my camera will be covered.
Larry won't be home until late tonight, so I am debating on heading to town and the rock gym. That would be a good excuse to get some groceries while I am there.
Good afternoon, all. Saturday at last. I'll have a cheeseburger with onion rings, please, and a Strumpet IPA. Just one, I've got some driving to do. Thanks.
I'm heading out to the local electronics place this afternoon. I need some hookup wire, and I want to look for various multi-conductor connectors. Those liftoffs are a pain. I've tried alligator clips and Fahenstock clips, but they're all still pretty inconvenient when you have to do them one at a time, under the layout.
Yeah, hookup wire. At one time, I bought a bunch of hundred-foot spools - black, white, red, green, blue and yellow, with extra black and red. Now, except for the green, I'm down to scraps on the spools, so it's time to replace them. Prices for wire have doubled, at least, in the last 3 or 4 years. Last night, I ran out the white putting a run over to the engine house and light tower.
Tomorrow, or maybe tonight, I'll start the Bragdon Foam learning process. I've got the outlines of Moose Bay set well enough now that I'm ready to put in the rock cliffs above it. That's where the foam castings should do their thing - curving around the odd-shaped sections and fitting under the bridge. I hope they come out as nicely as the ones Sue and Larry have made.
Except for a couple of corners, this is the last big section of scenery on my layout that remains "in the pink." One corner is the old "operating" coal loader, which will need some work to get rid of the quotation marks, and the other is "Clampett Corner," destined to be a humorous "hillbilly" section, complete with a model of the General Lee up on blocks in the yard.
OK, time to get a move on. See you later, Joe.
Hi, Joe. I will have a Long Island Iced Tea, please.
MrB, I should be in and out all day. We actually have sunshine. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Are you doing the hardshell before the rock face? I love the Clampet Corner theme.
It is early to start on spirits, but I thought that I would stop by for a sec.
Larry painted my coaling tower this morning. I am hoping to bring it in and finish the weathering before I attach the stairs and chutes. I also painted the inside of the railroad warehouse. Next the paint for the outside.
Let's see - I guess it's gonna be Pinot Grigio tonight. I've never been one to switch horses in mid-stream, and that's what I had for dinner. (No, no, no. I had Pinot Grigio, not horse.) My wife's in Florida, visiting her parents. I just switched her flight to return a bit later. She and her Dad need a few extra days to look into assisted living down there. Her Dad will be 92, and her Mom 88. Papa's an engineer, but Nana is in denial. They're both having one heck of a time with the stairs, and despite the great condo right on the ocean, they need to think about the next few years. If nothing else, they need a plan.
Dang, 4 years ago I had no plan. I had just started thinking about rejoining the hobby. I went to a train show in early December, and learned my first lesson. "Don't buy stuff you don't need." OK, it wasn't too bad. The biggest purchase was a Bragdon Foam starter set, and a rock mold and video tape (VHS) to teach me how to do this. Well, I did watch that tape, a long time ago, but now the VHS player is no longer hooked up to the TV, so I did it from the printed instructions.
Uh, oh. Shelf life on the product is about a year. Well, I've never opened the bottles, so, we'll see. I took some 1x2 out of the garage last night, and built the frame. I bought clothespins to support the mold, and took Penny's Petroleum Jelly out of the medicine cabinet, since she's in Florida and won't miss it for a while.
These things are a lot of work. Grease the pan, er, mold, and then spray with white lacquer. (Never did that in the kitchen, even for a French recipe, I assure you.) There was a bit of crystalization at the top of the bottles, but nothing too bad. Cold and raw outside, but the lacquer stinks up the house, and it wasn't raining. After a while, I brought the prepared mold inside. I'd already "liberated" a bunch of 1-ounce ketchup/mustard cups and coffee stirrers from the caf at work, and I grabbed some plastic cups from our picnic stash. Mix, pour, spread, mix a bit more, repeat and so forth. Finally, I had a 9x12 rock face. Once it came out of the mold cleanly, I knew I was in business.
I guess I used too much of the hardshell backing, though. The casting came out much thicker than I'd planned on. Fortunately, most of it will go against pink foam, so I cut that back and kind of worked the castings, cut into 3-inch strips to fit the shores of Moose Bay, into the terrain. That's where it sits right now. I've got to put the hair dryer on a couple of pieces to re-soften them and blend them into the scenery a bit better. I haven't attached anything yet, and my plan is to do the coloring in the basement before fastening the rocks to the layout. I've got that "Artists' Gesso" stuff, but I'm afraid that when I use it, I'll end up buying car insurance from a lizard with an Australian accent.
MrB, What color of lacquer paint did you use for the mold release? That will make a difference when it comes time to paint the rocks. I decided to use earth tones because the white sometimes shows in photos. Why don't you E-mail Joel and see if he will trade the VHS for a DVD?
I was just following orders the first time around. He said to build a wood frame; I built a wood frame. He said to use rubber bands and clothespins; I used rubber bands and clothespins. He said to use white lacquer; I used white lacquer. If I wasn't so paranoid about getting this right, and if I'd thought it mattered, I guess I would have gone with an earth tone or maybe gray, too. So, we'll see how this comes out. Did you do any of yours with white, and do you see any spots where the painting didn't cover it? I know that happens with Hydrocal castings - I always go back later and touch up the white spots with a little acrylic once its on the layout. It takes months before I get them all.
Right now, I've got all the pieces down in the basement. I put that Gesso stuff on, and I'm going to let it dry thoroughly over night, since it's bedtime now anyway. I thought it was interesting that the instructions said that cheap Gesso is just as good as the expensive stuff - your Gesso is as good as mine, in other words. It really will be a whole lot easier to do this down in the basement on a bench. Trying to wash off the excess black Tempera powder with a wet sponge in the middle of my layout, with all the drippings ending up going through the cracks on to the carpet? No, I don't think I want to even try that.
Hey, Joe. Please make me an Irish Coffee. I am going to kick back are relax this evening.
MrB, I suspect that we are talking about the same thing. I believe that the Black tempera is to fill in the white spots. Let me know how that goes. Don't use alcohol washes because it reacts with the lacquer. The next rocks, I plan to try an earth tone lacquer. I have only done white because the directions call for white.
By the time you get vegetation in the cracks it doesn't show much. The white shows more in photos than when you are looking. The other thing could be not getting the petroleum jelly off. Joel had me try TSP (the real stuff).
JB, Larry thanks you. He has been so careful with it. I hope that when he gets to the spikes, that it doesn't break.
I did some ground goop on one side of the stream. Most of the rocks I get out of the driveway.
'Evening, everybody. I'll take you up on that tall tap, JB. Now you know why I left Wonderful West Frostbite (Rapid City, SD) for the balmy climes of Southern Nevada.
Nice looking rock faces! Due to the countryside I'm dealing with, there are going to be quite a few of them in my future.
Sue, I love Larry's trestle. If spiking is likely to be hazardous, thick CA is one fallback position. I'm curious how the points of that switch are going to be powered. I could get away with an Anderson link masquerading as an extra piling.
Mister B, I noticed your thread about quick disconnects for lift-out sections. Have you considered the plugs and sockets intended for electronic applications? My one yard throat is connected to the fixed layout circuitry with a 25-pin D-plug and socket, needed because I have to get power to five 2-coil switch machines, have connections for switch routing lamps (on the zone panel) and have to get frog power from power-routing switches to the solidly-anchored staging yard. I didn't try to splice to the microscopic wires of a flat cable. Instead I bought un-cabled connectors. 22 gauge communications wire solders in nicely, thank you - and that's heavy enough in the rather short lengths used. Of course, 25 conductors may be overkill (unless the Heartbreak Hotel has individual room lights.) There are similar connectors with fewer pins at my favorite internet electronics bargain site - as well as some with more.
The Fukuoka Bassho is in full swing, so I'm going to make some Zzz's before it comes on live at 11 PM. Fukuoka sure looks a lot different now than it did when I was living in the area 50 years ago...
Have a good one. See ya...
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)