Good Saturday Morning, Crew! Last week I had X-rays taken of my new replacement right hip at my surgeon's office and there are no problems. I'm going to drive around the neighborhood this weekend for the first time in months and I hope that I still remember how the car works. In another month I should be able to get back to a normal routine although I will need a heel lift for my left shoe as my left leg is a bit shorter than my right one after surgery which is to be expected. I hope that will also relieve the pain in my left knee and muscle pain in my back, too. I'm working on an F&C Erie RR express milk car and have most of the body assembled. The Erie had several hundred of these made by Greenville and many were converted to carry express freight and packages after the milk traffic disappeared. The reefer doors were simply replaced with internal steel sliding ones. Here's a pic of the express milk as built:
http://www.rgvrrm.org/about/railroad/erie6603/
Now I just need to order Tichy brake details and some grabs to get back to work on this and I'll paint it in the Erie two-tone green with yellow stripes. Have a great weekend everyone!
Russ
Modeling the early '50s Erie in Paterson, NJ. Here's the link to my railroad postcard collection: https://railroadpostcards.blogspot.com/
It's good to hear Brent is safe and well. Hopefully he can find his way back to us soon so we can all toast a warm welcome back with a Glenfiddich on his dime
But now it seems we are missing the Bear. The absence of his kind self and his humor does not go by unnoticed.
TF
GMTRacingKevin - as you may have noticed, I was lazy with my track work and didn't fill most of the nail holes in the middle of the ties. Is there any easy way to go back and fill them after the track is installed and painted or do I get to fill sand and repaint.
JR, I use a product by Polymeric Psystems (PSI) called "kneadatite", which is a two color epoxy tape. I buy it from Mega-Hobby now, theirs is usually fresh, and this stuff has a shelf life. It gets very hard when it is old.
I just fill in the hole and sculpt some wood grain with a steel tool. Keep the tool wet or it will stick to the Kneadatite.
It is very easy. By the way, Kneadatite has hundreds of uses on the layout, but model railroaders seem notto have warmed up to this amazing product like other hobbiests.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
gmpullmanI agree about regular tomato juice. It always seems to taste like the tin can. Clamato always seems watered down
I am a V-8 juice kind of person. We ran out a few days ago, not good at all.
Track fiddlerBut now it seems we are missing the Bear.
Lion has not been around in a bit either.
Another enjoyable poster.
Good afternoon all
I just got back from the halls texturing my ceiling repairs. I didn't poly anything off. I just had Judy drag a tarp ahead of me. I'd catch up with my compressor and hopper, Spray and help her bucket rag the walls down and then she vacuumed the over spray.....Next
Done.....Tag Team Saturday
Your right Kevin, Lion has been a little scarce lately. I thought something else didn't feel quite the same around here. Lion always has something interesting to contribute.
Never heard of that Kneadatite, Thanks for the Info. Isn't that something, I learn something everyday. I'll have to check that stuff out.
Hi guys! I'll pop in to say hello. Hopefully make up for some of the missing regulars. Have slowly been coming to the realization that I don't have to build models to the best of my ability as that drastically slows progress on the railroad. New plan of attack is to build "good enough" for now, can circle back and upgrad or replace as time permits. Meanwhile, I will hopefully be seeing faster progress on the layout and hopefully that helps to keep me motivated.
My wife's parents and sister both live close by, and we've started a coronavirus meal sharing program. Once a week one household cooks and delivers dinner for everyone. Front porch drop-off only. Practices social distancing, and makes for a little fun while we weather the pandemic.
Hope everyone is healthy and safe.
Mike
Track fiddlerNever heard of that Kneadatite, Thanks for the Info. Isn't that something, I learn something everyday.
I use it for several things:
1) Filling small gaps in models. I have scuplted t top of roof ridgelines with Kneadatite and been able to match the original plastic shingles perfectly.
2) It is the best motor mount adhesive I have ever used. It has a 90 minute working time, but is semi-rigid. That gives you plenty of time to make fidly adjustments, and the motor will stay exactly where you leave it once you are satisfied. It will not let the motor go once it is cured.
3) It is great to put behind loose details to beef them up. I use it behind all kinds of detail on models I build. Once it cures, it will never break, and the model will stand up to being handled.
4) It is the best thing ever for sculpting into details to make them fit correctly.
This feedwater heater had a gap because the diameter on the brass casting was different than the boiler diameter. A little kneadatite and some sculpting, and it is fine.
Wow, you can't even tell after the model is painted. That looks like some good wonderful stuff Kevin.
Can't wait to try it. I can think of a handful of things right now.
Water Level RouteHave slowly been coming to the realization that I don't have to build models to the best of my ability as that drastically slows progress on the railroad. New plan of attack is to build "good enough" for now, can circle back and upgrad or replace as time permits. Meanwhile, I will hopefully be seeing faster progress on the layout and hopefully that helps to keep me motivated.
Mike:
This is really a good point for me. I also got a little bogged down trying to get something perfect. After a while, I was beginning to get tired of the whole thing.
When I could accept "good enough" for some things, I could move on to new projects.
Also, since I do N Scale, I'm the only one who sees or knows about the imperfections. When anyone sees the layout, they never notice the lack of perfection.
York1 John
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Afternoon Diners!
Flo, give the gang and I a please Ed a Crwon Royal and Dirk half a dog treat.
Little put off my my wifes favorite Mexicn Restaurant today! They where advertising crub side pick up. Wife called in the order and ask how to pay? She was told too come into the store to pay? Does not sound crub side to me! Of course I had to go in, so the wife won't get sick? Cashier was not waring a faces mask or rubber gloves. Plus I had to get closer than 6 foot to pay for the food.
Train Front Speed matched the A&B Sharks today and they seem to be working well with each other.
PRR GG1 haunted? Strange thing happened while I was adding some rolling stock to the PPR Shark's train. Power was on and I was using Decoder Pro to control the engines. Then for some reason the PRR GG1 took off by it self? Luckly it was at the other side of the layout! Got to the computer and the GG1 throttle was still sat to 0? Killed the power and shut down the layout.
After that when I repowered the layout GG1 is acting right.
Later Ken and Dirk say's Daddy I got to pee, Woof, Woof.
I hate Rust
Bears back! Good morning Bear, for about 5 more minutes there I suppose. I'm glad you could stop by. Missed the Beartoons.
I've really been wanting Mexican or Chinese food. Went to the website of my favorite Mexican place, an upscale restaurant. Clicked on the menu and the site was hacked and it was a list of pills that "supposedly" you buy online. I didn't even take time to see what drugs they were selling and shut that window down. I took it as a bad omen and we are still eating home cooked meals.
Zinc is sold out at CVS.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Matches by Bear, on Flickr
Indeed! The news today reported that 3,500 cars were a total loss worth an estimated $80,000,000.00!
That is going to an overtime day for an adjuster.
We had a fire in a used car lot, where a car hit a light pole and the tranformer fell and ignited the cars in the car lot, but that looks like arson.
It was the gas tanks that were the lowest that were the really loud explosions I'm sure.
Movie time, tonights feature, As good as it gets. Nicholson is great in this one. Another movie I can watch more than once.
Wow, 3500 cars lost? Holy oneway rental. With any luck the posessed Dodge mom van they rented me last trip to Fla went with them. It was truely awful.
Started doing the cables in the substation and now I have to figure out how to secure the high tension towers to the foam so I can string the rest of the high voltage lines which also means I have to figure out exactly where to route the cables and towers. Sort of painted myself into a corner there.
Mike - John and I welcome you to the "good enough dark side". I walked away from the whole layout for about 5 years between being too busy really to even descend the stairs and just getting discouraged at the sheer amount of work needed to do what I thought I had to do. Good enough lets me enjoy the layout again and concentrate on the actual trackwork so it functions correctly. The prime directive at work is "Time for Fun" (GMT - Greenwich mean time - get it?) and it's even more important that my leisure activity be enjoyable. Ok. off the soapbox JR.
Kevin - Thanks. i will look into that putty. I have something comparable I use for repairs at the track but it is in a much larger format and won't scale down for HO. Does it come in colors or only green- ok blue yellow ? The car stuff is gray.
Back to the basement. Ciao, J.R.
Good evening .
Ja Bear ...... It is good to see you. I was hoping we would have at least one Bear Toon this weekend.
Kevin ..... That is quite some fire.
...
This was Day 24 of Social Distancing for us. We walked across the lake on the big new bridge. It is over a mile from shore to shore.
I am continuing work on the layout.
Everybody.....Have a nice night.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
SeeYou190The news today reported that 3,500 cars were a total loss worth an estimated $80,000,000.00!
I suppose that is one way to mitigate your losses with the drop in rental income.
Richard
GMTRacingWow, 3500 cars lost? Holy oneway rental
Right now, if you Google "Fort Myers Florida", the 3,500 car fire is the first result.
GMTRacing Kevin - Thanks. i will look into that putty. I have something comparable I use for repairs at the track but it is in a much larger format and won't scale down for HO. Does it come in colors or only green- ok blue yellow ? The car stuff is gray.
Polymeric Systems (PSI) has a great website, and they even have a few pages on the hobby uses of the blue-yellow putty.
Yes, they have many products in other colors. "Green Stuff" is the best.
Heartland Division CB&QKevin ..... That is quite some fire.
Garry, it was incredible. The pictures of the aftermath are spooky. Burned out bare steel shells of automobiles as far as you can see.
Supposedly it was a 100 acre fire of cars. We have not had rain in over a month, and the cause is believed to be dry grass and hot exhaust as JR suspected.
As bad as this sounds... it was nice to have some local news other than virus updates. The evening news was mostly about the fire today, and a man in Lehigh Acres arrested for a horrific case of animal cruelty. Somehow that made things seem a bit more normal for a while even though it was bad news.
I know that is terrible, but a day without non-stop virus coverage was actually an improvement.
Good morning
Fell asleep at about 10:30 last night watching the movie Captain Ron and slept all the way through to 6:30. I love when that happens. Sometimes putting in a familiar movie makes one forget about every thing else for a while and helps to relax.
The nice thing is after we're already asleep and the movie ends the screen goes black not to wake us up again like leaving the TV on all night as Judy likes to do.
The high is going to be 58 today and sunny I think I'm going to take the Stang out for a romp. It's one of the things that takes my mind off of things for a while, to enjoy a better frame of mind is nice.
I think later I'll get back to working on my wooden bridge bents. They're coming along pretty well with the jig I made.
Have a great day everyone
RideOnRoadI suppose that is one way to mitigate your losses with the drop in rental income.
I thought the same thing when I first saw this.
Mike.
My You Tube
My wife's niece's family has been diagnosed with Covid. They are recovering, having caught it on a trip to Puerto Rico the end of February. They are the only people I personally know with it. They only live 2 miles from us, so they could have infected cashiers at the same stores we shop at.
Only the husband was tested, the rest of the family was presumed to have it, as they were sick too. So he counts as an officially confirmed case, the the rest of the family is off the books, so to speak.
Good morning, everyone.
Sunday morning and we stayed home. We watched the livestream of the church service, but we didn't get donuts after church.
It's in the 30s right now, so I will be heading out for the trail walk. After the long winter, it's nice to be able to get outside again.
My TV in the layout room is set to explode and burn if I ever tune it to a news channel. My wife watches the news 24/7 on her TV, and I can't stand it. I've buried my head in the sand, especially since I cannot do anything about anything anyway.
Have a good day, everyone.
GMTRacingI walked away from the whole layout for about 5 years between being too busy really to even descend the stairs and just getting discouraged at the sheer amount of work needed to do what I thought I had to do. Good enough lets me enjoy the layout again
Speaking of flames, Kevin, thanks for sharing about the car fire. That is incredible! What a waste though.
Watched church online today, walked the dogs, and now for some stuff around the house (trains included ). Positive thoughts everyone!
Good morning everyone! I stayed up until 6:00 AM last night, so I just rolled out of bed. I will take a cup of plain yogurt and a coffee please.
Staying inside has made my wife a better chess player. She is over 60% in the win column since this isolation started. I am going to read some chess stuff today.
Has anyone else noticed a drop in the daily volume of spam phone calls or is it just me?
maxman Has anyone else noticed a drop in the daily volume of spam phone calls or is it just me?
I have noticed that some of the callers are labeled Telemarketer or Spam Alert. I still get unknown calls from people who don't leave a message, so I assume they're trash, too. Still a few from NYC in Chinese, so I guess those have a virus.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
maxmanHas anyone else noticed a drop in the daily volume of spam phone calls or is it just me?
I use Robonomo. It's free, and it only took a few seconds to sign up. This is on my home phone line. I don't know if it works on cell phones.
When a spam call arrives, the phone rings just once.
If it rings more than once, it may be spam, but it's more likely legitimate.
Since getting it, my spam calls have gone down to almost none.
Still too many of those calls and almost always one at dinner time. Got one from Ewell MD which is a town in Smith Island in Cheaspeake Bay, only accessible by boat. Less than 300 people live there.
Verizon lets us use Nomorobo on our land line. The Iphone lets you silence the ring for numbers not in you address book, but that's not helpful if you are dealing with businesses or customers who aren't in the book.