Continuing Saga …

Myles,

You present everything, warts and all, I appreciate the reality...the gas station project is coming out very nicely, even with the wall issues. 

Andy

Thanks Andy! It annoys me that I didn't spend just a little more time when I scribed the contour of the part I was to remove from the Sinclair's base. If I would have taken just a 1/4" more all the clearance problems would have gone away. It would have put the back right corner another scale foot closer to the railroad and made passage by that corner a bit more cramped, but it would have solved a lot of future work. It's always easier to do it right the first time. I was leaning over at a difficult angle and have a very annoying lower back so I didn't take too much time doing it. I was more concerned getting the base to fit the space and neglected to think about the TRAINS.

Myles, The whole town looks great, and the the Sinclair station fits great there.  It was so close to having enough clearance.  It is certainly a shame.  The parts for the engine house look great!  That should be a great project as well!

That sounds like a great opportunity to share with students at the STEM program!  I hope it goes well!

Thanks Mark! I'm just going to let the train keep hitting the wall until it's worn away enough so I'll know exactly how much material to remove. It's pain to get in on and off the layout. Although I did wise up a bit. I through some pillows down on the layout so I could lay over it in some comfort...

Re: the Science Fair. I got there and found that the particular sub-specialty that I was to judge had the son of our daughter's friends was in that group, so I went to the proctor and asked what should I do. After some thought they asked if I wanted to judge one of the overall awards; in this case, the Yale Science Award to the "most outstanding entry by an 11th grader in Comp Sci, Physics, Chemistry and Engineering. It represented about 50 entries (or more). This was my first time judging! I was a bit overwhelmed at first, but then I trusted the "force". My life experience was so eclectic in the technologies that I felt confident that I could grasp what each child was presenting and could do a reasonable job. Furthermore, there was no specific criteria beyond that quote. My main focus was looking at the entry as to its import. Was it studying that has potential impact to society and the world when extrapolated out. I then evaluated how the student grasped what they were doing, how they chose the topic and so on. 

I checked my reasoning with more experienced judges and they said I was on the right track. Some of the work was exceptional! The one I chose was two fellows who created a total system to autonomously evaluate the health of food crops plants at the individual plant level, and then apply fungicide or herbicide to specific plant. To go even further, they developed an AP for a smart phone to monitor and control the robot. It was very comprehensive and presents huge future development. When I presented my decision to the proctors, they concurred with my finding. 

I'm going to do it again next year.

It turns out that the DuPont Manual Magnet School for STEM is in the top five research high schools in the world.

That sounds like a neat project those students came up with.  Your experience judging made me recall our youngest daughter, the musician, has in the past served as judge for regional high school musicians at her alma mater.  The college is only about 20 miles away, but this year she turned them down.  She has more private students now and had a performance coming up which entailed many trips to Pittsburgh that week.  She said in the past she likes judging high school students, but the timing didn't work out this year.

I'm happy that she's gainfully employed doing something she loves. It doesn't get any better than that.

The only thing on Bronx I did today was get the remaining parapet cap tiles cast. Just in time too since the mold is starting to break down. I solved the "mushy setting" problem by shaking the compound A and B before using them, increasing my pour size just a bit to give more material to absorb any small variations in quantity, and being very diligent in getting the same quantities in each pre-mix cup. All of the ones I did today cured solid as they should.

Up next will be to paint them all and glue them in. For the half tile that's needed to completely fill the space, I think I'll add it just after the corner piece. It will be at the farthest point from the viewer and will be the least inconspicuous. I knew going into this phase of the project that I would have to be patient and just cast them one at a time, and before I knew it, they're all done.

Had a nice morning… my oldest grandson, is a rare thing. A teenager of his generation who's a bit of a motorhead. He had a good friend, who being an only child of a single parent of means (divorce), has basically been given whatever he wants. What he decided to do was rebuild a 1968 straight-6 Camaro and re-engine with a Corvette LS-3 V8. His mom is great and they rented a space and let him equip the shop with engine hoist, full tool set and a Miller MIG Welding rig. And he wanted my grandson to help him on the project.

Then, the private school they attend has a senior "Cornerstone" project where the kids can do whatever they want and have to present it to the school. My grandson and friend decided to build an engine stand, mount the now-surplus Camaro 6 engine and make it run. They did all the work and design themselves.

Today I got a call that the engine cranks and sounds like it's running, but when they stop cranking it dies. They wanted my help. Before I got left the house, they texted me that they got it running, but I could come and see it anyway. They had tied the ignition DC circuit into the starter circuit so when the starter wasn't engaged, no ignition. Once they knew what they did, the fix was easy. They did a beautiful job on the welding and their design was solid. I suggested that they make a control panel for it. I don't know if they will or not, but it would dress it up and make it safer to operate.

It brought back a flood of memories of my time being a Power Technology Industrial Arts teacher. Other than robotics, kids don't have much interaction with things that make the world go unless they're in Vo-Tech schools. That eliminates all the kids who are technically savvy, but don't plan on being a mechanic.

My grandson's dad knows basically nothing about cars, so I have to take some credit for him having a wonderful understanding of what make things work.

Big Day! Bronx is on the layout!

First thing was to clean up and fit the last parapet tiles. I soaked them in alcohol to clean off all the mold release and sprayed them with the Tamiya Red Primer which duplicates terra cotta nicely. It also has a bit of sheen which is true for ceramic tile caps. 

I had made one shorter one and on extended one to make them come out evenly at the end. I glued them all on with thick CA. This was a challenging part of the job, but the results were worth it. It's clearly not the typical thing you find on a scratch-built building.

Then I built the TV antenna. I went on-line and looked at some vintage antennas to get ideas for this one. I didn't want to duplicate the one on Nighthawks right across the street. I used a 0.049" brass rod for the mast, 0.032" for the main beam and 0.021" phosphor bronze for the elements. To keep the main beam from desoldering from the mast, I clamped on a hemostat to act as a heat sink.

It's hard to see, but I ground little divots into the beam as a saddle for the elements. I tinned the beam and each cross piece with the Weller conventional iron, and then used the RSU to hold and heat each element. I had a couple de-solder, but eventually, I figured out how long to apply the current so it melted that joint, but didn't affect others. I just drilled a #56 hole into the roof and inserted the antenna. It was a tight enough fit that it didn't need any glue.

The building was done!

I then took the building to the layout, fed the wires through the hole in the layout, and connected the leads to the vacated Saulena's junction block. Here's the building in final position. See anything wrong with this picture?

The exterior light was lit, but the interior was DARK! What was going on? Something happened. Luckily, I don't glue down my buildings. So I went underneath, unhooked the just-connected wires, and took the building to the shop. I attached my test power supply and voila, all the lights lit. The Problem? My under-layout DC power supply had run out of gas. The exterior light was in parallel to the 5 LEDs in series inside. It had enough voltage to light that one, but didn't have enough left for the voltage drop of the 5 remaining lights. I went into the scrap electrics box and found a nice 19 volt DC computer power AC adaptor from my long-dead HP laptop. I stripped the leads and put on some ferrules and tested it with the building and it lit it perfectly. So I tied it into the AC Outlet Bar underneath and threaded the wire to a new set of big brass buss bars used as grounding bars in electrical service cabinets. I wrapped some red and black electrical tape around the two bars to ensure I got their polarity right. I removed the Saulena's leads from the now-full buss system and transferred them to the new one. And there was light!

It's bright enough inside to grow cannabis...

If there was ever a reason to switch from using current limiting resistors in LED circuits to CL2NS LED drivers this was it! My previous power was 12volt DC. If I was using resistors, the switch to a 19 volt source would have required a different resistor which would have mean taking the building apart to revamp the circuit. With the CL2N3's they didn't care a hoot about the change. Anything from 5 to 90 VDC and they power the circuit with the required 20 milliamps. What a relief!

I took some status shots with the cell phone. I was going to use the Canon EOS, but the battery was low and I put it on charge. Real Scale Model is cutting the engine house tomorrow. I won't be building it until I finish the ThunderChief, and I want to finish the rest of the site next to Bronx (Now the Woodbourne Gallery), so the appliance store and parking lot will tie it all together. I can see some little punch list items in this pic… I need to landscape the bases of the crossing signals.

I took one image with the trains in the picture, and then realized that a train layout needs some trains so I moved them around. The S-1 monster is in the foreground and the UP U50C is pulling around the curve from the other direction.

Even with one story removed and the building foreshortened a bit, it's still a big structure. If I left it in its original size it would have looked very out of place. I was dreading doing all the moves necessary to get this building sited, but like everything else, thinking about starting is often more daunting that actually doing it.

So, what did I learn with this project?

1. Taking another challenging photo of a challenging building and making it into something special
2. Designing for 3D printing
3. More practice creating 3D images of complex buildings in SketchUp
4. Solving problems making Mansard roofs
5. Further sophistication in making brass gutters and downspouts
6. Making hand built TV antennas
7. Further experience with Surface Mount LEDs
8. Designing and modeling a Ceramic Parapet Cap system using silicone molds and resin casting
9. Mitering long edges without power tools
10. Making laser cut widows walk filigree

What could I do better?

First of all, I need to pay attention to how to put something together, not just the artistic design. I think I'm doing better at this on the engine house. I need to pay more attention to detail when I've made major modifications such like when I've removed that 3rd story and length. Too many dimensions were wrong after it was cut and it wasn't the cutters fault. By going to pre-stick laser board windows on the new building I'll eliminate all the glue contamination of the clear glazing.

Thanks guys for following along. I give you periodic updates on the plane kit and there will be lulls when I'll be doing some railroad work too.

 Congratulations Myles. The building is a work of art. Fantastic job. Thanks for letting us follow along.

Myles, The end results of the Bronx building are well worth the effort!  Thank you so much for providing such detailed descriptions of what you are doing, including mistakes and how you correct them.  I learned a lot of little items I will tusk away in memory and hopefully put some of them to use.  The town is looking great!

I hope you have a great time with the ThunderChief and that the parts for the enginehouse come back to your satisfaction!

Awesome, completely awesome. When do we move in? I really like the TV antenna, great job.

Fantastic work Myles. Admittedly there were a few spots where I was biting my nails and asking myself "How is he going to get out of this one?" and each time you pulled a rabbit out of your hat. The final product is striking. Can't wait to see what you do with the Thunderchief.

Randy, Yes, it is like watching a serial television show.  Every episode ends with a shocking question mark, in their case to make sure you will tune in next time!  

Congrats Myles on one outstanding structure. To me a person who can scratch build a building like this goes to the top of the most admired projects list. Looking forward to your next challenge! 

Congratulations Myles! That is one beautiful building! It looks great on the layout. Thanks for bringing us along on the ride. 

Andy

Thanks guys…really! I love the drama that I created. The "touch-n-go" aspect of the build kind of sums it all up. I'm from the Yoda school of human performance. "There is no try. There is do or do not".

This morning I awoke thinking about populating the appliance store with O'scale appliances. They're bigger than you think, being about 3/4 square for a washer or dryer. My original estimate from Walt Gillespie at Rusty Stumps (who did the great architectural parts for Bronx) gave me an estimate of $350 for 25 of the little puppies. That was so out of sight that I was going to scrap the whole idea. I was thinking about scratch-building a bunch, which could work, using styrene and maybe resin casting some.

Today I thought about having him just do 5; one each of a washer, dryer, fridge, stove and dishwasher, and then I would resin cast multiple copies. While resin casting is not cheap, I have the materials and if you don't use it, it kicks and you have to throw it out anyway. Besides it's a sunk cost. So I drew up the floor plan of the part of the store that would have appliances and figure I need doubles or triples of each to make it respectable. I'm doing it as a mid-Century store so the appliances would be differentiated by their color. Remember Harvest Gold, and Avocado? These would work for the early 70s, and pastels of some shade or another (turquoise) for 1950s appliances (plus white).

I have new sense of urgency on completing the rest of the Woodbourne Galley block since that building demands so much attention. I have a nice Miller Engineering animated Zenith sign just waiting for appliance store to be put into service. For our wedding present in 1968, my parents bought us a Zenith console color TV. It was a big deal! The appliance store is one of three structures on the entire layout that I DID NOT BUILD. I bought it when Frank Miller was breaking up his fabulous O'scale pike about 15 years ago. It was a kit building. I'm also going to get a quote from Shapeways for comparison.

Harvest Gold and Avacado!  I thought they were ugly then and still do, but they would be great to identify the period!!  The Zenith sign soundsgreat!  Color TV in ‘68!  We got our first one in ‘87 right after we bought a house in Goldvein Virginia.  My parents didn’t get color until later.  My sister told me on the phone I had better sit down first, then I pretended to have a heart attack! Thanks for the memories, Bob Hope Trainman!!

Myles, just a quick note to say that www.youngatheartminiatures.com has a fancy Viking gas stove, another basic stove, and at least two different styles of refrigerator.  The owner may offer washing machines as well.  The prices were very reasonable and the detail is great.  I've been very happy with my purchases for an O scale diner I've yet to get back to.  (Wish I had you ability to follow-through :-).

Here's a more targeted link.

Best wishes ... and what an amazing building and process!

Tomlinson Run Railroad

Update: $10 for the washer and dryer. You would have to remove the laundry :-).

Myles,

you never cease to amaze me. Every structure on your layout is a work of art and a serious labor of love.

Thanks again all! I looked at those resin appliances, depending on how much Walt's going to charge me, that could be a nice plan B. Thanks for the link!

Myles, this was like reading a great book you did not want to end yet could not wait for the next page. Thank you so much for the work it took to document your master craftsmanship.          j

Thanks John! Just to put an exclamation point on your comment, I am concurrently writing the publication article about the Woodbourne Gallery project. I've submitted an article on Nighthawks, but didn't send the images yet. RMC is going through an editorial change and I'm hoping that this won't affect my position in the publication queue. 

Meanwhile, I got a quote to do the five appliances in 3D for $25 and gave the go-ahead. The shapes are hollowed out to reduce the amount of 3D resin needed. Walt's machine are high res laser/resin systems and the photo-active resin is very expensive. To reduce the material use, I made the shapes hollow.

The hollowness makes it more difficult to make a silicone mold and resin casting which is my intent to create more than five appliances in the store. So, even though it will use more casting resin, I think I'm going to block off the hollow so it will be a solid again. Incidentally, an O'scale appliance is about 3/4" square (or higher in the case of the refrigerator) so it will use some resin. I have resin and if I don't consume it, it kicks on its own. This goes for both the 2-part silicone and the 2-part resin. I've thrown out more than I've used. I woke up today thinking of how to mold these objects. You can tell I live a pretty stress-free life if all I have to think about when I awaken in the morning is how I'm going to populate my imaginary appliance store with imaginary appliances.

I'm drawing a 3D version of the building to see how it will look when illuminated. I multiplied the number of appliances to a number that looks respectable. Like the Gallery, this will be front and center on the layout and the interior will be very visible, so some extra care in its design is probably a useful activity.

Even though I'll have copies of the same appliance, I will differentiate them by color. Besides that Harvest Gold and Avocado, there was one other color in the early 70s. Does anyone remember what it was?

Myles, the other appliance color that you are looking for might be a brown in the chocolate family with a nice gloss finish.  My kitchen has just such a classic piece (gas stove).  In fact, I'm trying to find touchup enamel for it.  

TRRR

I think it was the brown…but it didn't come out until later in the 70s. According to my just completed Google search, Harvest Gold and Avocado were the biggies. We had a Harvest Gold kitchen which I had to prove to my wife by looking up digitized photos of said kitchen on my laptop. I spent many hours years ago digitizing most of our picture albums and putting them out to the family so flood, tornado or fire wouldn't destroy things that were irreplaceable.

Wife says it was metallic copper.

I don’t have a clue.

Ha ha!  Digitizing photographs is something I want to do also.  As far as the kitchen goes, we have always had white.  

  The avacados are long gone, but I still have two harvest gold ice trays.

  I'm betting they easily outlast the four white trays from the late 80s & mid 90s, which are cracking. 

  Plus two aluminum trays from the Norge in the basement which has out lived 6 other newer fridges, and still runs silently.  You have to feel it to tell if it is cycling or at rest. 

  The 70s dark redish fridge went back in days because a decent wallpaper match couldn't be found as the first (roosters) was discontinued. 

Mark Boyce posted:

Ha ha!  Digitizing photographs is something I want to do also.  As far as the kitchen goes, we have always had white.  

Now your talking about time consuming.  I chased rail-fan excursions out of Birmingham for almost thirty years and have roughly thirty thousand medium format 2.25" X 2.75" images of trains. Many locos were rebuilt at the Norris Yards steam shop here, 1218, 611 and 4501 just to name a few. I bought a Nikon medium format film scanner twelve or so years back. To do it right takes about an hour per scan though you don't have to sit there the whole time.  You can cut some time by doing low rez scans on all but your best images still your in for a lot of time in front of the computer. 35mm goes a lot faster and if mounted in slide mounts there are bulk loaders which allow you to load about 50 images at one time.  BTW; if you want your prints to look like what you saw on the screen along with the scanner buy yourself a factory calibrated monitor such as an  ASUS PA248Q.  Thats cheaper than buying the setup for balancing color on a common monitor. Forget flat bed scanners they just don't come close to the quality a good Nikon scanner produces. Gonna list mine on eBay soon.                  j

Awesome!

Peter

JohnActon posted:

Mark Boyce posted:

Ha ha!  Digitizing photographs is something I want to do also.  As far as the kitchen goes, we have always had white.  

Now your talking about time consuming.  I chased rail-fan excursions out of Birmingham for almost thirty years and have roughly thirty thousand medium format 2.25" X 2.75" images of trains. Many locos were rebuilt at the Norris Yards steam shop here, 1218, 611 and 4501 just to name a few. I bought a Nikon medium format film scanner twelve or so years back. To do it right takes about an hour per scan though you don't have to sit there the whole time.  You can cut some time by doing low rez scans on all but your best images still your in for a lot of time in front of the computer. 35mm goes a lot faster and if mounted in slide mounts there are bulk loaders which allow you to load about 50 images at one time.  BTW; if you want your prints to look like what you saw on the screen along with the scanner buy yourself a factory calibrated monitor such as an  ASUS PA248Q.  Thats cheaper than buying the setup for balancing color on a common monitor. Forget flat bed scanners they just don't come close to the quality a good Nikon scanner produces. Gonna list mine on eBay soon.                  j

What I am going to do is go through my photographs and color slides and pay my younger son-in-law to do them.  It is one of his many skills.  For me, it is the time sorting through everything before turning them over to him.

You've just got to start doing the copying. Time is very fleeting and you're going to turn around and it's gone. Pictures are fragile. Not only do you have to digitize them, but then you have to spread them around so nothing can happen to destroy them all. My mom's apartment flooded in 1999. It destroyed almost everything. Luckily, while the photo albums disintegrated, the pictures themselves floated and my sister was able to retrieve them all. She was able to press and dry them so they mostly were recovered. These pictures went back to the early 1900s. When we returned from Germany, I immediately took the time to digitize them and give them out to the family.

Yesterday, I got the five appliances from Walt Gillespie at Rusty Stumps. They came out really well and I've figured how I'm going to resin mold them. I gave Walt approval to put these in his 3D printed parts catalog. With Walt's hi-res laser/resin system, the layer lines are very fine and will be removed with very light sanding. Resin casting is so precise that any marks in the master will be replicated in the copies.

On another front. Rail Scale Models has cut my Engine House. I expect it to be delivered in a couple of days. I won't be starting it until the Thunderchief is finished, but it will be built.

Trainman2001 posted:

 

Even though I'll have copies of the same appliance, I will differentiate them by color. Besides that Harvest Gold and Avocado, there was one other color in the early 70s. Does anyone remember what it was?

I grew up in New Jersey in a suburb. House was built in 1967 and the kitchen appliances (stove and wall oven) were a dark brown color. They were still in place and in use when my family moved in 1991. I also recall a dark brown refrigerator as well - that became a second fridge in the basement after it was replaced with a new white one. So dark brown should be late 1960's and later.

I just input '1960's kitchen appliance colors' for a Google Images search and there are some dark brown appliances in the search results. I believe it was called 'Coppertone' and was popular into the 1980's. Here's a link about appliance colors from one of the images I found:

Appliance colors tell kitchen history

Yep - dark brown is indeed Coppertone - see this link:

That colour is called coppertone

Hope this helps you out on appliance colors!

Saw you had to relocate the Sinclair station. Too late now but I would have angled the station's back to be "parallel" to the track's curve to better fit the odd shaped lot. Know most gas stations were 'squared on a corner' but seen a few that were angled.

My house was built in 1962, and when i bought it in 1986 from the original owner it had a dark copper colored built-in dishwasher (RCA Whirlpool) and an electric range with over and under ovens of the same color.

Worked at a bottled gas place in the 60's. I remember Caloric ranges also coming in pink.

I think I'll go with white, avocado and harvest gold. That copper might be a hard color to capture.

Meanwhile, all the Engine House parts arrived today. Stephen Milley did a great job cutting and packing all the stuff. It was a heavy box. So I stuck some of the big parts together to see how it all fit on the layout. They look just like they're supposed to. 

And of course I only put two tabs on parts to key the machine shop walls into the main building AND I PUT THE BLEEPING TABS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE WALL, as you can see in this image below. They're sticking out so you can't miss them. It really bums me out that I get tabs so wrong. DOH!

It's a big house to house big engines. The door spacing came out right at least. That was an important measurement to get right. I can work around the tabs if I don't get the parts re-cut. This picture shows how little space there is between the tracks for work platforms. There is space on the outside tracks (although not a ton there either.

I have to get a piece of Plastruct I-beam to support the gantry, and some 3/4" square stock to the I-beam supports. I was originally going to put the 3/4" buttresses under each wall buttress and that would mean I'd need 6, 36" lengths of square stock, but then I reconsidered and realized that they could be every 3rd buttress position and I would be able to get the 5-pack of wood as they come from Lowe's.

Here's where it's going. This shot is very similar to one of the fake renderings I did when I was planning it. All of a sudden it looks like an engine servicing area. It's going to be a pain removing the ballasting and hydrocal to open up the track area where the engine house will go. I'll make good use of the shop vac.

I anyone wants on of these monsters on your layout, Rail Scale has the drawings so another could be made easily. The benefits of laser cutting...

I will also need to design in earnest that 100 ton gantry crane. I will scratchbuilt it out of styrene in the style of Al Graziano. 

Slowly, but surely, this layout is coming together. It will probably be an 8 year project before I'll declare it "Finished". But then… is a model railroad ever really finished…?

As George Peppard used to say on "A-Team", "It's great to see a plan come together!"

As I noted in my last post. Actual construction will commence later when I've made more progress on the Thunderchief. I'm finishing up one of the more complicated parts of that model; the cockpit with lots of photo-etched components in it. After that construction will move along quickly. While I'm building that I'll be casting some appliances.

Another article looks like it's been approved by RMC. I had contact with the new editor and he wants to go with the Woodbourne Gallery. I uploaded all the images tonight. I'll keep y'all posted about its future publication date.

While all this is going on, I'm finally writing my book about the experience, leanings, and observations I accumulated in 50 years of developing people and working to create high performing organizations. It's title will be "Turning on the Lights". I'll keep y'all posted about that. Who says retirement is boring.

This all sounds exciting Myles. Looking forward to the article, and new build.

Andy

The engine house will look great there!  I'll look forward to your building it when the time comes!

I will be following that engine house .... Great Western RR used one...and l need a long one, too, although l will make no attempt to model the GW's.  Will need to measure locos....missed a chance to measure scale one not made yet in three rail. 

I'm really looking forward to this build, Myles. If it turns out anywhere as detailed and accurate as your other projects, it will be fantastic.

I'm tired just from reading the last couple of pages. Great work on the Bronx house Miles. Your layout is going to be a beauty when you call it done (yea..I know). Looking forward to more progress on your builds.