What did you do on your layout today?

I did some track cleaning and swapped out the terrain in my display.

 

Nothing, I pushed myself too hard moving around too much lately (again). Its hard to go from active to injured

  Despite the comfy ottomans I laid on, just bending my knees while laying down it feels like I did a few hundred inverted crunches with the un-torn abs I still have left. Ouch!

  I'll resume in a day, or two, for now I'll just watch Marvin the Martian on the little layout today. Its been awhile since I turned the modified smoke unit in the rocket to high.  

 

Due to a swarm of soccer balls coming over my fence in the last week, I've had to re-think my outdoor layout.  So far, none of the Atlas Pratt Truss bridges or MTH bridges have been hit, but it's only a matter of time.  Today I ordered a gross of retaining wall blocks to start replacing the hand-built trestles and downsizing the amount of buildings to go outside (they cover terminal strips for track power).  When it is completed the first running will be of one of old forum member Walt Cameron's trolleys from Western Hobbycraft.

Repaired a few passenger cars whose interior light wires had broken

This old Marx streetlight hadn't worked since I bought it.  Troubleshooting revealed that it just needed wires attached.

Thanks, but I thought this was the fun part?

As of this evening it has progressed along some.  I was itching ( partially due to fiberglass ) to find out how practical it was to make a curved roof peak.  Seems to be working out just fine.  But I'm getting ahead of myself so it's back to laying in fiberglass for now.

 

Bruce

It does look great. I hope your wearing a mask, itchy arms are nothing.

 

 

 

I crawled under the left half gathered the wires, and tossed them over the shelves and towards the center, crawled out and realized I'm still exhausted, so gave up for the day Maybe tomorrow...

I wish I still had the pictures of my attic conversion. But unfortunately I lost them because of a computer virus before I had a chance to back them up.

 

To bad, because I really like flipping through the progress. There is nothing better than turning nothing into something :-)

 

ps, Yes, be careful of the insulation fibers. Not only did it give me an odd lump in my throat which took some time to go away. But in researching at a later date I found out that "inhaling" fiberglass fibers could be as dangerous in the future as asbestos. Because after you inhal it it never leaves your lungs.

 Especially the older stuff from the 70's. Which unfortunately for me I had a large supply of stored up there from a previous owner. So now I feel like building my attic room is going to do me in one day.

 I did use a mask but that old stuff was not like the current stuff. The fibers just poured off of that stuff. I was literally covered in it with each application.

What a way to start a Sunday!  Some type of early morning disturbance down at the Camaraderie Bar & Grill. Probably late-night OGR-types carousing after York.

 

 

I went to York on Friday, Does that count? :-)

 

Upgraded 3 Remotes and 3 TIUs to DCS 4.3.  (After spending a half hour trying to find that blasted USB to Serial cable)

 

Pulled my 1 day show modules from the storage attic and put them in my pickup.  Worked out a plan to cut the two large 180 degree corners into halves to have four 90 degree corners that will move much more easily.

 

May also extract two 054 semi-cirlces from the large O81 circle infields.

 

 

Dropped $100 at Scenery Express's stand at York on detailing stuff and scattered them around the layout. Found a busted up tootsie toy car, sprayed it with some brown rusty looking paint, bent the roof more, stuck a tree through the missing windshield and plopped it high up in the mountain area. Pics will come later.

  

I have not done much over the past few days because of yard work and fixing a leak in the basement wall but today with the leak stopped I moved the truck out of the garage because the foam piece I am going to work on is four feet long and I don't have an area that big to work on it in the attic. So I'll be doing the plaster wrap, the plastering and the coloring in the garage hopefully today getting it all done...............Paul

 

And I think I'm going to go copy you both. I haven't smashed a car since I was a boy with a new hammer. Liked to watch though .

(3 people have hit adult me. Just call me T-bone )

The Razorback Traction Co. shops got a major overhaul this weekend:

 

 

I found a waif piece of 1/4" MDF at Lowes for a couple of bucks, and used it to put a back on the white shelves.  No longer will trolleys fall out the back and over the edge of the world! 

 

In addition, the shelf was moved to the seldom used real estate on the right hand side of the bench, and three new organizers added to the mix!  And yes, the one on the right is securely fastened to the shelf with a couple of screws.  Also note the chic color coordnation with my DeWalt battery charger...

 

On the shop floor, the Gi-Rectifier and Gi-raffe-G1 await electronic horns, courtesy of the Train Tender... 

 

Mitch

OK, I chickened out. I walked about the layouts, and peered into a couple die cast & model showcases, but the only thing I came close hitting was a race 356 Porshe convertible. I convinced myself it was buried "too deep", but truth is, I just couldn't. 

Glad to see all the progress from you all. My favorite thread.

 

The honey doo's from winter are killing me.

 

BUT!!!!!     my UP Legacy LioneMaster Big Boy coming from CA  should be here tomorrow. I been looking forward to this .......my first LionMaster all week. Mailed UPS last Sat.

 

Oh yea, I'll have a picture tomorrow Lord willing. You gonna see this bad boy like it or not LOL

 

Larry

So far today I got the plaster wrap on. Once that dried I applied the plaster. Now I am waiting for that to dry and maybe later I can add the colors..............Paul

Just guessin'.  Is that the workbench of a south paw, Mitch?

 

Bruce

Today after re-filling the Hot-Tub (the real one),

I walked around my property in search of fallen branches.

They had to be old, dried and very small.

I found a bunch of them and cut them into 3/4 inch and 1 inch pieces.

Hobo Village and my campsite got some much needed ground cover of fallen branches and some log piles.

I'm just gonna look at them for a few days and see if they look good enough to keep or move around.

 

I gladly ran trains during my sons play date.

 

Regretfully neither boy was interested in the trains, Skylanders prevailed.

 

John

Sort of.  I suspect I was born a southpaw, but have been trained right handed since I was a kid. Makes me somewhat ambidextrous, which is good...

 

Mitch

I finished my caboose an hour ago. It's a Deerfield River laser kit of ET&WNC caboose 505.

The real 505 had serious paint issues by the time my layout takes place.

It took 4 days to get this completed, but I'm now very glad I put in the time.

well lets see what did I do well I spent most of the weekend working doing a complete network upgrade for a client new firewall new servers new exchange server and new software package he hadn't upgraded in about 10 years. and all I can say is thank god for trains to relax me after that. server 2012 and exchange 2013 not a big fan of right now. but back to trains. in one of my wee hr's waiting for something to either load or copy or whatever I decided to go to Menards website and picked up a mystery box. can't wait for it to show up I kinda like this type of surprise. then on another night working while waiting again I went to a auction site and found a mth santa fe B unit for $10.00 and $10.00 shipping just has a broken coupler which I searched today and it's something like $14.00. then tonight I went to the train loft and started working on my bridge some more and cleaning things up alittle then ran a few trains to check clearances. built the far end 3rd level board to after the bridges. here's what I have so far.    

Still working on a small cliff face for a corner of the layout. Over the past week or so I've been casting and applying rock castings. Yesterday and today, I colored the rocks. Today I added some india ink wash and then some bushes to some of the cracks. I will need to add more scenic details before it's completed and then blended into the layout.

John

Couple more notes on the layout of the workbench: 

 

Since the seating location of the original desk is on the left, the far right corner was more or less out of reach and didn't get used much.  I decided to put that factor into play when repositioning the shelves; the equipment parked at the far corner is long term projects and other things I don't reach for that often.  In the former bench layout, I had the grinder, soldering iron, Dremel etc. in that corner and had constant cable tangling problems as I'd reach for various tools.   The current setup addresses those issues somewhat; as I need the iron or whatever, I move it to the center of the work space and then move it back when I'm done... 

 

Still a work in progress, and I anticipate more fine tuning.  The major improvement is moving a lot of smaller hand tools, bits, light bulbs and other items into the organizers where they can be reached more easily. 

 

Mitch

p51- nice caboose !!

BRAVO!! What a GREAT job of weathering!

Thanks for the in depth description of your workbench arrangement, Mitch.  I'm pretty much pure south paw in every day activities, although I bat, golf and play guitar right handed.  Scissors are one big PITA.

 

It's just that the arrangement suggested that of a left handed owner, much like mine has evolved.  I'll soon be transferring mine to a larger work station...a nice oak desk that's 3'X5'.  Along with change of venue will come a major rearrangement, with my newest, most favorite tool (dremel), up front and center with the soldering station.

 

Bruce

Yesterday I applied plaster but it took forever to dry. Today I colored the plaster. Once it is dry I'll take it up to the layout apply some ground foam to it then glue it in place. Pics of the work................Paul

Thanks, gents.

I hit the entire body of the hack with several coats of this: http://www.micromark.com/AGE-I...and2-FL-OZ,7567.html All it is, is ink dilluted in alcohol, but it's pre-mixed.

I then smeared rubber cement over various spots (missing one entire side, something I didn't realize until after the paint was dry) and painted over that with scalecoat caboose red, which might be a little darker than the actual color 505 had, but there's really no way to know for certain.

I then put the decal on each side, then hit it with two coats of gloss coat.

I had to weather the other side conventionally, with paints. I weathered the rest with paints, a dremel, sandpaper and various other things.

Before the final dull coat, I scribed the decals along the 'board' lines, then I used dull coat over that as well as inside the windows for a 'frosted' finish to the window glass as I didn't put an interior inside so you couldn't look in and tell that.

I think i went too far to match the prototype, though. I can't find any photos online showing the sad state of her paint by the mid 40s, though. But this is what she looked like probably about a dedcade before (and probably not painted again after this):

 

Used thirty feet of nearby track, blocking all three mainlines, to "store" twelve big locos so I could tear out an entire set of shelves and rebuild them.  No where else to keep that many engines.

Today I got the second corner mountain for under the upper mainlines done and plaster wrapped. It is half the length of the other one. Tomorrow plaster.............Paul

Don't bash a new one or a collectable one. I found a damaged one that was beyond repair and aged it rapidly with a 22oz framing hammer. Go for it!

 

Continued trying to find an effective way to use liquid mask on LIONEL standard vista dome preparatory to painting NP North Coast Limited dome.

This bunch of materials temporarily tacked to the rafters give a hint to what I intend to achieve in this area.  Again curved melamine covered hardboard arch over the peak.  then comes 4, 1X6 knotty cedar boards lengthwise.  A awning of cedar along the lower edge will shield strips of LED lighting from direct view. Then a 3' width of hardboard curved at the hip wall, terminating at layout height.  Yes, we're talking a 30" high layout at it's lowest point, but the overall  6' 2" room height and corresponding rafters dictates a lower layout.  I plan to utilize office chairs for rolling around the room during operations.

 

Another shot down the long section of room, previously the focus of all initial work done a few years ago.  To the left the hip walls have access hatches to storage over the eves.  I've already lost a few radios and a box of tubular track and switches, hidden somewhere in there.  Centrally the area behind the chimney is packed with stuff, mostly radio related and in need of moving if I'm to continue insulating.  there will be a short intermission in the updates while I shuffle some junk.

Bruce

I assume there is no easy way to remove the windows?

 

Bruce

Hi All

Here is my new pride and joy engine. Just received today from CA and very thankful to a forum member (Dave). Pure coincidence how I ended up with this prize .

 

New and special to me a  Legacy 4-8-8-4  (LionMaster) Big Boy.

 

I am now sold on these LionMaster engines for sure.

 

For we who are 060 or lower handicapped this is  incredible.

 

I have a lot of IMO very nice Legacy Diesels that take 060 or less but have stayed away from many steam engines due to the radius required.

 

I sure hope Lionel keeps the LionMaster series going.

 

Oh YES, I have a Legacy challenger LionMaster on order 2015 and seriously thinking about calling Charlie for another one he has.

 

 

Still having LOTS of fun.

 

Larry

 

 

Had my grandkids help me make some trees...