Darn tootin'!
In other news, I made an interesting aerodynamic discovery:
https://ogrforum.com/t...erodynamic-discovery
Mitch
Ran trains and took a few pics of my piggy back operation. Had fun!!!!
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M. Mitchell Marmel posted:RSJB18 posted:
Don't forget: Painted pipe perks Pennsy power!
Mitch
She sells sea shells by the sea shore.......
I dunno- if I don't wire the motors in series I might just paint flames on either side of the body.
RSJB18 posted:She sells sea shells by the sea shore.......
I dunno- if I don't wire the motors in series I might just paint flames on either side of the body.
Don't forget the wheelie bars, supercharger out the top and the drag chute! 
Mitch
M. Mitchell Marmel posted:RSJB18 posted:She sells sea shells by the sea shore.......
I dunno- if I don't wire the motors in series I might just paint flames on either side of the body.
Don't forget the wheelie bars, supercharger out the top and the drag chute!
Mitch
maybe this
Today I got the braces on the bottom of the legs and painted the frame work. All I have to do is cut some tongue and groove for the shelf and that's done. Tomorrow I would like to get wood cut for the bridge abutments. I would like to get both sides done so I can set the bridge in place and scenic the areas..............Paul
Cleaned up the Lionel #8 engine that I bought Sunday at the TCA show. Sprayed the motor with CRC electro cleaner and washed the black off the motor. Then lubed everything. All original, ,looks and runs good, best pulling engine I have. It has seen use because of the grooves worn in the rollers but not abused.
M. Mitchell Marmel posted:1) The Razorback Traction Company is remodeling! Assistance requested! Details here:
https://ogrforum.com/t...w-transformer-wanted
2) From the RTC shops, a couple of works in progress:
Rear: Preliminary mockup of a concept allowing my HO scale gi-raffe car to run on three rail. The basic idea is to mount an operating lever on a flat car, then run a linkage to the HO scale car...
Front: Remember all those tubes left over from the Howard Roark Memorial Storage Facility? Guess what fits in the ends?
Anybody interested in making custom length tank cars, drop me a line. I got plenty of tubes to spare...
Mitch
Mitch I know you and the giraffes are not into this, but that one tank car could easily be turned into a railway gun or better yet a Circus attraction: the human cannonball or should I say Giraffe cannonball. 
It could also be turned in to a gigantic beer tanker !!
Oh,,today,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Today was one of those John Entwistle "Smash Your Head Against the Wall" days. All looked fine on the floor and I started to lay it out on the table. Everything was working way to good. Then I tried to add the loop to the north end west side and it hits the outer elevated loop so it needs to be cut back about 8". Problem is the straight sections are not parallel so all of the geometry is all messed up. Guess I have to take what I got and try to save what I can. So much for the SCARM program .
BUT!!!
After looking back over a beer of desperation,,,,,, I had to go back to the original way I drafted it and now it is just like in the SCARM drawing. Stupid me, I threw a curve in that was not in the program that threw it all off.
Heck if it was easy everyone would do it.
The plan is to get it all up and running then take it off and finish it, then re-install it to the table.
Now,,,to start on the south reverse loop.
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I had a ton of plans tonight to do some serious work on the layout. I ended up on the couch instead watching a movie. Its okay because I needed a little break from the layout. I do hope to start my control panel tomorrow to control my track blocks for conventional running.
suzukovich posted:Mitch I know you and the giraffes are not into this, but that one tank car could easily be turned into a railway gun or better yet a Circus attraction: the human cannonball or should I say Giraffe cannonball.
A Gi-raffe cannonball is MUCH more interesting than a long tank car! I like it!
Mitch
suzukovich posted:Big_Boy_4005 posted: 3/11/17Tuesday morning I woke up dizzy. As I stepped off the scale, I lost my balance, did a 180, and landed square on my butt, but not before hitting my ribs on the corner of the end table. Owww.
Good to know your ribs prevented any serious damage when you landed on your butt
Thanks for the update.
Turned out I wasn't as OK as I thought. Got the ribs x-rayed last week and found out I broke one. Of course there isn't much that can be done for it. I can still feel it if I move wrong, but I'm done with the Tylenol. It does make layout work a bit more challenging.
It is crunch time for the open house, 31 days away now. The first half of March was lost to injury. I'm back at it with a vengeance this last week.
My nephews came over a couple times last week, and helped me get some stuff cleaned up. We had really nice fires with layout scraps. We sorted out the bins under the chopsaw...
and neatly stacked the "keepers".
It has been a long time since I did any rail painting. I got a bunch done this week! I use the turkey baster to take the paint from the gallon bucket, and fill the small airbrush jars.
I have my big compressor set to 30 pounds line pressure, and use a quick connect end and a 1/4" pipe adapter.
I started painting up at Interstate, yard and mains.
Then moved on to Dayton's Bluff.
Around the corner to Pig's Eye. Even did Newport and part of Cottage Grove and Hastings. In truth, I'm very close to having the whole lower level painted. Western Avenue is the only section not started.
With painted rail comes ballast!
The goal is to finish Pig's Eye, clean the rail heads, and unpack a bunch of rolling stock, and bring the layout to life with some color.
I got into the second bag of ballast today.
I worked on this thing yesterday. I don't expect anyone here to know what it is. It's one of the C/MRI panels from enterTRAINment. I removed a number of unnecessary components, and configured for use on this layout.
Lots to do!
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Ran trains this morning for 10 minutes and enjoyed every moment!
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Elliot,
That's a lot of rail painting and ballasting! Looks real good!!
Pat,
That's a lot of nice action and showing off the scenes at Patsburg!
WOW Elliot, Looks great! Sorry to hear you broke a rib, but am happy your healing. What do you use to paint your track and more important what and when do you use to clean the top of the rails?
What does that C\MRI thingy do?
This is a dangerous hobby !! Worked some more on my Standard gauge engines. All are running well now with two spare Super Standard motors as spares. I could go all Standard gauge easily but know I would regret getting rid of the O gauge. So I am staying with what I have. I sure like the brass models. When I had brass On3 I kept the engines unpainted-they were eye candy. Nice just to have them to look at.
Big_Boy_4005 posted:suzukovich posted:Big_Boy_4005 posted: 3/11/17Tuesday morning I woke up dizzy. As I stepped off the scale, I lost my balance, did a 180, and landed square on my butt, but not before hitting my ribs on the corner of the end table. Owww.
Good to know your ribs prevented any serious damage when you landed on your butt
Thanks for the update.
Turned out I wasn't as OK as I thought. Got the ribs x-rayed last week and found out I broke one. Of course there isn't much that can be done for it. I can still feel it if I move wrong, but I'm done with the Tylenol. It does make layout work a bit more challenging.
It is crunch time for the open house, 31 days away now. The first half of March was lost to injury. I'm back at it with a vengeance this last week.
My nephews came over a couple times last week, and helped me get some stuff cleaned up. We had really nice fires with layout scraps. We sorted out the
Around the corner to Pig's Eye. Even did Newport and part of Cottage Grove and Hastings. In truth, I'm very close to having the whole lower level painted. Western Avenue is the only section not started.
With painted rail comes ballast!
The goal is to finish Pig's Eye, clean the rail heads, and unpack a bunch of rolling stock, and bring the layout to life with some color.
I got into the second bag of ballast today.
Lots to do!
Elliot to bad about the rib. I realize that's one of those dumb injuries but just like real life construction goes on. Glad you got some help. I will say this, what a difference painting and ballasting the track can do to the appearance of a layout, even though you have a long way to go. As for the 30th deadline I sure you will make it with time to spear. Just remember to post under construction signs, Hard hat area, Eye and hearing protection required and the most important. Flack Jackets for rib protection
Thanks to my fan club who hit the like button, as well as Mark, Mike and Doug.
Mark - It is a lot of painting and ballasting, and will be followed by a lot of cleaning, but once it's done, some sections, like Interstate will be finished, except for signals and backdrops.
Mike - That gallon of paint is just interior flat latex, the kind you'd paint a wall with. The color came from Menards and is called Potting Soil. It is a pretty good match for what rail actually looks like. I apply it with the most basic external mix Badger airbrush, and just blast away. Usually takes a couple coats to cover fully. If I'm going to ballast right away, I'll leave the paint on the tops of the rail, and clean once when I'm all done. There are some places where I can't ballast right away. I'll just clean those so I can run trains. I use all kinds of things to clean the rails. The paint comes off very easily, it almost peels off. Finger, finger nail, plastic razor blade, scrap of Masonite. Not sure which I like best.
The C/MRI thingy is what we call a node. A node is a station along the serial line that will communicate with the computer. I will have a total of four nodes running three specific layout functions, turnouts, detection, and signals. The node holds input and output cards on the two boards on the right side of the panel. When you boil it down the inputs and outputs are just on/off switches. Cards plug into those boards. I'll be talking more about all this later this year.
Doug - _ _ it happens. The rib wasn't the layout's fault. Being injured, the layout was a secondary victim.
Heading down in a little while. Lots of ballast to spread and glue. Pig's Eye should be done today!
Elliot, sorry to hear about your mishap. But at least you are not laid up. The rib will heal overtime. It is good to hear you are going to keep going on the layout. Just be careful and pace yourself making sure you do not stretch out to far to aggravate your healing rib.......Paul
Was wondering what you've been up to Elliott. Hadn't seen any updates in a while. Hope the rib heals quickly. That is a lot of paint and ballast. Wondering if you are keeping track of how many pounds of ballast you are going to use.
Bob
M. Mitchell Marmel posted:suzukovich posted:Mitch I know you and the giraffes are not into this, but that one tank car could easily be turned into a railway gun or better yet a Circus attraction: the human cannonball or should I say Giraffe cannonball.
A Gi-raffe cannonball is MUCH more interesting than a long tank car! I like it!
Mitch
Great, Mitch - now you've gone and done it... Here come the complaints from PETA and the ASPCA
Pushing ahead,
I did do some work on the layout till I ran out of material. After the glue dried I placed it on the table and took some pictures,,,,,,,,,, it fits!! Glad it worked, today was only a 1/4 72R curve section going into a switch.
Got to get a 2'x4' sheet of 1/4" plywood to build some more joint supports.
The plan is to paint and add girder rails but I am building it in modules so it can be removed and also,,, more so, not to disrupt the running of the complete layout below it or moving more than need be.
But first I want it all on the table and will get it up and running to check for interference with all of my trains. Once I know it is all good I will pull one section off at a time and finish them and reinstall them to the table. All along still being able to run trains if the grand-son Jordan should come by. So it will all come together over time and I can still run trains when I need to. I hope.
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#KRM looks grrrrrrreat! your idea with supports and skill with construction are Super, thanks!
Came to a temporary standstill waiting for the constant rain to stop so I can do the next step on the expansion; paint 130 feet of Gargraves and three ROSS turnouts to give them the proper weathering. Looks like it will be about a month before good enough weather (we're already 1' over the average for the year so far).
So covered everything up with visquine and turned to rebuilding my pet truck, which has been sitting and leaking for months.
That will just about take the rainy month to come, so the timing might work out this time.
Nope, if I leave it in "playable condition" I'll never spend the nasty dirty time on the truck :-(
Apples55 posted:Great, Mitch - now you've gone and done it... Here come the complaints from PETA and the ASPCA
The complaints line forms right in front of the cannon muzzle. 
Mitch
#MITCH will you require a longer than normal O gauge flat car with which to construct this fine Gi-raffe launcher? ---====+++TOP SECRET +++===-----<BOOM!>
you may need a landing zone "Net" and, of course, the obligitary "Caution, Gi-Raffe Landing Zone" crossing signs......
oh, oh, oh, oh, they have little flying screaming monkeys online.... hmmm, might have to mail you one so you can affix the electronics (accelerometer and speaker)..."AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGHHHhhhhhhhh" lol
wait... what???????
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Miggsy: Two words. Big Bertha.
Mitch
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RSJB18 posted:
That would have an explosive ending...........
now THATS funny, right there, i dont care Who you are...." roflmao 
RSJB18 posted:Was wondering what you've been up to Elliott. Hadn't seen any updates in a while. Hope the rib heals quickly. That is a lot of paint and ballast. Wondering if you are keeping track of how many pounds of ballast you are going to use.
Bob
Thanks Bob. I got eighteen 50 pound bags of material from a local quarry a few years ago. Doing the math, that's just under a half a ton.
I finished the first bag a couple days ago, and I'm half way through the second. It will be interesting to see how many bags it will take. I did some rough calculations to estimate how much to get, by counting square feet of coverage at 1/4" depth, and padding that number just in case.
The material was really inexpensive. I love it because it came from a quarry that actually supplies the real railroads with some of their ballast. There is only one slight problem with it. It is laced with grains that are too large, so I'm constantly picking the worst ones out of every scoop I take.
Ballasting is time consuming. Spreading it evenly and cleaning everything after gluing are the slow part. I'm almost halfway through the yard. Pictures later.
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Should be able to buy different size screen with the appropriate size holes needed to 'screen' the ballast.
https://www.seedburo.com/pdfs/...2011_11_23_51_AM.pdf
Big_Boy_4005 posted:RSJB18 posted:Was wondering what you've been up to Elliott. Hadn't seen any updates in a while. Hope the rib heals quickly. That is a lot of paint and ballast. Wondering if you are keeping track of how many pounds of ballast you are going to use.
Bob
Thanks Bob. I got eighteen 50 pound bags of material from a local quarry a few years ago. Doing the math, that's just under a half a ton.
I finished the first bag a couple days ago, and I'm half way through the second. It will be interesting to see how many bags it will take. I did some rough calculations to estimate how much to get, by counting square feet of coverage at 1/4" depth, and padding that number just in case.
The material was really inexpensive. I love it because it came from a quarry that actually supplies the real railroads with some of their ballast. There is only one slight problem with it. It is laced with grains that are too large, so I'm constantly picking the worst ones out of every scoop I take.
Ballasting is time consuming. Spreading it evenly and cleaning everything after gluing are the slow part. I'm almost halfway through the yard. Pictures later.
WOW- And I was almost going to guess about a ton.
Get your self a good sieve to clean out the big stuff before you go blind and crazy.
Been a good couple of days. Got the frame painted on the table. With all the braces in on one side I got a piece of plywood down. Now I have to do the other side. Once I do that I can place the bridge on them and see where the abutments will set. Then I can contour the plywood around them. Also today Mr. Brown dropped off a few more Weaver TOFC flat cars. SO all around it has been a good day so far. Pics ............Paul
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Ran track power buss wiring.
Elliot,
About 20 years ago i did something similar. I used stone dust from a nearby rock crushing plant that just happened to supply CSX. I washed it with a garden hose, then baked pans of it in the oven for 2 hours to kill anything that might be alive, and then made a screening box that allowed me to separate out the large pieces to get a smaller more scale sized final product. I did 750 feet of track for all of $10 and a little labor.
Got a good deal done today, Built the platform for the south end and I am ready to set it to the table. The modular design is working fine and I can handle the placement of each section and will be able to pull it off one section at a time and finish them up.
Tomorrow I hope to get it running then do all of the checking over a week or two before the paint and railing.
Kind of beat.
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Thanks guys, I do have a small sieve, which I thought was the right size. But what comes through is mostly too fine. I need a second one to remove the big stuff, and only keep the middle size.
I'm not really worried about microbes. I won't be baking half a ton of rock. The energy costs alone would double the price of the material. Now running a magnet over it may have more value, but even that seems unnecessary for a couple reasons. First, I no longer use engines with magne-traction, and second it is all glued down anyway.
You can clearly see the line where the glue ends. The light gray is still loose.
The rails have been cleaned where the glue is dry.
My ballasting tools in the work zone: the bucket is full of the reject "boulders", the shallow container is my scoop that I dip into the 5 gallon bucket, the kiddie shovel is very nice for precise or general distribution, also doubles as a "dust pan" to remove excess, and my favorite tool, the 4" paintbrush which I use for spreading and tamping. The tip of the handle also works along the mainlines to get a nice profile between tracks
I got a little sidetracked, and dug out a Pecos River locomotive maintenance facility kit that I picked up on the Bay a couple years ago. Seems like it is missing a few pieces, maybe that's why it was so cheap. The good news is that the Pecos River line of TT structures got rolled into Korber, so I'll call Mr Muffin, and see if he'll sell me some blank segments. If not, I'll just buy a whole kit, take what I want from it, and use the rest as a flat against the backdrop. The end wall with the doors is going to need some serious re-engineering. I'd really rather not move the tracks. I'll make it fit and look good.
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