What did you do on your layout today?

paul 2 posted:

Jim, I had a left hand 0-54 Ross switch sitting around. I flipped it over to act as a RH switch. The radius is a bit too wide so I'll have to add an 0-42 RH to my next switch order. And while I was doing that I worked on what I want to do where the grain elevator was going to go. I laid out what I think might work. A siding to the feed building and another siding to a ramp to unload flat cars with farm tractors plus the siding will also be used for grain storage loading and unloading on a smaller rural scale. Now I have to make up some legs for the new table, bolt it to the other table, cut the plywood for the top and go from there. Pics...........Paul

Ah I see!  That is going to be AWESOME!!!!   Your work is very inspirational!  Thanks!!

Jim

Looks great!  I haven’t fallen down the stairs, but I seem to not lift my feet enough and occasionally catch a foot and fall up!  I don’t understand it, I used to run up and down the stairs two at a time, and never had a mishap!!  LOL

paul 2 posted:

Mark, I have got the table screwed to the studs. The table is 18 inches wide by 61 inches long. I possibly could of used brackets but by placing a couple of legs on the front side I can put a shelf under it for storage.........Paul

I like that idea better Paul!!

Mark Boyce posted:

paul 2 posted:

Mark, I have got the table screwed to the studs. The table is 18 inches wide by 61 inches long. I possibly could of used brackets but by placing a couple of legs on the front side I can put a shelf under it for storage.........Paul

I like that idea better Paul!!

Yep storage is always a good idea!!!   

Mark how are things going with your bench work?   Ain't seen nothing posted lately? 

Jim

the new area looks good Paul. I like it too.

Bob

carsntrains posted:

Mark Boyce posted:

paul 2 posted:

Mark, I have got the table screwed to the studs. The table is 18 inches wide by 61 inches long. I possibly could of used brackets but by placing a couple of legs on the front side I can put a shelf under it for storage.........Paul

I like that idea better Paul!!

Yep storage is always a good idea!!!   

Mark how are things going with your bench work?   Ain't seen nothing posted lately? 

Jim

Jim,

 I had time last weekend to cut and attach two 1 x 4 cross members (joists if you will) the length of the table.  I didn’t think it that much different to take and post a photograph.  I also took some measurements and did some figuring on what I need to finish the support of the top and end that will attach to the shelf part of the layout.  Thank you for asking!!

Mark Boyce posted:

Looks great!  I haven’t fallen down the stairs, butI seem to not lift my feet enough and occasionally catch a foot and fall up!  I don’t understand it, I used to run up and down the stairs two at a time, and never had a mishap!!  LOL

Same here, at times.

I blame it on one particular pair pf sneakers , which are the ones I have on each time I have ever caught the front of my right shoe and semi-stumbled up the stairs. My analysis blames that particular pair of shoes as being longer, at the toe, than all the others, so the distance I have become accustomed to affording between the front of the shoes and the stair tread is different than usual; thus, a stumble. The shoes are to blame, NOT  my age!!!

FrankM

Moonson posted:

Mark Boyce posted:

Looks great!  I haven’t fallen down the stairs, butI seem to not lift my feet enough and occasionally catch a foot and fall up!  I don’t understand it, I used to run up and down the stairs two at a time, and never had a mishap!!  LOL

Same here, at times.

I blame it on one particular pair pf sneakers , which are the ones I have on each time I have ever caught the front of my right shoe and semi-stumbled up the stairs. My analysis blames that particular pair of shoes as being longer, at the toe, than all the others, so the distance I have become accustomed to affording between the front of the shoes and the stair tread is different than usual; thus, a stumble. The shoes are to blame, NOT  my age!!!

FrankM

Yes Frank, It must be the shoes!!!  At least falling up is better than falling down!  

Mark Boyce posted:

Looks great!  I haven’t fallen down the stairs, but I seem to not lift my feet enough and occasionally catch a foot and fall up!  I don’t understand it, I used to run up and down the stairs two at a time, and never had a mishap!!  LOL

Mark, back in 2016 July I was on meds for back pain and took a header down those stairs one night. My head poked a hole in the sheetrock right next to two studs. I was knocked out for some time. Not sure how long I laid at the bottom.  It took me well over 8 month to recover. The good part is I could of been dead from that fall. Since then we added another handrail and now the carpet. But I don't care to do anything like that again.

And Like you, as a kid I would fly up and down steeper stairs than these. With age comes consequences.  

 

 

 

KRM posted:

Mark Boyce posted:

Looks great!  I haven’t fallen down the stairs, but I seem to not lift my feet enough and occasionally catch a foot and fall up!  I don’t understand it, I used to run up and down the stairs two at a time, and never had a mishap!!  LOL

Mark, back in 2016 July I was on meds for back pain and took a header down those stairs one night. My head poked a hole in the sheetrock right next to two studs. I was knocked out for some time. Not sure how long I laid at the bottom.  It took me well over 8 month to recover. The good part is I could of been dead from that fall. Since then we added another handrail and now the carpet. But I don't care to do anything like that again.

And Like you, as a kid I would fly up and down steeper stairs than these. With age comes consequences.  

 

 

 

 

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOUCH!!! 

I will not click "Like" on this one, KRM!!  That was nasty; but at least you recovered.  My wife fell once and put her knee through the wall of a rental house we had just moved into, but I think that was because the stairs had differing heights, and we weren't used to it.  

I am very glad you recovered to tell us about it, and we can all take a lesson from it.  I have become very deliberate about where and how I step after two ankle injuries that have never healed well, and osteoarthritis creeping into my knees and who knows where else.  

DOUBLE OUCH!!!!

mark  boyce, check to make sure all your stair treads are the same height. Especially the one you are tripping

on, only takes a very small difference to cause tripping.

KRM posted:

Mark Boyce posted:

Looks great!  I haven’t fallen down the stairs, but I seem to not lift my feet enough and occasionally catch a foot and fall up!  I don’t understand it, I used to run up and down the stairs two at a time, and never had a mishap!!  LOL

Mark, back in 2016 July I was on meds for back pain and took a header down those stairs one night. My head poked a hole in the sheetrock right next to two studs. I was knocked out for some time. Not sure how long I laid at the bottom.  It took me well over 8 month to recover. The good part is I could of been dead from that fall. Since then we added another handrail and now the carpet. But I don't care to do anything like that again.

And Like you, as a kid I would fly up and down steeper stairs than these. With age comes consequences.  

 

 

 

 

do you live in marseilles?

beardog posted:

mark  boyce, check to make sure all your stair treads are the same height. Especially the one you are tripping

on, only takes a very small difference to cause tripping.

do you live in marseilles?

beardog,

Yes We live north of Marseilles off 2950th RD. east of 24th RD. 

workday Wednesday......

paul 2 posted:

Jim, I had a left hand 0-54 Ross switch sitting around. I flipped it over to act as a RH switch. The radius is a bit too wide so I'll have to add an 0-42 RH to my next switch order. And while I was doing that I worked on what I want to do where the grain elevator was going to go. I laid out what I think might work. A siding to the feed building and another siding to a ramp to unload flat cars with farm tractors plus the siding will also be used for grain storage loading and unloading on a smaller rural scale. Now I have to make up some legs for the new table, bolt it to the other table, cut the plywood for the top and go from there. Pics...........Paul

I got it now Paul, Looks good I am glad you have a plan!

KRM posted:

beardog posted:

mark  boyce, check to make sure all your stair treads are the same height. Especially the one you are tripping

on, only takes a very small difference to cause tripping.

do you live in marseilles?

beardog,

Yes We live north of Marseilles off 2950th RD. east of 24th RD. 

I was born and lived in Ottawa for about 47 years

Brackets trimmed and drilled:

Fortescue inspects the test fitting: 

Fortescue gets a bit too caught up in his work: 

Heat shield cut from a plastic For Sale sign:

The unpainted side and brackets, ready for a bit of enamel: 

Enameled and ready for the next phase of the install! 

Mitch 

I have to move a bunch of stuff on my layout.  Getting ready for the new track coming in tomorrow!   Also today I had contact with Woodland Scenics about my mishap.   Not one mention from them about helping me out.   Reckon I am supposed to know that all those connectors that look the same have different voltage on them.  I do now.   And that Menards buildings have only one plug, one type of power source, and you cant plug anything up wrong no matter now silly you are lol  : )   

Jim 

KRM posted:

I did two K-Line S2s a few years back but forgot how to do it so it was great ACDX Rob helped me out. I did not install the switch. No need plenty of high speed without it.

 Here is what he sent.

Remove the yellow wire from one motor, the blue from the other. Wrap them, separated, with insulating tape and secure them inside the shell. Now connect the two motor terminals you just freed up with a new wire. Done.  A DPDT switch can be installed, too, if you want the capability of switching between series/parallel.  This is way cool; I don't know if you guys realize it or not, but what your doing here is called "making transition" on the full size loco's. They start out with pairs of motors connected in series (motor fields full field resistance), followed by a series of steps connecting the motor fields to resistors (called field shunting), until Bang (switch to parallel connection, then a repeat of field shunting. Goes from high torgue low voltage HIGH AMPERAGE to Keep the voltage from flashing over but "More power please! PS; The Bang is when M G excitation is dropped out momentarily to allow Transition, otherwise? A Ball of FIRE Rolls out of the contactors! Rob Reply

Captain, I'm giving ya all she's got

Brilliant Mitch! 

I didn't think you'd go for cutting half the fan off, moving it, and placing the pant. between the halfs . 

Home Grown Background on ceiling/shelf Layout Progress;

Mitch, I’m glad Fortesque is on the job, but he had better be more careful!  Where is his hard hat??

Jim, Track!!!!  Yay!!

R.C., I could go for that background!  I’m tired of snow!

Started gluing up the Coast Grocery - Ultra Scale ll building flat by Chooch. It is a big building 23 x 18tall and comes in three sections. It is going between the concrete warehouse I just finished and the Cargill elevators on my layout. I am going to make this into a Iroquois Brewery, since it was just announced that they are reopening in Buffalo and I do have some reefer cars to with it.

 Here is an old photo of their 1900 brewery. I think my building selection works with arch topped windows that gives that grand feeling of the area in red.

I found this photo from 1950's and I think I am going to do the Indian head sign.

I found this bookend that I can make a mold for the head.

Got done work early and beelined for the train room for an hour. Cut & fitted track for the inner loop, put in power leads and screwed 'er down.  Ran a celebratory train on the outer loop.  Had a wonderful time. I love to see progress !

R.C. posted:

Home Grown Background on ceiling/shelf Layout Progress;

needs some flamigos

beardog posted:

R.C. posted:

Home Grown Background on ceiling/shelf Layout Progress;

needs some flamigos

Agreed! 

Mitch 

I may not post, but work doesn't stop. Mostly, I've been ballasting, painting rail and putting down plaster cloth.

After Patrick and I filled in these three holes in the benchwork, it was possible to ballast this little missing section between the "horseshoe curve" and Pig's Eye Yard.

I started ballasting over at Hiawatha

I got more of the plaster cloth done over at Newport. Still a little left to do on this section.

The foam over at Hastings got plaster cloth.

This opening will be the St Croix River. There will be a lift bridge here.

Here's the real bridge.

I started painting rail at Hastings on Saturday.

The Hastings lift bridge will be just to the right on the near track. Then there will be a girder viaduct crossing low land that can be submerged when the river is high.

Here's a shot from Google Earth of the area in question. The ex Milwaukee Road Lift bridge over the Mississippi is on the right.

A close up of the viaduct.

Rail is painted at Northtown. All of this is ready for ballast.

Same here.

More.

And more.

There are a lot more of these pictures, but who wants to watch paint dry?

I bought a couple of these guys off eBay.

Here are a couple real ones doing switch replacements at Hoffman.

It's starting to come together.

Completed pan assembly with blast deflector! 

It's designed to be removable, so I melted the plastic insulator pins in place, then reinforced with superglue.  Will put a mounting lug on the victim, er, lucky recipient!   

Mitch

                                                             ran some trains...

                                                              more please...

Big_Boy_4005 posted:

I may not post, but work doesn't stop. Mostly, I've been ballasting, painting rail and putting down plaster cloth.

After Patrick and I filled in these three holes in the benchwork, it was possible to ballast this little missing section between the "horseshoe curve" and Pig's Eye Yard.

I started ballasting over at Hiawatha

I got more of the plaster cloth done over at Newport. Still a little left to do on this section.

The foam over at Hastings got plaster cloth.

This opening will be the St Croix River. There will be a lift bridge here.

Here's the real bridge.

I started painting rail at Hastings on Saturday.

The Hastings lift bridge will be just to the right on the near track. Then there will be a girder viaduct crossing low land that can be submerged when the river is high.

Here's a shot from Google Earth of the area in question. The ex Milwaukee Road Lift bridge over the Mississippi is on the right.

A close up of the viaduct.

Rail is painted at Northtown. All of this is ready for ballast.

Same here.

More.

And more.

There are a lot more of these pictures, but who wants to watch paint dry?

I bought a couple of these guys off eBay.

Here are a couple real ones doing switch replacements at Hoffman.

It's starting to come together.

Man Elliot you sure have a lot of ground to cover! But its looking great! I really like the pipe layers you picked up, I watched a couple of videos of them in action, kinda impressive! One question and I know you probably answered this before, but how do you clean the top of your rails after painting them?

briansilvermustang posted:

                                                             ran some trains...

                                                              more please...

Looks like fun Brian! Doesn't Izzy know one bowel of Ice Cream is enough! LOL

                                                need  MORE  ice cream...

Ran trains for about a hour last night. Since I took all the diesels off the layout I had my post-war 2026 and MTH 0-4-0 tank running. Smoked out the basement pretty good .
The rest of the house was none too pleased

gotta put in an exhaust fan........

Ran this guy for a while too....more smoke

RSJB18 posted:

Ran trains for about a hour last night. Since I took all the diesels off the layout I had my post-war 2026 and MTH 0-4-0 tank running. Smoked out the basement pretty good .
The rest of the house was none to pleased

gotta put in an exhaust fan........

Ran this guy for a while too....more smoke

Nice Jim! Next time just tell them its a fire drill! LOL

RSJB18 posted:

Ran trains for about a hour last night. Since I took all the diesels off the layout I had my post-war 2026 and MTH 0-4-0 tank running. Smoked out the basement pretty good .
The rest of the house was none to pleased

gotta put in an exhaust fan........

Ran this guy for a while too....more smoke

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

              OK...

briansilvermustang posted:

              OK...