What did you do on your layout today?

Deuce posted:

I've been absent a lot of late ... primarily due to vacations and business travel. It's meant I haven't had much time to work on the layout (or buy anything, either). However, in a brief moment of peace, the oldest asked to run the "outside trains" (since they're in my workshop, he considers them "outside"). So out we went, and for about an hour we played trains.  I'm glad to see that he continues to want to play with them. Wife came out with the youngest, and immediately started asking about things on the table ... but since I haven't even been home (pretty sure the two weeks I spent in Asia prohibited me from working on the train table located in North America), I'm not sure how I could have managed such a feat *sigh*.

However, the youngest is finally able to see over the table (when standing on a stool) and actually liked loading up one of the gondolas. So looks like there may be more time spent at the train table with both of them in the future.

Thanks, Deuce,  for the little window into your family life. No successful man ever said, "My only regret is that I spent too much time with my family."  These moments are more precious than gold, and the children are small for such a short time. May the Good Lord give you and yours many joyous train hours together.

Worked on the last of the buildings flats. The larger ones I decided to do the window areas first, let that dry and go back and do others areas. On a couple of the flats the windows were molded in. I thought I could mask off the flat leaving the windows exposed and apply the green spray paint to them but I think I am going to go to Home Depot and get a small jar of paint made up the color of windows I sprayed. Pics.............Paul

                        went train watching...

I have been running a few O gauge freights today using my bigger engines, all early PW.  They have working smoke units in them that were last fueled over a year ago at my old house. I was blending my own smoke fluid at that time and these things are still smoking !  I think that is pretty good. Haven't added any for 14 months at least. When I moved I got rid of the ingredients except the oil, which I use.

HCSader73 posted:

Deuce posted:

I've been absent a lot of late ... primarily due to vacations and business travel. It's meant I haven't had much time to work on the layout (or buy anything, either). However, in a brief moment of peace, the oldest asked to run the "outside trains" (since they're in my workshop, he considers them "outside"). So out we went, and for about an hour we played trains.  I'm glad to see that he continues to want to play with them. Wife came out with the youngest, and immediately started asking about things on the table ... but since I haven't even been home (pretty sure the two weeks I spent in Asia prohibited me from working on the train table located in North America), I'm not sure how I could have managed such a feat *sigh*.

However, the youngest is finally able to see over the table (when standing on a stool) and actually liked loading up one of the gondolas. So looks like there may be more time spent at the train table with both of them in the future.

Thanks, Deuce,  for the little window into your family life. No successful man ever said, "My only regret is that I spent too much time with my family."  These moments are more precious than gold, and the children are small for such a short time. May the Good Lord give you and yours many joyous train hours together.

Deuce, Pete is so right!!!  I am sorry your work takes you so far away at times.  When you are back home, then there are a thousand things!  I'm sure your wife is overwhelmed when you are gone!  May God bless you and your family!!

paul 2 posted:

Worked on the last of the buildings flats. The larger ones I decided to do the window areas first, let that dry and go back and do others areas. On a couple of the flats the windows were molded in. I thought I could mask off the flat leaving the windows exposed and apply the green spray paint to them but I think I am going to go to Home Depot and get a small jar of paint made up the color of windows I sprayed. Pics.............Paul

Paul, You will get them looking good!!  While I said I mask everything anymore, I didn't say mine turn out that great!!  Old fumble fingers here takes his hat off to you!

HCSader73 posted:

No successful man ever said, "My only regret is that I spent too much time with my family." 

The one thing about things like this is that many people insinuate that the person would rather spend time at the office all the time (often because they decided not to hire the number of people really needed to do the job in an effort tot save on benefits) and that the company wasn't making them spend too much time away from home.

I've personally experienced this a few years ago (I could never count on having any weekends free, due to some idiotic computer system that required substantially more time to do the job the system it replaced, for a couple of years). I got so sick of hearing people refer to me as a 'workaholic', which suggested I'd rather be at the office instead of drowning in mandatory overtime that easily exceeded 20 hours a week on slow weeks.

Lee, Yes you are so right on that!

Having recovered medically, l opened the kitbox for "Matters Mill". As you will see when l get my mill photos posted, l need another water mill like l need four flat tires. Always kitbashing, l immediately started putting in stronger bracing. But when l went to a convention in Hickory, NC  a few years ago l hunted down the few NC water mills l had a list of, and did not see a Matters Mill.  Is there one in NC?  And Hickory is known for furniture, big warehouses of it, so l walked through them looking for hickory furniture to match my few pieces of Amish-made hickory furniture.  They did not have a stick of hickory in Hickory!

Unpacked several cars that have sat in boxes for years.  Kind of pathetic but got it done

Worked on my Engine House- painted the building, the roof sections, the doors, and the "concrete" pad.  Added O27 straights inside, center rail painted black/ outside rails rust.  

Next- should receive the LEDs tomorrow- add lighting and figures.

Watching my MTH Premier GS4 Daylight go round and round the layout at 30 scale mph. Has a problem with the PS2 3V boards where it shuts down at speeds above 35-40 scale mph. So far it's been chugging around for 16 minutes at 30 scale mph without stopping. 

Just playing around with the camera this afternoon, dared to even suggest a diesel helper actually took place on the layout. Oh, the humanity!

p51 posted:

Just playing around with the camera this afternoon, dared to even suggest a diesel helper actually took place on the layout. Oh, the humanity!

great weathering on that caboose!

Lee, that second photo of the train going away is really special with your superb scenery.  Very nice.

Played @ 3am this morning...      Bone-head crane operator.  

                             making good time on a nice sunny day...

                      pulling into the station, "on time", later that evening...

Cool crane Ted....3 AM? Really?

Lee- great photos as always. We will forgive your diesel transgressions

Paul- the buildings are going to look great when they are done. A couple of lights behind a few random windows would look cool too.

Deuce- You summed it up perfectly. I have been lucky throughout my various careers that I never had to travel regularly for work. Almost always home for dinner with the family. Savor the time you have, it does pass in a blink of an eye.

Bob

DEUCE, Sorry about work taking you away , but it sure has to be nice when you get home! I love it that your son wants to come out and run trains with you, soak it in cause it might change! I was wondering if you have thought that maybe the wife bought you a surprise and put it on your layout to see if you would notice!

Paul, the flats are looking great! But don't forget to paint the doors! LOL

COLORADO HIRAILER, Sounds like you have a good amount of work ahead of you! Have fun and please post pictures!

JBMCCORMICK, I feel your pain, I have stacks of boxes of train stuff I haven't been into for 2 years now! I hope to have the train room done this summer so I can dig into the boxes, it will be like CHRISTMAS all over again!

Lee, Some great pictures of a wonderful layout! 

TedW, Nice crane! I sure need to get one of those down the road one day! Really looks like fun!

great weathering on that caboose!

Thanks! That's the first laser kit I ever built and I think it shows. I'd love to build another one to replace it someday as I've gotten better at such things since then (but that kit isn't exactly cheap).

Lee, that second photo of the train going away is really special with your superb scenery.  Very nice.

Thank you! I've had some folks see the layout in person who were very surprised that this is my first layout. Many folks are surprised at all the static grass and the corn field, especially.

Lee- great photos as always. We will forgive your diesel transgressions

Thanks! I feel like I should be in a support group... "Hello, my name is Lee, and I have put a diesel on a layout where it doesn't belong. It started simple, with a cool looking Whitcomb at a great price..."

Lee, Some great pictures of a wonderful layout! 

Thanks, Mike! Let me know if you ever want to come down to check it out in person, between construction sessions on your own layout room, that is...

Lee, I will one day! I know your just down the road! Would be a day trip I think!

mike g. posted:

DEUCE, Sorry about work taking you away , but it sure has to be nice when you get home! I love it that your son wants to come out and run trains with you, soak it in cause it might change! I was wondering if you have thought that maybe the wife bought you a surprise and put it on your layout to see if you would notice!

 

Heh, fat chance of that happening. She always thinks I buy too much, no way would she willingly add to what she already considers a money pit 

I her defense, I do (spend too much), and it is (a money pit). Or at least I used to. I haven't purchased anything (aside from $2 on a diecast forklight that shipped for free from China) in a month or two. 

Lee, very nice pics. In order to get great pics you have to have a great layout and you got one. By the way, hope I read this right. In the new issue of OGR you have a pic. Nice shot. I love doing the laundry because it gives me time to work on the layout. So while that was going on I finished off painting the concrete color on the flats. And Mike I am going to paint the doors. Just got my Scale Coat paints from Minuteman Models. I'll let them dry and later go down and pick a color for the doors. Pics...........Paul

Well, I finally did it. I finished spreading ballast over the entire Shoreham section of the layout. Most of it is glued too! I just have to clean the rails on the mains, then I can do a little rail paint touch up, and I can set my building flats, add a little greenery, and this section is officially done. Then I can hang my valance!

Everything from the stick to the left of the bumper, is glued.

Just have this section around the switches left to glue. It won't take long.

There's still a lot of rail to clean before I try to run anything. I've added that to my computer punch list. Company's coming in a couple weeks. Next week is full of medical stuff. Gotta get a move on.

P.S. Last time Patrick came over, he thought one of the outside rails on main 2 (the middle track of the three near the backdrop) was bent. He even showed me a picture, and it looked bent. However, I checked the gauge with my calipers, and it was fine. It must have been an optical illusion created by the uneven paint on the rail head. That would have been a pain to fix. Dodged one there.

Eliot,   Looks great, it's got to feel good to be that far along with the ballasting !    I am moving at a snails pace on mine.    Two questions:   What color are you spraying the track with ?  Assuming it might be a custom mix, is there a formula you could pass along ?

2nd question:  are you spraying that color before putting down the ballast ?  

Thanks,   Chris A

Thanks Chris, it does feel good. Only thing is, the layout has 22 sections. A few don't need ballast, but most do. This is only the second section to reach the 100% mark. Newport got finished last month. The good news is, a bunch of others are close to done.

The color is called potting soil. I don't have the can handy to give you the formula. I bought 4 cases of GarGraves from a forum member who had painted them. They needed a lot of touch up, so from visual memory, I picked it from the chips at Menards. About a half shade off, but it's fine.

Yes, ties and all, once the track is screwed down. Then ballast and touch up.

paul 2 posted:

Lee, very nice pics. In order to get great pics you have to have a great layout and you got one. By the way, hope I read this right. In the new issue of OGR you have a pic. Nice shot.  

Really? Cool! I had no idea. I'd submitted it not too long ago because I wanted to contribute something as I am here often and usually buy the magazine from the local book store. Can't wait to see it!

My plan is to go to Portland tomorrow (for a military collectible swap meet) and I was going to hit the good hobby shops there anyway, hopefully they'll have it on sale. But maybe this is a case of the subscribers having it first and in retail will be a while?

I really need to work up a pitch for an article for OGR on my layout; maybe I need to get off my backside and do that!

Elliot, the ballasting is looking good. You sure can get a lot of ballast done with a good system. Tonight as per Mike's instructions LOL I got the first coat of paint on the doors. The camera didn't take  a good pic The color looked better under the light. Tomorrow morning I'll put the second coat on and then I can start gluing all the windows in. Still have to get some paint made up for the fixed windows. Hopefully I can get out tomorrow to do that. Pics............Paul

Finished my P&LE yard and relocated my Heinz Field.

Fantastic!!

Thanks Mark.

Elliot,  must feel good to have finished Shoreham! Sure is a lot of area there. What section is next for your wonderful work!

Very COOL Lee! I cant wait to see it in OGR I bet it is going to look as great as your layout does!

Looking good Paul, you moving right along. I think the doors look great! Next thing you know they will be up on the layout and you will be adding grass to the cracks in the sidewalk! LOL Nicely done!

Aliquippa & Southern, Very Impressive, I really like the night shot, brings out a lot! Nice work!

Got the second coat on the doors this morning. I forgot I have an afternoon train get together. Hope to get back to the flats this evening and start gluing in the windows. Pics.........Paul

Nice Paul! Have fun with the group!

Coming along nicely, Paul!!  Have a great time with your group!!!

Another nice collection Brian!

          thanks Mike...

Thanks Mike and Paul.

Mike - Next up is cleaning enough track so I can get a train around for company next Saturday. That one came up suddenly, as I got an email yesterday. I'm also having company in two weeks. Then I have two months before the convention.

Paul - I'm just gluing the very last bit of Shoreham. Ten minutes worth of work. 

Chris - Potting Soil B11-1  Company FB - PPG - Dutch Boy

Formula for a gallon:

Colorant                    OZ          48

KX White                      1          18

B  Lamp black             5           23

F  Red oxide               --            14

C Yellow oxide            3            41

                                 ran a few trains last night...