What did you do on your layout today?

Wonderful job Paul! 

As for me a little yard work, then back to sanding mud in the train room. I sure wish I could hire someone to do it but so is life! LOL

I sure hope everyone is having a great weekend!

mike g. posted:

Wonderful job Paul! 

As for me a little yard work, then back to sanding mud in the train room. I sure wish I could hire someone to do it but so is life! LOL

I sure hope everyone is having a great weekend!

          Hope you are having a great weekend too Mike !!!

Very cool Brian! Love the camo!

mike g. posted:

Very cool Brian! Love the camo!

        thanks Mike !!!

"What did you do on your layout today?" 

Decided to replace the smoke element/resistor in my Lionel M1a. As luck would have it, years ago I purchased a brand new smoke unit top from Lionel just so I could fiddle with it before I messed around with the one that's in the loco. That way I can get it all ready with the new resistor, disassemble the loco, swap the boards, reassemble and go.  

If only it were that easy... 

First test with the new resistor the thing smokes but it's really lame. Took it all apart. Fiddled with it and tried again. No smoke at all. Took it apart, checked everything and "fiddled" with it some more. Nothing. After about the 4th or 5th time I realized I'd better take the loco shell off and leave it off until I get this figured out. Finally noticed that if I wiggled the power connector on the smoke unit top it would work and as soon as I released pressure it stopped. Every time I did anything with that connection the smoke would start or stop. After much more fiddling, it dawned on me that the connector on the board was bad - the BAND NEW from Lionel board that is (!). I tried everything else I could think of first before believing that a brand new part was defective. The last time I inspected it, the connector fell off of the board completely. Bad solder job at the factory I assume.

 I scrounged around my "model train junk yard" and luckily found some more Lionel smoke unit top boards. I picked out one that looked pretty fresh and again installed a new resistor and put this combination back together and VOILA! it works. Smokes SO much better than the original factory setup. Happy it's over as this procedure took about 10 times longer than it should have.

-RM

Brian, I like the background very much. It has the appearance of a very old brick wall with an old handprinted advertisement sign on it. Quite effective.

FrankM

Bryan in Ohio posted:

Big_Boy_4005 posted:

Bryan - Thanks. Out of curiosity, which brand of applicator are you using? I have the $10 home made version with an electric fly swatter and a kitchen strainer.

I have one of those also and it works okay but once I saw how much area and projects I want to do I upgraded to the Noch Grassmaster 2.0.  The one nice feature I like with that applicator is that is comes with some different attachments so you can cover more or less area depending on your needs.  The best part is my NMRA division does clinics and if you put one on they pay you a stipend for your supplies. I decided to do a demo on static grass so after 3 clinics that stipend paid for the applicator itself. 

Cool Bryan. It's nice that they pay you anything to give clinics. I just became assistant superintendent of our division. We are having terrible attendance problems, like 20 people a night, when we probably have a couple hundred in the division. With no specific responsibilities for my position, I'm going to see what we can do to drum up some activity. It doesn't help that when we do schedule a good clinic that either the presenter is a no show or we get locked out of our building. Both of those things happened to us last season. We also have a lot of members that are in operating groups, and meeting nights may conflict with that.

Do you want to come to Minnesota and give your clinic? In the winter of course.

This afternoon I decided to finally glue the wood I had cut and dyed for the scrap iron yard. Hoping to cut the top and the bottom pieces for the building. Pic............Paul

A wrap for tonight. Got a couple of small things done. The loading dock platform for the building I cut a piece of Balsa wood I had. I was just going to stain the wood so I thought I would try a fine point sharpie to scribe some lines first then stain it. I also finished cutting the top and bottom for the building. Have to glue some supports around the inside to hold the roof and bottom in place. Pics.............Paul

Brian, that was very thoughtful of you to share the Coors Light engine!

Ralph, way to stick with it! When things seam to go right its like a special Birthday Present! Nice work!

Paul things sure are looking good over at your place! I think the loading dock turned out GREAT! Just a thought about the roof and floor supports, next time you might glue them in before you glue the walls together to make sure you have them level, just seams it would be easier then. Just my thoughts~ LOL

Paul, The dock is going to look great!  Oh yes, the flats and Flatiron building are looking great too!  

As for me, I decided to list some of the many operating accessories on the For Sale Forum.  So, I spent a couple hours testing the accessories and cars I'm going to list for sale.  Check out the For Sale Forum to see what I have. For Sale Operating Accessories  For anyone who is wondering, I bought so many when I saw a good deal or exceptionally nice ones, I will never have room for them on the Blackwater Canyon Line.  And yes, I even bought some duplicates, forgetting I already had one.  

Elliot, what a coincidence I am the assistant superintendent of my division also.  We are about 80 members but most very active.  We are pretty lucky in that we haven't run into any of those problems.  We do a monthly clinic/presentation but the one I'm referring to is promo days.  In November we rent out the gymnasium at the local community college and open it up to the community to come in and see our clinics and ask questions.  It is usually very well attended (making it a free activity helps lol). 

Bryan in Ohio posted:

Elliot, what a coincidence I am the assistant superintendent of my division also.  We are about 80 members but most very active.  We are pretty lucky in that we haven't run into any of those problems.  We do a monthly clinic/presentation but the one I'm referring to is promo days.  In November we rent out the gymnasium at the local community college and open it up to the community to come in and see our clinics and ask questions.  It is usually very well attended (making it a free activity helps lol). 

That's a very interesting concept, I'll run that by the rest of the board when we meet. For the last four years, we've been doing what we call the Modelers Retreat in Feb or March, where we have clinics and show and tell Friday evening and all day Saturday. It is neither open to the public, nor free. I don't want to drop or change that event, because it really brings the members out of the "woodwork" (AKA basements), but adding a new event that serves the purpose of engaging the public could possibly bring in some new blood. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've really been slacking off on layout progress lately. Been rather tired. I spent 6 hours on Saturday, unpacking and logging Atlas containers, and getting another one of those 5 unit Gundersons put together over at Shoreham. Two down and three to go. I keep picking up little bits in an effort to get cleaned up for the convention.

I ran up to Menards Saturday morning, and picked up my 4 pack of well cars. As Paul suspected, if it isn't the old Right of Way tooling from the early 90's, it's so close that you can't tell.

This is what the pile of inventoried pieces looked like before Saturday...

this is what it looked like after. I crawled under the layout, and dragged all of that out.

Here's the new set. It's a bit of work trying to pick containers to make it look right.

Here's one of the new Menards cars.

This is an old Right of Way, the only one I have. A couple K-line containers in it.

Here's the new Menards.

Here they are side by side. Looks like the Menards rides maybe 1/8" higher. A couple of the applied detail parts are slightly different, but other than that they're the same.

Elliot, thanks for the small review of the Menards cars! I really like the way they look and most of all I love the price!

As for me, I got all the walls sanded and primer on them! No pictures, cause who wants to watch primer dry! LOL

I hope to get the celling sanded and primer this week, and have the room painted by the end of the weekend! Then add a few more lights, and the train room will be done and the real FUN can start!

Nobody wants to watch paint dry but what better way to pass the time then with a Coors Light!

Heading out to sand the celling along with a Coors Light! LOL

Here you go Mike!

mike g. posted:

Heading out to sand the celling along with a Coors Light! LOL

You're welcome Mike, they're even cheaper if you wait for the 11% sale. Not on this week, ended Saturday. Maybe next week. Didn't know you could sand drywall with beer.

Ok Bob and Elliot, Just a little update! The sanding was a little hard with a Coors Light in one hand, but I got it done! I even had some energy left over so I deiced to go ahead and paint the celling. Celling is done except 4 more 4' LED Shop lights.

I plan to pick up the wall paint tomorrow and see where I get. I have to work tomorrow so I don't know if I will get to painting!

Great job,Elliot and Mike!

Oh I know I will be paying for it tomorrow!

I am on hiatus from the layout till Friday. Grand daughter and her dad came in for a few days. Checking in from time to time.  I am enjoying seeing all the good posts and pics........Paul

Have a great time, Paul!

Yes Paul, enjoy the time together! It doesn't seam like much, but then again its some of the best time ever spent!

More Halloween town work...I really hope this works out.....

    looks GREAT Marc !!!

Finished the all weather cab window installation yesterday.   My “honey-do” house project: replace felt pads on living & dining room furniture, yielded the perfect window glazing solution for the AW cab windows.  The clear plastic packaging proved to be thin and sturdy enough to complete the job.   I love it when we can go shopping in the trash for modeling supplies!

Now the SD units are ready for any type of inclement weather and the little crew members will surely enjoy the improved comfort.

I'm back planting more trees and shrubs on the summit plus installing my Wi-Fi DCS system.   Our great-grandson returns August 3rd for some more train time with Great-Grandpapa Dave and I want to be I-pad ready.   Life is GOOD!

I actually had a window of opportunity to do a little something. The grand daughter and her father wanted to do a little shopping. So while they were out I glued the bracing for the roof on and once the glue dried I painted the roof again. When that dried I decided to try something. I took a black Sharpie and drew lines across the roof then I drew cross lines to make it look like a rubber or tar roof with seams then I glued it to the building. Until I can get some clear thin plastic to glue on the inside over the windows that it for this project. Pics...............Paul

Today I'm in the "car shop" trying to remedy a Lionel C&O 50' box car. This box car is ill handling, shorts out Gargraves and Ross switches and in general doesn't seem to want to "play nice" with the other cars. There's something about the coupler-truck that Lionel uses that seems to have issues with my switches. My 1^st fix is to replace the Lionel trucks with Atlas and voila!, no more issues with switches.

Next, it is obvious when you handle this box car that it is very light weight.

The questions are:   1) what does it weigh? 2) how much *should* it weigh? Using my trusty digital scale I weighed it and some other freight cars that *don't* have handling/tracking issues.

Not surprisingly, the Atlas products are the heaviest AND the best handling. The Lionel box car is the lightest by far. Based on this I added a little over 2 ounces of weight to the Lionel box car which brings it up to 19 ounces which is right the ballpark compared to its peers.

It is now a "happy camper" and plays nice the other freight cars in the train.

-RM

Marc, It looks like a fine job you are doing!  The creativity abounds!!

Brian, Very nice CSX engines!

Dave, Great window material.  The DM&IR engine looks great!!

Paul, The rood looks great!  Maybe you need to do a lot of work like Dave did on his honey-do to get window glazing.  

Me, I ordered a fan motor for the NS SD70ACe I mentioned a few days ago.  Actually, I ordered 5, as that is the quantity MTH sells them.  I'm sure I will have need of some of the extras as time passes.

Ralph,

Yes, my Atlas cars are the heaviest along with K-Line die cast hoppers.  Adding some weight is on the back burner for some of my cars as well, but i'll wait until I get the layout built.  When one doesn't track well on the Ceiling Central, it comes down and sits on the shelf (Rip track) under the CCRR for now.

Finished up the baseball field (finally).  Took lots of photos and made its own thread but here are some highlights.

Here's hoping it doesn't totally go up in flames....

Bryan, The field looks fantastic!  I'll take a look over on your ballpark topic.

Bryan in Ohio posted:

Finished up the baseball field (finally).  Took lots of photos and made its own thread but here are some highlights.

Wow that does look awesome. Also wish I had that kind of room.

Bryan in Ohio posted:

Finished up the baseball field (finally).  Took lots of photos and made its own thread but here are some highlights.

Play Ball!!!

Bryan, baseball field really turned out great. Grass looks good. Lighting completes the scene........Paul