Weekend Update 5/26/13

[peteski]

Haven't modeled in months however I hung my CPR "The Canadian" drumhead.....

Nice beaver! 

[BCR 570]

Not much modelling time for me lately either; April and May are very busy months at work.  I have been chipping away at drilling holes for and mounting the door handles and lift rings on my three M-630s, and that process is now complete:




This completes detailing of the carbodies - now on to the front and rear pilots.

Tim

[mmagliaro]

I took a diversion from building anything on the layout, or any locos, and addressed a long-needed improvement for
my workbench.   All these years, to test engines while building and remotoring them, I have used a crude
little transistor throttle built inside an upside-down plastic deli vegetable container, and using a few multimeters
clipped on to monitor voltage and current.  Sure, it worked, but...

So I built this from junk I had lying around (plus two inexpensive LCD panel meters from eBay).  It's just an LM317
regulator circuit with a reversing switch and a volt and ammeter of the appropriate ranges.   It reminds me
of 1970s stereo equipment (and that's cool to me so....)

[up1950s]

Wow that's really nice looking Max , love the radioactive blue glow . For me though digital is confusing until it stabilizes , so I stay with analog meters . Having both though would be the ideal IMO , digital for readout easy reading ,  and analog for rate and direction of changes . Never saw that kind of merged setup , but I would love that .

[MichaelWinicki]

Finishing up on installing chain-link fence around the refinery...

[seusscaboose]

My weekend update from yesterday

NKP Goodness in Enola


Something for Bob, Dave and Eric and the Foamers


Something for Ed, Russ and the Goons


We went to dinner at the diner and then i came back and caught this


then swung by New Freedom and caught this little gem (NCRR "York") for Tim/Lee


I must say... all the engines were spotless, making them even more impressive...  they ALL looked like they just came out of the paint booth (which in the case of the 4-4-0, it had).

[skytop35]

Finished up a new addition for my Milwaukee fleet. Combine #207 was used on the former North Woods Hiawatha route for a while and will be put to use in the same service on the Modutrak layout.

[Cajonpassfan]

Bill, that's sweet, nice work!
Otto

[keeper]

Bill, that's sweet, nice work!
Otto

+1

Thomas 

[peteski]

Wow that's really nice looking Max , love the radioactive blue glow . For me though digital is confusing until it stabilizes , so I stay with analog meters . Having both though would be the ideal IMO , digital for readout easy reading ,  and analog for rate and direction of changes . Never saw that kind of merged setup , but I would love that .

Many (even inexpensive) digital multimeters have a fast responding bar-graph display along with the digits. It acts just like a needle on the analog meter.  It gives you a visual indication of changes.  I think that I have also seen a simulated analog meter which looked like an analog meter but the semi-circular scale was an LCD bar-graph.

[DKS]

Many (even inexpensive) digital multimeters have a fast responding bar-graph display along with the digits. It acts just like a needle on the analog meter.  It gives you a visual indication of changes.  I think that I have also seen a simulated analog meter which looked like an analog meter but the semi-circular scale was an LCD bar-graph.

I've seen some of these. Oddly enough, I don't like them any more than the plain digitals. Give me an analog meter--with a real needle--any day!

[Puddington]

Finished up a new addition for my Milwaukee fleet. Combine #207 was used on the former North Woods Hiawatha route for a while and will be put to use in the same service on the Modutrak layout.

Um...."nice"....really nice !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mmagliaro]

I've seen some of these. Oddly enough, I don't like them any more than the plain digitals. Give me an analog meter--with a real needle--any day!

I have analog test meters myself, for many purposes. 
On my layout, I use beautiful old-fashioned Simpson analog meters, and I love them.   

But there is a reason that I prefer digital for locomotive testing on the workbench.
When I am testing a motor that draws, say, 15 ma, I might be looking for a sweet spot in the alignment of the mechanism
that only shows up as a change of 3 or 5 mA.  You can really tell if you are "heading in the right direction" when you
are adjusting a gear mesh, for example.  At the same time, I might make it jump to 120 mA.   The behavior
is quite broad.   An auto-ranging digital multimeter handles this really well.  An analog meter that pegs and has to be switched
to different ranges to read these small changes is not as convenient.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I haven't done much modeling in weeks, but today I started work again on the FGE 5145/5237 box. Most of the model is done. I still have some rivets to add. I wish my eyes were sharper and my hand steadier. I'm not real happy with the end posts.

Anyway, I was trying to figure out how to cast this. I wanted clean castings and preserve the master for future molds. This presents a problem with pressure casting a two part mold because the interior needs to be filled with clay or putty that can never totally be removed. Then I thought rather than attaching strip styrene to the bottom and filling the thing with putty, why not just make a slide out pedestal that can be filled with putty, preserving the interior of the master?



I then did the same thing with the interior bracing for the casting.





The bracing was designed to fit the Atlas Evens underframe. The underframe can be attached to the shell when installing MTL couplers.


This bracing part will be cast with the shell so that the resin models come out as one casting.




Casting will be done as follows:
1. Fill large pedestal with modeling clay.
2. Place shell on pedestal making sure there are no spaced between the top of pedestal and bottom of roof.
3. Place in casting box right side up, cast outside of shell.
4. After curing, flip mold over and remove pedestal.
5. Replace pedestal with interior bracing part.
6. Use white glue to add an injection port using 1/4" round styrene.
7. Use white glue to add air escape ports to the side still and ends using 1/32" round styrene.
8. Spray with mold release.
9. Add mold rubber to make the second part of the mold.

[Dave V]

Florida doesn't suck.  My weekend:



But before that in the early morning hours we paused to render our respects to the real meaning of the long weekend: