Weekend Update 5/10/20

[spookshow]

As usual, I've been kind of all over the place...

Had an odd little corner/edge of my layout that I wasn't sure what to do with.... so of course I just went with corn -



For reasons unknown, I planted my first couple of major cornfields such that they were right up against nearby roadbed. Now annoyed by this transgression, I pulled out my Dremel and trimmed things back a bit on one of them -



There's a lake in my future, so I got things rolling by melting myself a lake bed -



Finished putting road line decals on 9' worth of highway (ugh) -



I have a largish area of "untended/wild" scenery (grass, weeds, underbrush, trees, etc) that just wasn't working for me, so I ripped out most of the offending nonsense. Now I just need to come up with some better ideas for how to proceed with the do-over -

 

Started work on making a roof for my model of this structure -



I lack the brainular wherewithal to figure out all this stuff ahead of time, so it's basically going to be a lot of trial and error as I come up with all the various triangles, trapezoids and rhombi needed to complete the job



-Mark

[Mike Madonna]

I want one of these..........................................


So, I am making one. My KEY, made by Nakimura, that I have applied black, light grey and next will be dark grey stripe, decals and then sealer. I have smoke lifters for it........


It already has an ESU 73100 and speaker mounted to tender chassis.

Stay well,
Carl

Carl,
Looks good so far! Could you share how you're using a ESU 73100 for this project?
Thanks in advance!

[bbussey]

Milled light-pipe bedroom lamps out of 1/8" diameter acrylic rod today for one of the houses on the B&NL.

[Cajonpassfan]

I want one of these..........................................

...

Stay well,
Carl

Hey Carl, that’s my Greyhound you’re lusting after!
That was a gorgeous paint scheme while it lasted, but I’m still looking for a single photo to surface of a TTG Challenger in California to justify my purchase.
Good luck with the paint job!
Otto

[peteski]

Milled light-pipe bedroom lamps out of 1/8" diameter acrylic rod today for one of the houses on the B&NL.

Nice!

[arbomambo]

Almost done!
Windows and ‘blinds’ added, storage shed stained, trash cans added, cement bench, etc...
Just need to add the newspaper dispenser and a little more weathering...
This structure is being added to a T-TRAK single module.

[DKS]

Next up old lady in a rocking chair... but with a cat next to her wagging it's tail so it just misses the chair rails. All while the cat is pawing a mouse running around the porch. 

OK, so just for sh!ts and giggles, I created an old lady in a rocking chair, per @Chris333 . I didn't animate the cat, but I put the cat in her lap instead, so now it's also animated--sort of. Only took a couple of hours. Not sure if I'll include it on the layout or not; it's not my best work, since it was a joke, but it didn't come out half-bad.

[Sokramiketes]

Continuing my Hiawatha kick, I received my next project in the mail yesterday!


https://i.imgur.com/ZIP5a0Q.jpg

Unfortunately, the first thing I have to deal with is a crack in the shell.   Anyone have any suggestions?  I'm usually the guy who would rather just fix something myself than send off for a warranty repair/replacement, but this will be the first polyurethane shell I've worked with, so I don't know if this is something that can be successfully fixed or not. 

Ouch on the crack.  If it's clean and goes back together tightly, all you need is a touch of thin superglue on the inside.

Do you want to start a separate thread on these?  There is a hodgepodge of Kato parts that can be combined instead of the old ConCor chassis.  Between a 2014 release of the Japanese C57, a GS-4 trailing truck, a UP water tender under frame, and I think, a UP FEF drawbar, everything clips together and gives the great Kato pick up and running quality.  I can share some photos.

[Sokramiketes]

Update: found a photo.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[carlso]

Mike -   Thanks for the kind word, much appreciated. As far as how I used the 73100 decoder, I offer two images..........................

The 1st one is of this Challenger tender install. let me say that I used an Athearn plastic tender so I could bypass shorts from the brass tender.........................


Will all of that fit under the shell? Well yes, except that I replaced this larger speaker with a smaller one. See the shell mounting post on far left and you can see how much the stuff needed to compress.

Now here is a 2nd version that is my Athearn Big Boy tender. Much neater.................




In both cases you can see that I added modified ESU power pickups to each of the fixed axles. The pivoting truck already had pickups.

Thanks for the interest and kind comment. Much appreciated from a man of your talents,
Carl

[carlso]

Otto - Sorry to lust after your baby, but that is the most beautiful
 image that I have found. Of course I found #3977 in the park.

The paint is going well. the hardest part was masking the black domes and all. I used tape and liquid mask and it came out well, I think.

Will post when completed.

Carl

[randgust]

Two of my Randgust CF7 kits came back to the mother ship for assembly and custom finishing.   The customer had the custom decals made from switchlinedecals, very nice. 



There's some additional goodies on these; BLMA horns, beacons from Miniatures by Eric, Shapeways-printed ditch lights, GMM all-weather cab windows.   While the two units are similar each one has it's own details and oddities.





If there's unassembled kits out there, I do the custom finishing, but until Atlas decides to rerun the truly excellent current-version mechanisms, I'm not rerunning the brass kit etchings. 

[wm3798]

@Dave V consider my layout your Portrait of Dorian Gray.  Your work gets continually better, and mine gets increasingly primitive. 

That a$$ clown on the facetoobs is free to lose sleep over your work.  He's free to get an ulcer, pull out his hair, and keel over of a myocardial infarction.  He's also free to perform certain biological acts upon himself that under ordinary circumstances might be considered impossible, or at the very least uncomfortable.

I suggest introducing, if only temporarily, a nice Plasticville split level, maybe obscured in the background on the other side of the tracks, and put a nice Hot Wheels car in the driveway.  Something with a big pile of side pipes and flames on the side.  Then focus your camera on something appropriate to your modeling period in the foreground, and let that suburban nightmare just blur in the background, then post a lengthy description of the "serious" modeling happening up front, with zero mention of the background noise.  Then tag that jerk in the post.

Meanwhile, here's what I've been up to...
I started my own Facebook group for N Scale Hi-Rail where we've focused some interest on the old junk in the bottom of the box under the layout, which I invite you to take a look at if you're so inclined.

I've also received my Arnold Pacific back from @mmagliaro who replaced the badly eaten worm gear (discussed elsewhere in these pages)  After running it for a bit, it again started eating itself, so I've shelved it for further research.


Not much work on the layout, though, as I continue to slog through deadlines.  Maybe some time later in the week.
Lee

[CRL]

OK, so just for sh!ts and giggles, I created an old lady in a rocking chair, per @Chris333 . I didn't animate the cat, but I put the cat in her lap instead, so now it's also animated--sort of. Only took a couple of hours. Not sure if I'll include it on the layout or not; it's not my best work, since it was a joke, but it didn't come out half-bad.

Chair legs too long compared to the old lady’s legs, but otherwise brilliant.

[GimpLizard]

OK, so just for sh!ts and giggles, I created an old lady in a rocking chair, per @Chris333 . I didn't animate the cat, but I put the cat in her lap instead, so now it's also animated--sort of. Only took a couple of hours. Not sure if I'll include it on the layout or not; it's not my best work, since it was a joke, but it didn't come out half-bad.

I think I've finally figured out the first requisite needed to master this hobby. You need to be named David.   (Which means I don't stand a chance.)