MODELING It's a Special Memorial Day 2023 Weekend Modeling Accomplishments

Good morning all. This weekend went about as expected. With everything going on here, I did manage to spend some "relatively" decent time in the work shop on the elevated bridge. I got all of the cross bracing put in on all 6 sections of the structure plus built the 12 legs/risers along w/ their concrete footers. This is the ITLA Scale Models (New York version) elevated kit. I will soon be at a point where I can start air brushing major sections before joining the risers to the bridge and gluing on the concrete piers.

Have a great week all.

 

Well, the weekend didn't go entirely as planned...

Saturday our landlord wasn't feeling good so we didn't get our roofing project started and I ended up slowly working towards some of the decluttering of the space for the train layout so I could plan how to get the parts of it out of the space and how much should be salvaged (likely not much).

Sunday our landlord was feeling a bit better and we got started on the underlayment and initial courses of shingles, around 1/3 of the roof was completed that day.

Monday our landlord came back over and we completed the roof work with one bundle of shingles leftover and 3/4 of the solar rack anchors in roughly the right places (a couple are out of alignment but close enough I hope). We are short four anchors and one "foot" that attaches to the anchor (landlord is going to check his solar supplies as he just upgraded his system and it may be stashed away in a random box in the garage).


And complicating the roof replacement is this bird house we put up on the roof around three years ago, this year it has been occupied by a pair of nuthatchers which have taken up residence this year:


We had to temporarily relocate the house while working in that area (moved it around 2ft to the left onto the lower roof), we tried to avoid disturbing them as much as possible throughout the roof work. Thankfully they didn't seem to greatly impacted by the temporary relocation efforts. I'm considering moving the house permanently after they have vacated it in a few more weeks, just not sure where yet.

Hopefully this week will be relatively quiet at work and I'll be able to continue the layout tear down and create a pile for the dump.

 

Good Tuesday morning everyone,

Had a good holiday weekend here in spite of the unseasonably cool weather. Did our first BBQ of the season and enjoyed following some baseball games.

Sorted out some more details regarding our layout at the N Scale convention and at the work bench was able to finish the two gondolas I have been working on. After installing the metal wheels I gave them a spin around the layout and they run really well and are ready for service so I made up the car cards for them. Got the removable loads done too but forgot to get a photo of those. Never did get a start on the crane.




It had been about 10 years since I last painted the old mailbox and it was starting to look like a well weathered freight car. I was waiting for a long weekend to get that job done and this was that weekend. It's now back on it's post and is ready for another 10 years.

 

Finished chalk weathering of my tunnel portals and placed them on the railroad. I still need to precisely fit and glue them in place. These are a blend of Chooch and Woodland Scenics items, with some additional scribed sheet plastic in places. At this point, my "scenery" is merely painted foam so that I don't have to look at pink for months on end.

 

Good afternoon from sunny and warm Northeast Ohio!

Had a good weekend, managed to paint the covered hopper and am now in the process of decaling it. Also built a Branchline Boxcar kit that will end up as a PC boxcar and a Proto 2000 Boxcar kit that will be painted for the ATSF.

Saturday, went to the club and we cleaned up the layout room and put up the curtains below the fascia as we have an open house on Memorial Day, set up the train for the open house led by my Bi-Centennial DT&I GP38-2.

Sunday was choir practice and laundry and a bit of just laying around.

Monday, the club open house went well and it was great that parents were watchful of their children around the trains, which was not always done in the past.

I did modify the underframe of a 60' Boxcar by adding a Moloco Hydra-Cushion kit and spring to the underframe along with Moloco Extended coupler pockets and A-Line sill steps.



Rick Jesionowski

 

The only Falcon! Cool! Decent time in the work shop is what it's all about. (The table/countertop looks like an icy river.) Save the nuthatches! Good gons! No more pink! Undercar details are A++. Well, a funny thing happened at the local model railroad club on Saturday. A member asked about what I was doing. I explained that I had installed wheels on all locomotive frames. While I was doing this, I suddenly realized why the drive wheels on both 2-8-0's seemed too close together. I began staring across the room while talking. It was dawning on me that the wheels were too large! I refocused and finished my remarks. I made a mental note about this. Later I got out the precision ruler. Yep. Too big. So, Saturday night had some time spent on correcting this. I tried removing the wheels from the frame. This destroyed the frame. So, we made four new frames. Happily, the 4-4-0 did not have this problem. After making new wheels, they were put on. I thought about where this problem came from. The craft multi punch guide I made is sized from the package info. Best practice going forward is to measure a test cut first. I hope everyone has a great short week.

 

No pictures since I have yet to download and catalog the piles of photos that I took on our class trip to Israel but describing my weekend isn't too hard.
Thursday we toured all day but since my ride was picking me up at 1:30 am, I didn't bother going to bed.
Friday, I got a ride to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel fo my flight at 05:30, flew five or six hours to Madrid, Spain, eight more hours to Washington Dulles Airport, retrieved my luggage, cleared customs, then took a very nice Metro train, with one change, from Dulles to Reagan Airport, then, after several delays, boarded my final flight, only for that plane to not be working correctly, so we de-planed, moved down two gates, re-boarded another plane, and finally flew to Akron-Canton Airport (CAK) two hours late, where my wife (and dogs) was waiting for me.
By 1:00 am or so on Saturday I finally made it to bed. I got up at a reasonable hour but needed a four hour nap to make it through the day. Otherwise, my wife and I went to the nursery for some gardening stuff and stopped for some really good ice cream for lunch.
Sunday was church (which I attended but did not preach), had lunch, then we spent a couple of hours weeding, and doing other work on our sections of the church garden.
Monday, we spent a little more than two more hours in the garden covering unplanted areas with plastic sheeting and planting several cucumber varieties as well as four kinds of peppers. Another couple of hours were spent at Lowe's looking for more garden stuff where we bought a couple things but ended up ordering several more things from Amazon. We've had trouble with fungus on our tomatoes so we're trying a suggested solution of using silver ground cover/weed barrier fabric. Lowe's didn't have any in stock but Amazon should have it here by Tuesday or Wednesday so we'll get the tomatoes planted once that stuff arrives. Oh, and another two hour nap.

I have some pictures and video of Jerusalem's light rail and articulated buses, as well as a couple pics of the Washington DC Metro and Cleveland's Rapid transit that I'll post (hopefully) later this week.

 

It was a good weekend for both modeling and family. Honestly, I don't remember exactly when each step happened, but I did get the Kato tender attached to the MRC/Model Power 4-6-2. My objective was to use the loco's drawbar and adapt the tender to it. The floor of the Kato tender is much higher than the MP tender. I removed part of the tender frame and added a sub-floor with post. Here's how it happened:

Modified the tender frame and added a little reinforcement in the shell to support the post.


Trimmed the weight and retainer to clear the drawbar and wires.


Checked everything for fit.


Added the shell.


More to do before it hits the paint shop.

As to my other activities, got the beer fridge partially stocked. Yes, Hardcoaler, Leinenkugel's was at the top of the list. One of the few beers I buy that isn't local. With at least a dozen breweries in the city limits you would think one would make a shandy. In their defense, the raspberries and strawberries grown locally do find their way into a few summer brews here.

May need to restock soon. Seems demand is already high.


Had some breakfast with our son on Sunday. Sharon and I found our way to a local eatery with their own unique take on Southwest flavors to cap off the weekend.

Stay safe,

 

Hey All,

I spent a lot of time painting and decaling cars for the WNW. I managed to get a few of them out the door for friends. More on the way for tests of other car types next weekend.



Happy summertime!

-Bob T.

 

I finally decaled the Lake County sheriff vehicles…and then I wrapped them in my last bubble wrap for the trip back to the US before taking any photos.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

@Mark St Clair - when your in-laws are from Green Bay, you drink a lot of Leinenkugel's, even if there are other good alternatives.

 

Mine did and I came from Oconto Falls, so it was all Miller. Leini's came from out west.