Welcome everyone to not only the gateway to the weekend but the gateway to the summer! Ah yes, my personal favorite time of year that brings people outside for cookouts, fireworks, road trips, vacations and lest we forget, railfanning, train shows and when it gets too hot, refuge in the cool layout room. Let's get started. Saturday: The goal is to have the Falcon at her first car show of the season. I'll need to get the Mustang out of winter hibernation as well, fortunately the car show is not far from my fathers-in-law. After the car show we will likely relax and get back to the homestead. Once there, any time I have left will be used to work on the NTrak module. Sunday: I'll start the morning with coffee and working on the NTrak module then we'll be meeting a group of friends at restaurant for lunch then we all make our way to the fireworks warehouse. We'll be combining forces to purchase this year's 4th of July pyrotechnics. I started having a group of friends come over for the 4th for a cookout and fireworks show about three years ago and it has quickly grown to a crowd of 25 people or more. We started combining our efforts in fireworks last year and according to the neighborhood, we put on a great show. So, with more investors this year, we should be off to a great start. After that Ang and I will need to store said materials and I'll likely work on the NTrak module. MEMORIAL DAY: For those of us here in the States and those serving abroad, this will be a holiday. Ang and I will observe it and will likely need to make some hard decisions. My flight that was cancelled last week was to go back home and take care of my father while he recovered from surgery. Unfortunately, his surgery was longer than expected and the surgeon said the surgery was a lot more involved than they first thought. Instead of a recovery of a few weeks, my father will be on a much longer course of recovery involving months instead of weeks. He will obviously need help during recovery. We are using the weekend to see how to proceed, but there is a pretty good chance I maybe spending the summer and most of the fall in NH. Fortunately, I work remotely so very little time will be missed but all of the plans that were made this summer are currently on hold. Life comes at you fast, having to pivot on plans is always a possibility. Hopefully Ang and I will know how to proceed after Monday. To those who served and those who continue to serve, thank you. I fear we in the United States take for granted the many sacrifices of the men and women who made the decision to serve our country and I for one will never apologize for thanking our veterans, thanking enlisted service men and women and remembering and honoring the fallen. May we all have a great weekend and may we as free people never forget. We'll be back on Tuesday the 30th to see how we all did over the long weekend. Until then, have a great weekend, be safe and... HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! & High Greens!
Good morning all. This weekend I should be able to give a little attention to the layout or projects. Earlier this week I finally got the ME bridge track I've been trying to procure since February. I called ME back then and they were out, so I put in an order direct w/ them. Now that it is finally here, I will "re-visit" the elevated track project with what time I can get in the workshop. Everyone have a great and peaceful Memorial Day. And God love those that gave the ultimate sacrifice.
I don’t think I’ll get any modeling done this weekend. My oldest has an away double-header softball game, we’re going on our last overnight trip before we leave Japan, and I’ve still got a bunch of administrative stuff to do to leave my unit here and clear out of housing on base. One of which includes taking down wood framed awnings I had installed over our front and back porch. I paid a guy to do it years ago because I didn’t bring most of my tools to Japan. While it was solidly built, the installer stripped more than a few wood screws in the process, which has made it a pain to try and disassemble so far the last couple of evenings with a borrowed ladder and drill. I might find some time to finally add those decals on the Lake County (IL) Sheriff’s vehicles, but I won’t hold my breath. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I will get some modeling done this weekend, and will think of my fellow veterans, especially, those who gave all they had, up to and including their lives, so that we can celebrate this/their weekend, and celebrate their lives and memories, I have a few to remember. We need to remember they were all so young, 19-23 years old. We used to talk a lot about models, well OK, some of these models were well.....models, non scale type.
Happy Memorial Day weekend all. Won't be home until Sunday afternoon so probably nothing until Monday. If I'm up to it, I want to make a small rolling table for under the layout. Then maybe start on a new project or two. Then I'll probably fir up the grill and cook burgers and chicken and spend any time left trying to rest before heading back to the office on Tuesday. Hope you all have a great weekend!
Friday, will be doing some modeling painting a covered hopper and starting on a new car while trying to resurrect a 60’ NKP boxcar from the dead adding some details. Saturday, is club day will be taking some Auto Parts cars to run since I got my new Tangent cars. In the evening will you be doing some decalling and kit assembly. Sunday, choir practice and housekeeping chores along with decalling and kit assembly. Monday, the Strongsville Railroad club will be open for viewing as the Historical Society is open from 12-2 to celebrate Memorial Day then I will fire up the grill for dinner. Rick Jesionowski
Hey All, I will try to fit in some work on my W&WN cars and continue to experiment with photo stacking software. I hope you all have a good one. Welcome to summer! Take Care All, -Bob T.
my plans are to remove track... I have most of a sheet of 3/4" plywood in the garage, I am thinking about ripping it into 18" and 3" strips to make the new Play Desnuda benchwork....not sure if I like the idea of the tabletop being that thick...or that heavy
Yes. Thanking and remembering Veterans should always be in vogue. February to now. Softball! Yes! Models of Courage. Burgers and chicken. (Covered hopper...) Resurrect a boxcar?! Tank! Yep. Watch the "heavy". This past week saw just a bare start on side rods. This happened due to me fishing some. Some chores came into play as well. The current plan is to resume with the side rods and drive rods and the rest. Everyone have a great holiday weekend and props to the Vets.
Please remember, Memorial Day is to remember the men and women that have died for this country, please do not thank a veteran
Work calls. Poor weather and too many people, so no thoughts of railfanning. May continue scanning my train order collection Have a couple small ideas for the work bench, so maybe. Have been browsing Shapeways for HOn30 freight car truck frames. My favorite supplier from there dropped my preferred version. Not happy about that. May place an order, and see what I get. Hmmmm.
Happy Memorial Day weekend to you all. Yes, Memorial Day is for remembering those who have fallen in the service of our nation. Many years ago my wife and I were in Washington DC on Memorial Day weekend visiting her brother who was living there at the time. We visited Arlington National Cemetary and the Vietnam memorial on the National Mall. My wife found the names of a couple of guys she knew in high school. It was all a moving experience to say the least. Modules and trains are all ready to go to Reno in just over 2 weeks so free to get back to the home layout a bit. Been in the mood lately to make some progress on the scrap industry on my layout. Will be working on decaling a pair of gondolas and also making removable scrap loads for them. May even start a crane kit for this industry. Away from the train room I am going to watch a ball game and drink a couple of beers this evening. (SF vs MILW). And going to grill some chicken on Saturday. Everyone have a great weekend !
Will hopefully install bridge abutments and piers, then move on to weathering tunnel portals. Rain is in the forecast, so no yardwork and I'm fine with that.
My goal for the weekend is to build the lower level yard section. 13'10" long by varying widths. It will be another somewhat sectional two piece set. The entire layout will be somewhat modular in design, just in case the layout needs to be moved or sold. I plan to elevate the double mainline slightly just as they are in West Colton Ca. I know some have seen this, but here it is again for reference.
After a nine-week absence, I may get some model railroad time this weekend. In the meantime, I was completely consumed with family matters. First, helping with preparations for my daughter's wedding shower that my wife was hosting. Complicated by the fact that my daughter lives in New York right now. Plenty of driving to airports and other destinations. I also laser-marked a couple dozen champagne glasses for the occasion, cut a "Bride to Be" sign and several other odd jobs. While I didn't attend the bash, I did get to spend some quality time with my daughter and friends. Totally worth it. In the aftermath was Mothers Day and a nephew's birthday. And now for something completely different. This weekend I want to adapt an orphan Kato Mikado tender to an MRC/Model Power Pacific engine. At some point in the future the MRC/MP Vanderbilt tender will be adapted to a Mikado engine, but that is a tale for another day. Of course, there will be other chores to attend to. Time to refill the beer fridge with summer favorites. Need to finalize a suit for the wedding. (Not till October.) I am finishing up the plans for "The Road to Reno" and this year's N Scale convention. BTW, looking forward to seeing Brad's modules. Anybody else headed that way? Stay safe,
Weekend plans for me are to work on getting our new roof put down on the house, we tore off the old one last weekend and had it inspected on Tuesday (the guy was up there less than 3 minutes with a quick glance around but didn't look into too many details). In the afternoons I'll be working on tear down and sorting of materials to see what can be salvaged beyond track for the new layout to be built, leaning towards modular and mounted on shelf brackets of sorts so I can take part of it with me as a demonstration layout for the products I'm working on. I haven't planned out too far on the new layout yet beyond the fact it will be DCC controlled with LCC integrated for the accessory bus (including detection and signling). I also need to wrap up pre-FCC testing for one project so I can send it off for FCC certification and then off to be manufactured in bulk (~500 units for initial run). I'm also continuing to work on the various aspects of the throttle that will pair with the first product, so far I've identified a few things to change on the next revision of the PCB (need to relocate the connector for the display from one side of the PCB to the other, need to shift the button contact pads a bit further down the PCB, etc). And lastly, I need to setup the watering system in the garden, we have two ~30x2ft rows of plants this year (lots of tomatillos and garlic in one row and more tomatillos, tomatoes and potatoes in the other). I didn't intend on growing tomatillos this year but they came up from our compost that we added to the two rows so now we are growing them, even got a couple tomato plants for free this year like that! As for Memorial Day plans, nothing specific planned this year. It'll just be me at home this year as my GF is helping take care of a friend who just had shoulder surgery and my son has work all weekend. So, I'm going to spend most of it on the TODO list.
You are a busy man for sure! As for summer favorites, my niece's husband turned us on to Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy. What's on your list?
