Spent most of last summer restoring a 1979 Catalina 30, but life forced me to sell her. I really wish I hadn’t I loved that boat, but I will own another or a Cat 36.
I liked our Endevour 37 but often wished I would of bought a Catalina 30. It has the interior space of a much larger boat. Saying that though I love the MacGregor 26S the most. I think it is the most versatile boat in the 20-28 foot range out there. Easily trailer it anywhere, very shallow draft and sails well. If I was 10 years younger I'd be be going back to the Bahamas again with it. Can't beat it there for all the places you can get into that you can't with other boats. But I'm not 10 years younger and like my wife says.....'you don't always get to keep it....but you got to have it'..... so it is up for sale. Sumner
My holy grail man these things are hard to find not to mention pricey as hell Coming to a dip tank near me
Well I have been busy during our 10 inches of rain over a week. I finally installed my wash rack after having to slightly adjust the track some at the engine house lead. 100_0020 by John Moore posted Jun 24, 2023 at 4:05 PM Since Bandai underframes for running trucks are next to impossible to find I set out to make my own using a Bandai underframe as the guide 100_0005-4 by John Moore posted Jun 30, 2023 at 5:17 PM I ordered another 2 sets of self propelled passenger cars plus some Kato power chassis, and Kato truck from Japan. 100_0006-5 by John Moore posted Jun 30, 2023 at 5:17 PM Each Bandai kit contained a cab car and a coach plus there were extra parts as always so got to thinking I could make a 5th car as a lunch counter / lounge. 100_0007-1 by John Moore posted Jul 3, 2023 at 3:33 PM So I ended up with a nice little 5 car train, A Kato 11-105 power chassis is under each cab car. 100_0008-2 by John Moore posted Jul 3, 2023 at 3:33 PM 100_0009-3 by John Moore posted Jul 3, 2023 at 3:33 PM Those are Kato couplers rather than the Bandai couplers and modified American Limited diaphragms are installed between each car. And I decided to take a chance on my soldering skills by ordering two of the ARU Model A1012 (Totemo Kantan) Kit Series Convex Diesel (Old Tyoe) Body Kit (N scale) little diesels. They are brass etchings and I already have two Kato power chassis for them. I also ordered two sets of extra detail parts for them from a 2nd vender. The diesel bodies should be here in about a week from Japan. The little critters are about 34 N Scale feet long and will run on 6 inch radius. Remember I have 8.5 Radius mainline curves and 6 inch Radius turnouts. ARU Model A1012 Very Easy (Totemo Kantan) Kit Series Convex Diesel (Old Tyoe) Body Kit (N scale) 2022-11-28_18.48.27-1 by John Moore posted Jul 1, 2023 at 10:12 AM
Finally finished rewiring a HHP-8 that had been sitting around for several years. The original Bachmann decoder failed. Put in a digitrax DZ123 in place of it. I had also managed to burn out all the LEDs during the multiple install attempts so I had to replace them as well. Was surprised I was able to solder some thing that small.
Well the new passenger train went into service today and will be a midday between Friday Harbor and Roche Harbor with stops in between. The train consists of self propelled cars with a cab car at each end. In addition to the 4 coaches there is also a mid train lunch and tavern car. 100_0010-1 by John Moore posted Jul 4, 2023 at 11:03 AM All cars were track tested and during that I found that I needed to adjust weights slightly especially on the cab cars that needed a little bit more weight at the nose and the cafe car needed the diaphragms trimmed down a little. The little train only takes up approximately 170 N scale feet.
Oh my...what have I gotten myself into ???? My 'All Scale Miniatures' came by mail yesterday. I knew I was in trouble when the envelope was no bigger then a standard size letter envelope !! Below is the contents: ~ the pencil is for reference ~ (left to right) 4) blue mesh top trash cans and 1) black 55 gal drum with 'trash' in it 4) blue 55 gallon plastic drums with 1) Mailbox on post that got lost in there 1) Green oxygen tank and 1) black acetylene tank 2) mail boxs on posts 4) red fire hydrants 4) gray rooftop HVAC units 2) blue USPO drop boxes 1) white refrigerator ~~ I am not sure my 'optivisor w/2x jewelers lope is gonna help !! .
working on new house i printed out. glued paper roof to the printed roof also the chimney got paper glued to it . i think it looks pretty good like that. i need to design windows ect still yet. Add more details like trash cans out back ect. used elmers glue stick for gluing things up. worked great no bleeding through the paper....
got a volt meter installed today on my throttle . set so when i turn on the throttle it tells me the battery voltage, i think im going to add a push button on top so that when i push the button it will tell me battery volts. that way it wont consume any power while im running trains.. also took apart the kato nw2 it quit working a long while back for some reason. got it working not great but its working. seems every nw2 ive owed has been problematic always connection issues. fixing to get in there and solder everything up and maybe add wire from the trucks to the board or the copper strips .
I am modifying the coal loads on all of my M/T 100 ton hopper cars so I can more easily remove them to run empty when I want to. Details of this project on my layout blog. Tracks across Nevada (palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com)
[QUOTE="Mark Watson, So N scalers, whats on your workbench? Please include pictures. Those are my current projects, what are yours? Include pictures.[/QUOTE] OK Mark, here's one...... There simply is no more extra space in this home for my last hurrah railroad, so..... I found this lost space in the basement collecting absolute junk. Threw out all the 'stuff' and painted the wall flat black. This is gonna be my N scale layout. 1"x 4"under structure, 2" foam board, 1/2" Homasote board. Shortly, I discovered I could barely reach from the front of the layout to the wall side, so.....I cut some access holes in the wall so I could work on the wall side of the board much easier. For fun, I cut two small holes so I can have tracks in both rooms. More to follow as track laying progresses. Al
Well my detail parts and my brass locomotive kits have arrived. The loco kits from one vender and the detail parts from a 2nd vender, both in Japan.The loco kits are By ARU and both are part number A1012. First the dress up extra parts. 100_0014-1 by John Moore posted Jul 13, 2023 at 2:46 PM And now the main locomotive kits. 100_0015-2 by John Moore posted Jul 13, 2023 at 4:23 PM Very nice brass etchings. Now lets see if I can assemble my first brass loco from a kit. Instructions are in Japanese but lots of pictures to follow in the assembly.
John, if you have a cell phone with Google Translate, you can aim your camera at the instructions (or sections of it) and it translates it for you on the spot. Pretty neat technology!
well got my voltage button installed on the withrottle . it works fantastic. this is a great withrottle..best part is you can make it how ever you want it to work for ya.... https://youtube.com/shorts/WYfpZUaZl9A?feature=share
Well started work on the first brass loco after supper and have made some good progress. 100_0016-3 by John Moore posted Jul 13, 2023 at 8:27 PM Have got to the point where I could test fit the power chassis. 100_0018-4 by John Moore posted Jul 13, 2023 at 8:27 PM Now ready to put the cab roof on and both end platforms. 100_0019-5 by John Moore posted Jul 13, 2023 at 8:27 PM
I'm in the process of rehabbing this minitrix class 98.3. Things started out with the intention to add lighting and possibly change out the decoder but as I removed it from the box I noticed the cranks (red pieces in clamps) for the valve gear had split where the pins that connect the pushrods and eccentric crank to them wont stay in place. I bought this new back in 2006 and hardly ever ran it so really bummed this happened. I've a newer bavarian version (~2008) of the same model/manufacturer and it appears to be fine so thankful for that. Anyways not sure how to cure the cracks but first attempt applying CA was useless. Now I'm trying epoxy and will have to wait a day or so for that to cure. If this doesn't work I'll have glue the pins in place but trying to avoid that for future maintenance reasons. I've ordered a decoder for it and have fitted the lamp housings with pico LEDs. I was never happy with the original selectrix decoder it came with as it ran great in DC but DCC it was really jerky. I updated to a TCS about a decade ago which cleaned it up alot but I'm hoping an ESU lokpilot I just ordered will get it running like butter as has been my experience with other locos I've transitioned from TCS and digitrax decoders of that same era.
Different plastics are bonded by different solvents. Of course, some plastics don't seem to respond to anything, but if you can find the right one, it "melts" the plastic and the bond is as strong as the material itself. If epoxy doesn't work great and if you have them, experiment with Pastruct and other solvents to see if one works for that type plastic. Or, see if you can find minitrix discussions online somewhere that just tell you which solvent works best.
On some engineering plastics I have had luck with the PVC cement used on plumbing pipe. Might be useful as a LAST resort...
