Power Layout

Not 'layout' as in the modeler's restrictive use of the word, but 'layout' as in the more traditional use, meaning to arrange the components, to lay them out.

Progress on the "Power Plank".  Tiny control panel assembled but not yet wired or mounted.

Parts Plank

I use wooden sticks, often tongue depressors as seen here, with masking tape wrapped around them as detail parts painting handles.  These parts are all Milliput duplicates made in Oyumaru molds.  Milliput isn't expensive but I don't want it to go to waste especially if I've gone to the trouble to get my fingers all sticky mixing it.  So, I have a number of molds standing by to make parts with the excess.  Shown here: books, a clock (minus the face), storm drains, crates of lemons, a typewriter, a basket of oranges and a bunch of bananas.

The clock is the part I needed for the station waiting room and the reason I mixed this latest batch of Milliput.  But the grates will be useful as the street scene is installed, the fruit may find a home on the station platform and the books in the office.  There's already a typewriter on the agent's desk so this one will be stored and used elsewhere and the bananas?  Who knows.  They certainly will bring life to any scene with their bright yellow color.

A Tiny Control Panel

Okay, just the parts for now:

Lauan plywood scrap leftover from benchwork construction, cut on my scroll saw.  An old terminal strip and a DPDT switch.  This will be assembled and attached to the "Power Plank"(trademark pending) as a means of selecting either the DC throttle or the DCC system, both MRC products.

I'm finally getting around to ticking the boxes on the tasks required before I can begin scenic work in earnest.  Yes, I know I could probably paint track, rout out ditches, even ballast or put down some roads or grade crossings or many other projects now, but I'd like to get these preliminary things done so they're not hanging over my head waiting.  Truthfully they won't take long and I'll feel great knowing they're done.  Besides getting the throttles sorted neatly on a board and making it easy to switch between them, I also wanted to get the trim attached and fascia painted, and build a cover system built to keep dust off the railroad.

Flash Tip

The classic Woodland Scenics metal kits are (in)famous for their quality - both positively for the wonderful amount of detail included in the parts, and negatively for all the flash and general cleanup involved in making them look their best.*  I enjoy them and have spent many happy hours painting them.  Recently I began preparing the parts of the Diamond T Flatbed Truck kit.  It will feature prominently in the "streetcar track deconstruction" scene planned for Pine Branch Park.

So here's the tip:  Leave the wheels on the sprue to clean out the flash from the spokes and around the tires.  THEN cut the wheel from the sprue and dress the remaining flash/sprue remnant.  I use Xurons to get a clean flush cut without damaging the tire but if you cut too deep into the tire, just dress it with a file and make that the part of the wheel that sits on the road.  I removed and cleaned two wheels before realizing how much easier it would be to leave the wheels on the sprue and do this work.


*Granted, there are some early runs that don't have nearly as much flash to trim as more recent runs.  I think - this is just my hypothesis - that the older castings are cleaner because the molds are newer.  Is this the case?  Regardless, I tend to look for older kits for this reason and find them to have less flash to remove and fewer casting defects.

No Visible Means of Support

Look closely at these three photos and see if you can tell what is different:

If you said the garage looks cleaner then God Bless You!  It is, somewhat, but no, that's not what I'm highlighting.  The title might be a clue or maybe not.  Okay, okay, here 'tis:

This was a birthday present back in May.  This tripod can elevate the camera high enough to get the first two shots, then lower to allow the closeup in the third.  Naturally I can bring the leg extensions in and make it even shorter.  It will live inside next to my workbench most of the time, though I hope to have many more reasons to bring it out into the garage in the days ahead.

Kidding Ourselves

My son's trains on the shelf below Daddy's trains in 2007 when he was only 2.

"Let's not kid ourselves that in model railroading that we are duplicating prototype railroading.  Our grades are too steep.  Our trains are too short.  Our curves are too sharp.  Our switches are too sharp.  Area is limited.  Rails are too high.  Ties are too regularly shaped and spaced.  Wheel flanges are too deep.  All our trains run with electricity, with a most unrealistic sound.  We persist in running steam locomotives in face of prototype dieselization.  But we do the best we can, and we have a lot of fun."

     -Bill Schopp from Trend Book 138, "Model Railroading", 1956.

Needle Drop

A little while back Steve Ramsey over at Wood Working for Mere Mortals made an unusual suggestion.  Go to YouTube and type into the search bar "img xxxx", with the x's replaced by a four digit number.  It is likely you'll find some random video with a handful of views.  Why so few?  Because the person who posted it just left the file number as the video title and may not have included any tags.  Perchance you might just find something worth watching that you'd never even considered.

I did this and here's one of the videos I found:

What are the odds that it would be model train related?  The first was a drag racing BMW.  Pretty cool.  The very next autoplay was the video shown above. 

Pierre had 19 subscribers.  Now he has 20.

Red + Yellow =

I need an orange grove in this spot.  Maybe, just maybe, one morning I'll come out to the garage and find it.  Magical plastic cross-pollination?  These days I think anything is possible.  Who knows?