Recently Marty McGuirk over at his Central Vermont Railway blog wrote about removing a switch to get around a derailment issue. This quote grabbed me:
"...I fretted over this for a few weeks, but the fix didn't take more than a couple of evenings."
How often has that been the case for me? Oh the hours I've wasted wondering what to do - or rather, not wondering, but simply avoiding the issue! Too many times I have worried about the problem instead of thoughtfully pursuing a solution.
Yesterday I fretted over screws. I was hunting for #00-80 (or 0-80 depending on where you look) 3/16" flat head screws. I need two to attach the rear of the cab to the frame extension for the 2-8-0 kit-mingle I'm currently working on. Remember the old days, when you could walk into a hobby shop and buy a little baggie of Hob Bits or Walthers screws for a couple bucks? You'd get no more than a dozen usually and that's all a person typically needs.
You can still get those little baggies but now they're five bucks plus another five to ship it. Alternatively you can get an assortment of 75 screws of varying lengths, all brass, flat head, 00-80, (with 25 nuts!) for $20. While the assortment is a better deal on a per-screw cost, what am I going to do with the other 73 screws? Sure, they come in a nice case but now I have to store it. And I'm not going to pay $10 for 5 or 6 screws.
I trolled eBay for screws for far too long and this is after I had cogitated (fretted) for a few days prior to looking. What saved me was that old ad slogan for the Yellow Pages - I let my fingers do the walking. Setting aside political differences, I called my local Ace Hardware. Yep. They've got 0-80s. So this morning I purchased four screws for the princely sum of $1.29. Behold - the source of my worry, now solved:
P.S. - After checking the main boiler screw from the Athearn frame, I realized I now need a 5/8" 2-56. Back I go to Ace...
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