bkempins's blog

 A film made in 1981 at the Canadian Film Board website showing the operations at a typical grain elevator in Canada. 

www.nfb.ca/film/grain_elevator/

 I am applying coats of Minwax Polycrylic Clear Gloss to the water surface in Aquia Landing on my O scale layout. The instructions say three coats is enough for normal applications, but I am trying to simulate water and three coats is not enough to convey a feeling of depth. I am up to 5 coats right now and it looks like it is holding. I need to add some more coats to get a thick layer.

 This question comes up frequently. In doing some research for ship models on my layout I came across this US Navy document. It is interesting. Note the lack of styrene as an acceptable material.  Also gives you an idea why government contracts are so expensive, note the documentation section.

 No,  I'm not crazy.... well,  not about this at least.   I just installed the test etches for the brake parts on one of my O scale wood beam trucks. The brakes work, pretty much just like the real ones. This means that adding working brakes to my cars is just a matter of building the kits, as the design works without too much fiddling. More detail and photos at http://usmrr.blogspot.com

I made a lot of progress on the backdrops in Aquia landing this weekend. This part of the layout is now ready for track laying. The ship in this picture is the USS Comodore Perry, a NY ferry converted to a gunboat.

More pictures of the weekend work are here

Honey, I shrunk the trains?

Happy Memorial day.

I took a break from benchwork and track laying to build a structure.

This farmhouse is based loosely on the Lydia Leister House at Gettysburg. I put some construction notes here:  

http://usmrr.blogspot.com/2010/05/building-farm-house.html

(ed: fixed bad link)

Work in progress on some new artillery pieces for my O Scale ACW layout.  Everything is scratchbuilt using a laser cutter and lathe.

Kalmbach announced today that my Steel Mill book is released

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If you ordered from me, I have not received my copies yet. I should get them soon and will shipped the signed copies ASAP. It's not too late to order one from me as I will keep some in stock.

I hope you like it. Doug Gurin, founder of the LDSIG, commented that it is the best illustrated Kalmbach Book he has seen when he reviewed a copy.

Kalmbach posted a pdf file with a preview of my steel mill modeling book. It's 8 pages from different parts of the book. The link is here:
http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/yhst-22106725251441/12435spread.pdf