Waterfront Scenes excite me!

Very interest boat you are building. I will be very interested to see the water front scene develop. I'm sure it will be hard to believe, but I have tons of work to do, just to finish the nine 2' x 7'-4" modules I am working on . . . BUT I started drawing up plans for adding two more awhile back. I really wanted to have a river front area and have a train ferry as part of it. So I am fighting with myself to finish what I started, before adding two more modules to give me almost 15' of water front to work with in "O" scale. If I lose the fight, I can always say the Devil made me do it. Besides the train ferry, I also am planning a WWII submarine memorial site and a Harbor terminal for barge loading and unloading. Can't wait to see where you are going with this.

Boat Modeling Books

If you want to try your hand at scratch building a schooner (or a sloop or a cutter or maybe a tugboat), Harold "Dynamite" Payson wrote two really good books on Boat Modeling. 1) Boat Modeling with Dynamite Payson; 2) Boat Modeling the Easy Way. They are from the late 80's, early 90's, but the techniques look sound still today. Book 1 is currently listed for several prices from $5 to about $25 on eBay. Book 2 has more larger boats than book 1, but both have a lot of information.

Good Luck. Looking forward to seeing pictures of your completed stern wheeler.

Chris

Watching paint dry

Not much progress this week with family visiting and work. I did manage the awkward assembly of the paddle wheel. 

Mike - Go ahead and start those modules! My hobby time takes me unusual places and when the enthusiasm is high ...  

Chris: Thank you! This looks like a slippery slope from model trains to ships. The links too me to many others that rekindled my interest in rowing. Mrs. doesn't quite understand so we'll see where this goes!

Up a Creek...

But in this case Neil you do have a paddle!

May not seem like much, but I can appreciate the hours spent in building it, and the paddle wheel looks really well done! Can't wait to see the rest of the boat!

Nice looking kit. Look

Nice looking kit. Look forward to seeing it built.

Joe from FL.

Like an onion

Now that family is gone and the yard looking better I spent a little more time with this model. It got to the point where I had to stop building and paint some parts or this would get tricky later. Mrs. E asked if I was enjoying the process and (from Shrek) I said it was like and onion. Not that it stinks and brings tears to my eyes but is built up in layers. There are a lot more layers but I paused to take a process pic. 

Paul - paddle done - no worries

Thanks Joe. Hope you are still following along. 

More diversions

While traveling to Oahu I took along a couple Nn3 kits to play with. Didn't take much room or raise any eyebrows at TSA. Now that I'm home I put a coat of primer on the engine. The penny is for reference - these things are small!

Hung low

As much as I like modeling in On30 the stock Bachmann cars don’t have that low hung look of narrow gage cars that I can get from kit or scratchbuilt cars. Instead of waiting to build the rest of my fleet it seemed time to try lowering a couple cars and see how much time and effort would be required. 

This is a side-by-side comparison of two stock cars that didn’t seem to track well and the drooping whisker couplers have begun to fail so would come uncoupled at the slightest change in grade. The cars on the left have Kadee #803 On3 couplers mounted up next the body after cutting off the stock mounting pad. In order to bring the coupler to the right height the body bolster was shaved off which made the car appear to sit much lower as well. 

Before and after:

This didn’t take much time and with same weathering, weight, and cattle I think I’ll like the results!

Check out the Bachmann website

Unerframes

Thanks Craig. I see these online all the time but, with shipping, the added eight bucks per car seems like a good reason for me to make the changes myself. It also allows me the opportunity to change out to the On30 couplers. (Something I can salvage later as I update my fleet!) 

Where are the Hill Country Outlaws?

Neil, there are times it is

Neil, there are times it is easier to do it right by building things yourself. I suspect you have found one of those times.

Merry Christmas Rob

Your posts about consistency of standards for rolling stock, even to the point of rebuilding models, has been a great inspiration to me.  My goal is to replace all of my rolling stock with modified kit built or scratch built models.  I even have a desire to try my hand at old Kemtron brass kits and modify them in a way that your friend Bob has made beautiful models out of Mantua kits. 

Yesterday I was building some lumber racks in our shed and took a misstep where I managed to infuse my right hand. Not a good day or time to visit Urgent Care so we tried to stop the bleeding and superglue the wound closed.  It bled for hours! Some ice on and off has helped and this morning the pain is much reduced but with limited mobility of my index finger. Dumb dumb. 

Ouch!

Milling bolsters!

Brilliant. I would love to see what that jig looks like. My mill may not go slow enough to prevent melting though. 

I would love to build in 2-1/2” scale! We have the room but I need to learn more about milling and turning parts from castings (or rob banks for a long living instead of working for Public Works). The idea of a thirty foot box in this scale as over six feet long - wow!

Typing with my left hand is painfully slow but I feel way better with the right hand alternating between ice and ibuprofen every few hours. Thanks. 

On3 couplers just seem so much more forgiving and look good to me:

A couple things to note in this pic - my metal parts rust quickly in Hawaii and the brake staff slides up and down to act as a brake on the siding. 

Neil, at the risk of giving

Neil, at the risk of giving advice that I ignore please get some medical attention. The risk of infection and or contaminants from your wound is high. I consider you a good friend and am concerned for your well being. Often a quick trip to good medical care can eliminate lots of suffering down the road and can mean the difference between a full and partial recovery. I hope you are feeling much better soon and wishing you a full and speedy recovery.

I have found many of the models don't need replaced with kits, just rebuilt into good models. I have some that are waiting for inspiration to strike on a way to get them apart with out using a hammer. A big hammer.

I really like the look of your models and railroad and fortunately the narrow bug has not bit me so I will enjoy yours from a distance.

The models you have pictured above look great, is there the possibility of a coating like powder paint that could be used to protect your metal parts? Or possibly a thin coating of some type of conductive material where applicable?

Merry Christmas Neil and wishing you a speedy recovery.

Your friend Rob

My milling jig is simple

I just built something out of scrap styrene which held the frame members in place while milling.  It's in a box somewhere.  When I get a chance to dig it out, I'll post a photo here.

Speed shouldn't be an issue on your mill.  I had a typical "Chinese Iron" mill and think I was running around 500 rpm using a 4-flute end mill with no heat issues.

Craig

Follow up

I thought I should post a follow up to my injury. I went to see my doctor the day after Christmas who referred me to the emergency room for x-rays. The doctor there sent me back to Kaiser where I waited for hours and eventually receive a phone call from the doc.

I was scheduled to see a surgeon yesterday to discuss whether an operation was required.  While I was there they sent me for x-rays (again) and asked me to wait (again).  After an hour wait, they told me they wanted to perform the operation to connect my severed tendons.  Nearly 3 hours later I was sent home with my right hand immobilized. No model building or cycling for a while.

The doctor, by the way, is nearly 90 miles from home so driving to and from with only my left hand was a new experience. Strangely there is very little pain so it’s only an awkward situation but will last 6 to 8 weeks. It’s time to learn to write with my left hand.

I’m sure others must have similar disabilities but find ways to build models and enjoy railroading. Please share those thoughts here as misery could use company.

@Neil

Sorry to hear that your injury was so serious. I might missed it but did you say what you fell on to cut so deep? Hopefully everyone here will read this thread and become a bit more cautious in their activities as it's too late once an accident happens....DaveB 

Glad you are on the mend

Glad you are on the mend Neil. I had stitches out from surgery yesterday, knee scope. Huge difference almost no pain, getting around with a walker now, eventually I will be much better. My friend Ray had surgery to fix a torn quad a while back. He is back to using a cane right now. Met Ray, and Paul at the club today. We watched Paul work on some things and talked about how things are getting better for us. We went into a restaurant and while we were clanking into the place I made the comment we sure look like a bunch of geriatrics today, lots of laughter.

We are still enjoying the hobby while dealing with our respective impairments. The fellowship and support of friends really makes a difference. We got into checking things with meters and finding some issues while some things were being worked on. We talked about designing some test equipment to find track issues.

In some cases an individual will fail to true and sand the road bed, eliminate inappropriate vertical curves, and check for twisting of the track (one rail at a different elevation than its counterpart). Sometimes track is not properly supported being allowed to flex into lots of different positions depending on what is on it. We started fooling with a design Paul came up with using a freight car truck. We talked about it and noted that it behaves differently than an EMD SD 40 truck because of the long wheel base. WE are now considering different design items so as to find things that will result in the trucks becoming cocked and then climbing over the rails at the next frog or point.

Lots of brain storming going on in an effort to find the issues that can cause a derailment. Now if everything is done right and it stays in shape over the years that is great. We are wanting to find things that make detecting issues fast as once we find them we can fix them.

I mention these things because some of us have higher degrees of precision than others. Ray for example is a machinist and operates with a much higher tolerance standard than many. We also talked about other hobbies we have in our case shooting. Ray is interested in some competitive shooting sports and I used to be a rather fierce competitor so we talked about various things to control ones aim point and how to steady ones hands. These skills are also valuable for working on models as steady hands come into play for lots of things from woodworking to fine details on our trains.

Geriatrics

@Dave - I was on a ladder building a lumber rack to get my shop cleaned up (ironic?) and stepped on a pile of lumber but one of the “pieces” was a drawing tube. While it seems like slow motion now, I was on the ground pretty fast and not sure what I hit. In the blink of the eye I’m left-handed for two months.

@Rob -  funny that you mention geriatrics.  On Wednesday the mayor asked a few of us from Public Works to talk about a controversial project here and asked bout my injury. He noted that at 78 he is 20 years older than me and reminded all of us to be super careful as we do our jobs. Balance, eyesight, and reaction time slow down with age. I hate to admit it but he’s right. 

Thanks for the concerns. I have “Siri” to help me with dictation so some things are not so bad.