I was pleasantly surprised with a trip home today when my dad told my wife he had peaches on the peach trees, and her bubbly personality meant there was simply no way I could say No.  If there's on thing she enjoys most, it's harvesting anything and everything from field and tree, and I do like white peaches myself.  This also meant I would be in the same neighborhood s that old Churn Well Drilling rig that I started modeling a couple months back.

The trip is roughly three hours in each direction, so there is absolutely no excuse to ever make this trip and NOT stop at the prototype, particularly as long as the model is still not yet finished.  There's a number of problematic areas where I have not yet solidified the data, and it doesn't help that I haven't played with this project since the previous third expedition.  Today, in preparation for my fourth, I reached for my pile of notes and groaned as I tried to re-engage with the project.

Every project has a simple life cycle.  It starts with a seed of inspiration upon seeing something or acquiring something or simply knowing something that demands tribute.  This initial thought is then toned and tampered with thoughts based in reality, connecting that idea with what already exists.  If a model or something close already exists, tally ho!  We run off and buy it, and our project is very near run it's course through to the end.  If it does not exist, then we have to consider ways we might make it, skills we possess, tooling we have, models we could kit bash, places we may procure materials, where we might get a scale plan (hug component) and so forth.  We then go into the gathering phase where we bring it all together, a phase that may be a day or a decade depending on what we need and what comes into view.  Once we have what we need, we start the project and run with it until we run out of hardware or we finish it, at which point the project leaves the barn and we move on to the next big job.  The simple act of learning a new skill or acquiring a new tool can lead to a frozen idea mill liquifying in place.

There is another very common place where many projects stop and then sit for eons.  Many of my projects have temporarily ended because it is bed time and I have to end my modeling session, even if the model is incomplete, and by the time I return my mind is miles away thinking about something shiner.  And then sometimes we start a project and then some part of the way through we hit a wall where we just cannot go any further.  If we're lucky, it's a simple matter of X not connecting with Y, or we are missing a part and need a new one, or what we have isn't exactly working right.  If it is a difficult place, we're looking at a project where the mental processing has surpassed the human desire to continue with the project.

And that is where I got with the Well Drilling Rig.  my third expedition was a long marathon drafting session and when I got home, I took one look at my notes and I had no desire to even crack them open to go back through to even draw the shapes virtually.  I had hit the wall of Modeling Fatigue, that place where my mind was mentally done with the project, having been touching the prototype for a full four hours or so, and I needed a break.  It turns out that break was two months.

I'm not sure if there is a solution to it.  Yes, I stopped working on the Well Drilling Rig, but I replaced it with the Ross and White Red Devil Coal loader, and in the midst of that project I was thoroughly distracted with another shiny piece of eye candy, a portable Air Conditioner trailer.  THAT project got to the most complete level of finished for anything I have started all year, and it's STILL not finished because I know there's a problem area that still needs to be resolved.  The Red Devil Coal Loader has hit the point where I have exhausted most of the available material for drawing the model, which means the mental load of that project is skyrocketing as I work out how the missing parts might appear and then draw them.  And now because of time and serendipity, I've come right back to the Churn Drill with a very successful expedition.

The A/C trailer put some order back into my measuring chaos.  Instead of trying to cover all of the missing areas in my model, I put all of my focus into pillow blocks.  By the end of tonight, I should have them all drawn and installed...finally.

[attach:fileid=/sites/model-railroad-hobbyist.com/files/users/Benny/cwd_pillow_blocks.png?638]

The front pillow blocks are this expedition, left and right (bases on the left have different lengths and casting numbers, the aft pillowblocks are the results of the first three expeditions.

There's but only four months left to this year, and I have a couple deadlines to make.  Here's to keeping that fatigue at bay!!