Kalmbach Publishing announced my new book, The Model Railroader's Guide to Steel Mills. I am accepting pre-orders for signed copies on my web site at www.alkemscalemodels.com

The book is due in April 2010. 

Made more progress this weekend.  Got the scenery roughed in at Potomac Creek and got about another 20 ft of track and one and half  turnouts built. As I continue to tinker, I think I have solved the stub turnout bridle issue, two different ways. I posted more photos on my blog http:usmrr.blogspot.com. Here is a grainy shot of the General pulling a work train at Stoneman's Station.

I've been making progress on my ACW layout with a little help from my brother. It's almost time to build the big truss bridge over Potomac Creek. I am really looking forward to this project. Here is a shot of the gap the bridge must cross. More photos at http:usmrr.blogspot.com

I finished building the first wooden trestle on my O scale ACW layout. You can see the construction details here.

On another forum there was a discussion about diffraction losses in lenses at small f stops as applied to using Helicon Focu. So I decided to do a test to see how much diffraction loss my Canon 5D experienced with a 50mm Macro lens. These three shots are all shot under the same conditions with only the f stop varying. The three shots are at f32, f8 and f2.5. The original images shot in RAW and maximum quality jpg.

 I recently finished work on a manuscript for a new book on steel mill modeling for Kalmbach Publishing. The book should be ready for the 2010 time frame. Here are some sneak peek images from the book. The upper image shows an N scale blast furnace. The lower photo is an HO scale factory assembled hot metal car weathered to look like the prototype photo.

Here is some software news that might make your model RRing more productive.

There is a new free plug-in for internet browsers that makes searching for images and movies on the web a whole new experience. It is called cooliris.  The plug-in uses existing search technology such as google, youtube, yahoo, etc and displays the results in an animated 3D wall effect. It works in firefox on macs and PCs. They even have a iPhone version. Check it out at www.cooliris.com

 I thought I'd share a photo of a custom model I built for a customer. The client was a container crane operator and wanted an model for his office. The model below is in N Scale made from laser cut acrylic and photo-etched brass.

 If there is sufficient interest, I may offer this as a kit.

BCK

REMEMBER, THIS IS FROM 2008 ...

Alkem Scale Model announces our latest products: concrete tunnel portals.