With the advent of warmer weather I haven't been spending as much time working on the layout. However I have managed to finish the final two helices I needed which are stacked above the two helices I built earlier.

     Well I haven't made a long new post in awhile so I thought I would start off with saying you can literally come up with some weird stuff in your dreams. I was this model show with my friend and he wanted to model train wreck scene so I told him he should use arduino or something of the sort to get the flashing light effect in cars (it was a passenger wreck). I have kept that "in storage in my mind for awhile just because I felt I could use it somewhere and wanted to post it on here.

   Scratchbuilding your own detail parts

The purpose of this blog is to share some of the techniques I've found over the years for making my own detail parts. All techniques shown here are my inventions unless otherwise noted, if I show something someone else uses, it is coincidence. With that done, let the magnifying glass lower. 

- CFNR 501

It's always a good feeling when the "To Do" list starts to accumulate a lot of checkmarks.

Here's an interior view of the building. I put in just enough internal detail to look interesting through the open doorways. The optic fiber bundle is glued into a white LED located in the office area, and feeds through holes to illuminate the external light fixtures -- looks rather pretty in the dark.

Mounting the long central beam such that it didn't interfere with the roof support structure took a bit of figuring and fitting and fiddling.

Admittedly, I have a really odd way of approaching some layout projects.  The Indian Creek scene at Council Bluffs is a prime example.  I'm on vacation this week, with plans to finally finish the scene, so I thought this would be a good time to take a look back at what I've done as a study in how NOT to model.

Here begins my new journey into rebuilding my Estrella & Sonora Grande RR in On30 into a whole new look and theme: the Arroyo Verde & Western RR. Come along for the ride!

The MRH Facebook Page now has more than 25,000 people liking it - that's pretty spectacular:

The MRH Facebook page, along with links to posts here on this website, also shares product announcements from various manufacturers on Facebook

Some operation changes and some more work on the tracks.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g3q932rSJDw

Been back working on the control panel -- starting to really appreciate the flexibility of using wire-wrap for this type of application. It has given me the flexibility of making changes -- like discovering that my idea of sharing on PM42 between two boosters was really a bad idea. The second PM42 is on my bench waiting to be installed. The impact to the control panel was discovering that the four bicolor power status LEDs needed to expand to eight (or run wires from the BDL168s plugs) -- and my vendor didn't have any more of that flavor of LEDs for a while.

I picked up the Chevy and Dodge 3D printed N scale trucks from Shapeways. I'm impressed at the detail attainable with 3D printing. The trucks came in clear styrene. I gave them a coat of primer then coats of Mr. Color for the red and Mig Ammo Rubber & Tires Acrylic for the tires and rubber. Tamiya clear red and clear yellow for the lights. I ran .25mm fiber optics for the front and rear lights. This size proves a little small for the front lights, but great for the taillights. Somehow one of the rear view mirrors got busted off in shipping or by me. The way it goes.