Hi All,

Isaac Asimov once had a chemistry student tell him that they had repeated an experiment five times and each time it resulted in a failure to produce the desired results.  Asimov's response was, 'did you follow the same sequence each time," the student said, "yes," to which he replied "Why?"

Thanks to all the soldering advice and great tips, and that's what I need, a better tip, well smaller.  I have this old radio shack station and the only place to get replacement tips is through a similar tip at Sears, three weeks and and still waiting, if it ever gets here I can improve my clumsiness.  I was using water soluble tinning flux paste, so the tip was tinned well, but the flux paste was not conducive to clean joints.  The next day I picked up liquid flux.

I have been plodding along on a shelf-style test-track for HO.... mostly to install and test decoders in my existing fleet of lokeys, but also perhaps to try out the "latest" scenery techniques that have come along since I started building layouts in the early 1960's!  Wanna get ready for the "retirement layout" that hopefully will be abuilding in 2014.