I have built several kits recently.  The first is a Downtown Deco Palace Card Room.  This is the first time that I have built one of these kits and I liked it very much.  All the work is in the finish and I added lighting to it.

I am going to the NMRA convention this Sunday and is anybody else going?

The third bridge for the canyon area is a Micro Engineering Lightweight Tall Steel Structure.  This bridge will go in front of the Howe Truss Bridge and behind the Arch Truss Bridge.

I have been working on the Sierra West Logging Camp Essentials kit to fill out the structures that I need for the sawmill and logging camp on my layout. The first, structure is a bunk house; second, shower and latrine; third, cookhouse; fourth, fuel depot; fifth tool shed; and sixth, the rigging shed. There also is a another bunk house.


I still have all the details to complete for these structures and am working on the railroad depot.

I have switched gear as I await materials for the bridge.  I have been building an A-Frame Turntable base on the articles in the Model Railroad Hobbyist in March and April this year.  I have been using the A-Frame Turntable in El Portal, California for the Yosemite Valley Railroad.

The base of the pit is made from 1/2" birch plywood, the lower portion of the pit is also 1/2" birch plywood and the upper part is from 3/8" plywood and I had it sanded to 5/16" thickness to match the height of 3 layers of railroad ties which line the pit walls. The Code 70 rail around the pit was bent into a circle using a Fast Tracks rail bending tool. 







The pivot is made from a guitar jack socket  and plug. The long threads on the socket allows for accurate vertical adjustment.  The center spindle rail is also Code 70 rail bent to a 2" diameter. To represent the spider I used n scale wheel which I fastened to a strip of styrene and wrapped the styrene around the top plywood disc.
 
In order to take care of the polarity issue when the table is turned 180 degrees, I am going to install an auto reverser unit

Guitar jack and socket



Top spindle




Socket mounted in base of pit.




The turntable was built from HO scale dimensional lumber































 
 

I recently started construction on Sierra West Scale Models Shelby's Marine Service.  This kit was released in 1998.  I wanted to take a break from the layout construction once the track was completed.  But I still have 50 switches to install.

I am starting a new HO gage layout in my garage.  SP RR in this case is short for the Suphrin Pathetik.  When I was in high school my father and I were in the process of building an HO layout in our basement.  My father worked for the Southern Pacific in San Francisco.  We belonged to the local model railroad club and made several excursions to see John Allen's layout in Monterey.  Of course everyone knows the name of his layout was the Gorre and Daphedid.  I then  suggested to my father that we name our RR the Suphrin and Pathetik and he liked it.

So after some 50 years and retirement and other hobby diversions, I am starting on a new layout in the garage.  But first I had to clean out some space in it which included and experimental airplane kit which I never finished.  I finally sold it last year. 

I changed the lighting in the garage.  I removed the old fluorescent fixtures which didn't produce enough light and had installed new LED fixtures.  Home Depot had a new 48" LED shop light in their store last week.  It has 3100 lumens and the color is 4000 kelvin.  I bought 11 of these fixtures. The layout will cover 230 sf.  The new fixtures will provide about 148 lumens per sf.  I read an article which said that you should have about 100 lumens per sf of work area and it also said to allow for a loss of lumens on the work surface.  So I have allowed about a 33 percent loss.  The new lighting is fantastic.  The fixtures are hung by chains from the ceiling.  The garage ceiling slopes from 11 ft. 

 

Frank/Erieman twisted my arm to put pictures of my model on this forum.  I won the Best in Show at the PSR Convention in Scottsdale this weekend along with the Favorite Model Award and Presidents Award.

My model is based on the Sturgeon's Sawmill located in Sebastopol, California.  It is a working museum of a steam powered sawmill.  It is open to the public about four times a year when they have it in operation.

I was able to get a set of plans from a modeler, Boone Morrison.  I adapted the sawmill for the rail delivery of logs to the mill for a future layout.  I drew my own plans and templates to construct it to my needs.

I am including pictures of the original sawmill so that you get an idea what it looked like.


I want to thank those that have helped me in this project.