Building from the bottom-up!   Yeah, a great start, an interesting building to fit the space.

dave

I can understand that.  There are times when I look at my train room, and the lack of progress compared to what I expected, and I think "it's all too much."  I have lots of half-completed projects that, at my rate of progress, would probably take me 2-3 years to finish.  Like you, my primary interest has been in building things, structures, cars, etc...  But at least working on the current shelf, including some scenery work yesterday, has motivated me a bit more.  And I do have a spot for a SRMW kit that is calling me for the contest (hence my question about 'on the layout'?)

So build what you enjoy!

dave

Doug,  pine needles are very acid.  You might need to add some lime to get your bulbs to grow OK.

Doesn't it bother you to pay good money for bulls**t?    If only politicians delivered....

dave

Everyone should send Dr Jeff salty potato chips and other snacks 

I decided to tackle some rough scenery, finishing the shelf part of the layout.  Right now glue on the support underneath is drying, I decided to add that as a bit of reinforcement since this could get bumped as people move around the room.  Once the glue is dry, I'll do some plaster wrap over the cloth aprons attached to the splines. 




dave

Well, "practice makes perfect" and it looks like a good quick project.  

dave

Despite my 4 years in the Army, I never really developed a taste for grits.  

After a waste of a day yesterday, I built up some steam to do some scenery work to complete the scene along the shelf part of the layout where I've posted photos of backdrop structures, the wood bridge, coaling trestle, etc.  

dave

A pool is a hole in the ground you pour money into 

The dogs are at the groomers, so the house is unnaturally quiet.  Since I'm not getting cataract surgery, I'll go to the optician and order new lenses.  Current ones are pretty badly scratched up.  Earlier this week I did some quick projects for building interiors, but now I need to figure out what to tackle next (besides pick-up/put-away, train room is a huge mess!)

dave

Jerry, a clever idea using those 'for sale' signs as protections.  I've used 'sensitive locations' masking tape to hold wax paper over my backdrops when doing scenery, etc.  

dave

Today's project was interiors for background buildings.  Brechbiel & Hyde, office in the bottom right (before I did the interior)

The interior, which will require lighting to see:

And on the other side, my bashed Walthers Merchants Row II:


I grabbed appropriate images, scaled them, printed them out, and mounted to styrene pieces.  I did repeats on the images as necessary.  You can't notice the repeats (or watermarks on some of the photos).  Countertops were built with scraps of styrene.

All-in-all, about 4-5 hours of work, for a good result.

dave

I'm glad you discovered the issues before you built the helix!

dave

When wife went in for something done under general anesthesia, before they'd do an IV and introduce the anesthetic that way.  2 weeks ago, they set up the IV with no bag, and just pushed the anesthetic directly into the IV tube.  

dave

Jeff, it might help if you could steal an extra IV Bag from your office in case they run short.  

I helped finish the WiFi reinstallation at my neighbor's church, and then a dentist appointment this afternoon.  So not much time to do stuff in the train room.

dave

Well, if you've measured the performance and are happy, go for it!  

dave

If you happen to have a ~36"/800mm square piece of MDF, you could lay a circle on that, and try various grades to see how many cars your loco could haul around that circle.  That would be a pretty easy testbed to lay down, I think.  

dave

Mark, that's definitely "ruling grade"    Curvature adds to train drag, both on the prototype and in models.  The easements will help, but there'll still be resistance as you pull cars/wagons around the circle.  You might want to test-run trains on that grade AND curvature to see if the results are acceptable, are you in a position to slap down some flextrack and try it?

dave