Good morning Larry, Curt, TomO, Rick, Karl, Mike and the rest of the crew that drops in later.

Thanks for the coffee and breakfast Larry, hope the Honey-do list is a short one.

Curt, hope you get the instructions figured out today.

TomO, hope Terry's appointment goes well.

Rick, safe travels

Karl, I heard about Atlas buying Micro-trains too.

Mike, have fun working on the oil well today.

Freezing rain here with the current temperature at 0c (32f), it's a good day to work from home.  I already dropped the Mrs car off at the garage to get a tune-up and the winter tires put on.  I have to take a couple of online safety courses today to keep my credentials up to date.  After all that I think I'll work on the backdrop or the boxcars, or maybe both, we shall see how it goes.

Have a great day everyone.

Wow, that is sad news indeed, my condolences to his family and friends.

While I didn't know him personally, if you had a question he was willing to give an answer, if you wanted to know how he did something he was always willing to share how he did it.  Not only was his modeling exceptional, he was an inspiration to a lot of us.. 

Good morning Rick, Curt, Mike, Philip, Dave #5, Larry, Dave, Karl and the rest of the crew that drops in later.

Thanks for the coffee and breakfast Curt, have fun working in the kit today.

Rick, Star must of felt strange being in a house after spending so long on the road.  Safe travels.

Mike, Haven't got the RDC yet as it is still in transit, but at least it's coming to the right address this time.    Going to have to set up my N scale modules so I have some place to run it.

Philip, good luck on the provision run.

Dave #5, Have fun modeling today.

Larry, hope you don't spent too much at the $1.25 Tree.

Dave, Safe travels to Boston

Karl, the building looks great, I would call it a great success.

Not going to comment on the weather today as it's the same as it has been all week.  Not much happened on the modeling front as night as I spent time moving stuff around.  We shall see what tonight brings.

Have a great day everyone

Good morning Rick, Curt, Larry, Karl, Dave, Jim and the rest of the crew that drops in later.

Thanks for the coffee and breakfast Rick, enjoy your hike with Star today.

Curt,  have fun with the build.

Larry, Hope your parts come today.

Karl, sounds like your making great progress with the 3d printing.

Dave, have fun with the lunch group.

Jim, sounds like the 3d cad design for the bridge is going well.

Weather today is the same as it's been for the past week, overcast and cold with the current temperature being -3c (26f).  I think I'm going to do an internet search on "sun" to see what it looks like.

Got a call from Canada Post last night saying my parcel (an N scale RDC that I ordered almost 2 years ago  ) was missing the apt number on my address.  That took me aback as I don't live in an apartment.  I gave them my current address when I found out that the address on the parcel was for the apartment I rented in Saskatoon when I worked there in 2020.  I'm guessing I need to update my address on the website where I bought the engine from.

Had a frustrating time at the bench last night as I broke 3 out of the 4 piston arms for the brake cylinders, I swear, 2 of them broke just looking at them.  I'm not sure if I'll but replacements for them, 3d print them, although I think 3d printing them would be difficult as they are very thin and would be very fragile or scratch-build new ones.

Have a great day everyone. 

Good morning Curt, Dave, Larry, Mike, Jerry, Dave B, Karl, Philip and the rest of the crew that drops in later.

Thanks for the coffee and breakfast Curt.

Dave, hope the window casting installation goes well.

Larry, hope the "honey-do" list isn't too extensive.

Mike, have fun upstairs

Jerry, Happy Birthday hope you have a great day.

Dave B, great news on the testing front, hope they find a way to greatly lesson Janet's constant pain real soon.

Karl, great picture. 

Philip, glad the Dr's appointment went well.

Didn't make it down stairs last night.  Was tired when I got home last night so after dinned I just read a bit and then went to bed.  We shall see what tonight brings.

Have a great day everyone.

Now comes the fun part.

Installing the main air line.  The instructions say you can cut the line in "half" under the brake cylinder to make the install easier, but if you are careful you can install it in one piece like I did.  The trick is to take your time and feed it by the long end.  The air line goes under the truss rods and then under the queen posts and bolsters which gives the air line a lot of places to get stuck of you're not careful.





The ends of the air lines are held in place using plastic eye bolts that are drilled and glued to the frame using ACC.





Where the air line crosses from one side of the car to the other side of the car a "U" made of 0.015" brass wire holds the air like in place.  I made these by bending the brass wire into the "U" around one of the  tongs of a pair of tweezers.  Once bent they were cut to length and painted black.  I drilled mounting holes on each side of the air line and inserted the "U" in place.

Next up is the brake appliances.

Thanks for looking in.  

Thanks for the comments Rick and Larry.

More progress was made on the boxcars yesterday.  So far I have been following the instructions but at this point the next step is to start construction the sides and ends of the boxcar.  I decided to bypass this for now and install the brake rigging instead.  I have built a couple of these kits before and I find it easier working on the underside of the car while I can still lay it down flat on it's deck.



The diagram from the kit showing the brake rigging.  This is used as the template for bending the main air line.





The main air line bent to shape.





The air line blackened and ready to be installed.  The instructions call for the lines to be painted with a permanent marker (Sharpie) but I have never had great success painting brass rod with this method so I used Blackin-it instead.

Good morning Rick, Curt, Mike, Larry, ACLTom, Terry and the rest of the crew that drops in later.

Thanks for the coffee and breakfast Rick, Happy Birthday to your grandson and enjoy the day with him.

Curt, sounds like putting up the HOA decoration was fun.   Have fun at the bench.

Mike, hope the wrist feels better real soon.

Larry, dinner sounds great.

ACLTom, hope you feel better soon.

Terry, have a great day.

It's currently 1c (34f) and overcast.  It's been a few days since we have seen the sun.  Woke up this morning to a light dusting of the white stuff but I'm guessing that it will be gone later today.

Spent some time yesterday working on the boxcars so will be making a post later this morning.  That's it for me,

Have a great day everyone.

Another great story Bill

Quote from: deemery on November 15, 2025, 06:23:32 PMI've scratch-built flat cars where the inside sills were shorter, allowing me to glue a 'full' sheet of lead to the bottom of the car floor. 

Are you using regular kitchen scissors, or something more rugged?

dave

Dave,

I'm using something more rugged like old fashioned sheet metal shears.

Ok,

This is how I weight my cars, it's old fashioned but it works.

For closed cars I use self adhesive car weights 1/4oz car weights that can be easily cut in half to give 1/8oz.  I mount them over the trucks.  This lets you open the car doors without the weights being easily scene.

Now for the controversial part. For open cars I use sheet lead, the type used by plumbers and roofers.  I cut the sheet into thin strips and glue them between the ribs on the underside of the cars.  Because lead has a bad rap (rightly so) I never handle the lead without nitrile gloves.  The scissors I use live in the same box as the lead sheet and are not used for anything else.  I use 5 minute epoxy to glue the lead to the underside of the car.  When the epoxy is dry, I paint the lead, usually a couple of coats of paint.  Whenever I handle lead I always wash my hands after.

I probably won't change my method as I have enough sheet lead to last a lifetime.

Keep in mind that this works well for me modeling in On30 and 0 scale.   

Accoding to the instructions, the next step was to stain the deck and under frame.  I used Hunterline Driftwood to do this.  This is a before and after picture, OK the deck is only half done.





The deck completely stained.





The underside completed.

Thanks for looking in.

Thanks for the comments Jerry, Rick, Larry, Mike, Philip.

More progress has been made on the boxcars.



Now that the boxcar frames are complete it was time to glue on the deck to the frame.  I used white glue for this and used a few 'mini" clothe pegs to clamp it together till the glue dried.





The decks glued to the frames.  The boards on the decks are etched on both sides.





The decks glued to the frames of the four boxcars.

Tom,

You are making great progress on the barn.  Really like the faded red colour.

I have uses a number of Hunterline stains and like using them.  Another method I have used with success is using acrylic inks which can be thinned with alcohol. They come in a multitude of colours.

Good morning Curt, Dave, ACLTom, Rick, TomO, Larry, Mike, Karl, Dave and the rest of the crew that drops in later.

Thanks for the coffee and breakfast Curt.  Christmas decorations?  Isn't it a little early for that, you haven't had Thanksgiving yet.

Dave, Wonderful news about Janet, hope her recovery is quick.

ACLTom,Have fun with the Judge running trains and with the BS'ing.

Rick, Boyfriends house? you have a boyfriend and you didn't tell us?    Hope the van cleaning goes well.

TomO,  glad the Badgers won yesterday, enjoy the game today.

Larry, Mike, hope you make it to the bench today.

Karl, I'm guessing that if you did want to go deer hunting you don't have to go far.

Dave, enjoy the scotch club today.

Current temperature is -2c (29f) and overcast with a 10% chance of precipitation today.  More progress was made on the boxcars yesterday, I'll post an update later today.  This morning I have some running around to do and Miami plays at 3:30 today but should get some bench time in between.

Have a great day everyone.