Boston & Maine Eastern Route Progress

[jbvb]

It's been a month and I hadn't spent much time on the layout: Most of one day working on multiple issues with how I'd installed Azatrak's Spring Switch Controller at Newburyport West.  Fixed some, not all.  Today I started off with my scheme to light a Rapido "American Flyer" coach without batteries. I found the tiny bridge rectifiers I bought in 2013, but their current rating is way too small for the voltage regulators I got last month.  Tomorrow I'll check Digi-Key and the overseas vendors on FleaBay.

So instead I dug into April's Showcase Miniatures signals.  Their "HO & N Break-Away Base" (to defend delicate signals from clumsy giants) looks like it will work: I made a "Y" letter drill hole for a press fit in Homasote. But boy did I wish for a pair of brass or titanium (non-magnetic) pliers to install the tiny magnets in the plastic base moldings. The way the magnets jump to my "stainless steel" tools (which are certainly corrosion resistant) is indistinguishable from tool steel.  And then the young cat jumped onto the layout. Catching her sent two freight cars to the floor. One fixed, one I've bent/installed one of three new grab irons required

But I got far enough that my next post will be about mixing Oregon Rail Supply and Showcase Miniatures parts for layout history reasons in my Lineside Signals thread.

[deemery]

I have a set of plastic decal tweezers, but in general it seems that non-magnetic tools (often listed as "anti-sparking") are very expensive.  

dave