Not Pipes and Drums, But Pallets and Drums

During the week I received a message from the local hobby shop that they wanted some more of my pallets with 44 gallon drums on them to sell in the shop.  How could I say no?  Luckily I was having Friday off work and headed over to the hobby shop and dropped off 6 of these pallets loads.  I also dropped off two packets of 10 x 44 gallon drums.

On Friday night, another local hobby shop had their normal monthly modelling night.  About a dozen people turned up and worked on various models.  Some were building tanks, two were railway modellers and the others were working on various cars, planes and a pilot for a cockpit.  I put together another string of 25 pallets and then cut up another string of pallets that had dried during the week.  During the day I had sprayed about 25 pallets a nice brown/wood colour.  Another 20 had been given a blue “Chep” colour but they are not coming up too well, the paint is very tacky.  I eventually hit them with a coat of dull coat and that seems to have fixed my issues.

The strings of pallets before they are individually cut up.  Some tacky blue pallets above the newly made ones.  I plan on making another 50 pallets next weekend.  I will have some for sale at our Club's next Buy and Sell in November in packets of 6 or 12 in various colours.

So after completing a driving lesson on Saturday morning, I went to the shed and decided to do some more painting.  I painted 5 drums a grey colour.  Another 5 were painted light brown, while 10 were painted a dull green.  I also did ten pallets a light brown, another 10 “Chep” blue, ten a light grey colour and I also did one a dull green.

While that was drying, I revisited the insulfrog point that I purchased a few weeks back that was to replace an electrofrog point in Acacia Ridge Yard from track 3 to track 2.  Before I put the point in, I used a Dremel tool with a sanding disk in its jaws and tried to take a peak out of the baseboard where two separate baseboards met.  I must have taken about 3mm out of the board at that location and then tested the steel train through that point.  Previously when backing up the loco had a propensity to derail and cause a short at that location when backing from track 3 to track 2.  That is now a distant memory.  It now works like a bought one.  

Today I did some more drum painting in various colours.  I also hit some of the pallets that I had previously painted with my dull coat covering.  I also happened to unleash this technique on quite a few wagons on the layout.  My standard gauge steel train sitting in Acacia Ridge Yard had about 4 wagons painted on one side.  I also attacked three HWO wagons and their loads that were sitting in the narrow gauge yard.  I also gave the engine a dose of dull spray.

I eventually returned to my work bench and  cut up about 35 pallets into individual pallets from their string that I make them in.  I also painted another fourty 44 gallon drums and did some more dull coating.

Various colours of 44 gallon drums.

Some dull coated light brown wooden pallets.

In the Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard, there are two tracks that have a third rail for standard gauge trains to use.  However, one of those tracks is isolated from any other standard gauge track.  So it is hard to explain how any standard gauge trains can get there.  So I am thinking of installing a dual gauge set of points which I need to make using a Fasttrack jig.  This set of dual gauge set of points that will allow for a loco and two or three wagons to fit in a headshunt and get access to that isolated dual gauge track.  So I will look at building this set of points over the next weekend or two.  We will see what eventuates.  Of course all these will be manually operated.

This Tuesday is our Tuesday Nighter's get together and we are visiting Bob's.  I must put some mosquito repellent on before I leave home. It will be great seeing what Bob has accomplished since we were last in attendance.

The collection of about 65 x 44 gallon drums in various colours.  Some still on the sprew as they are still wet.