Sunday, February 28, 2021

Ticking Off To Do List Items

On Thursday afternoon this week, I wrote a “To Do” list for this weekend's activities.  I was hoping to get some motivation out of this.  I started on Friday evening, and was able to tick off the first few items.  So far so good.  First up I added some road markings to my Traffic Light demonstration module.  The stop bars in the intersection were made from 0.010” x 0.100” styrene strip and 0.010” x 0.030” strip was used for the centre road lines, and some side lines on the road.  I normally use 0.010: x 0.040” for centre lines on a road, but I had that styrene earmarked for other activities.  I do use 0.010" x 0.030" for the side lines.  The next task was to find some scribed wood in my collection that I thought I had in the shed.  Sure enough I had two packets.  One packet had 3 ¼” wide scribes and the other had 4” wide scribes.  I chose to use the 4” version.  My plan was to use this product cut into 6’ high strips with some laser cut wood frames for a fence.  The scribes would look like 4" palings in the fence.  The laser cut frames were produced by one of our Club members Tristan Harrison as his line of business.  They are great!.  So I cut up the strips and stained them with my standard stain made from Ink pad ink and metho.  These were allowed to dry and once I get around to making the house for the signalman at Border Loop, this house will be surrounded by this fencing.  I need the house first as I do not know how big the fencing will be.

Saturday’s job was to start planning for the house used by the Signalman at Border Loop.  I had printed out some photos that had appeared online over the years, and of course I took a backup copy in case the internet went down.  I looked in a book of NSW railway plans, an old AMRA magazine article of an old house (which I had already made a model of about 20 years ago, and the internet.  So from the photos that I had and some known measurements and some estimations of standard sizes of certain items or objects on the house, like doors, and windows.  I have been able to guess what I hope will be a near enough size for the four sides of the house.  One advantage is that I might not have to put any detail on the rear of the house, as it is up against the scenery backdrop.  So I have three sides worked out.  I just need to transfer these markings onto three sheets of weatherboard shaped styrene (clapboard from evergreen scale models), cut out the doors and window and put the house together.  While I am doing this, I will also put together the Kyogle Station building which has also been cut out.

Sunday’s plan was to do two jobs.  One jobs was make up 4 kits of level crossing flashers ready for sale, and the second was to try and do up a small demo layout of 'Shelton the Photographer' on a small section of test track.  On Sunday morning and early afternoon I was also supposed to tune into the NMRA-X presentations.  Well I did watch half of the NMRA-X presentations.  I have everything read to make up the kits for the level crossing detectors, and I will complete them tonight after posting this blog.  I also plan to find some Clapboard tonight and start marking my plan onto it.

I've got a couple of days off next week to supervise a carport being built at my place, so I might find some modelling time during the week.  There is also plenty on the agenda for next weekend as well.

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