Pallets, Powercab PCP, Painting and Packing

So this weekend I have cut up 4 strips of HO scale pallets into individual ones and then painted about half.  So these are now CHEP or Loscam (blue or red) in colour.  I plan on doing the other half tomorrow, in a range of other colours.  I have also got back into the tarpaulin making process.  I have painted up at least 24 strips of teabag which will make at least 48 tarps.  I plan on making another 12 tomorrow strips, or 24 tarpaulins tomorrow. 

I had been wanting to add a Powercab PCP to a small demo track, but didn’t want to spend close to $50 for the privilege.  I could not find a spare PCP among my mates that they wanted to part ways with.  So I made my own PCP.  I had some old RG45 sockets which I have had for close to 20 years, that I added 1mm styrene infill to each side of the socket.  This is to align the Powercab cable to the middle of the RJ45 and make the plug fit the 6 inner connections of the 8 pins in the RJ45.  An RJ45 is of course an 8 pin plug.  So I am taking the two outer connections out of play.  I plugged in a power source to the back end of the RJ45 and then plugged a cable into my modified socket and then measured the voltage on wires 2 and 5 of that cable at the far end and made sure that the output was the same polarity to that in my PCP when I measured that.  It was!  So that seems like it will work.  I just need to connect the output from pins 2 and 7 from the RJ45 socket to the track and plug my Powercab in and see if it doesn’t explode and the track power is applied to my test track. 

It should work, but I always hate doing things where there is the possibility of causing damage.  So that is another job for tomorrow, if I can work up enough courage to test it.

The other activity that I was doing over the last couple of days is a bit of painting around the layout.  Some areas where a bit of white (basically plaster) has been coming through the scenery has been addressed with some other coloured washes applied over the scatter.  I have also added a bit of a wash to some rock faces that were also a bit light in colour. 

I will have to start packing up my things tomorrow for the Brisbane May Model Railway show next weekend.  So I will have to work out what I will be taking.  Hopefully next weekend will be fun.  if you are there come along for a natter.