The Countdown Begins

I had Darren drop off some 42mm  x 19mm pine lengths at my place on Friday, along with 8 strips of plasterer’s angle.  After finishing work on Friday, I got out my white spray can and painted 4 strips of plasterer’s angle.  When they were dry, these where screwed to one of my strips of pine -  strips back to back with two lengths end to end.  These strips become my pelmet when I install a length of LED strip in between the plasterer’s angle.  I got everything out I needed to hang the 5.4m length of pine from the roof trusses in the shed.  I found my chain and then I was in a state of confusion as to how I cut the long length of chain to the required strips to hand the pine.  I could not remember how I did the previous one many years back.  That evening, I went looking for my stash of 6A power supplies.  But I could not find any left.  So I purchase another 4 power supplies online.  That was a day after I also purchased another 4 strips of LED lights for the top deck of my layout.  That may not be enough though.

On Saturday this week I ventured over to John Kennedy’s place for the NMRA meeting.  It was good to catch up with those in attendance and grab another glimpse of John Kennedy’s layout.  It was about 2 years ago that I last visited John’s place.  His layout is a multi-deck affair in a purpose built shed.  There is no helix, just a nolix around the walls to get to the higher level.  The scenery is very nice, the buildings are very well detailed and the scenes everywhere are just fantastic.  I was given some homework from the meeting to get some articles about NSW North Coast trains for a member.

On the way home, I stopped off at Bunnings and picked up two bolts to allow me to hang the chain lengths from the roof trusses.  I installed my LED strip in between the plasterer’s angle and allowed the glue to dry.  Later that evening, I carefully moved the strip from my work area in the pergola onto the top deck of Fisherman Islands Yard in the shed.

So today I used a hack saw to cut the links in my chain and then removed the links of chain so they were all the same length.  I then hung the chain from the roof trusses and waited for my apprentice to become available to hold up one end of my 5.4m length of pine while I screwed the chain to my end of the wood.  I then screwed the chain at his end of the wood to the chain and voila a new string of LED lights installed.  My only issue is that I do not have any power supply yet to test them with.  I need to wait a week for delivery.  I also received some additional pine from Darren and this will allow me to build the support structure for the lights around Runnings Creek on the top deck.

So after lunch, I decided to reinstall all my location signs around the layout.  These were removed while I painted the fascias.  I then vacuumed the shed.  I then washed the floors around where I will be installing some painted yellow strips on the floor to indicate locations where crew should not stand still during an operations sessions as this stops people from moving past them.

I have also been planning to add a mini scene to the road over rail bridge on the left as you enter the shed.  I plan to have some bridge painters preparing the bridge for painting.  To do this, one lane on the bridge has been closed.  So I have installed witch’s hats to outline the lane.  I was also given a set of traffic lights by Ken at yesterday’s NMRA meeting.  These lights will be placed on the back of a 6’ x 4’ box trailer and the traffic lights will iterate through the different various colour aspects allowing traffic to be regulated through the now single lane bridge.  I will use an Arduino to do this.  It will be basically my standard traffic light sequence code but with only a single set of lights attached.  The other set will be off scene at the other end of the bridge as it disappears out into the layout aisle.  So this should be a nice little talking point.

I also decided to plan for the installation of some fencing around 4 houses and a railway property on the layout at the southern end of Cassino.  I have laid out the fences and realised that I am just a few lengths short.  So I will drop a mate in our Club a line and ask him to laser cut a few more lengths of fencing from him and have them at the next Club Meeting day in 2 weeks time. 

Tonight I will be making quite a few more witch's hats as well as some guide posts for a section of road.  This will be done while watching the State of Origin on TV.  I'm trying to tidy up a few loose ends before the NMRA guys visit my place on the 17th of July - Covid willing.  Only 4 work days left!

Installing Shelving

Tuesday night this week, we visit Arthur’s place and checked out the fantastic work he has done on some QR oil pots in particular.  We are always amazed as to what work Arthur has been up to and the finish is just brilliant.  PK brought along some Panel Liner and gave a presentation on how he lines a QR ALY wagon - from Arthur's collection.  What really cracked us up, was that PK had done this same process to some of his wagons - I assume 4 of them, but this was the first time that he realised that the doors on this wagon opened.  This amused us all for quite a time.  PK - what would be do with out you?  At least we would not be as entertained as we were on Tuesday night - hehehe! 

Saturday morning I went for a tour of the hobby shops as it had been some time since I had visited them.  I picked up a number of things that I probably didn’t need but they looked good, so they have been added to my To Do list.  After lunch, I retired to the shed and decided to bite the bullet and install some shelving (that had been sitting on the ground behind my dispatcher’s desk for a few weeks now).  These two shelves were to go above my workbench to give me some more storage space in the shed.  So up the ladder, and I screwed the first 1800mm shelf in place hard up against the corner of the shed.  I then added another 1200mm shelf at right angles to the first shelf.  Just like a bought one.  I was then troubled for the rest of the afternoon, thinking about where else I could locate some more shelf space.  I was thinking about adding more shelves above Cassino (actually above the track from Loco Pilly to Dutton Park, as well as some above Clapham Yard, and also some above Acacia Ridge Yard.

So after some more consideration on Sunday morning, I went back down to Bunnings and bought another 3 x 1800mm lengths of shelving and some more brackets to hang them from the walls.  So with the help of my apprentice for about half an hour, I then put two more shelves above Loco Pilly running towards Dutton Park, and then decided to take a break and do some more blue sky board painting between the newly installed shelves and the track about 600mm below.  After lunch I went back to the shed and installed the last shelf above Clapham Yard on the southern end.  The shed’s air conditioner is above the northern end of Clapham Yard.

I have now been able to move most of my pre-purchased commercial - yet to be installed trees and pre-made twisted trees - made by me and mates, above the Loco Pilly area.

What I have realised following this shelving work undertaken this weekend is that I need above another half a dozen clear plastic tubs with lids to consolidate a number of items into the containers and place them on the shelves.  Clear tubs will allow me to see what is in the tubs.

Later this afternoon I adjourned to the kitchen table and added bogies to four wagons, 2 x NSW Cement Wagons and 2 x 12mm QR QGA wheat wagons.  I also added KD’s to one of the NSW Cement Wagon that did not have them.  I still need to add some KDs to the QGA wagons.  I then made up about 8 loads of steel rod (bound together with wire ties) for my steel wagons.  These will be hit with some grey paint next weekend.  In between these activities, I painted up about 18 tea bags, with yellow and green paint.  These will be cut into standard sized - 24' x 16' tarpaulins - you get two per tea bag, and eventually rolled up and tied with cotton.  These go down a treat with one of the local hobby shop - Modeller's Warehouse selling them.

So overall I constructive weekend was had.  Next Saturday is the NMRA meeting at John Kennedy’s place, so I will not be doing any modelling next Saturday.  I need to do some planning in the lead up to the following NMRA meeting which is at my place in July.  I haven't run a train on the layout for months.  Might have to clean the track first.

NMRA Australian Region Virtual Convention 2021

Since Friday I have been logged onto the NMRA Australian Region Virtual Convention.  It is running from Friday to Monday this weekend.  I have not sat through all the sessions, but I picked out a number that I wanted to see, and I have also been sucked into some others as I started watching some other sessions and got hooked because they are very interesting.  I think I have learnt quite a bit from the various sessions.  There has certainly been some very skilled people online sharing their techniques. 

The sessions from Arthur Hayes on Sunday was brilliant.  As was the session by Luke Herbert on Friday.  I can keep going on.  There is some sessions I missed as I was at my son’s soccer yesterday, but I can go back and watch them at any time as they were streamed to Facebook and YouTube.  I have more to watch tonight and then about 5 sessions I want to watch tomorrow.  To make this even better, this was all free.  Zero cost to watch.  What more could you ask for.

I need to get something to eat and get back online.  Normal services will resume next weekend.

Presentation, Posts and Painting

This week we visited Barnacle Bob’s on Tuesday and again were amazed at his layout.  It is just fabulous.  I’m sure there has been some changes made since we were last there.  On Friday afternoon I went to the shed and broke out the black paint and did a bit of touching up of the fascia in a couple of areas.  On Friday evening, I started putting some of the slides that PK sent me into my master presentation for an upcoming NMRA online convention - well next Sunday.  I still expect some more slides from PK on Monday.  I'm hoping that we should finish the presentation on Monday evening.  It should be a hoot.

On Saturday morning I broke out the blue paint to spend a hour painting some of my light fittings and starting on some backscenes in some areas.  I then had to spend the rest of the day travelling to the other side of the city for my son’s soccer game, which they lost 5-3 after being down 5-0.  It was a great comeback, against a very disrespectful, loud and obnoxious group of so called Christian men.   

The Toowoomba Model Train Show was on this weekend, I asked PK to try and pick up some bogie screws for me at a couple of the shops.  Unfortunately they did not have any in stock.  I want to use the screws to attach some bogies to some wagons. 

So on Sunday I decided to sleep in and not go to Toowoomba and instead installed the two posts for my entry protection awning for my shed.  I’ve had the posts and the holes for the posts available for weeks.  So this morning we went and picked up 6 bags of postcrete.  My helper assisted with holding the posts in place, while I braced them with a couple of lengths of 42 x 19 clamped to the post.  The postcrete was poured in, and they were basically pretty much plumb.  So the water was added and the concrete started its setting process.  There is a couple of millimetres difference in distance for the posts from the shed.  Who cares about that?  I put a straight edge across the tops of the posts and they were pretty much level.  Damn amazing!

So next week, it looks like I will be heading to Stratco to buy some steel C channel for the frame for the roof to be installed.  I will try and assemble it on the ground and then raise it up to the top of the posts and see how it goes.  But it might have some weight in it by then.  We will see.

Anyway after that work was completed, I decided to paint a couple of the remaining fascias as you enter the shed their black colour.  So that was completed and then I started to paint a few more of the light pelmets a blue colour.  I also started painting the area behind Clapham Yard, Loco Pilly and towards Dutton Park the sky blue background colour as well.  I also started on some of the area behind Cassino as well.  But I have now run out of my blue backdrop colour, so that I require another trip to Bunnings for another sample pot.