Coffee Shop XXIX


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Say Jeffery,

As you can see by my shot of the tank cars I don't even have any ballast, or ground cover down so I'm no one to be pointing things out could be corrected and I have more than enough to do myself.

What kind of saves me, at least to some extent is the Sound Board I'm using as a ground base is somewhat natural earth color but I guess I should really apply some dirt and a bit of grass to the area as it would sure look better. Don't you think?

I've been side tracked, npi, for too long so it's time to get really working on the layout again.

I guess one of the problems is I'd like to work a bit of a dirt road in to go from the lower level up to the raised section where the Copper & Iron [C&I] works are but seem to be having a bit of a time to know where to have it cross the tracks toward the front edge and then double back and climb a bit of a grade to the C&I area?

It does get to be interesting though in trying to make everything look realistic.

I guess I should post a picture too.


Oh, I just noticed, I already have over a 1,045 posts so I should be catching up with you shortly! LoL
 
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Dollie's Dad said:
I've been sidetracked, so no work on the layout for the last few weeks. One of the projects I wanted to get out of the way was refinishing the stock on a 50-year old .22 rifle. I have no idea why it was important to do that except I've been hauling the gun around since I bought it at the Navy Base Exchange all those years ago, and the thing was really beat up, probably from being stored in the corner of the garage along with the shovels and rakes. It turned out really well, but now I'm trying to find a butt plate for it, and that's going to be tricky.

The gun is remarkably good shape. There is no rust, and everything seems to be working properly. Actually, that's a bit of a miracle because the garage I stored it in for a number of years was flooded a couple times. I'm looking forward to taking it out in the desert and blowing up some beer cans.
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Say Tom:
Go to: http://www.midwayusa.com/ Larry Potterfield, the owner has a tremendous selection of all gun related items and listed for specific rifles or hand guns too.

I'm very sure you should be able to find whatever your looking for.

Take care,
David
 
Good morning...

Good Morning ! from Tipton IN.
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Good morning. It's 54° and sunny. The high will be 84° and it will remain sunny.

I'll likely be busy weathering some freight cars today. I've already done a Tyco 40' Hi-cube this morning and it doesn't look bad at all even though it's at the toy end of most of my rolling stock. I have two 50' Hi-cubes to do still. I think they're Stewart though I can't swear to it. There's also a Tyco gondola and a Model Power 2-bay hopper that need attention there's a Bachmann 50' depressed center flat car. In fact since I was thinking about it I've already picked it up and stripped the load and trucks off it. While I'm at it I'll probably fit it with Kadee's as well just so I don't have to do it at some later time. Some time back somebody tried convincing me it's impossible to put Kadee #148's in Tyco truck mount coupler boxes. He either didn't try or was talking out the side of his face. Yesterday I made six attempts to install them in that way and I had six successes. To keep the coupler shanks from pushing up through the opening in the top of the box I simply tied a strand of thin wire around the end of the box and secured it in place with a drop of glue. The couplers move exactly like they're supposed to and self center without a problem. They'll do until I get around to doing body mounts on those cars. My Roco Frontier Chemicals tank car should be here this weekend (tomorrow) or Monday at the latest. At $9.99 with no shipping cost I couldn't pass it up. Speaking of new cars I have an Athearn Dow Chemicals covered hopper I just got put together and haven't had a chance to do anything other than install shelf couplers on it before a couple of modelers started making noises about obtaining it for themselves. It tracks very well and shows no sign of binding or other trouble even on my rough track.

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Good morning. It's 67° and sunny. The high will be 86° and it will remain sunny.

I was expecting a new tank car to arrive today but mail tracking indicates that it won't arrive until Monday. Last night I went to Ebay in search of a Tyco 'Old Dutch Cleanser' covered hopper that was in good condition and at a low 'Buy It Now' price with free shipping. I finally found one that met all three criteria. Total price: $6.99. I wasted no time in ordering it. This morning I found another one in a lot with two box cars so I grabbed that one too. Total of the lot: $7.

Today I'll be busy with a little project. My Walthers GP9m is still having pickup issues. It'll pick up power from one wheelset per truck. So I'm going to hardwire it to my Frankenstein GP9m which has excellent pickup. Since I was going to run them together anyway it's no hassle and it'll be a fun little project. With all these loco sets I'm putting together I was running out of space on the display rack. Yesterday I took all the non-DCC locos (with the exception of the steamers on the top shelf) off the rack and packed them away in the closet. I can keep four sets of locos (two to a set) on each shelf with some space between the sets. So two shelves are devoted to these loco sets now. Four sets on one shelf and three on the other as one set consists of three F units. That leaves plenty of space for the fourteen single units.

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Good Morning, It's a comfortable 72* under partially cloudy skies.

I did finally determine the best to put a bit of a road in front of the Serpha Copper & Iron works so that it will take a Left hand turn and cross the mainline and siding and be able to curve around to the Right and again cross the main line and climb a dirt embankment up to the SC&I works for delivers or pick-up by truck. That should make things a lot more believable. Going back the other way on the road it will curve to the Right and again cross over the mainline and continue on to the Anglin Oil Pumping and storage facility which will be near the end of their siding on the front edge of the layout on the newly acquired real estate where I filled in a corner with a 45* section that opened things up considerably on both side of the extension for the Amalgamate Hill extension table. It all works out nicely. That will also make a nice place to put in a Hobo camp where A#1 often stops to partake in some of the local game in the area. Also the curve headed over to Five across the dry creek ares provides a perfect blind to catch a ride on the local but the engineers on the C&S West SL really don't care if these guys ride for free, they're all fairly good natured.


On a different note:
I'm waiting on a call from Bill who, along with his other Marine buddies are going even a couple of steps further than I in attempting to attract some new younger guys into the MRR hobby. He, having been in our hobby earlier and also hand lays his own rail and builds his own switches, is planning an HO modular set-up that will be about 8'x12' that is to be set-up in the parking lot of a True Value Hardware store
and give the new fellows a chance to operate some trains! He's also a believer in just DC like I am so I'm going to suggest using the same Radio control hand throttle like I have that will allow the young guys to control the speed of the trains and direction as they move around with them which should be a real thrill for them and get some young fellows involved in our hobby!



As an added note;
I went to start to add items to my Foothill-Station web site yesterday only to realize the pricing I downloaded from my distributor is in a pdf format and I couldn't get my Adobe updated so as to open up the pricing and current stock available to me.
Darn, so now I'm dead in the water till I can Adobe installed. What a Bummer!


Hope everyone has a good day and weekend.
 
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Well I got the GP9's wired together and now the Walthers (lead) unit runs smooth as silk. The job was easy to do and I took my time at it. The wires are hardly noticeable and even on closer examination closely resemble air or mu lines.

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Good morning. It's 64° and sunny. The high will be 88° and it will remain sunny.

One of today's projects will be a repair mission. Yesterday I broke the rear coupler pocket on my P2K/Athearn SDP40F. Today I'll have to repair or replace it. One of the wires joining it to it's mate, an Athearn SDP40F was damaged as well.

I'm finished with the GP9m's for now and they're in the display rack. I need to get decoders for them that have a higher current rating. The DZ125's I put in them have a 1.25 amp peak load and are at the edge of their limit and have a couple of burn marks on them. The decoders still work but they won't last under a load. The DZ123 has a higher peak load (2 amps) and ,ay be a good replacement.

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Good late afternoon or early evening. It been a fairly warm day out here in Central Cal.
with a temp of now at 5:08 Pm of 86* and very mild breeze.

I see where the track crew finally got busy and put the crossing planks down across the main line and started on the crossing planks for the Anglin Oil siding. The road then curves to the Left and back across the switch to the Serpha Copper & Iron Works [SC&IW] and that is going to be a tad more difficult as it cuts across the back end of the frog of that switch and then the dirt road climbs the bank toward the SC&IW.


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Good morning. It's 60° and cloudy. The high will be 87° and it will be partly cloudy.

Nothing special going on today. I did a count on my DCC locos last night. I'm up to twenty-six. Today I'll be ripping apart a Bachmann SD45. Another modeler wants the drive shafts from it. I also have to get a covered hopper and some loco parts boxed up for delivery up north. Other than that there's not much going on here.

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I was starting to wonder if my Frontier Chemicals tank car was going to show up. Tracking had it in Denver on the 13th then it was like it just ceased to exist. No word at all until this morning when I got a message that it was at the Leesville Post Office. So I should have it this afternoon by the latest.
 
jeffrey-wimberly said:
Well I got the GP9's wired together and now the Walthers (lead) unit runs smooth as silk. The job was easy to do and I took my time at it. The wires are hardly noticeable and even on closer examination closely resemble air or mu lines.

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If you were to put some silver paint on the wires at the lowest point that would give the impression of the glad hands fitting. That would make the MU hose connection even better.
 
Ken G Price said:
If you were to put some silver paint on the wires at the lowest point that would give the impression of the glad hands fitting. That would make the MU hose connection even better.
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I'd been thinking about but just haven't gotten to it yet.



I got my Frontier Chemicals tank car today. I was right about it being made by Roco. It's AHM/Roco - AHM stock #5276-F and was made in the 70's. It's in very good condition. Of course the very first thing I did was rip the coupler mounts off the trucks. The frame ends are far too thin to mount coupler boxes to so I'm gluing styrene strips in between the sides of the frame so I'LL have something to mount the boxes to. You can see in the photo what I've so far. Next I'll glue on the coupler boxes and install Kadee #119 shelf couplers.

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