Running Bear’s October 2020 Coffee Shop


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Hey der people? I was up at 2 AM this morning - just could not sleep but did not have anything of importance on my mind. Had a coffee, went back to bed at 6AM and slept until 7:15 at which time the three pups ganged up on me and demanded that I :rise and shine". I have been dragging all day long while the better half went for her walk, got her nails done, stopped at the grocery store, and stopped at the mail box where she picked up my computer light that was suggested by Terry.

GUY - The store looks very nice being able to see the inside. The Tractor Supply store 1/2 mile to the East of me has huge sacks of wood pellets and garden supplies stacked around the entrance + lawn tractors, wheelbarrows, and other things. Inside the door they have a wire pen set up with baby chickens, ducks, and rabbits. Your people could be overlooking a pen of animals too?

I didn't mean that the GE locos that I had shown were ugly - just the paint job! Frisco had a bunch of U-25b's and B30-7's which I though looked good. Four of their units were the original high nose U-25B's of which I didn't really care for.

I'm supposed to be at a Bunko party - first one since January - but I really don't feel like going. I suppose that I will make a short "drop-in" and maybe have a sandwich and then slip out. I would be alone as the wife is out with her daughter somewhere for the afternoon - fortunately it is only a mile up the hill to the South of us.

CHET - You outdid yourself with the new photos - some real winners there.
GARRY - Your photo belongs on a magazine cover!

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Good Evening Gentlemen
Found enough courage to start the new building. The walls are huge and the base is so flimsey, I built a jig to hold it in place. Assembling it dry just to see how it goes. It has dawned on me that a building this size is going to need a lot more than what comes in a kit. Floors, walls, machinery and workers inside if I want this to look right. This is way above my experience level so it will go pretty slow, maybe by 2030 I will have it done. I have wondered; what would Willie do? Anyway, a pleasant 77* here and not a chance of much needed rain in the forecast.
Sherrel My aunt that was a flight attendant with Continental/United for 40 some years is coming to visit for a couple days and she too has COPD. Is this common for folks that flew for so long? She blames it on all the smokers back in the old days.
Have a good evening all, and again, ya'lls layouts are so great looking, hope I can get there someday. 2 pics of the building start.
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Morning all,

Still copying files this morning, nearly 48 hours later. Otherwise everything is ok.

Found out why the county sent the boy 2 ballots. The outers had his information, the inner return envelope had mine, so I think I'd be OK to send 1 in, but he can't vote using either. I gotta call the election board today and see what we need to do. Maybe one of us needs to change our name....lol
 
Good Evening Gentlemen
Found enough courage to start the new building. The walls are huge and the base is so flimsey, I built a jig to hold it in place. Assembling it dry just to see how it goes. It has dawned on me that a building this size is going to need a lot more than what comes in a kit. Floors, walls, machinery and workers inside if I want this to look right. This is way above my experience level so it will go pretty slow, maybe by 2030 I will have it done. I have wondered; what would Willie do? Anyway, a pleasant 77* here and not a chance of much needed rain in the forecast.
Sherrel My aunt that was a flight attendant with Continental/United for 40 some years is coming to visit for a couple days and she too has COPD. Is this common for folks that flew for so long? She blames it on all the smokers back in the old days.
Have a good evening all, and again, ya'lls layouts are so great looking, hope I can get there someday. 2 pics of the building start.
View attachment 118545View attachment 118546
Get yourself some 1-2-3 blocks from Amazon. They have good edges, and are heavy enough to hold walls in place and keep them square. I've also found that additional bracing is often required to keep things firmly attached and square on larger buildings. Walthers?
 
Morning, everyone! Dark outside at 5:30am; there's no stars n satellites, so it's overcast. A bit cool, as well, with the mercury only reaching 18°F.
I'll just have coffee to wake-up, until a 9am breakfast rolls around.

Guy - Just a suggestion, cut off the bases on those Atlas figures. It will lower their overall height a bit and won't look as unsightly. I carefully use a sharp single-edge razor blade. Of course afterwards, you have to glue them into position. I use Scenic Accents re-positional glue from Woodland scenics, or Elmer's White glue for a more permanent hold.
That was the plan anyway, Willie; I left the bases on for now, just so I can play with position. Thanks so much for the kind suggestion, though; and thanks for insight into what glue to use.

An N scale farm tractor would make a good HO scale lawn tractor. One of the old ones, in green...
Terry, that was an excellent thought; it made me look into it via the Bay. Problem is the cost; looks like it will cost north of 25 bucks for one tiny tractor. Plus, there is the time to receive element. - We are going to the city on Thursday, so I'll check in the LHS for one.

GUY - The store looks very nice being able to see the inside. The Tractor Supply store 1/2 mile to the East of me has huge sacks of wood pellets and garden supplies stacked around the entrance + lawn tractors, wheelbarrows, and other things. Inside the door they have a wire pen set up with baby chickens, ducks, and rabbits. Your people could be overlooking a pen of animals too?
I like the idea of something on a pallet, Sherrel, and I do have nice HO pallets. I don't remember any live animals in a hardware store, though. Thanks for the suggestion.

An honest Thank You to everyone else who commented or liked my simple post! It is all warmly appreciated!

I'll be fiddling with something modeling today, as the wife is at work for the next 8hrs. I don't seem to get a whole lot of modeling time when she's in the house, as she wants to do things, and dosen't understand the joy of modeling. She has taken up the wreath making and flower arrangement hobby, though, which is beneficial to me; she sticks her nose in that and quits bothering me.

Just so I could post a photo, I took this comparison of my most recent builds:
StoreFront_10-18-2020 (4).jpg

Perhaps if I ripped that awning off of the first building, and re-did the wall; the out-of-scale effect might not be so noticeable. I like my modeling work on the first building better than the effort on the second structure.

Anyway, gotta go before i start boring you! Have a good one!
 
Good morning from pandemic stricken Wisconsin. Yesterday was a joyous mid-afternoon and then my Packer loving fan wife went silent. When I came up for dinner at 6:45pm I saw the score, they are no longer undefeated. As a former Packer and Bears season ticket holder which we gave up after 30+ years, 20 years of indoor suite seating, I just don‘t care anymore and it has nothing to do with player politics. While Terry still has her dad’s 4 tickets now in her name I haven’t gone in 3 seasons. I guess there will be no fans at Lambeau for the Covid future.

Greg, call the season ticket office and ask if there is a list for stadium seating. Those are individual seats with about 1000 other fans behind the glass but without the excessive costs of the suites. It maybe more then outdoor but I think the wait is very short.

Lots done in the hobby room yesterday but nothing train related. Working on scenery for the grandkids slot track. Today during Covid reduced to being online learning Monday, before school and during recess we will plant trees. Last Friday we spread some ground cover. I am building grandstands and pit garage buildings. It has been fun with the grandkids.

enjoy your day
TomO
 
Morning, everyone! Dark outside at 5:30am; there's no stars n satellites, so it's overcast. A bit cool, as well, with the mercury only reaching 18°F.
I'll just have coffee to wake-up, until a 9am breakfast rolls around.


That was the plan anyway, Willie; I left the bases on for now, just so I can play with position. Thanks so much for the kind suggestion, though; and thanks for insight into what glue to use.


Terry, that was an excellent thought; it made me look into it via the Bay. Problem is the cost; looks like it will cost north of 25 bucks for one tiny tractor. Plus, there is the time to receive element. - We are going to the city on Thursday, so I'll check in the LHS for one.


I like the idea of something on a pallet, Sherrel, and I do have nice HO pallets. I don't remember any live animals in a hardware store, though. Thanks for the suggestion.

An honest Thank You to everyone else who commented or liked my simple post! It is all warmly appreciated!

I'll be fiddling with something modeling today, as the wife is at work for the next 8hrs. I don't seem to get a whole lot of modeling time when she's in the house, as she wants to do things, and dosen't understand the joy of modeling. She has taken up the wreath making and flower arrangement hobby, though, which is beneficial to me; she sticks her nose in that and quits bothering me.

Just so I could post a photo, I took this comparison of my most recent builds:
View attachment 119726
Perhaps if I ripped that awning off of the first building, and re-did the wall; the out-of-scale effect might not be so noticeable. I like my modeling work on the first building better than the effort on the second structure.

Anyway, gotta go before i start boring you! Have a good one!
 
Saw that, Terry. Perhaps reasonable if you are in the USA. Not so reasonable sending it up into a foreign snow-zone, with crappy exchange rates. I know $23.00cdn don't sound like a lot; but, I expect there will be duty costs added to that. I have lots of time to try a scratch build with materials already on hand.
 
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 50°, only going up to 71° today, back into the mid-80's tomorrow. Weather geeks have finally added rain to the forecast for Friday, and Monday next week, but only a 40% chance of light morning showers. So it's either not likely or we'll get a deluge. That's how it works here in North Central Texas.
Finally plugged in the new HP computer yesterday. I'm not liking this Win10 right now, but I think that I'll get used to it. Too much razzle-dazzle for me. I am just too used to Win7 after using it for nine years. I did download that Classic Windows program that Terry recommended last week, it sure helps. That was second after loading Firefox. Now if I could just figure out how to change primary users? Since my wife already had a Microsoft account, the computer defaulted to her name! Haven't been able to fix that yet. Took about an hour to reload all of my files and stuff from the old computer (260Gb) that had taken almost eight hours to extract Saturday. It was more than I had expected. Still have a few stray files to retrieve. Fortunate that the old computer hadn't really stopped working completely because some of the previous file backups were quite outdated. OK, next issue. I had been using Office 2003 on the old machine, but I cannot yet access those files on the new one. I used installation discs from work years ago, but I returned them at the time. I mainly use Excel, Word and Access, although I most likely won't really have a need for Access any more, I am less adventurous! Any recommendations from fellow users regarding some freeware out there? Not really looking for a cloud service, but maybe.
Headed out this morning for the pharmacy and getting my ears lowered, all in preparation for the vacation later this week. Wife wants to visit the dreaded Walmart. I'll use her handicap placard and stay in the car near the entrance and watch the people. She by the way, removed the toilet seat booster yesterday, which is an excellent indicator of her knee replacement surgery recovery. While it went back on for the overnight visits, we don't plan on taking it with us!:D
Afterwards, we will make the second attempt at absentee voting.
Speaking of our vacation, we're making a two day run to get to Gulf Shores AL, partly because my wife isn't supposed to be too inactive with the leg. We'll be overnighting in Gulfport MS, on the Gulf Coast Saturday. Sunday before departing for Gulf Shores, we'll be revisiting the Mississippi Coast Model Railroad Museum again. They were expanding last fall when we visited, and according to their website, they're opening an additional building across the road. I spoke with them last week to be sure that they were open, but the gentleman wasn't sure about the new place; although they were having an open house there this past Saturday. Haven't determined the return itinerary yet, but we're tentatively planning only one day. The shortest route is 700 miles, but threads through parts of Mobile and is two lane (1 in each direction) until the Mississippi border. But it eventually passes T-Rays BBQ in Richland MS (a bit south of Jackson), that we like to stop at for lunch. That route also passes through Jackson and Vicksburg MS, both of which have museums with model railroads that I have featured here before.

Enough rambling for now, two eggs over easy and a handful of bacon this morning Flo. Hold the toast but bring me a large OJ to wash it down with.

Thanks a lot for all of the likes and comments yesterday; Karl, Guy, Tom O, Garry, Jerome, Chet, Sherrel, Curt, Greg, Rick, Phil, Tom, Patrick.

Actually got in a little train shed time yesterday, I don't usually get much done on Sundays. Here is the interior window treatment sheet for the Village Pizza kit.
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Since I am re-purposing it to a pub, I did some selective trimming on the storefront.
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Here is a variety of optional signs that can be used.
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I selected Derry's Pub. Many of the others will be used on other existing structures on the layout.
Completed view.
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From the front.
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True to form, there is a major faux-pas for Walther's here. Note on the top picture, there are 10 individual window treatments on the sheet. But wait! There are 13 windows to decorate! Black construction paper was used for the remaining three here.

Guy - I like the progress that you're making on the store. That interior could pass for a lot of different things. Early in my hobby life, I just assembled kits and made them look exactly like the box cover, thus duplicating what many others did. While I still do to some extent, many times I re-purpose structures for something more fitting for my layout situation.
Garry - Let me join the others in complementing the great picture yesterday.
Chet - For my store interiors, I use Google to find appropriate looking pictures, and then I copy and paste them usually into Word where I resize and crop them before printing them on 65# paper stock. Then it's a matter of trimming and attaching them to the structures.
Some more great pictures yesterday, some structures that I don't recall seeing before and some new angles on others. I am always amazed at how many vehicles are in your scenes. I don't have nearly enough in some of mine yet.
Dave - For the Middlesex building, the windows are really too small to bother adding details behind them, at last for my location on the layout. If you're planning interior lighting, some irregular cut pieces of black construction paper taped on the walls should suffice.

Everybody have a great day today.
 
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K, guy's. If you'll bare with my over indulgence in posting: the mission is to scratch build an HO scale lawn tractor. Or, just about, maybe HO.
First step was to go to my trusty trays of scrap, scratch build materials, and select some stuff:
Tractor1_10-19-2020.jpg

I collected some credit-card junk mail and a green piece of plastic that I could make into an engine. Wheels were made using a punch set, the CC was cut into pieces, and then I was ready to start gluing a lawn tractor together. - No real measurements here, other than using Rebecca as a size guide. I don't even know how to read a micrometer.
Tractor2_10-19-2020.jpg

Betcha, I have something that looks like a lawn tractor before wife gets home.

Gonna start putting it together, and I'll paint it another day.
 
Good Morning Everyone.....sunny and cool in this part of Wisconsin. Down to the trains after lunch and its been awhile since I've done any real work on the layout. Actually, I've been spending money on smaller items and single box cars and I like waiting for the orders to arrive. Yesterday, I ordered two N scale decoders for my Bachmann 70 tonners which I like, but they run real noisy. At $15 a decoder I can't go wrong.

I also have on order two Rapido locomotives a H10-44 Canadian National and a SOO SW1500. Ever since I received my Rapido RDC I've been impress by the Rapido's quality and how well they run. The last locomotive I want is a CN SW1500 in the green and gold color scheme. I'm a locomotive addicted hobbyist and foreign power is leased power on the CM&N. Besides when I'm alone or showing non-railroaders, who really cares about a train with some cars with roof walks mixed modern rolling stock, so having a few good looking locomotives from other roads is a plus.

I been upgrading my tool inventory ever since I lived with lousy wire strippers and then purchased a high quality stripper that actually strips the wire without damaging the wire or even cutting the wire. One of the guys at Walthers recommended a liquid soldering flux when I was purchasing a paste flux and I never looked back. The liquid works so much better!

McLeod: I really want to see that lawn tractor made from your spare parts bins. Very organized assortment of parts. You reminded me that I have a Algoma Central gon that I purchased after riding the Canyon tour and the car needs a shot of Dullkote to hide the decal edges and some metal wheel sets. No problem with US Customs when we returned from Canada and crossed the border with several model railroad cars that we declared.

The Agawa Canyon rail tour was great and unexpectedly a co-worker was on the same tour train as we were and staying in the same motel in Sault Ste. Marie as we were staying.

Willie: I think there was or is a Derry's Pub in the Milwaukee area. I ride with my wife when she goes to Wal-Mart, which I was in once if I remember correctly (I think I said in another post that I never was in a Wal-Mart) and sit in the car and watch people since I don't get out much and I have a hard time walking since my last extended stay in the the hospital. It maybe my fault for not getting enough exercise. Besides after over 39 years in the mall business I'm not fond of shopping than a in hobby shop.

Willie, you'll get used to Win 10 other the updates that keep changing things, but the system becomes very friendly after using it awhile.

Over the weekend I installed Netflix on two of our "Smart" TV's. The first attempt was a challenge since the installer gave me the wrong codes. On the password a "k" was small case instead of being capitalized and on the router the code he gave us had a C instead of a G. I plan on dropping the expensive cable bill and going with Netflix and over the air TV. At the cabin I have limited Green Bay over the air stations and I get used to them and their limited channel selection compared to cable service.

One of my projects later today is installing metal wheels on Santa Fe box car I purchased in Phoenix. The guy I purchased it from (if its isn't just some BS) said the guy who assembled and weathered the kit lived in the desert (n layout) and built and weathered over 3,000 mainly BB kits and then sold them mostly on the web before E-Bay was popular. This car was the last one that remained for sale that the sales guy knew about.

Lunch time.................

Greg

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Thought I'd take another photo while waiting for the cyano glue to dry. Next step is filling and sanding, but, the basic shape is there, and it's not even noon yet. Need to get a seat on, some engine parts, and cut the .06 brass axles; make a steering wheel, etc... and all to with Rebecca's close-up scrutiny. She's the one who wants it, after all!
Tractor4_10-19-2020.jpg


If you are getting sick-n-tired of me posting so much, just call me (forgot his name) #2.
 
Afternoon All,

Started out with chores the glued down roadbed down the incline (took 5 full pieces). After that I did MOH's pantry shelf project which of course required 2 trips to Lowes. Once that was done I headed back to the train room and installed and powered 2 pieces of flex track. I plan on finishing that (3 more pieces of flex track) tomorrow. Wednesday I'll be gone and Friday the family is voting. The wait today was 2 hours.

Greg- Another nice mine shot and 70 Tonners. Also nice 1:1 shot.

Sherrel- Well worn looking loco.

Dave- That should look great when done.

Guy- Both buildings look nice but the first one looks like it belongs on a N scale layout. I see what you did with the cub cadet and young lady.

Alan- It looks good.

Willie- Nice job on the window treatment and sign.

I hope everyone has a nice night.
 
K, guy's. If you'll bare with my over indulgence in posting: the mission is to scratch build an HO scale lawn tractor. Or, just about, maybe HO.
First step was to go to my trusty trays of scrap, scratch build materials, and select some stuff:
View attachment 119736
I collected some credit-card junk mail and a green piece of plastic that I could make into an engine. Wheels were made using a punch set, the CC was cut into pieces, and then I was ready to start gluing a lawn tractor together. - No real measurements here, other than using Rebecca as a size guide. I don't even know how to read a micrometer.
View attachment 119737
Betcha, I have something that looks like a lawn tractor before wife gets home.

Gonna start putting it together, and I'll paint it another day.


Seeing your trays/containers made me think of this catalog order....


This website has some crazy odd ball stuff that I order from time to time. Ya never know what you will find here. I have bought things from containers and balsa wood to cork to springs and brass/aluminum pipes & pieces and stuff of that nature for loads, scratch build etc. Check it out there may be something decent for your applications.
 
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