Running Bear’s October 2020 Coffee Shop


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Good evening Shop Dwellers. 53*F and cloudy in my central MD neighborhood.

No time for a lengthy post, since I'm already up later than I planned to be on a night before having to w*rk. Just wanted to thank everybody for the kind replies regarding my negative covid test. I have no intentions of going to any more gatherings like that when I can avoid it, unless I get assurances from the organizer that they will require the guests to wear masks.
 
Good Morning All....Flo, a cup of the usual please, and is there any of the cross contaminated chocolate frosted donuts left?
Once again the smoke has cleared to a pretty decent range of vision, come on rain!
Willie...more great pictures! Thanks! I didn't know about using N scale roadbed for sidings on my first layout. I like the way that looks, another nice little detail to add to the new layout.
Strip the ties from the section that will lay on the bridge deck (has it's own molded section of bridge ties.)
Troy...a few questions first, I am not familiar with N scale anything! The bridge deck sections, does the track just set on them, with ties? Without ties? Or do you have to "thread" the rail through the spike moldings? The track that your using, if you remove a section ties, is it a PTA to thread them back on the rails? I had two trains of thought here.... If the rail just sits on the deck sections, have the bridge all weathered & installed, when your installing track on the layout, and come to the bridge, remove the section of ties on the track that sets on the deck and install. (less cuts--less waste) The one thing too look out for is if a joint lands on the bridge, then you'll have to make adjustments. Also you could just pre make the deck sections. Remove the center section of ties from the flex track to set on the deck pieces, install bridge, install deck/track section, continue laying track.
The other thought, if one has to "thread" the rail on the deck pieces, take a piece of flex track, remove the section to go on the deck, remove the end section of flex tie off the rail, thread the rail on deck ties, reinstall the end section of flex ties. Granted that process is a LOT more fiddly.
In any case, I would try and keep the joints as far as possible away from the bridge ends to avoid alignment issues with expansion & contraction with all the different materials involved with the bridge and surrounding area and if the bridge gets bumped after install, you've got a good section of track on either side of the bridge holding it in place.
I had my bridge abutments glued down, but the bridge just "floated" on the abutments, held in place by the flex track. No alignment issues.

Well, that was long winded....out of time!
Great pics, comments & likes.

EVERYBODY PLEASE HAVE A SAFE DAY!
 
Morning all,

Supposed to be sunny and high of 80* today and in the mid to upper 80's for the next 7 days. That's about 10-15 degrees above normal. That means the grass will need to be mowed for at least another 2-3 weeks....crap.

No trains over the weekend as I had some 1:1 modeling that took precedent.

We picked up the dog from the daughter's house Saturday morning and the I had to order materials. When mowing on Friday I found the following:
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The siding that's falling off is nest to siding I replaced about 3 years ago, I just never had siding want to fall off like that before. I had to get the siding and caulk. All told it took me a wee bit over 3 hours and I am not quite done. I now have this:

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I also saw a piece on the front that needed attention:

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The original siding is more like fiberboard and doesn't hold up well. Everything underneath was still fine, no damage. I figure within the next 5 years most of the bottom 5 Ft, of siding will be replaced. I still have to paint it. I have an unopened can of each color left. I'll have it shaken at the paint store today and start painting. Hopefully be done before the weekend. It isn't difficult work, but I don't like doing it. I was whipped by the time I was finished. I guess I know what I'd do on "vacation". LOL

Sherrel: The wife binged all of "The Good Witch" series on Netflix over the passed year. Our local daughter set up the Hallmark movie streaming for her on our living room setup. She has been binging another series of movies over the weekend. I told her I know exactly how these movies end within the first 5 minutes of seeing the show. She asked how I know and my reply is "Because it's a Hallmark Movie!". She just laughs....
 
Good Morning All. Clear and 50° to start the week. Wind should shift to southerly soon and warm things up for the next ten days. No rain in sight. Back to a somewhat normal day here I hope.
Yesterday was well spent but busy after morning Mass and then lunch. My contractor buddy (who is actually a licensed plumber) came by and we fixed the pesky water leak out at the water meter. It might have only been leaking around 15 gallons a day, but apparently it had begun about a month ago and the ground was saturated and there was standing water in the area. He wasn't able to make it out last weekend. Downside was that I only had two of the three parts needed for the repair (I keep a stockpile), so he spent an extra hour going to town and back for the other one. He bought three so I now have two spares that I hope that I never have to use. While all of the glue and other adhesives were setting, we swept the chimney. I did that myself for 38 years but my wife doesn't want me getting on the roof any more. It cost me $150 for three hours work, not bad for a plumbing repair on a Sunday. I actually handed him $200 and he handed me back $50. Hell, if I did it myself, it would have taken me longer than that just to dig the area up, about 3/4 cu yard of wet mucky clay soil. After everything dries out I have to go back and refill the hole, but at least the water doesn't have to get turned off to do that. I can also take my time since my HOA (me) isn't too picky.

This morning calls for a couple of breakfast burritos, Flo. The usual, sausage, egg, potato and cheese with lots of spicy salsa on the side. Wonder where's Troy with those Amish doughnuts?

Thanks to all who commented or liked the pictures yesterday; Troy, Lee, Sherrel, Joe, Jerome, Karl, Garry, Tom O, Gary, Phil, Chet, Ken, Curt, Rick, Chad, Tom, Jerry, Patrick.

Made it out to the train shed late yesterday. I only had time to finish the mortar wash on the remaining three sides of the DPM structure.
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I'm still thinking that it's a little too bold. I'm going to experiment with a few ideas that I have been mulling over to see if I can tone it down a bit.
Everyone seemed to like the intermodal freight running through the layout, so I hooked up a pair of ScaleTrains SD40-2's to a manifest freight and ran in the opposite direction for a few photos. See some of these towns from a different view.
Entering the outskirts of Charlottesville from the north.
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Passing that intermodal freight on the passing siding in Charlottesville.
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Coming down "the alley" in Charlottesville.
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Excuse the lack of ground cover on the right for now, this is where I left off detailing (temporarily) due to the lack of suitable structures.
Next, rounding the corner behind the plastics factory into the area that I am currently working on.
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On the approach to downtown Vernon. Note the Bar Mills "Wicked Wanda's" structure on the right that I re-purposed as a rooming house.
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Entering downtown.
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Leaving town behind that rural residential area.
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Passing the flour mill on the left and the grain elevator on the right through the countryside. Another manifest freight on the left powered by a pair of F45's.
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One more and I have hit the limit on the number of pictures in a post.
Rounding the loop on the end of the peninsula past the paint distributor in the industrial park.
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This is an opposite view from yesterday of the difference using the N scale roadbed can make on the siding.

Ray -
Tharrs Baarrz in them thar 'ills, umm, flat areas.
Yes. I like to incorporate some occasional whimsical mini-scenes here and there throughout the layout.
Lee - That's really a fine job on the circus wagon. Whenever I finish up the layout, I would like to try something like that, although not necessarily circus wagons. Maybe 1:48 boats.
Tom O - I have been pretty much hit or miss on the mortar. For whatever reason, some of my older structures look better than what I am doing now. I want some to look "new, mortar only", but end up with "aged weathered" structures that look bleached out. I should try that stuff that Greg uses. On another note. All of my LHS's price everything 20% under the Walther's prices. If Walther's sale price is less than that, they will match it and obtain a rebate from their Walther's rep.

Everybody have a great day. Stay safe. Keep your social distancing and wear your masks.
 
Morning all. Slept in. Got an Amish donut on the way in.

One of my "beta readers" came back with a lot of suggestions for the book in progress, so I'm digging into that.

Wife gets her hairs trimmed today. Salon is close the the LHS, so you know where I'll be waiting out the pre-lunch cut.

Troy...a few questions first, I am not familiar with N scale anything! The bridge deck sections, does the track just set on them, with ties? Without ties? Or do you have to "thread" the rail through the spike moldings?

The kit comes with a molded "bridge deck of ties" - basically closely spaced ties that you glue naked rail to by either stripping existing ties from flextrack, or using hand-laid rails (I'm not THAT brave).

So, I can either skip the included "deck" of ties, and lay flex right on the girders of the bridge, or strip ties from flex and use the included set of bridge ties.

Here's a photo of the mostly finished UPSIDE DOWN bridge (sans the rail and ties) waiting on the glues for the bridge shoes to cure.

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And this image shows the package cover for reference, and the molded bridge ties awaiting track

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Good morning from Wisconsin where it is sunny and warming finally to 60f degrees. The grandkids are here as it is online school Monday. The grandson is doing PE class right now, 1st grader learning Cardio and how to take his pulse. The online classes are much better presentations then those 1st 2 weeks were.

Willie- I am going to the LHS for the mortar stuff from Roberts after school today. The LHS will not match the Walther sale pricing and limits discounts to the 20%. I dont agree with him especially when he says there are very few of his patrons that even look at the Walthers site for numbers and retail pricing. I think it is part of my due diligence and the way mom and dad taught us how to check things out prior to purchasing.

I dropped the son and his g/f co-pilot at his plane at 6 this morning. They will stop in Evansville, Indiana on the way back to Austin to see her mom for a hour or so.

Edit: grandson in another class—- I had some issues checking for fermentation tanks on the Walthers site. Found it on advance search.
press advance search under the search box on the top right side of the website. When the advance search boxes pop up on the left side enter you info there. BUT- you must also check the bottom line for retired items, the press search. Hope that helps.

Everyone be safe, keep your Secret Service protection detail safe, wear your mask
TomO
 
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TROY - If the "molded" bridge ties have a groove to cradle the rail - I would strip some flex and do the naked rail assembly with a very thin CA glue or GOO! Just my thoughts - YMMV?

DENNIS - Great job - Looking at that railing - I can see why. Looks great!

WILLIE - I never liked trying to dig in dry clay - much less wet that you cannot shake off of the shovel!
I'm surprised that your plumer buddy did not bring a street corner worker with him. 15 gallons a day is a pretty good leak ... seems to be more than a drip?
P.S. Building is too "stark" - I know that you already know that? I like the storyline and that red barn is one of my favorites.

OK -- Yesterday crept up to 97 for the high and we are looking towards 94 today and a drop to 90 tomorrow.
FLO - Since TROY seems to have overlooked us with the donuts today (maybe they were closed) I'm going to go with MEL's CFS with eggs up, some grits, and biscuits/gravy.

House is mostly put back together. Spousal Unit walked 4.5 miles yesterday - I am going to see if I can make it past the length of a football field - My right hip just is flat out failing to cooperate after much more distance that that.!
As a treat I got her some beautiful "large" shrimp (she loves them) but is only able to eat three at a sitting. She did manage to have a 1/2 inch square of a small steak that I grilled for myself - she savoried it for 5 minutes- even though she is a couple weeks away from steak on her menu.

My daughter is flying out from D. C. this morning for the week. I did not want to tell her NOT to come, but wife and I are both apprehensive of her visit. She says that she takes precautions even though she disagrees with the guidelines.
I told her that we would just stand her in the corner?

OK enough blabbering for the moment ... Have a good day and week, everyone.
 
TROY - If the "molded" bridge ties have a groove to cradle the rail - I would strip some flex and do the naked rail assembly with a very thin CA glue or GOO! Just my thoughts - YMMV?

DENNIS - Great job - Looking at that railing - I can see why. Looks great!

WILLIE - I never liked trying to dig in dry clay - much less wet that you cannot shake off of the shovel!
I'm surprised that your plumer buddy did not bring a street corner worker with him. 15 gallons a day is a pretty good leak ... seems to be more than a drip?
P.S. Building is too "stark" - I know that you already know that? I like the storyline and that red barn is one of my favorites.

OK -- Yesterday crept up to 97 for the high and we are looking towards 94 today and a drop to 90 tomorrow.
FLO - Since TROY seems to have overlooked us with the donuts today (maybe they were closed) I'm going to go with MEL's CFS with eggs up, some grits, and biscuits/gravy.

House is mostly put back together. Spousal Unit walked 4.5 miles yesterday - I am going to see if I can make it past the length of a football field - My right hip just is flat out failing to cooperate after much more distance that that.!
As a treat I got her some beautiful "large" shrimp (she loves them) but is only able to eat three at a sitting. She did manage to have a 1/2 inch square of a small steak that I grilled for myself - she savoried it for 5 minutes- even though she is a couple weeks away from steak on her menu.

My daughter is flying out from D. C. this morning for the week. I did not want to tell her NOT to come, but wife and I are both apprehensive of her visit. She says that she takes precautions even though she disagrees with the guidelines.
I told her that we would just stand her in the corner?

OK enough blabbering for the moment ... Have a good day and week, everyone.

If you stand the daughter in the corner, we need pictures!
TomO
 
Good Morning Everyone..........sunny and windy here in Wisconsin.

Staying up late tonite for the Packer Game to watch it with the Mrs. with a late start to boot.

No trains today other than watching some videos I have that I've sort forgotten about. One of my favorites is Lee Nichols' Utah, Colorado Western Railroad video by Allen Keller. A great basement sized home layout.

The Model Railroader magazine's project model railroad the Virginian is for sale at Kalmbach.

That's about it for now.................

Greg

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Willie Using that N scale roadbed for the siding really looks prototypical/good. Is it wide enough or do you have to insert a spacer?
Dave - It is not wide enough to extend all the way out to the edges of the ties. I do not split it, just lay it down. While not quite wide enough, maybe 1/32" too narrow. it is wide enough to fully support the track and ties. I just use a small wide paintbrush to sweep the ballast into the proper profile as shown. I'll see if I can get a close up picture for you when I head out to the train shed later today.
 
Happy Monday all! Well, my pusher got his hooks into me again! It started last week with an e-mail from Tangent. They re-ran their 10,000 gallon riveted tank cars. I missed them first time around, a pesky cash flow issue! Here they are fresh out of the box prior to getting them ready for the layout. Tangent makes outstanding models, especially their tank cars. The layout prep consists of painting the trucks & wheels, flat coat, removing the Kadee trip pins, rusting the couplers, decals for the placards, and weathering. Tank car modeling is almost a sub-hobby. The types and equipment vary widely, and more than once I've caught a mistake during operating sessions, like a vegetable oil tanker, or an acid tanker in an oil dealership, for example. The detail on these models is first rate, and while you can't man-handle them, they will survive reasonable handling without shedding parts.
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Afternoon All,

Started with chores as usual. The screen repair guy was here, quoted a price and will do the job tomorrow. We've used him before and he does great work at a reasonable price. In the train room today I put up the rock face on the back right hand curve and glued down about 30'' of bushes. I think I have enough left to cover the top of the next 30" rock face tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for your likes on the photo yesterday.

Alan- Great looking tank cars.

Willie- Great looking buildings. Can you get a damp (almost dry) rag to wipe off the excess mortar if you don't like it?

Troy- A option is to get bridge track from Walthers. It has the inside rails and the pointed ends.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Good afternoon. got an early start this morning leaving at 0500 for Billings. Had to take the wife to see a doctor and have a medical procedure done. On the way I couldn't resist taking a picture of this sign in downtown Billings.

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Anyone stupid enough to stop on the tracks deserves to get hit.

Very happy to hear that Sherrel and keN tested negative. I don't plan on getting tested unless I have some of the symptoms.

Patrick - Strange that the siding would be falling off.

Willie - Good photos as usual. Like the one of the barn in the corner.

Sherrel -
I can understand you being apprehensive about your daughters visit. A cot in the garage??

Alan - You can send those Sinclair tankers this way. I have three oil distributors on my layout that are Sinclair.

Here are a few more from the archives.

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Later
 
Montanan: I thought the same thing. It's just getting so old and weather beaten. I've done a lot of work to that side of the house already. It's always the bits you don't do. House was built sometime in 1999. I have sheathing visible in the garage with December 1998 manufacture dates.
 
I feel the same way. Besides, I don't want my DNA going into someone's data bank! I truly think that the recent surge in cases is totally related to asymptomatic cases that would never have been known about to begin with. Kinda like having a cold and calling it the flu.

I also don't need to give anyone access to my DNA, not that I have anything to hide. One thing very seldom mentioned is the recovery numbers, something like 97.3 percent. The virus is serious, but somewhat over blown. Go and look at other outbreaks, like the swine flu.
 
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