Good evening to all Gandy Dancers and Spike Drivers,
Hi Flo & Francine, How are things here at Jeffreys' Dinner? Seems that your both kept busy around here. I think I'll have some coffee and a nice big slice of Mince meat pie and coffee of course. If it any extra for a larger slice that's fine, no problem.
Lets check WW to see what they show for the weather? The day was fairly nice with a bit of a breeze most of the time but nothing like yesterday.
Clear at 54.7 °F - Feels Like 54.7 °F;
Winds are Variable Wind from South at 0.0 - with Gusts to 0.0 mph. I found out this report comes from up top of the hill I have to climb when driving into Coarsegold and on the East side of a larger hill up top which shields it from the winds I encounter. They should get a bit more rain and snow though.
Tomorrow is forecast to be Cooler than today. Glad they had the two day compareson.
High 79 | Low 48 °F
0% Chance of Precip.
Yesterday
High 65.8 | Low 44.2 °F
Precip. 0 in
Pressure 29.90 in
Visibility 10.0 miles
Clouds Clear
Dew Point 40 °F
Humidity 58%
Rainfall 0.00 in
Snow Depth Not available.
Sun & Moon to show at 6:07 AM 7:45 PM, it's a Waxing Crescent, 10% visible
Not much railroading/layout work lately. The main push is I need to locate the right starter for my 1989, 18 Hp Craftsman Garden Tractor which seems to be a bit of a problem. It may work out that I should just buy other bearings for the Armature shaft and replace them in the old starter as long as it's not too warn? I'll look for them. I replaced them quite a number of years back as I recall.
Good afternoon. Weather here in central MD is too nice for me to be stuck indoors working, but it is what it is...
David-CA: Thanks for the scenery tips, lots of useful stuff in there.
Garry - one thing that strikes me about your photos is that they, like Chet's, always have a lot of 'life' in them. That kids' birthday party scene is a great example of that.
Joe - you're right, warping could be a problem with foamcore. I guess I'll experiment by getting a single 4x2 ft piece of it and just leave sitting in my trainroom for a few months to see how well it holds its shape, before I invest too heavily in it.
Say Ken: Your welcome to the info, sorry for not having it punctuated better. That's what happens when I don't proof read it a couple of times.
Something else I forgot to mention is that you can also paint the board a 'flat, light dirt' color so any areas you might miss still look like they have dirt on them. Alieene's Tacky glue work very well for adding smaller branch like twigs to larger tree branches that need additional folliage by putting a bit on top of the larger limb and holding the smaller branch pressed into the Tacky glue for a few seconds. I've used this method to glue Caspeia to blossom Yaucca blossom armature once it's dried out to acheive a very open pine tree. You'd be surprised by what you can find just in branches that either fall off a tree or that you'd cut off. Not necessarily the entire branch but often a portion of it makes a nice armature to work from.
Good afternoon.
Ken & Sherrel ... Thanks for commenting on my photo. ... How many of you recall the Good Humor ice cream trucks? .... Mine is an inexpensive model from Life Like. It did not come with a steering wheel. Not to worry. I used a brake wheel for a freight car from my scrap box, and you may see it in this photo.
B Bob .... I'm looking forward to seeing the video of the GN S2 when you get a chance to do it.
Dave B (LASM) ..... Those 1925 travel books would be very interesting to me. I like the old passenger train advertising and promotion items.
Say Garry: Your scene looks very natural with a lot of attention given to details as well as the light use of of grass amongst the stones and else where as well as dog at the fire hydrant. Your road also lookes very natural too, and yes I do remember the Good Humor truck that used to go up and down the blocks with the Jingle playing on a hot summers day. That was creative to use a break wheel for a steering wheel, but isn't he going to bring the truck to a stop with a couple of turns? I couldn't resist.
Woohoo Friday!!! Another week headed into the books. A little rough this morning to start. Found the AC guys decided to run my trains...this put me in a fit of rage. As my C&O unit is not cheap nor are my hoppers. It looks like a tornado hit my train. Soooooo.....if and when they come back my stuff will be packed up. Found some flaws in my layout anyways. I have a severe sag in the middle of it. What happens when you rush a table build. Not sure if I can correct it or not. Sorry no pics yet today. I may come up with a few as the day goes on.
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Say Jusstin: You mean to say they actually derail and crashed your Loco and hopper cars etc. I'd be pissed off too as it sounds like they may have damaged some cars or the Loco? I hope not. That was taking a lot of liberties for them to do that. I think I would have reported them and said not to send them out again!
As far as the sag in your table work just run a cross piece or two or three from side to side which should be fastened to the boards near the edge for added cross support. You will probably need to loosen whatever is fastening the board to the edge boards so you can get your cross pieces in place and even with the top edge of the boards to maintain a level surface. If your not using Dry Wall screws to hold your plywood down with I'd seriously recommend it. I should ask what are you using for a table top surface? Plywood won't generally tend to sag too much unless fairly thin such as a 1/4 of an inch, 7/16 [1/2"] is even better yet. If by chance your using particle board that will readly tend to say especially if subject to much moisture. That's why I chose OSB which is made of a lot of larger chips glued together with water proof glue. It's meant to be used as the underlayment when doing roofing on homes. The cross members should probably be at least 1x4 kiln dried lumber, depending on the span under your table top you might want to use 'L' girders as cross members to help prevent saging and shifting from side to side due to weight pressing down on them from above. L girders are made up by gluing & screwing two boards together to form an L shape. I'd use the yellow carpenters glue which seems to work fine. I also pre-drill all the holes for the Drywall screws with a counter sink bit and be sure the drill bit is no bigger than the center shaft of the screw for the best hold. Actually after the glue is dried that was applied to the two adjoining edges the screws could be removed. I leave mine in for added strength.
Anyway, I think you should be able to correct the sag.
Continued >
