Good Morning All. Clear and 73° in my neighborhood. High today only expected to be 93° with a heat index of 102°.
From the Weather Underground:
" Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High 93F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. "
I like that "stray afternoon thunderstorm" part.
Gradual warming trend coming up with temperatures over 100° and heat index over 110° by Saturday. Normal July weather for us.
Got the granddog delivered back to her home and brought my wife back with me yesterday. Made my appointment with the dermatologist and had a lesion removed. Off to the lab it went. Idle thought. Why do dermatologists have such perfect looking skin. At least mine does.
Man, the tomatoes keep coming. Between Monday and Tuesday, I picked enough to fill an empty beer case full, over 25 pounds. They do look to be diminishing in the coming days, several plants have already succumbed to the heat. Continuing to pick both bell and jalapeno peppers and it looks like I'll be making another batch of salsa this week.
Bagel, cream cheese and a pile of sausage for me this morning Francine. Large OJ to wash it all down.
Thanks for the likes and comments regarding yesterday's layout progress;
Steven, Joe, Chad, Louis, Patrick, Sherrel, Jerome, Tom O, Guy, Phil, Chet, Garry, Curt, James, Tom.
Yesterday in the train shed, I began the slow process of installing the hairpin fencing between the museum and the tracks. I got the first two sections installed and I am waiting for glue to dry. No pictures yet.
Meanwhile I processed the additional two building flats, applied an overspray of dull coat and cut them out. One thing that I do with them all, is to hide the white "paper edge" that shows up when mounted.
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I do this by just using a black Sharpie marker along the edge (from the backside to avoid slips).
Here's the difference.
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I temporarily placed them in position to get a feel for the scene.
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When I finally put on my Bob Ross hat, I'll extend the roadway into the backdrop. That's not necessarily something that comes easy for me. I have to think about it and plan before grabbing the paintbrush.
I had a little idle time and retrieved the track and layout cleaning tools so I could begin the quarterly layout cleaning on the next section of the layout.
A little background for those of you who are new here. I have divided my large layout into eight roughly equal sections of about 40', and I do a "deep" cleaning on one section at a time at the beginning of each calendar quarter, thus taking two years from beginning to end. Then repeat again. It's too much to retain my interest to attempt to do the entire layout at once, especially as I see areas that could use some immediate improvement as I go. In most cases there's not a lot of real cleaning involved, removing most structures and dusting them off and in many cases applying additional detail parts or doing some touch up painting. Same with the vehicles. Most figures are fixed in place but still get a cleaning. I also inspect the track ROW for any stray parts prior to vacuuming and then lightly cleaning it. My track does not tend to get dirty, so that is not too intensive.
At the beginning of this year, partly due to requests from some Coffee Shop visitors, I began the process of documenting things as I went along. The results of the first two sections of the lower level are documented in the January and April Coffee Shops. I will be starting the next (third) section shortly. In the meantime I will still be involved on the current project, and of course running trains.
Joe - With the addition of a real tire or two, those bases can make for a realistic scenic addition.
Curt - Those background flats came courtesy of fellow forum member
Tomkat and his thread from 2012 called "
Background Flats You Can Use". He posted hundreds of them. Admin
Bob restored all of them after the PhotoBucket fiasco.
Dave - I'll see if I can remember to get a picture or two of my Middlesex Mfg. later today.
Everybody have a great day.