Good Morning All. Clear and 72°, with 88% humidity again today. A muggy start to the week. Doesn't look like any of the moisture from this tropical storm is going to make it this far west, just the humidity. However a cool front is going to hit Tuesday night bringing the overnight temperature all the way down to 60°.
Headed out to the doctor this morning for my quarterly blood-letting. The usual, wear a mask, take your temperature and wait in the parking lot. Uncomfortable as it is, I still wear a mask because I don't trust others and the asymptomatic Covid carriers are still among us. Beats the alternative.
Saturday I went to take some scrap metal to the local salvage yard. Wow have prices come down. Eight months ago, I got 4¢/lb for scrap steel, Saturday it was 2¢. Aluminum cans eight months ago fetched 32¢/lb, now I only got 20¢.
We need to kick-start the economy better. Looks like I'll make it up in the stock market today after a good day Friday. I reinvested last Wednesday after a three month layoff.
Light breakfast this morning Flo, one egg and one sausage patty should do it. I want to be at my best for the doc.
Thanks for the reactions and comments yesterday regarding the layout progress;
Jerome, Tom, Sherrel, Karl, Curt, Chad, Phil, Joe, Guy, Patrick.
Many thanks to
Garry and
Karl for the assistance in duplicating that missing spire on the restaurant.
Another slow short day in the train shed yesterday. I did mostly odds and ends related to CUP (Charlottesville Urbanization Project). Added ground cover and other landscaping materials to the aisle side of the grade crossing, sorry no picture yet. I worked on the replacement/refurbishment of the spire for the restaurant.
Of course
Garry was able to provide pictures or the original, thanks again. I reformed the sphere with body putty and drilled a hole in the bottom for a piece of styrene rod to mount it into the cupola.
Karl suggested using a track nail for the top part, excellent suggestion there.
I first looked at using an HO scale nail, bit it looked too long, so I was able to find an N scale one instead.
Here's the result after Supergluing the nail on.
I think that this will work. Now over to the paint booth.
I also got the first sign attached to the liquor store.
It represents a painted on sign.
Through all of this layout construction, I have used two really invaluable tools to assist me.
The front one is 5" tall, I have two others like it as well, the rear one is 10" tall. They came from the bottom of crates that were used for patio door glass from work. Originals were 7' or 9' long and I cut them down, the 4" x 4"'s are part of the crates. The rear one is two parts that I nailed together so they wouldn't slip. While I salvaged many of these crates over the years, we probably threw out over twenty of them a week. Eventually the glass companies switched over to returnable metal racks for a major cost/disposal savings. I used over 200 of the 7'-2' x 12' boards in the floor construction of my barn while they lasted. They were always paired with 2" x 6" boards to make a crate 18" deep. I got a lot of them also. Had to pull a lot of nails over time.
Curt - The Elmer's tower has made a number of guest appearances on the layout lately. Good to read that the tornados missed you and
Phil.
Joe - I've been to the Miller Engineering website. The HO scale signs are too big for that window. I need to look further for the dimensions of the N scale ones to see if they would work.
Patrick - A quarter inch a day to evaporation is what I normally experience with pool water loss. Sadly for me, that's about 75 gallons a day.
Everybody have a great day.
