Wpf 9-16-05


grande man

Bonafied Grande Nut
Wpf 9-16-05. New weekend starting on pg 3!

Hi all. Hope everyone had a great week. It's time again for wpf.

I've been working on an SW1200 for the past two afternoons. It began life as a P2K unit in IC livery. We bought it years ago during our "buy anything" phase. It never had a decoder and we rarely ran it anymore because it didn't fit the theme of the new layout. We did need a switcher though! Well, yesterday we made a trip to the local hobby shop to get some Miniatronics lamps, connectors and resistors to do the lower headlight and ditch lights on the GP30s. In the process, we bought an NCE SW9SR decoder and Microscale decal kit for the switcher. I removed the IC markings, painted the unit and decaled it as D&RGW #137. The decoder is now installed, along with a cab roof rotating beacon! It's my first attempt at something like this and isn't perfect (nor is it exactly prototypical), but it was a challenge and came out well. I soon realized that I picked a tough unit for my first try. The decal kit wasn't wide enough to cover the cab end striping so I had to splice individual stripes together. I managed to ding the decal at the left front of the unit and everything may not be perfectly straight, but what the heck, I salvaged the unit. The lighting functions available on the new Digitrax system are fantastic. It's amazing how much more realistic the beacon made the model look! On to the GP30 flashing ditch lights...

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Gosh I was so busy doing the visual tour I didn't get any pics for WPF. I'll try to set something done tomorow.
Real excellent job on that switcher. Im glad you mentioned the beacon, it had me puzzeled until I read the post :D What kind (mfg) beacon is it? I have one (Western Rail) for my GP9 if I ever finish it :( seems like there's always something else to do.
Sharp looking Boxcar Marty a nice looking bash. I'm always amazed at what you fellows do in N scale, I believe my eyes and fingers were made for G scale or larger. :D
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Willis
 
CBCNSfan said:
Im glad you mentioned the beacon, it had me puzzeled until I read the post :D What kind (mfg) beacon is it?

It's just a 12v 1.7mm bulb. The decoder generates the beacon effect (there are other possibilities such as a strobe, flasher, etc). I'm amazed at how realistic the effect is.
 
Oh what a day, I go to my LHS to see if they happen to have a GE Dash 9 AC unit for use on my Dash 8. No luck, but I end up walking out with:
-Athearn Genesis SP/UP 50' PC&F smooth side boxcar with a 14' plug door
-a Bowser N-5 Caboose win CNW colors (kit)
-A P2K Rock Island 50 ton flat car
-P2K Rock Island PS2 3 bay covered hopper (kit)

I wish more rolling stock was offered in the style of the Genesis car, I LOVE the detail, especialy the brake lines and air hose details!
 
Well, we finished the first 30 with all the lights. Whew, what a pain that was! The next one will be much easier but it may take a while before I get in the mood for another one! The resistors Digitrax recommended didn't work out for us, we ended up taking the whole thing apart and upping the resistance twice. The latest rendition has 470 Ohm resistors/1.5volt 1.2mm lamps for the ditch lights and 12v 1.7mm bulbs for the lower headlights. Now if we can just figure out how to program the FX function to make the ditchlights flash...

Here's a pic.
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Sorry you had the gremlins helping you, but it looks like all the trouble was worth it! Great job, Gentlemen. (I assume LGM was part of the "learning experience." :D )
 
Slowly But Surely

Last week the millwork company delivered the crown moldings for the hotel being remodeled on the hill above the F&CGR. It was time to get back to work repairing the remaining damage to the building. The front door opening had suffered some dry rot, so the crew built a new threshold by planing down one of the leftover molding pieces, then added square stock that was slightly smaller than the existing "baseboards," and covered everything with a thin coat of wood putty. (#1)

After smoothing and reshaping, the repaired front wall was ready for primer. (#2) In picture #3, the inside is painted, and supports are in place for the second-story floor. (The poor painters had to climb really tall ladders to paint the inside of that upper floor.)

In Picture #4 you can see the somewhat sloppy job of painting the window frames on the top half of one primed wall. The crew became better at that by the time they had painted all 14 of them. (Continued in next post)
 
Picture #1 shows the window crowns ready to install. When the carpenters began cutting those, they noticed that few of windows were exactly the same size, so they numbered them all on the back and stuck signs over the window openings so they could tell where each crown belongs. (That's what those little blue things are in the pictures.)

You can see the building supervisor preparing to leave for the day after the paint crew has finished applying primer to the outside of the building. (#2)

In picture #3, the first crowns are in place, and a painter has started cutting in around them.

Picture #4 shows the top half of one outside wall completed, except for some minor touchup painting.

Where's the roof, you ask??? That's scheduled for next week. Pray it doesn't rain!
 
Lady_Railfan said:
Sorry you had the gremlins helping you, but it looks like all the trouble was worth it! Great job, Gentlemen. (I assume LGM was part of the "learning experience." :D )

Thanks Claudia. LGM was the "third hand" when soldering all those tiny wires/resistors and helped in the programming as well.

Your building progress is looking great, hope it doesn't rain before you get the roof on! I've never had to consider the weather when model railroading. That's a new twist! :D
 
Hey, with the wacky weather we've had this summer, who knows? June Gloom usually goes away by the 4th of July, but up here in foggy-bottom all we get is LNEMLCF. (For those not familiar with coastal SoCal, that stands for "late night and early morning low clouds and fog.") Trouble is, the fog doesn't lift 'til noon, and rolls back in by 4:00 p.m. Rain wouldn't surprise me a bit!
 
Its like that valley just up the hill from Rose Canyon, where the 52 ends, seemed to have fog straight for a week... Socal....

EDIT Adding a few pics from this weekend buy...
 
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Some real nice photos this week, great modeling. Well it's a good thing it's not a competition because I couldn't compete with those pics. All I have is my partialy painted Rico station so I took a shot of that with a C630. Grande Man will probably consider it sacraligeous or vandalism painting it but it wouldn't fit in without a paint job :D and a close up of 2003
 
OOOOOHHH, I want some of those genesis boxes.

Still waiting on my GP7 to be get done painted.

For all you Canadians, I saw Gordon Lightfoot this weekend. Older, but still a great entertainer. Wish I could have been born before his prime.

While in Reno, I also stopped by the LHS and picked up some grabirons, stirrups, cut bars, and lots of styrene in preperation of modeling and detailing my first logging flat car. Still trying to get my hands on a Athearn 40' flat car or a Red Caboose 42' flat car to hack up into a log flat. If anyone has one available drop me a PM or post it on this thread.
 
Oh ain't heard a song by Mr. Lightfoot in while! Good Ole Edmund Fitzgearld song ever November... "When the gales of November come early..."
 



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