Running Bear’s June 2025 Coffee Shop

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santafewillie said:
Good Afternoon All, from a hospital bed in Denton. While I feel OK, my BP was 171/115, pulse was 147, so we came here last night. So far the EKG was good and I have an echo test later today. Stress test in the morning. The numbers are back in line. That's all for now since typing on the phone is just not working for me.
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This is not right! WILLIE, you are one of our healthiest! Get better. Listen to your wife and the nurses. I’m not sure any more about listening to the doctors though
 
logandsawman said:
I put together several roundhouse kits lately, the top track goes a certain way that can be difficult to decipher,

I think I may have gotten a couple correct...

I ran the Varney loco a bunch this afternoon. I did not tinker with, just put it on the track and ran at different speeds, some full throttle as well. In some instances when it did not move from a stop, turning the throttle up all the way got it going with out touching it.

Sometimes it starts well from stop even at low current

When it does not start out from a stop, tapping down lightly on the tender gets it going.

I think, somewhere between the tender wheels and the motor lead, there is a faulty contact.

I am leaning towards replacing the tender trucks with something new...
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Is she tender pick up only? Or one of those split types where the loco picks up from one side of the track and the tender from the other? I've seen a few of the older ones designed that way. If she's picking up through the axle and transfering directly to the frame, then those can get worn, pitted, and iffy. I have a Rivarossi N scale challenger that the front set of main drivers pick up one side and the rear set from the other. The wheels have tarnished so badly that they'll need to be replated.

Now I gotta go watch your video again haha!
 
good morning coffee friends from all over the world.

well what a weekend. maybe one beer too much but ey, you only life once i guess.
sunday had to walk the dog of my mom because she was not feeling well but was a great walk with the dog and my gf.
late sunday a thunderstorm hit us "hard", lot of rain and a bit of hail but so far no damage found, only the salads are a bit damaged but not to hard.

my feather river project started on friday, when i ordered the first aluminum parts for the setup. of course i will document everything with video and foto also text. my dream would be in the end i can write a article about the build for MRR Craftsman :) this would be a dream.

picture of today, an "old" used electric loco from switzerland:

IMG_9820.JPG

if iam not wrong its a Re420.

Cheers and great start to the week you all!
 


Kusojiji said:
Ah, a starting point. Now I can start searching. I only knew dungeons and dragons :P
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OHHHHHH the rabbit trail you are about to explore.

The big granddaddy of all current tabletop gaming is a company called Games Workshop. They make games called "Warhammer" in both a Space-Appocolyptic setting, and in medieval style fantasy. The problem is, they're referred to as the evil empire by gamers who have left their folds. Their business model is to change the rules and army lists (books called codexes) every few years and make models you've previously purchased obsolete. And the models are not cheap.

There is a few blocks in Nottingham England called the "lead mile" (toy soldiers used to be made of lead, now metal is cast in a tin alloy, but most of the models are injection molded plastics). That area is home to Games Workshop HQ, and most of the other game companies started by ex-top employees who were made redundant from GW live.

You'll find companies like Warlord Games (partially owned by Hornby) specializing in Historicals from Ancient Rome up to WW2. As well as Mantic Games, makers of Kings of War, and some other license IP games, like one based on the popular video game HALO but played with toy soldiers on tabletop.

Not all game companies live in the Lead Mile. The game I play is from a company called Para-bellum (dot) com. They're out of Greece.

You'll also find toy soldier companies making games based on IPs like Star Wars Shatterpoint, and one called Marvel Crisis Protocol. And a whooooooole bunch of other independent game companies scattered wherever.
 
THanks!! I did find Para-bellum. I saw that the characters need to be assembled and painted. I am hoping to find pre-painted as I may be able to assemble, but can't paint squat. Will take a look at the list!

What I am envisioning is to have some of these dudes hanging out all over my layout, if I ever get one going, and have them waiting at a crossing for the train to pass before they can continue fighting. And have them sporadically placed, instead of sheep haha.
 
Speaking of manufacturing by small businesses (like most of those game companies who import their figures if they're US based)... without the politics attached, there have been a couple of vids I've watched recently that have been eye opening from small business viewpoints. I think I mentioned one earlier:

Destin at Smarter Every Day makes a grill brush in 4 years:

And these guys talk about their own experience after seeing Destin's struggles with the market.

As for Table-top Gaming, SOME of the game companies you'll find outsource their stuff to China. There are some cost savings, but as the Fstoppers vid mentioned, the companies in China specialize in not only the engineering and CAD and Tool and Die making, but also the project organizing behind those issues.

That's something that European and US companies are just starting to figure out. Manage the product in house start to finish. If you need a "label" as one of the vids mentioned, that that Chinese company can't make, they can source it "right down the street" (maybe a few towns away), but they want to manage the entire output for you.

Of course, your IP sits in their hands/computers and you might suddenly see knock-off at half the price if you're product sells well on Amazon.

When we look at the Lead Mile of gaming, some of the smaller companies outsource their mold-making and/or model production (Injection molding) to other areas like the EU (Poland is good at this). Asmodee, the parent company of Atomic Mass Games making SW: Shatterpoint is in France, but the figures for the space game come out of China.

Meanwhile, the big boys like Games Workshop and Warlord Games do most of their production in-house in Nottingham Eng. Funny how one little town in the heart of Great Britain is home to sooooo many armies. Those two companies have long known how to manage their products in house. But too many of the little companies don't have that luxury.

The USA is the largest market for toy-soldier gaming in the "newer" games. Europe still has a hold on the classic historical market, though the US is gaining on them.

So I did a quick search with Google's AI, and the only major manufacturing of "table-top toy soldiers" in the USA it could find are the little grey army men in 1:35 scale that kids play with in their Pew Pew imagination games... Go figure.
 
Kusojiji said:
THanks!! I did find Para-bellum. I saw that the characters need to be assembled and painted. I am hoping to find pre-painted as I may be able to assemble, but can't paint squat. Will take a look at the list!

What I am envisioning is to have some of these dudes hanging out all over my layout, if I ever get one going, and have them waiting at a crossing for the train to pass before they can continue fighting. And have them sporadically placed, instead of sheep haha.
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What you need to find is a gamer in your local area with access to a 3D printer. There are Sooooooo many files that hobbyists can download and 3d print on a resin printer. You can scale it up or down to fit your layout.

Most of the figures are in a 32mm scale, but the Conquest by Para-bellum are 38mm.

Where there are gamers, there are also painters. Get the figures printed in the correct scale for your layout, and hire a painter to paint. You'll want to hand them several, maybe a dozen at a time.

Since you want Rabbit Trails to follow, here are a bunch of files you can purchase. Ignore the "Tribes" area, that involves an ongoing subscription, but you get a lot of STL files. You can purchase the files individually, and download to your computer.
 


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