Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads
A hobby adventure
Not much has been happening with the Wheeling Freight Terminal since the new lights were installed. A Labor Day weekend away was followed by a wicked head cold that kept me down for a few days. My wife and I have been looking at homes to purchase, which is very exciting but it doesn’t inspire work on the current layout. I’ve got the “hobby blahs” at the moment. Continue reading “The Blahs”
I returned to my workbench the other day and unearthed a project I started over a month ago. I seem to experience a holiday lull in hobby activity each year as outside activities increase and a family member or two travels to this tip of far west Texas for a visit. Old Man Winter played a trick and dumped eight inches of snow on the region to shut things down for a couple of days. I also dealt with a wonderful blog software update here that had gone awry. It was very good to sit at the workbench again and make progress.
Simple tools were popular here a couple of months ago. Fellow pre-Depression Era modeler Dave Emery shared several ideas so he steps in as a guest blogger with more details. Take it away, Dave!
The HO scale cigar factory seen above is more than just wood shapes, plastic castings, paint, decals, and other parts. It is the sum of work done with an assortment of common and uncommon tools. Let’s take a look at some of the uncommon tools from my workbench that helps me move projects forward.
On December 1, 2014, a few modelers from across the country began to build HO scale models of the Southern SU, 36-foot, double-sheathed box cars. Models by Funaro & Camerlengo and Westerfield were used in this group build.
Ray Breyer sent along his build updates though December and approved sharing them here on the blog. I hope to share a couple more of these builds very soon. Here are Ray’s thoughts and processes for his Southern SU box car build. Click on any image here to review a larger size.
It has been about a year since I described the last resin freight car kit builds. A number of other layout tasks have commanded my attention, including a recent operating session. But there have been a few kit completions in the last few months, including a wonderful resin box car kit that includes etched metal and laser cut wood detail parts. Yarmouth Model Work introduced this kit earlier in 2014 and I scooped one up as it fits my 1926 era. Era appropriate decals even came with the kit! The completed model can be seen in the image above. Click on any image here to review a larger size.