Getting Closer To The Goal

The Blackwater & Mosquito Creek Lumber Co. railroad lives...still! No, really!

I had no idea that planning a new layout in a new home basement could involve so much remodeling and construction before the first piece of bench work could go in. The past months have been spent working towards the goal of getting a new double scale train room ready for trains. First it was the master bathroom. Done. Then on to painting interior rooms of the house. Done. Rebuilding stairs getting from the main floor to the basement. Done, almost. Now, my wife and I are working our way towards the section of the basement that will eventually the train room. Plumbing was reworked, washer and dryer moved, electrical service upgraded and improved to provide enough power for the house and the lighting/power requirements for a new layout (not using a web of extension cords and shop lights like before in our rental homes!)

I've built a couple new walls to divide the basement into the laundry room and the layout room. Seeping basement walls have been repaired and sealed (I pray). A door is ready to be hung into the new layout room and painting is just about complete in the new refreshed laundry room (by this weekend.) Getting old basement windows replaced also part of the remodel that will help keep the weather and moisture out of the basement.

Next phase of the remodel will be figuring out how to run lighting for the layout room and installing a drop or suspended-type ceiling to finish off the rooms and keep the dust from dropping on everything.

I continue to refine my track plan for the On30 Swamp Logger layout. I'm pretty happy with it. My only ?? in the plan is working staging tracks into  the room where in earlier plans I had planned to stretch into another part of the basement. That's not going to be possible now. So, reworking the routing of the staging "Wings" will likely have to wait until the room is totally cleared out and empty and a full-size track plan is sketched on the floor.

In other news...I finished the On30 Logging Critter locomotive. I have submitted the how-to article and photos to Chris Lane, editor for the On30 Annual publication.Much of what I have published here in my blog could be included in this story proposal. Work on the 2-8-0 tank engine steam locomotive conversion project has been staled during the major construction projects. It's still sitting on the work bench ready for attention.

The big news is the addition of a new logging locomotive to the Mosquito Creek Lumber company...a 28-ton Climax! I won an e-bay auction of the DCC and sound equipped loco. I've been having fun running the loco back and forth on a section of HO scale flex track fine-tuning the sound system. Next it will be to the paint shop for weathering and detailing to get it ready for the future layout!

I've Been Thinkin' 'Bout The Railroad All The Live-Long Day!

No, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth, but darn close...Working, family loss, last minute travel (due to my Mom passing away), working, wrapping up home remodel projects, working, fishing, working... Anyway, life goes on during the HOT Midwestern Summer and plans for building the On30 Swamp Logger layout keep getting pushed back. And with the arrival of my new fly fishing outfit, the layout may see some other "delays" as I head out to bend the pole before winter sets in!

But, with delays comes new ideas, clarity and renewed determination to do something right the first time. With the delays at getting the On30 layout started in my modest-sized basement, I have been writing articles, sending out  story proposals and getting some nibbles and seeing another of my "big" articles published in Model Railroader Magazine  a few issues ago (The one on converting HO scale pick-up truck into a Hi-Rail and modifying a Blazer into an extreme 4x4!)

Work continues with my two scratch-built On30 locomotive projects, with some interest from On30 Annual Editor Chris Lane on my Narrow Gauge Diesel Critter conversion. Thinking about building the Blackwater & Mosquito Creek Lumber Co. On30 layout also continues. With some extra funds coming in from working two jobs, we are talking about getting our home's electrical switched over to 200 amp and getting rid of the old fuse panels and limited circuit breakers used to protect our 1920s-vintage home. With the upgraded electrical, I will be able to hard wire in good lighting for the train room and more power outlets without fear of blowing fuses, over stressing the system, or worse, causing an electrical fire! So that's in the planning stages now.

My layout plan up to this point worked around a washer, dryer (with a dryer vent pipe that runs along in the exact MIDDLE of the long basement wall) and wash tub in one corner of the basement area marked off for the layout. These units take up a lot of space and cause a compromise to the design of the layout goal. A recent visit by our friendly plumber revealed that moving the laundry equipment to another location near drains and power is very do-able. So, that is also in the planning.

With the electrical upgraded and the washer and dryer out of the way, it frees-up a nice rectangle of room space in the basement for the trains. I will have a doorway to the basement bathroom to deal with, and the entrance to the "train room" to consider, but with the right track plan and a couple of drop-down/swing away benchwork sections, we should OK with that. There is also a floor support post at one end of the room, but that is easily worked around as well! I have made a pact with myself. I was going to prepare the train room fully- with sealed and painted walls and floor, install a drop ceiling, plus add good lighting, enough power outlets, and make sure it's an AC/Heated/Humidity-controlled place to build and run trains for years to come.

With the soon to be open floor space, some layout planning "thoughts" have come to mind. As you may recall, I had been thinking of doing a double deck layout with the lower deck my On30 Swamp Logger and the upper deck an  abbreviated version of my HO-scale Big Island Rail Hawaiian-theme railroad. Now I'm thinking make the lower level the BIRR and the upper level a shelf-style around the room On30 logging layout. The HO layout could feature a long center peninsula to increase the run of trains plus, I could use more of the finished sections of layout that were in our large rental home basement. The most drastic idea was to go back to my original concept for the On30 Swamp Logger and build it as a portable, modular, traveling display layout comprised of 4-to-5 manageable/ haulable sections that I could take to model trains shows in the region. These sections could be set-up for running in our "craft room" where we each have work desks for doing our hobby stuff. The concept would allow for a single layout basement railroad devoted to the HO scale BIRR. With all the talk in the model RR press about double deck layouts, that could be a possibility as well.

So that's where I am right now..still at the crossroads, but with some fun things to ponder as I wait for the plumbers and electricians to do their thing in the basement.

Delays, Delays, Delays

Yep, I'm still alive and kickin' and still without any layout activity. I haven't been doing much, if any, modeling recently as other things seem to continually crop-up and take away "free" time. Delays in getting needed plumbing and heating/AC work done to the on-going bathroom project, plus the fact I'm back to working two jobs, has once again brought the progress on my Swamp logger On30 layout planning  and the "Still Sitting In Pieces On The Basement Floor" HO scale Big Island Rail layout, to a dead stop. It's been so long since I posted in this blog, I had to think about what the log-in info was....
So needless to say, there's not much to write about here this time. I have made 'some' progress on my scratch-building/HO-to-On30 Conversion loco project, (mounted the bell housing and prepared some sheet brass to be cut for power pick-ups on the new On30 tender trucks) but really not that much to get all excited about.

So, while I continue to hone my house remodeling skills, the model railroading hobby sits in the hole on the passing siding.

Home Projects Delay Layout Start, But...

As they say in a favorite Classic Rock song..."One thing leads to another..." And thus it is with the "last" major upgrade project in our "new" 1920's-vintage home. The project to get rid of gawd-awful wall texture and purple paint by scraping and re-mudding the walls, has now lead to pulling out the toilet, sink and now the floor and sagging sub floor. So, with that said, getting some modeling in, in my spare "spare time" has been a luxury. I apologise for focusing on my HO-to-On30 locomotive conversion project for so many posts, but that's about the only wheel turning on my railroad of late.

Progress does soldier-on and at last the little engine is starting to look like a backwoods logging (or sugar plantation) saddle tank steamer. I have begun to apply those rivet decals I purchased from Micro Mark. They go on very easily with the standard decal solutions and decal application methods and look pretty good so far. I'm holding out complete giddiness until the model is painted!

I've begun scratch-building the loco's cab, doing the construction with an O-scale ruler and eye-balling it to see if the "look" is right. I also decided to test fit the saddle tank assembly on the loco's HO 2-8-0 chassis to see how the proportions looked and I think they are going to be fine. As you know, I'm not following any specific prototype locomotive for the build, but I am basing the "look" of the locomotive on images of Hawaiian sugar plantation saddle tankers and a couple of similar loco models I found pictures of on the Internet. As I've stated in early posts, the whole idea behind the Swamp Logger On30 layout and concept was to be creative, have fun and not get bogged down with details, rivet counting or painfully trying to recreate an exact replica of any prototype railroad or railroad equipment. It's all "imagineered," to paraphrase Walt Disney!

In the top of the page image, I have the loco sitting on a cabinet in our "craft room/hobby room" on HO flex track. There are plenty of details yet to be added and the under-construction cab is simply perched on the 'business end' of the frame. The widened auxiliary tender also is en-route to more finishing work and completion of the DCC sound system hook-up. But all-in-all, the little engine is coming along nicely and looks pretty darn good, I'd say. It has given me a much-needed diversion from the home improvement projects that seem to refuse to get completed.

Again, any comments are greatly welcomed! Thanks for reading!

Getting Back To Modeling

Time sure flies by when the holidays are upon a person! Here it is, just about at the end of the month and end of the year and I'm now just getting back to doing some modeling at the work bench. I've been working hard to get our new old house in ship-shape after the move-in...building, painting most of the rooms, doing minor repairs, hanging mini blinds, etc., plus getting ready for Christmas!
So, what's been happening? Well, here's a quick run-down.

The biggest surprise was receiving the January 2012 issue of Model Railroader Magazine and seeing a 7-page feature article and photos of my HO-scale Big Island Rail layout in living color! Wow! I was brought to tears as I held the magazine in my hands realizing a life-long dream to have a layout feature in MR! Please check it out when you have a chance.

My wife and I were able to sneak in a quick side trip to a hobby/train shop in St. Paul during a Christmas visit to family last weekend, so I tried to stock-up on parts and a few scratch building supply items. Ouch! Expensive! Spending money was not as easy as I thought, since this shop did not have much 1/4-inch (O-scale) or On30 detail parts. I did purchase a set of On30 arch bar trucks for the tender of my HO-to-On30 Bachmann 2-8-0 saddle tank conversion project. With a little modification, I now have the appropriate size trucks under the tender and it now has that cool "look" to it. Hopefully the power pick-up wipers will "work" and I'll be able to keep the stock set up with those. I rearranged the DCC components inside the tender to allow more room for the sound system and speaker, so that better. I still have to solder the two power leads from the sound module to the DCC board.

Before Christmas, I had the steam and sand domes and a water fill hatch cemented to the top of the saddle tank, but realized I didn't leave enough room for the bell, a steam power generator or water fill hatch. (Ooops!) So, luckily I was able to pop those details off and reposition them better. The photo above shows the new arrangement with space for the bell between the taller steam dome and the sand dome. Not being a "Steam" guy I'm kinda prodding around in the dark with this locomotive. I do have a lot of great photos of plantation-style saddle tank locomotives in the Hawaiian Railroads book, plus a few downloaded from Internet searching, so I'm using those as my guide. The nice thing about NOT following any specific prototype is I can develop and create this locomotive as I go. As long as it looks like it would "work" in the real world, I suppose that's all that's needed. There were so many variations of equipment and shop repairs and rebuilds to these old steamers, that I would think anything goes!

To place the domes on the saddle tank top, I used the "discarded" section of PVC pipe as a sanding guide to shape the bottoms of the domes to fit the curve of the tank. Works pretty well, as seem in this image, above. If you are wondering what "part" I've used for the steam dome, it's actual an antique of the film camera days. In the old 110mm pocket camera film cassettes were these geared spools that the film wrapped around. Back in the days when I worked at One-Hour photo labs, I snagged a handful of these spools, thinking at the time they might be cool for logging "junk." Well, I spotted the reel in the parts bin and bingo - steam dome. I removed the geared top and replace it with an O-scale lamp shade. On top of this will go the steam whistle.

I couldn't find a O-scale steam generator detail part at the hobby shop so I when off to my scrape parts bins to find stuff to scratch-build a reasonable representation of one. Using what looks to be some type of HO-scale barrel, along with a HO-scale locomotive brake system component, I fashioned a steam generator taking my cue from several photos. All I need to add is an exhaust tube, bent to follow the contours for the loco's stack, and get the unit mounted on top of the saddle tank right behind the stack. You can see the detail part in the upper photo showing the saddle tank. The part is sitting on the work mat in the upper right hand corner by the sanding stick.

One of the coolest things I have purchased for this project are the rivet decals available from Micro-Mark. For the $12 you get two large sheets of the raised rivets in curves and strips, plus louvers and a few other details that I wish I had when I was building my Diesel swamp logging critter! So before I get too far along with add items to the saddle tank, I will next add some of these rivets to the tank. I'll let you know how they work!

Well, that's 'bout all for now. As soon as the final home projects are wrapped-up, I'll head to the basement to get that area prepped for rebuilding my double scale, double deck layouts! Then the real fun begins! Thanks for reading and following this blog, Tell your modeling friends about it. Please feel free to leave a comment!

Progress. Slow, But None-the-Less Progress

With projects around our new digs, I've spent only a few moments at the workbench with my On30 steam locomotive project. But I have been able to make slow and steady progress on converting a Bachmann 2-8-0 HO scale loco into an cool-looking On30 narrow gauge logging 'woods' engine for my future On30 Blackwater & Mosquito Creek Lumber Company "Swamp Logger" layout.
For a quick run-down of the project so far, please check out my previous blog postings. Here's what's been happening in the past week or so. This, belive it or not (seen above), my friends, is the new "saddle tank" for the new woods steam engine. The discarded piece of PVC pipe was cut just off center with my power miter saw, then cut to length.

In this view, above, 'mounting planks' are cemented to the trimmed pipe. These styrene pieces will help the new saddle tank attach effortlessly to the stripped-down HO scale boiler and serve as front end platforms for the engine's walkways, as seen in the photo below.

The tank sits on the boiler on the HO walkways which were left on the model (not seen in this view) and just clears the smokestack opening. You can see I have cut piece of flat styrene to fit as the front section of the tank. I have since trimmed and sanded this to match the curvature of the tank. Here's how it will look on the locomotive boiler, below.

The running gear and motor housing just squeezes, and I mean SQUEEZES, up into the boiler with nearly zero-clearance. So, it will be interesting to route the headlight wires to the front of the smoke box! I will next test fit the steam and sand domes to the top of the tank. I am still trying to decide if I will use the small HO scale ones I pulled of the boiler or make something from the scrap pile. I will use a section of the same PVC pipe with sandpaper attached, to form the proper curve to the bottom mounting areas. OK, I know, I could have shelled out $20 and bought them in 1/4-inch scale, but what fun is that?

I also need to fashion and new exhaust stack and mount a smoke arrestor on top. I'm eyeing an old plastic ink pen on my work table that seems to have just the right taper and diameter to it. Hmmmm.
The new cab will mount to the rear of the new saddle tank and extend towards to back of the engine with the cab roof overlapping the tender slightly.

The O scale rivet decals I ordered from Micro Mark arrived today in the mail. I can't wait to see how these look on the new saddle tank and the tender. So - as I wait for the UPS guy to bring me the other O-scale detail parts I ordered, like the bell, handrail stanchions, headlight, etc. - if you don't mind, I have a cab to scratch build!

Comments are always welcome! Thanks for taking the time to read my blog posts!

Back To Scratchbuilding, For A Moment

(Announcer) "When we last left our newly moved model railroader, (me) his layout was in sections piled-up in his new, smaller basement and the pre-snow-outside house -projects "Honey-Do"list was growing by the minute...."

Well. I'm happy to report the outside projects are done, so let the snow fly...so far the weather has been sunny and cool - go figure! The inside projects list is getting addressed with caulk, Spackle and paint. In the spare moments of the day (ha) I have had a chance to work on my On30 2-8-0 logging locomotive conversion from HO scale. (See previous posts for background info.) I have had the forethought to actually document the process with photos so if I ever get around to putting together another "how-to" article for a modeling magazine, I'll have the "beginning construction" shots done.

To update the project, I have completed the locomotive's tender to the point of doing final gap-filling, detailing, testing the DCC and finally painting. I started by building an extended frame around and over the HO locomotive tender chassis using styrene strips, so the new 1/4-inch-scale width tender frame measured-out to about 7.5 feet. I'm still toying with the idea of replacing the small HO trucks with a set of On30 trucks and then somehow adapting them to pickup power from the rails like the HO ones do. In the meantime, the HO scale trucks will do just fine.

With razor saw in hand, the tender body was cut in half and all the un-needed plastic was cut, filed and sanded away. I cemented the sides to the new extended frame. The "stock" loco's wiring and DCC plug-in can be seen as well. Now, the fill in the gaps.

Above you can see a filler section bridging the gap between to two original rear tender sides. I also cut and added sand bins from an old Shay tender to this section to add interest and take the eye away from the gap. I did the same gap filling in front, but with more pieces to create a "walkway" over the mini plug that connects the loco wiring to the tender. (See other photo below) Once this stage in the construction was done, I tested the DCC and sound components into the enlarged tender body to see how everything would fit.

In the background of the above picture, you can see the tender's top deck section. This was built to be removable to access the DCC system. I cut a section of the old HO tender's top and water hatch and glued that to the new tender deck, as well as adding a fuel oil hatch. I want to get some of those Micro-Mark rivet decals to add details to the new tender and locomotive. Has anyone used them yet?

I'm going to have to mount a coupler pocket to the rear, but I guess I'll wait on that until I decide on the taller On30 trucks or not. The tender will get an operating rear headlight, as well as coupler lift bars, grab irons, steps and all the other detail goodies to bring it to life.

This tender has given me an opportunity to get my feet wet in the new scratch building project. Now onto the actual locomotive with the saddle tank, new cab, walkways and all the other doo-dads. I guess that means a trip to the on-line hobby shop!