Copper Roof...

This roof is copper "flashing" from Lowes. it is not the real thing...copper sheet but is copper foil bonded to a plastic backing. I wish it was self adhesive-peel and stick but it is not. As the material came in a 12" wide roll, I had to cut 13" wide sections which overlapped to cover each side of my 30 x 13 roof.

I used a dulled awl to "draw" the raised seams from the bottom or baking side of the material. It is soft enough that a firm uniform pressure makes a nice line when I used a square as a guide.

I distorted the material when drawing the lines on it so that it did not want to lie flat. I needed to glue it down. I used waterproof contact cement which seemed to work quite well; but as it was cold (no power-no heat) when I did it, it came unstuck...well only partly unstuck. I was able to peel it back a bit and brush in some more glue...we'll see if it works, I guess I have enough flashing to try again.

by the way, the building in the background of the previously posted photo is roofed with ice and water sheild. this roofing underlayment was coated with grit to make it less slippery. It lasted over a year on my house in Connecticut without shingles on top and kept the house dry. I had some extra and it seems to work well on models too. I have yet to find more. it is expensive, about $100/roll, but that is enough to do about 30 scale houses!

Trains , Trains and more Trains

I got lucky this afternoon and resting with a cold, I stumbled onto a marathon of 'Extreme Trains' History Channel, (in fact running 2 or 3 more episodes right now). I was enjoying the Union Pacific 844 and they went up to the cab and watching the engineer blow the whistle at an up coming grade crossing. So here is an easy one (except I did not know for sure) What is the long and short pattern for the whistle?

Answer: - Two long, one short, one long: Train is approaching a grade level crossing (i.e. a road crossing). This is a widely used safety signal used to warn motorists and is blown at every grade level crossing, except where local noise ordinances prohibit it. Known in railroad rulebooks as rule '14L'
SCGRR was the first with the right answer! Plus the link he found has been added to the Blog.

Where the windows went...

Here is a photo of the "mill" I have been working on. It utilizes the windows I showed off a couple of weeks ago.

The building is basically a barn, but with more windows of course. It is built from 1/2" plywood with cedar strip battents glued on. An "L" on the back side will be a loading dock next to the tracks.

The "boiler shed" is a seperate peice which can be installed in any of several locations. I sawed the smoke stack from a 30" peice of pressure treated 4x4 using my band saw. I just left the natural saw-texture to simulate brick work. the paint is a mix of rust-o-leum mixed with linseed oil.

I had a plan to make standing seam roofing from 14" aluminum flashing but the "press" I made is not quite up to the task. any roofing suggestions? I am not up to the task of 4000+ wood shingles. I want a long lasting waterproof roof so I can leave the building out...it is too big to move around.

I LoveToy Trains and Thomas the Tank Engine Videos

Donated to MGRS by Kimberly Alling. ~ We have approximately 40 VCR Videos in excellent condition that are being given to benefit Maine Garden Railway Society. Unless otherwise directed by the BOD these will be going into the annual MGRS Auction. They are from the series "I Love Toy Trains and "Thomas the Tank Engine".

MAY open house in Phippsburg...

I am hosting a MGRS open house on May 2nd(Saturday) rain date the following day. Official arrival time to be about 11:00. It will be posted on the news letter.

I invite any live-steam or battery powered locos to share the rails. about 100 feet of main line (single track) with reversing loops and some simple yards. minimum radius 6 feet (I think) clearance 5 1/2" wide 8-1/2" tall.

I would supply soda, burgers and dogs, for a semi pot luck cookout.

Directions:
Route 1 towards Bath (from north or south)
exit for Route 209 (Phippsburg, Popham, Sabasco)

From North, route 209 passes the Bath Iron works and Maine Maritime Museum then turn left at stop sign.

Follow Rt 209 over causeway into Phippsburg.

1 mile after causeway, turn Left onto Fiddler's Reach Road.

1/2 mile after turn turn Left onto Captain Perry Drive

At end cul-de-sac turn Right onto our driveway #83 on the white kayak sign. The track is right there! Drive in to park

phone Eric at 207-386-0129

Milford Lions Train Show

Sounds Great! The NHGRS has invited members from MGRS to come over to the train show next month, March 14 and 15, 2009 held at Milford High School. Stop by to visit and meet fellow G guage train lovers. It sound like a very good show, I hear they have 'live Steam' plus 7/8 scale displays. No vendors, it is intended for kids and family and all of us that enjoy seeing trains run and talking to people. It is a great opportunity for us to meet people in a nearby club and see their large G scale layout which they will be taking to the East Coast Large Scale Train Show just 2 weeks later in York, PA.

Please click here for Flyer and other info.

Note: Milford is about 20 miles from Manchester. The High School is at 100 West St.

Country Time

This one has never been on the Blog before, How about a little Boxcar Willie: The Wabash Cannonball ` What two Cities did it run between?

Calling your attention to the 'Blog Search' capability

At the very top of the Blog, actually just above it is a reserved line called the Blogger Control Bar. It shows if you are signed in or not. At the very left hand side is a place to type in any 'keyword' . For example if you typed in 'trestle' and then click on the button just to the right named 'Search Blog' you will get back any blog that has that keyword in it. This is a very useful tool to locate an old blog posting. Note: You need to move the slide cursor for the Blog all the way up to the top to see the Blog Control bar.

A Great Restaurant and Train Show

Highly Recommended is the Railway Cafe , exit 43 off Rt 295 in Richmond, ME. Great home cooked meals, large servings, low prices and wonderful super delicious desserts! I had the Coconut Cream pie, (out of this world). My wife and I , our daughter and our grandson stopped for lunch on the way to the Augusta Train and Doll House Show. Everybody enjoyed it, plus it is an old Railroad Station complete with high tin ceiling and revolving fans.





The train show was at the Augusta Armory. There was a very good turnout. I saw at least a dozen MGRS Members, some I had not seen for a long time but most were familiar faces. Everybody I talked to had found a good deal or was happy with the Show. Both buyers and Sellers. We all had fun looking at all the different displays. I was 'off duty' on picture taking but I took a very short clip which gives you a view of about 2/3 the area. I am sure that all who attended had a good time and will be back again next year.

Maine Railroads

A History of Maine Railroads - and other facts and trivia about the States of Maine
Here it is: click to view

Cupola

The window I showed you before was actually an extra, the reason to make the windows was this cupola. I had enough windows to make the rest of the building which cried out for the cupola!

Making windows

I have been working on a little industrial building (well nothing is small in 1:20 scale) Purchasing windows is difficult and expensive, so I make my own. I have several ways to make windows. the easiest is just to paste sticks to a peice of plywood and paint it to look like a window with black painted plywood "glass".

This is the next fancier system which is to make a "grill" like window so light and air can pass through.

I start with some 1/4" thick strips with square ends and cut grooves in them half way through with the tablesaw. Each groove corrosponds to a cross peice in the finished window.

Next I slice off 1/4" strips for the window frame and 1/8" strips for the grill parts (mullions?)

The pieces are assembled like Lincoln Logs with a dab of glue. finally I add trim around the window (see top photo) and glue it into an opening cut in the wall of the building.

These are fairly easy to make though they do take time. The hardest part is figuring out where to cut the grooves to get the window the right size with the right number of panes. they are a bit course looking but not bad for stand off viewing.

SCGRR Water Tower

Here are the final pictures for the water tower project. (I promise, this is it!)

This shows the railing supports and wire for the safety rail. The wire is 1.0mm "Bosai" Anodized Aluminum wire.
This picture shows the roof just about completed. Missing a row and the cap pieces.

Here is the Front of the completed tower complete with unique weather vane.

This view shows the ladder to access the tower and tank.

This view shows the access hatch to the tank and the support for the ladder. The ladder is made form 12ga. electrical wire conductors solder together.

The tank measure 16' x 16' x 16'. That's 4096cu/ft. That equtes to ~30,600 imaginary gallons of water.

That's it for this project, except to put some waterproofer on / in it and wait for Spring.

Augusta Train and Dollhouse Show ??

I thought I remembered the show was scheduled for this weekend. I believe I saw it listed on our Web Site Upcoming Events. I just looked to verify the dates and it is not there. Has the event been canceled? My wife and daughter were planning to go if it is still on. Does any body know the status? Thanks!

SCGRR Water Tower Progress

Here are some pics of the Water Tower progress.

The first Pic, for those that haven't seen this material, is "Western Red Cedar Balusters" for doing Deck Railings. It comes from "Lowes", at least in my area. They are 1-1/2" (Nominal) square x 48" long. You need to be picky when buying them. Look through them and pick out the CLEAR and STRAIGHT ones. OH, make sure you remove ALL staples before cutting, otherwise the blade will and then you need to replace the blade or at the very least sharpen it. Band saw blades are NOT very forgiving. (Some staples are hiding on the edges of the wood.)

Here is the roof of the tank with the Shingles started.

Here we have the "Spout installed along with the counter weights. The Tank fill tube with shut-off valve (White), can bee seen in the middle of the frame.
Here is a closer look at the Spout and counter weights. Spout was carved from WRC. Spout will swing down to do an Imaginary fill of a tender.
Close-up of Fill-Tube and valve. Valve body is a cork and the flanges are WRC. Valve wheel is an RC servo horn.

Layout

I was fooling around with 'Paint' Program and tried to come up with a drawing of my layout.
It is not exactly to scale but it gives you an idea of what it is like.

Aristo-Craft Trains ~ 2009 Catalog

How much fun it was as a kid (and still is) to get a new catalog and study all the pages, reading about all the details. I hope you will enjoy flipping through the pages of this electronic version.
Here it is - enjoy it - click here.

A friend of Tiny - interested in Live Steam

hi john
i was, but forgot to ask at meeting. must be somebody in the maine group that run live steam,as they say( the real stuff). my buddy that got me into rr motorcaring, has decided to get out of m/c ing and run "G" scale live steam and is looking for something a little bigger than a RUBY. he is a maine licence steam engineer in boilers at factory. getting ready to retire and looking for less strenuous hobby to past the time by. he wasn't sure about coal, probably butane, but though he would have to go to a steamup and see what the operators had the lease problems with what fuel and engines. nh president is a live steamer and had a steamup in august last year and he didn't go. so he will have to wait until the snow goes. plan on building a layout about waist high so he doesn't have to bend over. not really sure if he wants new or used, sounded like used. i'am almost possitive he probably could rebuild one if it came to that. if you know of someone that has something, ( 2-6-0, 2-8-0 ) give a shout.

tiny
(If interested please leave comment, I will send you Tiny's email if you need it)

Tall Pines Senic Railroad

Here is an interesting site located in Berwick, Maine on 15 acres of private land. This was found by our own member Tiny Lee and passed along for the rest of us to see. It is a very interesting 3 inch scale! Take a look, click here (Use Back Arrow <= to return to Blog)

SCGRRs Water Tower up-date

Here are the four sides glued together.


The roof trusses are taking shape.
The roof trusses are done along with some less than conventional diagonal bracing.


Here the roof sheathing has been started. Glued and pinned. All wood is WRC. (You can also see holes in the platform to accept the railing posts later.)


The scale of this is 1/2". The tower dimensions are approximately; Tank = 16' x 16' x 16', platform is 28' x 28' and the framework to hold the tower up is 24' high. I took the dimensions from a "Northwestern" (Chicago Systems), Round water tank dwg just to get the scale of it. It's looking larger than I had envisioned, but I guess once it is out on the landscape it will be OK.

Anyone watch last night?

The fastest train in America or on the continent and it starts at Boston South Station.
A reasonable speed click here
A mere 135MPH Click here

It was a great show on Extreme Trains last night. They hold the speed down to 150 mph! The 'engine' is called a Power Car and has 6000HP. If anyone saw the show I will offer just one reasonably easy trivia question. What is a 'train set'?

Another SCGRR Winter Project

Here is another SCGRR Winter project. This one is a non-traditional Water Tower. Everyone seems to make round ones. We thought we'd be different. It is a "Figment Tower"! That is a Figment of our Imagination!

The Plan!


The platform framing. 1/2" Nominal Western Red cedar. Bordered by 1/2" x 1/8" WRC.



The platform with decking material added. Decking is ~.085" thick x 1-13/32" wide. Not to any standerd board size. Just the width of the Balusters. Again, Western Red Cedar.

Oooops! Somebody parked a tractor on the deck. Must be checking to make sure it's sturdy enough. (Sorry, the picture is fuzzy if you enlarge it!)

The beginning of one of the four sides of the Tank. Western Red Cedar, Glue (Titeboond III) and pins used. The boards are .085 x 1-13/32" with scribed lines at 1/2" intervals to resemble narrower boards.

That's it for now!!



Note: Click on 'Home' below to return to the regular Blog.

Something a little different

I was changing the 'Video Bar' and I came across this. I think it is entertaining. I call it 'Old Toot Chases Train'. Click here to see video
Here is the video for Part-1
They are both very good quality video's and fun to watch.

Very Detailed 1/2 inch scale

******My daughter just sent me this to look at. She enjoys making miniature items. This is a little desk diorama she came up with. She has it on ebay. I am not trying to advertise it, I just thought it was pretty neat. It does remind me though we are planning to go to the Train and Doll house show in Augusta next month.

RailROAD vs. RailWAY

Being home today with a cold & VERY board, I thought I would search for an answer to the reason we use Railroad or Railway. What a surprise! So I am looking for ALL the opinions out there, just to see if there is an answer. Not Trivia but very interesting. Looking forward to some input. Mike