06-20-2014, 11:44 AM
Oh, Mr. Kieran, what have you done to me 
hock:
Thanks to your 'natty' little doodle my resolve has begun to.....well, 'dissolve'
As hard as I've tried - even made a point of doing something constructive with 'District 22' to try and take my mind off it - it's no use, and in the words of good ol' Oscar himself, ' I can resist anything except temptation itself ' and given in.
You see, I know hypothetically I was going to take an imaginary trip to Hattons to purchase those three Peco Code 83s in #5, however, in reality I have two Micro-Engineering Code 70 #6s sitting atop my modelling desk doing, well, nothing actually. Now, as much I was disappointed with them after they arrived a couple of years ago all the way from the good old US of A (have a look in my thread and you'll see why, but basically the metal frog inserts were proud of the adjacent wing rails requiring me to equip the only couple of 'cars' I have with mountaineering equipment to successfully traverse them
causing them to 'bump' over the crossing, which is a pet hate of mine), I still couldn't bring myself to bin them. I used the operative word 'were' then, because now they're fine. Why? Well, with your plan still spinning around my rather small brain and refusing to depart any time soon - I was going to use my pending summer vacation to cool off, but you know how these things go - and the sun shining brightly, I decided to take them into the garden with me to reassess them. I also took with me a swiss file (broken in half from plenty of use), an offcut of sundeala, a hammer, a couple of nails (not to use on the switches, of course, just to hold them in place!) and one of the trucks from my Bachmann box car to test with. Half an hours: 'file a bit, give it a check, file a bit more, give it another check' to prevent any unnecessary tears and the job was done. Funnily enough, I'd sort of 'hypothetically' promised myself that if they worked, I purchase a third from the States just before I go away so it would be here to greet me on my return; and how I hate breaking promises. To myself, anyway I've also found a length of ME flextrack left over after sacrificing them to my UK project (again in my thread) so that if I, ahum, did decide to go ahead with this mad scheme, at least the track in the immediate vicinity of the switches would match and run smoothly. I could cheat for the rest and just use up the rest of my code 75s soldered to the odd PCB tie (like District 22) the rest being distressed bits of veneer to resemble sunken distressed ties that you find in these old branches. Not that I've given the plan much thought of course; just musings................
In fact, to break up this drivel here are couple of photos - well, one actually - taken just after the 'frogs' had been smoothed over (including the little Swiss file, bless its little cotton socks)
And if you're wondering what that primed 'partial' carcass of a GP 38 is doing there, that also forms part of those 'musings' (remember the GP 38 I linked to in my earlier post?)
Not that these musings are serious as you can tell, but that tinlet of light grey paint adjacent to it, is the result of a brief email to my local model shop wondering if they stocked anything similar to the livery of the loco in that shot. They did, of course, so I bought it. Just in case. I wouldn't mind, but I've just started a thread on another website chronicling the transformation of this loco into the livery of another ISL loco. Dunno how I'm gonna break the news to them. Actually, I will finish a loco in that livery; I'll just put it on hold until then and replace the thread with painting of this.
That's of course if I DID decide to build your excellent little proposal, Mike
But, of course, that would be ridiculous. Wouldn't it?
jonte
hock: Thanks to your 'natty' little doodle my resolve has begun to.....well, 'dissolve'
As hard as I've tried - even made a point of doing something constructive with 'District 22' to try and take my mind off it - it's no use, and in the words of good ol' Oscar himself, ' I can resist anything except temptation itself ' and given in.
You see, I know hypothetically I was going to take an imaginary trip to Hattons to purchase those three Peco Code 83s in #5, however, in reality I have two Micro-Engineering Code 70 #6s sitting atop my modelling desk doing, well, nothing actually. Now, as much I was disappointed with them after they arrived a couple of years ago all the way from the good old US of A (have a look in my thread and you'll see why, but basically the metal frog inserts were proud of the adjacent wing rails requiring me to equip the only couple of 'cars' I have with mountaineering equipment to successfully traverse them
causing them to 'bump' over the crossing, which is a pet hate of mine), I still couldn't bring myself to bin them. I used the operative word 'were' then, because now they're fine. Why? Well, with your plan still spinning around my rather small brain and refusing to depart any time soon - I was going to use my pending summer vacation to cool off, but you know how these things go - and the sun shining brightly, I decided to take them into the garden with me to reassess them. I also took with me a swiss file (broken in half from plenty of use), an offcut of sundeala, a hammer, a couple of nails (not to use on the switches, of course, just to hold them in place!) and one of the trucks from my Bachmann box car to test with. Half an hours: 'file a bit, give it a check, file a bit more, give it another check' to prevent any unnecessary tears and the job was done. Funnily enough, I'd sort of 'hypothetically' promised myself that if they worked, I purchase a third from the States just before I go away so it would be here to greet me on my return; and how I hate breaking promises. To myself, anyway I've also found a length of ME flextrack left over after sacrificing them to my UK project (again in my thread) so that if I, ahum, did decide to go ahead with this mad scheme, at least the track in the immediate vicinity of the switches would match and run smoothly. I could cheat for the rest and just use up the rest of my code 75s soldered to the odd PCB tie (like District 22) the rest being distressed bits of veneer to resemble sunken distressed ties that you find in these old branches. Not that I've given the plan much thought of course; just musings................In fact, to break up this drivel here are couple of photos - well, one actually - taken just after the 'frogs' had been smoothed over (including the little Swiss file, bless its little cotton socks)
And if you're wondering what that primed 'partial' carcass of a GP 38 is doing there, that also forms part of those 'musings' (remember the GP 38 I linked to in my earlier post?)
Not that these musings are serious as you can tell, but that tinlet of light grey paint adjacent to it, is the result of a brief email to my local model shop wondering if they stocked anything similar to the livery of the loco in that shot. They did, of course, so I bought it. Just in case. I wouldn't mind, but I've just started a thread on another website chronicling the transformation of this loco into the livery of another ISL loco. Dunno how I'm gonna break the news to them. Actually, I will finish a loco in that livery; I'll just put it on hold until then and replace the thread with painting of this.
That's of course if I DID decide to build your excellent little proposal, Mike
But, of course, that would be ridiculous. Wouldn't it?
jonte