For those of us that are just starting the scenery phase of our layouts I found an expensive source for some scenery material-namely sand. While my wife and mother-in-law were shopping at Michaels I did some looking around and in one of the aisles I found 1# bags of fine sand used for sand art and while some of the colors could not be used on a layout they did have at least 4 shades of brown sand ranging from light to dark. They ranged in price from $1.79-$1.99. Now I know where I can get sand without driving to my LHS. Just thought I would share this the members. Bob :hey:

I like using the RTS from atlas, but is there another program that has the peco stuff? or even better additional libraries?

You'll need:
barbecue sticks
scotchbrite scouring pads

First ( and the most important and delicate operation ) is to separate the scouring pad because it is made of 3 layers.
With your hands ( scissors gives a too regular shape ) roughly cut the layers in pieces of various diameters size.
( I use various Canadian coins as a template )

Please use a dust mask for those 2 operations.

Cut the barbecue stick ( 2.5 " is Ok for N scale ) , sharpen the tip and paint it a dark gray color.

Apply some Elmer's glue on the stick and insert the scotchbrite "disks" in decreasing diameters on it .
And voila ... your conifer is ready.

You can spray the tree with Woodland Scenics scenic cement and sprinkle some mixed turf on it.

Jacques

Last year I collected some weed around the Canadien/Canadian National track down the street.
Could someone please tell me the English name for it ?
I would like to use that material for making trees on my layout, but I don't know how to do it.

Jacques

Hi folks.

I'm working on a P2K loco and trying to quiet down the buzzing sound coming from the trucks. Quite annoying. It sounds like the gears have a hockey card stuck in the spokes.

I remember reading on the old board one member (I forget who... :oops: ) commented that he disassembled the trucks de-greased, carefully removed all the flashing from the gears and reassembled them which improved the performance and made them nice and quiet.

So. Two questions.

1) What is the best way to degrease the trucks? For some reason I'm thinking soap and water in a wire mesh strainer so as to not lose any small bits scrubbed with a tooth brush will be fine.

2) What would be the best method for removing flashing from such small parts? An X-acto blade would be too risky, might carve off too much. So either a quick pass with a small jewelers file or very fine grit sandpaper might be the best method.

Advice? Comments? Opinions?

Thanks!

I just picked up a pair of Super Detailed UP DDA40X's from Bachmann (SPectrum). I would like to add LED lights (including replacing the strobe on the roof). I was told I could put a single decoder in to run both motors in each unit, IF the motors only put out so many amps. I am an electrical IDIOT. I can barely change a household light bulb. I mean, I seriously SUCK at anything electrical, but I am good with directions, so, I am confident I can handle it with the assistance of the patient folks here at the Gauge. I know Deano has one of these, how did you install DCC in yours Deano? I would like to eventually do sound in them as well, has anyone ever attempted that?

Thanks in advance for any help!

I will be building in the near future a resistance soldering station based on some do it your self articles off the internet. will take pics of assembly as I go along.

When, Bam!...............followed by the sound of water splashing!
I live in a condo, one of four units in the building, one of which is completely above the four garages, through which (mine) run that unit's water lines.......................my garage is an "Ice Castle". I'll be busy for the next several days, thawing, cleaning, and trying to save things like all the power tools, and other things stored in the "Path Of The Flood". Nothing Railroad, got touched! There is that bright spot, at least.
The Property Manager, now knows what my dark side looks like.
I will be happy when spring arrives! :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

When I want to quote previous post, the forum automatically quotes everything in the post including any other quotes that were in that post, then when I try to submit it, it won't let me until I delete all of the extraneous quotes that I didn't want to quote anyway. If I wanted to quote a previous post that the person quoted to reply to, I would have quoted that post directly. I think it would be easier if the forum was set to quote only the reply in the post being quoted without quoting any quotes that are in that reply.

For anybody on dial up, the home page for the Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine now has a lite edition that will download 19 MB instead of 78MB. It has lower quality graphics and less embedded rich media, but still uses the Adobe pdf format. The videos and extra rich media are now embedded in the web browser on the site rather than being downloaded in the magazine. All of the content is still there, just in a smaller MB package to make downloading easier and quicker.