78 Miles to Yosemite

Category: Organization

Back at it: Project Updates For August 7, 2020

Posted on by jkdummler

After my last post, I made the decision to eliminate the really heavy piece of benchwork/module that I had built, and this week, cut up into three pieces, that section has departed to the dump.  The scenery “mud” on that project has great promise, as does the Flexxbed that I chose to use for roadbed.  However, the super heave, 3/4” plywood frame and decking just made it unwieldy to move and store.  Having decided that it’s skill-building and project c completion time, that piece no longer fit into my plans, and thus, it has met it’s end.

The photo diorama is now making progress. I’m working on modifying the legs from the last effort to fit this project, and to make some design improvements.

In it’s place, I have started constructing a new “photo diorama” to be able to learn some skills with.  It’s only 3’ long this time, and though the Fram is built from left-over 3/4” plywood benchwork pieces, the decking will be a simple piece of 2” insulation foam.  I have, at this point, glued and screwed the plywood together for the frame, so I’ve made progress there that I’m pleased with.  To use this as a display and photography diorama, I plan to make some functional adjustments to the legs from what I now call the “Heavy Module” and reuse them.  The plan is to adjust the end plates on the legs to allow for the diorama to be bolted in place, not just floating.  I’ll then adjust the length of lateral supports, and I’ll have legs that will bring things up to a height of about 50” which is comfortable for me for viewing and photography.

Modeling supplies have been cleaned up and organized again. It’s good to start fresh every once in a while with the organization.

It’s not all layout items that have made progress either.  I was fortunate to be able to correspond with several railroad history and modeling experts regarding the USRA gondola that I have planned to finish soon.  My initial thought was to letter that model as an El Paso & Southwestern car, but after corresponding about the likelihood of any of the EP&SW cars remaining in EP&SW paint by 1928, the general feeling was that the Southern Pacific would have repainted the cars after their 1924 acquisition of the EP&SW, and it is hotly unlikely that there would be a car in original lettering by August of 1928.  To adjust to that, I’ve repainted the gondola from black into a better base for SP lettering, and I’m looking forward to getting that finished soon.

Additionally on the freight car front, I have started the finishing process for the ATSF Bx2 boxcar that I detailed late last year and early this year.  That car will be first up for finishing, and I’ve set a personal goal of finishing it in August.  

This car is first up to finish. The Bx2 has been in progress the longest, so it’s first to be finished, hopefully in August.

The general finishing order for projects ahead currently stands at:

ATSF Bx2 Boxcar

SP USRA Gondola

UTLX Tank Car 1

UTLX Tank Car 2

PRR FM Flatcar

YV Caboose 15

Once I finish the projects above, I’ll pick new models from my stash and start working there.

On the skill-building front, I’ve decided to learn to hand-lay track in Proto48.  The photo diorama will be my first go there.  I’ve hand-laid track in HO before, but the detail level in Proto48 will be different.  Right now I’m hunting for a way to get the number of 3 hole tie-plates that I will need to prototypically lay YV track, and I’ll be looking to acquire the materials soon. I will likely use the tie plate project as a way to get started with 3D printing parts as I have seen some other Proto48 modelers do.  

I’m looking forward now to sharing more progress in detail on specific projects I have going on as I move them forward.

-Jeremy

Getting Organized

Posted on by jkdummler

Goals are good things to have.  I find that list-making and goal setting spurs me on to accomplish tasks in a realistic timeframe, and I feel that accomplishment which then spurs me onward toward the next item on the list, toward the next goal.

I’m now looking at the projects I have started, or would like to start, and thinking about how to order them properly.  In the days when I used to build HO models, I’d build 5 or 6 models all at once.  That’s likely not to happen anymore.  The fact is, the larger equipment is simply space-hungry.  

I have set for myself a goal that I think is reasonable when it comes to kits and cars.  I’m planning to work on one freight car at a time.  Shocking to think about, when many of us have started kits and set them aside and started others.  Seriously, though, one kit car at a time.  I believe it is possible to build one car in 4-6 weeks at the rate I work.  Not super fast, but yet too, enjoyable.  

Here is the list of kit cars that I am planning to build, and the order in which I plan to build them.  Please note, there are more cars in the stash than are listed here.  I only picked the next 12 because that is roughly a year’s worth of work.  Once this list is completed, I’ll prioritize the next set of 12 to build.

  1. PL&E 36’ boxcar
  2. NP 36’ fish belly boxcar
  3. UTLX Van Dyke 6500 gal tank car
  4. PRR X29 Boxcar
  5. SP B-50-15 boxcar
  6. UTLX Van Dyke 6500 gal tank car
  7. PFE R-30-12 reefer
  8. PFE R-40-2 reefer
  9. ATSF Bx-2 boxcar
  10. SP B-50-12 boxcar
  11. MKT 1925 single sheathed boxcar
  12. SP ex-EPSW USRA composite gondola

I initially started cars 1, 2, and 3 from the list.  That has proven to be OK, but I am looking forward to wrapping them up and getting the number of in-progress cars down to 1 at a time.  That isn’t to say that if I get to a spot with a project where I’m waiting on supplies of data or photos that there won’t be a chance that a 2nd project is moving forward.

If I’m building just one kit at a time, or one car at a time, it’s likely that I’m going to need other projects to occupy modeling time and interest while things dry or while I wait for parts.  To that end, I’ve also organized some non-car projects.  A number of structures are going to be needed for the layout and getting those built will fall into the project list.  I plan to only work on one structure at a time, which will make the structures available as a second ongoing project group.  Based on my plans for the layout, I need to build:

  1. Merced Ice & Cold Storage
  2. YV water tank at Merced
  3. YV oil tank at Merced
  4. YPCCo packing house at Merced
  5. Yosemite Lumber box factory at Merced Falls
  6. Yosemite Lumber dry shed at Merced Falls
  7. YV steel water tank at Merced Falls
  8. YV station at Merced Falls

There is also a huge need on this railroad for motive power and home-road cars.  None of the YV cabooses, rock cars, box cars, flat cars, stock cars, MOW cars, passenger cars, or log cars are commercially available at the moment, and few have ever been in O scale. My guess right now is that I’m going to need/want 2 locomotives, 2 cabooses, 6 rock cars, 2 flat cars, 1 stock car, 1 box car, an unknown number of MOW cars, 2 passenger cars, and 6 log cars.  That’s 20-ish cars and 2 locomotives that need to be scratch built.  This group, then comprises the third project group that will be available. 

I have selected the two locomotives that I want to build.  Yosemite Valley 4-4-0 American #23 and Yosemite Valley 2-6-0 Mogul #25 are my targets.  Should a third locomotive ever become a want, I would target YV27 or YV29.  Two locomotives, though, should keep this railroad busy at least for right now with plans for only two towns in the offing.  The rest of the equipment is fairly straight forward.  YV observation car 330 is definitely in the plans as one of the passenger cars.  

Along with these three groups, there will be layout work to complete.  That gives me four more or less separate spheres of projects to tackle.  Group 1: Kit Cars.  Group 2:  Structures.  Group 3: Scratch Builds.  Group 4:  Layout.  They can all run concurrently, but the key is going to be one item from each group at a time.

This is what I’m thinking will work for me right now.  We’ll see how it all comes together.  I used to do this kind of planning in January as a goals for the year kind of look ahead.  It may be coming on to August, but this year the scale change and getting that all under control and plans made for moving forward means I and doing this and you are seeing it here at the end of July.

I’m ready to hit the workbench this week and finish-up the NP boxcar build so it can go to paint.  The plan is to finish that by the end of August.  Books are coming in the mail on how to scratch build locomotives.  I’m excited about that.  We’ll be looking at Merced Ice & Cold Storage shortly as well, and some big plans for layout construction are also on the horizon.

Lots to do, now that I’m organized, it’s time to get it going.

-Jeremy

A New Workshop

Posted on by jkdummler

Along with changes to scale, as I have cleaned up/out the workshop, it has become obvious that, with storage at a premium, our workshops here have needed upgrading/updating again.  Lots of equipment, both individual and shared, has for a long time been stored in drawers and caddies that are not easily mobile, and I’ve found myself up and down from the work space more than I’d like to be, and tripping over cords more than I’d like to be as well.  

With fixing those issues in mind, I started hunting for portable workshops.  Unfortunately I appear to have missed out on some fantastic portable shops from a company in Span, but their portable workshops inspired more hunting and gave me some ideas of what I was hunting for.  

I eventually hit on what folks in the hobby of slot cars and RC cars call a “pit box”. These are typically made with spots to store race cars and tools, but I found a gentleman who makes them and who was willing to customize a pair of them with removal of the slot car storage and addition of other drawers.

The new workshop
The view when open as I move into the new storage.

I’ve spent a few days now moving into this box, and found some improvements I plan to make.  First, I added some magnets so I can easily store my scale ruler.  Secondly, because the boxes are heavy to begin with being built of 3/4” plywood, and fully loaded they’re even heavier, I plan to swap the single top handle out for two heavy duty side-mounted handles.

I’m really happy to have everything tool wise now at my easy reach.  We’re closing in on the end of the reorganization of the shop and modeling items, so in short order now it will be time to sit down and build some Proto:48 equipment.  I can’t wait!

-Jeremy

Improving Processes

Posted on by jkdummler

It’s time once again to look at the modeling year ahead.  I learned a lot in the last 12 months, and my plan for the year ahead includes putting into practice a few things that I want to change in order to make my modeling even better.

One thing I have been trying to do for a long time is to get even more organized when it comes to planning a project, from freight car to structure.  Stuff tends to fly around and be out of control until I’m focusing on what the “next step” is, and then I’m waiting on parts or waiting on decals, etc….

To address that issue this year, I plan to do two things.  First, I plan to work on smaller batches of projects. It makes sense to me to work on more than one thing at a time.  When I have equipment set up to do work on brakes, or for drilling, or for decals, it makes sense to do more than one car at a time.  However, fewer than 19 all at once is probably better.  It took me most of a weekend to polish the wheels I put on cars this year, and I really would like to not make as much green dust from the Vert polish all at once.  I think a “manageable” size for a batch of cars are the 6 cars I can fit in one of my storage trays at a time.  If I can get 6 cars started, built, detailed, primed, painted, lettered, and finished, then move on to the next batch of 6, I feel like I can make progress without stalling out because I’ll see the progress along the way.

The second thing I’m working on now, before I start building, is to get projects organized on paper.  Anything I need to order, change, add, etc… to a car get’s listed on the page, and the page can be either printed or referenced on my cloud.  The eventual goal is to collect information sheets on each model, listing the parts and changes, but also the history of the car, and a prototype photo or drawing that I’m working from.  In the end, the sheets will be printed with the prototype info and the model info and can be my display at an RPM where the cars are shown.

This is an example of the initial setup sheet I’m doing for each car. This one may wind up in my 2nd or 3rd batches of 6 cars at a time this year, but the general idea of tracking everything that I need or need to do on a project in one spot will make things easier to manage when it comes to starting a project and getting it finished.

With parts inbound for the first 6 cars, and arriving before the weekend, I’m hoping to sit down and get a good start on everything.

The first 6 cars for this year are:

A pair of ACL K-7 low side gondolas

A BAR 1927 A.R.A boxcar

A Central Vermont 36’ boxcar

A SSW USRA DS clone

A Norfolk & Western bobber-style caboose

In keeping with my pledge to myself that for every box car I build, I’ll build 1 of another car type this year, that’s 3 boxcars and 3 others.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this batch, and then what I pull out of the kit stash for the next group. 

-JD

Freight Crate Modifications

Posted on by jkdummler

It’s that time of year again when I build the newest batch of Freight Crates from Fast Tracks to carry cars to RPM Chicagoland as well as store them until they’re in use on the layout that, (fingers crossed) will be up and running in early 2019.

For a few years now, I’ve had a couple of bits of difficulty with my crates, but in my book there isn’t a better option on the market for storing and protecting equipment.  About 6 years ago I had things in large cardboard boxes that are made to store and transport cars.  During a move, 95% of my equipment, including locomotives, were smashed to the point of unrecoverable.  After moving over to using Freight Crates, I have taken cars to multiple RPM’s and not broken anything, so the protection is sound.

The issues I’ve had surround two items.  1. The locking tabs on the bottom of the crates have a tendency to brake off.  During repeated opening and closing of the crates, I’ve broken more than one.  2.  Getting the locking tabs to not become glued in place during construction is difficult (for me),  3.  Getting crates to open when the lid slides all the way down to the bottom can be difficult.  Humidity and air temperature can affect how things slide.

So when I set out this year to build my newest batch, I decided on two things.  First, if I could avoid using the locking tabs, because I don’t really need those, I would.  Second, if I could solve the opening issues by figuring out a way to add leverage for my fingers I would do that as well.

The bottom of the Fast Tracks Freight Crate shows the mounting points near the ends for the locking mechanisms that also work to allow the crates to stack.

 

These pieces I now leave out of the bottom construction.

 

The mounts for allowing the Freight Crates to stack are still used, just without the lock portion.

The first part that solves both of my first two issues was easy.  I simply build the bottom of the crates following the directions and leave out the locking tabs.  The way I handle the crates I always have a hand on the bottom anyway.  Replacing the locking tabs with a pair of stout rubber bands around the crate wound’t hurt either, or I may wind up adding some velcro straps to the sides to keep the lids on.  Either way, without the tabs, there is no frustration and the crates still stack.

A newly assembled lid is seen drying here with blue painters tape used to hold everything together.

Solving the lid-opening issue took a little more thought.  What I decided to do was to set my Bladerunner table saw to have a 1.5″ cut.  Then I ran the parts for the sides and ends of the lid through there before assembly.  Once cut, I used a sanding sponge to just knock down any “hair” from the bald that was raised on the hardboard material, and assembled the top following the rest of the instructions.  I use blue painters tape to hold everything in place while I’m gluing and assembling both the top and bottom.  I find it works nicely to hold joints together, but peels off with ease once things are dry.

A pair of modified crates awaits filling with cars. The side modification tom the lids can be easily seen.

The end result is a Freight Crate that I can lift the lid off of easily, that stacks, and that protects my equipment.  This modification isn’t for everyone, but for me, it works.  The same modification I made to the new crates I can make carefully to the existing set, at least to the lids, with the saw, so they function just as easily.

I have a bunch of cars to finish if I’m going to make my deadlines this year, so it’s probably time to get back to the workbench!

-JD