Before leaving for the studio this morning, I checked to make sure all
my recently applied ballast has now been affixed properly. The turnout
went into position fairly well, but I might have to tweak the code #100
rail of the siding just a bit. Over the years I had tried several ways
to make the size change (from #126 to #100 and even #70) as well as
insulated joiners plus uncoupler ramps all in a short distance and
keeping things smooth. Friday night trains were running fairly well,
after finding a spike that wasn't driven all the way home, so cars
thumped and raised up a bit. I should have Bill Fraley's renewed
eyeballs--seeing black spikes and new black ties isn't that easy.
So Saturday morning, I repaired a small hole in my thin shell scenery.
I had an old roll of the Woodland's plaster cloth that made the job go
very quickly. I then repainted my rock castings damaged when my 'earth
moving' equipment had scraped the walls of the cut where the turnout was
located. Next came trying to find the nearest ballast match. I must
have 20 flavors of ballast and none matched in size and color, so I made
up a blend of several similar colors that did the trick.
During this time I also decided to add electric lights to the rest of
the mining town of Lead. I had lit a couple of buildings many years
ago, but the depot and the cafe/drug store weren't wired. I found some
tungsten fixtures with removable bulbs that were sold by Walther's. The
bulbs look like old style car fuses. I installed them and they look
good, however I won't be able to install the buildings again until I get
all the excess ballast cleaned up. One thing that will certainly ruin a
photo is ballast particles sticking to the web of the rail--it's caught
me several times. So if I haven't glued the points by mistake, I should
be running trains tonight again. Then I can allow the fine citizens of
Lead to move back into their community!
Bob Werre
--- In [email protected] <mailto:S-Scale%40yahoogroups.com>, Bob
Werre <bob@...> wrote:
> I then had
> to remove Homesote material to match the depth of the Tru-scale roadbed
> that was about 5/16". I did that by cutting diagonally along the
> roadbed and then using a paint scraper to gradually remove material
> layers. After several hours each of two nights I reached the proper
> depth evenly along the route
Haha, I really admire your restraint Bob. My normal course for that
type of job is to try skilsaw, plunge router, large chisel and hammer,
camping hatchet, or electric chainsaw in about that order. then break
out the band-aids,big shop vac, and beer in about that order :>) .
...DaveBranum
