Welcome all to the eighth thread in the Hobo Campfire series. We reached 5000 posts on the last one so it's time to start a new one.

Want to see if anyone has had experience with this and see what a solution could be. The NWSL gearbox I used in my H-9 build is a 142-6 gearbox, I have noticed it's a tad noisy in the forward direction and I would consider it quiet in reverse. Is this something that will work out over time? Another thing I've notice is that the worm gearshaft has a little in and out play in it and was thinking this might be where noise is coming from? Obviously, adding shims will remove the slop in shaft movement, but will it take care of the noise?

Thx,
Mark

Also, I've sent a similar question to Dave at NWSL. Likely won't hear from him for a few days, though.

I made an observations while installing a bunch of ditch lights.

SMD LEDs 0204 warm white are used. I buy them in 10 or 20 piece a packs from eBay sellers in China. Virtually free of shipping but it may take 2 - 4 weeks to arrive.
Those tiny are usually installed in the very front of the ditch light housing. Covered with a thin layer of Kristal Clear at best. In contrast to may professional installed ditch lights (Intermountain, Rapido ...) is there no fiber optic involved. The light goest straight from the LED to the eye.
I started with the usual 1k0 resistors, went to 1k5 resistor probed 3k0 resistors and it was still far to bright. I ended up with 6k0 ( 6000! ) Ohm resistors. Your milage may vary depending on the brand of LEDs you get from China but it is remarkable indeed.

You may want to take that into consideration when you are shopping for SMD LED resistors the next time.

Dock Street RR's leased MP15AC makes it's way down Delaware Ave .

Bruce

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Hi everyone, you've heard the old nursery rhyme about the old lady that lived in a shoe, well of course you have.
I'm going to show you how I turned an old bronzed baby shoe, into a home for that old lady.
My wife is always going to those thrift stores, so I asked her to keep an eye open for a neat looking baby shoe.
When she brought me home a bronzed baby shoe, I thought to myself this may actually work out better than a un-bronzed shoe.
So here is how the bronzed baby shoe looked when I first got it.


   

   



Just your basic bronzed baby shoe, for 2 bucks.
Now I needed to smooth out some of the shoe surfaces, in order to apply a door, and some windows.
So I used some black Sculpy/Polymer modelling clay, applied right on to the surface of the bronzed baby shoe.

   

I also built up the front of the shoe to look like a window dormer using the clay.

   

   





Once I was happy with my polymer additions, I baked the shoe in the oven for 20 minutes to harden the clay.
I thought I was being smart by placing the shoe upside down on a baking tray, but this turned out to be a mistake.
It seems that wax is used in the process of bronzing baby shoes, and that wax melted out of the shoe all over my wife's baking tray and down into the oven.
Had I just kept the baby shoe sitting upright this would not have happened. After I cleaned up the mess I continued with making the roof for this shoe.
I traced around the top of the shoe with a pencil, onto a piece of wood. I then cut out the shape that I traced, so that this piece of wood would sit on the top of the shoe nicely.

Hello All!!!

It's time again to see who would like to join in on this years fantasy league.

Please reply here as soon as possible!!!

Daytona is only 2 short weeks away!

Just as a heads-up, we are making some changes to Big Blue, just a little at a time. Our first one is that we will now be on a secure server. We are going from, "http://", to "https://" starting today. We still have to make a redirect, but you can find us either way. As soon as we add the redirect, you will notice a green lock on our site address at the top of your browser.

Why are we doing this? Well, we've never been hacked, but, like the flu, it's going around and we need to take precautions so that we don't get it. It's too late about the flu for some of us, but not to secure our site from someone getting access, locking us all out and making off with passwords and email addresses. We are doing this at an extra cost to us, but highly recommended by our server host, Go Daddy.

Other changes are in the works, and we'll let you know well in advance, but just in case you are concerned, we are keeping our pledge not to get hooked up with ads or a sponsor. Those are why we started Big Blue in the first place, Mikey and I plus all our moderators at the time, were fed up with not having any control over the old site as it was passed down from one owner to the next and each one added their own flair for gaining advertising income. We will not go down that path, but we do have some exciting changes in store, so keep tuned....

I had a first meeting with the carpenter about the frame work of the new layout. The carpenter will take the lead over the electrician and painter and coordinate the schedules (they did a fantastic job coordinating all crafts for the apartment last year).

The new frame work will be mainly unchanged in the 4,20m * 2,75m (13,7' * 9) room.
The south side will be 4,20m * 0,60m (2') with scenery. The north side will be 4,20m * 0,27m (.9') with a four track staging yard without scenery. The west and east sides will be 0,15m (.5') connections without scenery with hatches for the balcony and room door. The top will be unchanged 0,81m (31.8") to permit train operation under the open window.

The north, west and east sides will reside on brackets mounted at the wall. The wider south side will be bolted to the wall and have 2 to 3 legs for safety reasons as today.

The south side will be a solid frame covered by four easy to exchange 12mm (.45") plywood boards (0,60m * 1,00m/1,20m).

I will use Atlas Code 83 tracks and switches. The staging yard will use six #4 switches and simple top mounted Atlas switch machines. The frogs will not be powered. Simple operation with four push buttons and a diode matrix to power the switch machines. The south side with scenery will be #6 switches and tortoise switch machines.

Next appointment is Monday with the electrician. I need a remote control for the window shutter and outlets for the layout lights mounted under the cabinets.

The forgotten box

Declan Grain Elevator had a string of Shore River hoppers on the siding.

Bruce

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