after spending many years thinking my dream locos were the blue box special, shake, rattle and it was good to go. when i wasa kid i could not afford them and only guys i knew who had them were much older than i was ( now hitting 40 next year) i put up with my bachmann pancake motors and the tyco powered units ( boy am i glad the tyco died). when i got back into the hobby after almost 15 years i started getting my blue box units and i was amazed at the details and the smooth running. i put my older bachmanns, model power, life like all on a rip track looking pretty but they never moved. Thenafter my divorce a friend got me 2 Kato sd70macs ( i trade one for a Sd 45 CPR unit) and i never ran them much because they were too big for the layout so i was never impressed with the details and stuff. they just looked nice. now i went out and got a con cor kato mp15 and the kato NW 2 switchers and i now hate my athearn blue box specials they are noisey, they do not run as nice, lack the details and so on.
all i want now is the Kato models, P2k or the ready to run athearn, no more blue box models for me.
i will take an atlas with the kato drive system.
do you think i have a problem is there a support group?
I am the owner of over 30 blue box specials now 2 spectrum units and 3 pure katos, 4 atlas, concors with kato drives.
stuart
renfrew ontario

Bored? Looking for new challenges? Make your own utility poles!

On my last lyout I used plastic poles made by Rix. They looked quite nice, but somehow the plastic poles did not look right. So I decided to do my own wooden poles. First I thought of using the Rix crossarms, but plastic crossarms on a wooden pole? Naw...

I started by cutting this 1/8" skewer down to a length of 5".



Next I sanded the upper half to make it a bit thinner than the bottom.



To make it easier to glue the croosarm to the pole, I cut a little groove close to the top of the pole.



The crossarm is a little piece of .040" stripwood. I cut it to approx. 1 1/4" x 1/16".



Then I glued the crossarm to the pole and stained the utility pole with thinned india ink. The next pic shows the pole with the first insulator already attached. That’s where the fun begins.



To make the insulators, I used a round .040" styrene rod and cut off little pieces of about .080".



Then, holding a insulator with a pair of tweezers, I dipped one end in super glue and placed the insulator on the crossarm. I tell you, after placing the third insualtor on the crossarm, you’ll start to squint .

For the supports of the crossarm I cut a .030" strip of .013 styrene. I used plastic cement to glue the supports to the pole.



Well, here it is.



Having seen this, I’ll bet you can think of better ways to waste your time .

I recently bought 45 1/32 model cars in a buy it now deal on E bay. The cars all looked great in the listing & I'm sure they were , TILL the guy dumped them all loose in a 12 X 12 box & tossed in a couple of pieces of bubble wrap . The shipping listed was 24.95 which I paid --no argument .
This is what he said about shipping:


WILL BE SHIPPED IN A 18X18X18 BOX AS EACH PIECE WILL BE WRAPPED INDIVIDUALLY-SIZE OF BOX WIL NOT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE IN SHIPPING CHARGES BUT WILL ADD ABOUT 2 POUNDS TO WEIGHT BUT, FOR SAFER DELIVERY I WILL DO THIS, IF YOU WANT THEM SHIPPED WITH JUST ENOUGH PACKING YOU CAN SAVE ABOUT 2 POUNDS ON WEIGHT WHICH MEANS YOU WOULD SAVE 2-4 DOLLARS ONLY<


A couple of days later he E mailed that he had sent them in a 12 X 12 box & was refunding me $ 1.75. I was never asked about changing the packing method & it was already sent before I knew what he had done.

I got the cars -- over half were broken in one way or another-- mostly bumpers & W/Shields, wheels broken off , just a mess.

I asked him about it & he said I OPTED for the cheap way to ship , but if I left him good feed back, he would give me $ 10.00 back, I thought about that for about 2 seconds & left this feed back. :

packed poor most cars broken offered 10$dis.said I wanted shipped cheap not true


About a half hour later I get this E Mail :



Dear camwtatt,

A REAL PROFESSIONAL AT LYING, TOUCH NOT MINE ANOINTED, YOU HAVE LIED TO AND
ABOUT THE HOLY GHOST, WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND, YOU WILL BE BLOCKED
FROM EVERY BUYING FROM ME AGAIN AND, WHEN EVERY THING GOES WRONG IN YOUR
LIFE YOU WILL LOOK BACK TO THIS DAY.
YOU KNOW YOU ARE LYING, THE FIRST LIE WAS WHEN YOU LIED ABOUT ME JUST DUMPING
THEM IN A BOX, YOU OR SOMEONE, MAYBE EVEN THE PO DROPPED THE BOX AND WILL
NOT ADMIT IT.
YOU CHOSE THE CHEAP WHEY TO SHIP RATHER THEN SPEND A COUPLE BUCKS MORE, I
HOPE YOU CAN FACE PEOPLE KNOWING YOU HAVE LIED TO AND ABOUT A CHRISTIAN,
REPENT OF YOUR SINS AND BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND ADMIT YOUR LIES
AND YOU COULD STILL BE SAVED BUT UNTIL YOU DO ADMIT YOU HAVE LIED ABOUT ME,
YOU WILL NEVER MAKE IT TO HEAVEN, GOD BLESS YOU, JESUS STILL LOVES YOU AND
WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU IN HEAVEN, TO BAD HE WILL NOT


After I quit laughing , I sent him this reply:


I paid the full 24.95 you asked for when you described an 18 X 18 box --YOU chose to put them in a 12 inch box with a couple pieces of bubble wrap tossed in. It was you who decided to refund a whole 1.75 on shipping AFTER it was sent. I was generous in my feedback --- all things considered. Blocking me I consider to be an act of kindness, lest I forget & accidently try to buy from you again. Thanks.
As far as invoking some sort of Christian curse on me , being an American Indian, we long ago learned to deal with all the grief the Christians of the world could dish out , so I'm not particulary impressed . Sorry it does not scare me. Have a nice day.


Somehow it seems as tho every time I have a problem on E bay , I get a whacko Christian ( I know they are not all whack jobs but when one is --whew!!) The last time was when I sold a roundhouse Galloping Goose kit ( which was a rather poor attempt at a goose, it was a box cab diesel & a box car thing with no power, but I had included a power unit. I had described the thing exactly & had pics of it both closed & open showing all the componets. The guy that bought it started yelling that it was full of junk when he opened it & where was the Brass Goose I had listed . He filed with e bay & I had to give him back his money AND he demanded 20.00 to ship it back!! E bay was NO help - in the meantime I got a bunch of letters invoking even MORE Christian curses & such -- a real nasty bunch of mail.

When I got the kit back , HE HAD NOT EVEN UNWRAPPED IT!! I am sure he was surfing E Bay & saw " Galloping Goose" at the last second, and at 40 bucks thought he was stealing a BRASS RGS GOOSE so he bid , won & THEN read the listing!!

Anyway I thought you guys might get a laugh out this whackos letter. Now I have to go buy some more glue -- I got a bunch of cars to fix!

I got a pair of locos that use the tender as their primary form of electrical pickup...

A Walthers 0-8-0, and a Con-Cor 2-10-2

The Walthers is going to be a bit of a pain to get into as I couldn't get the tender latchted down properly so I superglued it together

Both operate fine when I put my finger down on the tenders of the locomotive, but following the train around with my finger on it is kinda counter-productive of the hobby....

What are the best ways to improve electrical pickup on these locos? I've added a brass weight to the Con-Cor and it didn't really do anything... there has to be a better way to do this...

I am testing out a networking system as a new feature of my site.

I'm not going to post a link as this site here is new enough. I don't want to seem like I am driving traffic.

Please email/PM me if you want to try something unique.

Some of you may remember me posting over at the "other place" about the new layout I was starting using a [url="http://www.terrainfortrains.com" target="_blank"]Terrains For Trains[/url] prefabbed layout. Progress has been slow, however. I finally got around today to putting on what I hope is the final coat of paint on the rocks. I've got a few buildings done and even a few people ready to put on when it's finished.

Here's the progress pics so far.
The first is a pic of some of my buildings and the second is one of the (hopefully) finished rocks.
You'll note the light streak of paint through the middle of the layout..... I messed up on the dirt road color and covered it up.
If anyone has suggestions on how to do a good dirt road, please let me know.

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YAHOOOOOOOOOOO!
I GOT ONE!......I GOT ONE!

An HO scale NASCAR #44 Dale Jarrett, COT Toyota Camery
Yeah...I know...He's retired.



Do you guys have to rain on my parade?

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Is there anyway we can have links open up in a new window?
Seems like when you click on a link, you leave here, and go to the link. You then have to re-navigate to get back here.
Or, is there a setting I just haven't turned on yet?

I know Gary S had left Zealot. I was hoping he would show up here. Anybody heard from him?

Loren

This is the 1st and only hill I build so far.

1) I use paper wads ( made into a pillow shape ) stacked to build the terrain contours.
When satisfied with the shape, use masking tape to hold the paper wads in place.

I build cardboard templates of the rocks and hot glued them on the paper wads.
That avoids having to fill big gaps when adding the molded rocks



2) Cut some about 4" by 8" sections of plaster cloth, dip each one for 10 seconds in water and start to cover the paper wads.
The plaster cloth sections must overlap.
Let dry for 24 hours



3) Spay the flat face of the prepainted rocks and the plaster cloth terrain where the rocks will be attached with water , apply some lightweight hydrocal on the back of the rock and press into place.



4) ( No pictures for those steps )
- Using your fingers, apply a thin coat of Sculptamold on top of the plaster cloth to smooth and reinforce the contour.
-When dry, apply some tan latex paint on the Sculptamold and let the paint dry

5) Working by section, apply a white glue ( 8 parts ) and water ( 2 parts ) mixture on top of the painted Sculptamold and sprinkle the low ground cover ( blended turf, dirt etc.. )
-When dry, spray with Scenic Cement ( or 1 part white glue and 5 parts water ) to fix the low ground cover and sprinkle some coarse turf.
-When dry, using some pure white glue add talus and clump foliage.



Jacques