Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

Financial report was accepted as read. Members reported on the Hamilton layout tours, some great layouts were visited. Rob has catalogued our video collection, a list is on the bulletin board.
Meanwhile in the layout room, all hands were on deck. All of the track laid in Lakeview is wired in. Ortona wiring and the logging spur continued. Glen continued adding scenery in the sawmill area. Joseph discovered a slope in the Ortona yard causing run away rolling stock. A few shims under the roadbed corrected the problem.

Peter and Rob add feeders on the left. Donald works on the Miller passing track. Mike and Larry work on the logging spur. Jim and Joseph work on the wiring to the Quad. So far #3 bus is short free.

The logging spur is mostly still up in the air, but the route and the placement of the trestle have been decided, but the loop area needs to be wired first.
Friday 1 to 3 will be the next construction opportunity.

Friday fun.

Bill, the owner, told us the upstairs washrooms will be closed for renovations. There is a washroom down stairs.
Glen continued his magic on the scenery as Jim and Peter did some running. Me and Jim started adding feeder wires, all the track in Lakeview is done and a lot of Ortona yard. We also adjusted the problem turnout, 1 of the tail tracks was bent. Checking several other turnouts of the same type, I  found they all have areas out of gauge, I think to allow trucks to negotiate the tighter radius areas. However I did find a curved turnout that may work better for this spot.

Tuesday is meeting/work night. Bring soldering irons. We could use short gondolas, and tank cars as extras.

Shingle Sheet

New find at Hobby Lobby.

Lighted roundhouse by Jim Fox

I asked Jim to send me the information on his interesting project of lighting his roundhouse. He told me he had gotten tired of laying track and adding bus wires on his home layout. So for a change he thought he would switch to a little detailing project. Below is the information he sent me.

I used 3mm 9-12 volt led lights (pictured above) for the pit , I put 5 lights down each side of the pit and ran it to a switch so you can turn them on or off each pit buy its self

Then I powered them with a LM 2596 buck DC to DC step down converter switching regulator 

They have a input of 3.2 volts -35volts dc

Out put of 1.25volts - 35volts dc adjustable with read out display 

Out put current of 3A. Max 

You can get them on line (Wish) for about 5 bucks each, pictured below.

 A number 1206 led light was used for the hanging lights.

Larry gave me some top hats he had made out of ear ring studs see Julys post on Homemade gooseneck lights. 

I then drilled a hole in the middle of the top hats, fed the light through it then put a stiff piece of wire and a heat shrink on the light wire coming out of the top hat to make it straight and stiff 

Holes were drilled through the beams to put the lights wires through. Brass tubbing was put down the posts to feed the wire down through the round house, as in the picture below.

Then I wired it all up under the round house.

Great job Sparky. Can't wait to see the next little project.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

The train orders were ran with no problems. Although there is a learning curve with all the new trackwork.

I can just hear Don saying "that tracks been moved!".
Below is the switching ladder which completes all the track in the Ortona yard, but 1 turnout is out of gauge and will have to be replaced. Its the first turnout in the ladder.

Above picture shows the track from Lincoln to Lakeview with 1 siding. Larry added 1 x 3's around the front of the bench work and a triangle corner to the entrance of the sawmill area.

From Jutland to Lakeview. The Sawmill still needs to be worked on, but we need to remove the structures to add scenery to the upper mainline area behind it.

Monday morning surprise.

"Monday morning, sometimes it just turns out that way". On the way home from a small DIY  job, I stopped at the club to count some cars. Specifically how many tank cars, and gravel hoppers, we have. We could use a couple extra tank cars. Checking the gondolas I found that only 1 had crates, so our cards will read containers, the 1 coil car will also be changed to hold containers. Flat cars have pipes, 2 cars, poles, 2 cars, 1 with a crate will be changed to a lumber load, and the others have various lumber loads. The pipes will only go to the power plant. The ones with poles, lumber, and beams, will be referred to as lumber or wood, on our cards.
As I was about to start taking measurements on some areas of track work when in walked Glen. He had come in to paint the ceiling tiles a brown colour. This helps seal it to receive scenery.
Then a guy came in to check the fire extinguisher, all good. Another interesting day at the Huff and Puff.

Friday fun.

Jim set up the trains in Wellington and Elsewhere with the new cards finding out that 9 cars is a bit long, so we cut it down to 8, but 7 might be better.
Don came for a visit with a couple of maintenance sheds for the layout.
Glen continued sculpting rock walls and painting them.

Jim soldered in feeders completing Lincoln and the rest of the branchline in Lincoln, although it is not connected to the Quad unit as we still need to work on the Lakeview area.
More work was completed on the 6 track, Ortona yard that Mike had started. Working with reused track makes this job more challenging.

All the while discussions continued about how we operate and how to improve it. An idea that was kicked around was that the branchline trains should be only staged in Ortona, Glen is a proponent of this one and I'm sure Jim will be also, especially if they are Turns and come back to Ortona instead of Elsewhere.  The 2 tracks on the left are to run around the logging cars and an escape route from the turntable. The 1 on the left also has a turnout for the engine  house. This leaves 4 tracks to stage trains.
I also laid out turnouts where I thought we need them on the rest of the branchline. Two in the Miller area, 2 for the passing siding in Lakeview, 2 for the sawmill sidings, and 1 for a siding in Lakeview.  We only have 3 extras left. We will probably find a use for them too.