A New Theme?

I’m trying out a new WordPress Theme. Somehow I think I should be able to make a big rich homepage, encouraging readers to dig into some featured articles. So far I haven’t got it tuned quite the way I would like; what do you think so far?

A Return to the Turntable Drive

A while back I wrote about the gearbox for driving the turntable. This is based on some readily available gears from Tamiya. Unfortunately, the Tamiya gears don’t seem to be made for the torque required to drive my mechanism. This is surprising, because it doesn’t feel like a lot of torque, but when you go […]

Filling in the pit

My mum is coming to visit tomorrow (!), and so, I wanted to get as much turntable work done as possible before the train room turns into a bedroom. Ideally I would have liked to have had the turntable mounted in the benchwork before she got here, but unfortunately, I didn’t quite complete that. I […]

Stock Storage

I’ve been meaning to write this up for years, and a recent thread over at Model Railroad Hobbyist has encouraged me to finally post something on the topic. If you’re reading this blog, you probably have a collection of long narrow packages of strip styrene, scale lumber, maybe some brass wire and tube and so […]

Finish layer on turntable steelwork

It was time to re-acquaint myself with my airbrush and other painting equipment. Frankly, I approach airbrushing with the same trepidation that most people feel for soldering, perhaps even public speaking. There is a lot on the line every time you get it out. First of all, there is a largely-complete model, on which I […]

More Thoughts on Roundhouse Doors

I’ve been pondering the roundhouse doors for a couple of days. Earlier this year, I came up with the idea to drive the doors with magnets beneath the layout. However, the tangle of rods and levers beneath the baseboard was hard to visualize. So today, I thought I would sketch it out. It still […]

Totally Unacceptable!

There is nothing quite like a coat of primer to show you where all the blemishes on a model are. I’d been trying to find time to get a coat of primer onto the turntable for several days, and Canada Day finally presented an opportunity some time between the parade and the fireworks. I had […]