Water Tower Test Prints

Is anyone ever happy with the first sample they print? I’m calling these test prints, but in fact they’re semi-failed prints. In the case of the base, I forgot to change one dimension of the legs. So, when I tried fitting a piece of 10×10 sugar pine against them, there was no relief left for […]

Water Tank Design Details

The water tank is beginning to take shape, at least in a virtual world. This will be a hybrid model – a mixture of 3D-printed and traditional parts, with perhaps a few more 3D-printed parts than are strictly necessary. The base, which interlocks with the mechanism beneath the baseboard, and a few test hoop connectors […]

Yes! It Failed!

Model railroad time for the past couple of weeks has gone toward learning to program the ESP32 that will drive the water tower’s functions. I found a good YouTube tutorial from Dave’s Garage that helped me get started with the typical blinking LED and a little serial port output. Then I found the stepper motor […]

Invasion of a New Hobby

Like just about every other hobby, with the possible exception of needlecraft, the electronics hobby is a subset of model railroading. I’m new to this part of the hobby, but fortunately I waited long enough that amazingly complex projects are within reach of people with nothing more than a winning attitude and access to the […]

Tight Quarters for Water Tower Drive

I had thought, or maybe hoped, that that the water tower was going to line up to the left (north) of the joist. However, there is some rule about joists, that places them exactly where they are least convenient, and when rulers and pencils got involved, it emerged that the best place for the water […]

The Inspiring Modelling of Laika

We just returned from an impromptu visit to Seattle’s Museum of Popular Culture, where the temporary exhibit is a collection of puppets, props and sets from Laika Studios, the people who brought us movies such as Coraline and Box Trolls. The movies (the ones I’ve seen anyway) are amazing, but when you can take your […]

2023 in Review

12 months have gone by in a heartbeat, but if I really pause to consider it, I’m pleased with the year’s results.

716 Mary gets a Porch

I’m almost inclined to call this little model finished, except I want to add some more details to liven up the porch. There is a shovel leaning against the corner and a jacket hung from a nail, but it still lacks something. The porch itself is a simple wood frame, planked with boards left over […]

The fourth audience

Gary Hinshaw pointed out that I’d missed an important fourth audience in my post about art and model railroading: the layout builder themself. How do they respond to the layout? To be sure, I have difficulty thinking of myself as the audience of my layout. I spend too much time behind the curtain to expect […]

Hilton’s Art

From the moment James Hilton announced his latest book, “The Art of Railway Modelling,” I knew a copy would take up residence on my bookshelf. In the buying frenzy of Black Friday, my mouse blundered onto the Titfield Thunderbolt page, and before I knew what was happening, it had completed checkout without any input from […]