Massing the Thicket

Whilst in Ontario a couple of weeks ago, I kept my eyes open for inspiration for a screen for the edge of the pasture background. My requirements were simple: trees in the 30-foot range that loosely formed a triangle. I didn’t have to search long. For twenty years my brother has been surreptitiously caring for […]

Balancing the Water Spout

With masses of tape and whatever I had lying around on the modelling desk, I rigged up a prototype of the sheaves and spout to see if I can make the spout raise and lower. The real spout would been connected to counterweights to hold it up when not in use, with the connection being […]

The Opera of Railway Modelling

In Italian, the word “opera” means simply “work,” but to us English, it refers to a piece of art where robustly-sized talents exercise their robustly-sized lungs in a language we don’t understand. “Opera” the base for the model railroad jargon, “operations,” and as we consider our audiences’ responses to our layouts, the operator is one […]

Booming in Ottawa

On the railroad, a boomer was an engineer (or other running trade?) from another division or railroad. Was the act of being a boomer “booming” or “boomering?” It doesn’t matter; the fact that does matter is I’ve been working in Ottawa this past week so I could spend some time with my mum, and I […]

Water Tower Mechanism Base

I cut the mechanism base from 1/8″ plywood. And it went together exactly as planned. If you can think for enough ahead by to design all the holes, the laser can save all sorts of time on changing drill bits. I think I have all I need, with the exception of the speaker. Installing and […]

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 […]