Cabinets about to get filled in

I kind of think I jumped the gun in getting the cabinets all assembled before filling in around them. Oh well, I’m sure it’s nothing a plastic sheet and some masking tape can’t solve. Truth be told, I was pretty excited to see them go together, but not as excited as I’m sure I will […]

Who put all that stuff in the TRAIN room?

On Wednesday, I took a reprieve from working in the evening (which is how I’ve spent most of January) to take in a work session chez my friend Scott Calvert. He indicated I should bring my soldering iron. When I went to retrieve it, I found an impassible pile of detritus in front of my desk. The […]

Fitting the roundhouse doors

It may be a little fortunate that I had to work so much this week. It gave me time to simmer down from the episode of the oversized roundhouse doors and realize that it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. First of all, on closer inspection, the doors were perhaps half a millimetre too wide, […]

Roundhouse doors stress Cricut accuracy

I should know better, really I should. Time and again, I press forward only to run headlong into reality. This week I’ve stolen only a few minutes away from work; or more accurately, work has stolen most of the evening hours from me. Those minutes that I could apply to the railway went to creating a […]

Hinge alignment

Neil Erickson suggested that I line up the hinges for each door by threading them onto a long rod. That seemed like a good idea, but it took me only thirty seconds of struggle with what felt like a miniature version of a two-year-old who refuses to go in her car seat before I decided that more […]

Prime railroading time

Last night was our neighbourhood’s annual Progressive Party. Yeah, I did wonder just what kind of neighbourhood we’d moved into when we got the invitation shortly after moving in 14 years ago. It turns out, there is no Ice Storm key swapping on the street as far as I’m aware, but rather it’s a pot […]

Hero #78 does 57

Gosh it’s cold. I went out to a Railway Modellers’ Meet executive meeting in Surrey last night and there was so much snow and ice, it looked like the real Canada! We still have snow and ice here in North Vancouver, but we never got the dump that the Valley received. Still it’s cold, or my skin […]

Two down, sixteen to go

January second. The tree is on its way to the chipper, the gingerbread house is collapsed, and somehow we’ve found homes for most of the new toys and books. Most importantly, the guest room has been converted back into a train room and office; time to get back to business! As I’ve not come up […]

Roundhouse doors ready for hinges

The train room has converted into a guest room for the holidays. So progress is going to slow down for a bit. I had some pieces of roundhouse doors drying on the lights, which totally messes with the comfortable-yet-tidy ambience we’re aiming for in our guest room. So, while I should have been vacuuming, I […]

Roundhouse doors cut

I warmed up the Cricut for a little workout this evening, cutting out the doors for the roundhouse. The blade is not super-sharp, and two passes didn’t reliably cut through the 3-ply Strathmore on the “Iron On” setting. No matter, it was a few minutes’ work to chase all the cuts with an Olfa knife, […]