Magnetic mishap

“I’ll just glue the front wall onto the roundhouse, and leave it to set overnight; then I’ll go to bed,” I thought. It was an awkward thing to clamp, and there was a gap near the bottom of the wall. I couldn’t stay there holding it all night, and so, I cast about for something […]

Roundhouse door details

I think detailing is the thing most of us like best in model building. For some, that means adding people, vehicles and junque to a scene. To me, it means adding the minor details that bring a model into the foreground – the staples that hold the drop rods onto the front of the doors […]

Roundhouse doors at least as good as the pantry

By the time I had finished the third pair of doors, it was getting routine. Drill three holes, chamfer the end of the wire, bend and cut three little L-shaped pegs, insert the pegs into the hinges, and then into the holes. I could have kept going, but I’m sure glad there were only three […]

Hanging the first roundhouse door

I’ve finally managed to clear a path to the modelling desk, and so, we can expect three things: some progress on the roundhouse, and a dramatic downturn in productivity on the cabinets, followed soon thereafter by remarks about endless renovation projects. Speaking of renovations, I was reminded that roundhouses actually have French doors, and that my only […]

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 […]