Spoke filing fixture

I didn’t write about it before, but filing that first wheel centre was like trying to wash a cat – slippery and occasionally painful. There seemed to be no good way to grasp it. Worse, as I was filing bits away, the challenge levelled up! By the time I was at panther level, I was […]

Any wheel I want

Looking back on 2018, it would be easy to despair about the amount I didn’t accomplish on Pembroke. Two floods put a damper on things (so to speak), and many non-rail projects also ate my year. However, the singular achievement of the year came on January 1st of this new year, when I pulled the […]

Christmas Post

Among the dwindling count of cards arriving in our mailbox this Christmas, there appeared a plump envelope with a strange foreign stamp. It was from Dave Doe, that stalwart defender of Proto:87, that Englishman living in Holland-now-France, that dear old friend. Along with a card, Dave enclosed some wheels that he has discovered. Astonishingly, the […]

Insertion cast wheels

On Wednesday, I managed to get away from the Christmas concerts for a meeting of the North Shore chapter of the local NMRA division. It was Graham Stokes’s annual “Trains and Scones” evening, and as usual he had a little table to show off progress on our current projects. I wanted to show the wheels, […]

Flat car loose ends

While I was happily installing flat car decks at VTEX, it was John Green who noticed that the ends of some of the boards were lifting. Thank-you John for pointing this out while it was still relatively easy to fix. As I’m finished with casting experiments for now, I spent tonight’s modelling minutes on fixing […]

Decking demonstration

The Vancouver Train Expo filled the PNE Forum this past weekend. Unlike last year, I’d actually coordinated with Doug Hicks to have a time when I was supposed to be helping at the Craftsman’s Corner. He usually likes to have two-hour slots, but I find that is barely enough time to get my tools out […]

Flatcars painted

Despite all probability, those flatcars have slipped into the paint booth over the past couple of days and received not only a coat of primer, but also some paint. Truly, when it came to painting, the odds were not in their favour. Not only did I have to mine Mount Deluge for the airbrush and […]

Prepped to prep

The flat cars have taken a little hiatus while I figured out the best way to make paint stick to the plastic parts. My usual method is to give plastic models a good scrubbing with Vim under running warm water. But with parts made of wood and even paper, that method was going to lead […]

Closing in on wheel castings

Thanks to Brian Pate, and to Don Mitchell who suggested I call him, I’ve started vacuuming my castings when I pour them. Brian indicated that he liked to vacuum before and after pouring, but I’ve found the pre-pour treatment makes little difference. The post-pour treatment, on the other hand, dislodges all sorts of bubbles from […]

Bubbly bolster

The wheel plan for 622 requires perfect castings. Unfortunately, every attempt so far using my test molds has resulted in large bubbles. These bubbles are not there when I pour the resin, but seem to be forming during the curing process. According to the Smooth-on website, this could be due to humidity, and I should […]