Crawl space nighthawks

While I enjoy the occasional model railway magazine, unlike most other modellers, I’ve never had space to keep them. For years, I have captured significant articles in binders, and this enabled me to save many feet of shelf space in ads alone. However, my idea of significance has grown narrower with each passing year. The […]

Percy gets a split chassis

I eventually did dig my way out of the Bad Night of Modelling. The computer had decided to fit the drawing to the page, rather than printing it 1:1 as I had thought. Once corrected, it was a simple matter to start over again. This time, I made two smoking stacks of metal, and drilled […]

A bad night of modelling

Some nights you’d really be better off to just plunk yourself in front of Netflix with a glass of something you can’t pronounce without channeling your inner Highlander1. After a week of meetings and work, all I wanted was to make some progress against the next flight of experiments. These require investment in a new […]

The wisdom of Kiff Holland

As I’ve finished the remaining bookshelves in the train room, I’ve been going through the boxes of books that first moved out to the garage when I started renovating the basement in 2012. What a treat to find so many old friends waiting patiently for me after all these years! Sadly there isn’t room for […]

Another Crank pin proof of concept

The next round of experiments with Percy will require yet another new set of connecting rods. I’ve been wanting to experiment with a new style of connecting rod and crank pin for years and this seems like a good time to do it. North American eight-wheelers seemed to have had two styles of crank pins. […]

Percy’s New Frame

The one place where Percy admits surprisingly tight tolerance is in the relationship between axles and frame. Dropping the original axles into the slots, I find they have a nice running fit with very little discernable fore-and-aft movement. Both #622 and #10 have bearings running in guides, soldered à-la English etched kit to the insides […]

Standing desk and step installed

Eleven months in gestation, the standing desk is finally installed. This project started with a doodle during the Daylight Savings Time switch last year. Within a day, Ken Rutherford had asked if it would be finished by Christmas. It is, just the following year. The whole thing is what I would call “door construction.” Two […]

Pikwàkanagàn on Truth and Reconciliation Day 2021

Today is Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It is our day to reflect on and aim to improve on the way we treat the indigenous people on whose ancestral lands we live. I was delighted to be able to mark the day here in North Vancouver by attending the Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s walk […]

Friction for Percy

The question Percy and I have been grappling with is this: I strongly believe that 622 and 10 both spontaneously lost their quartering, causing them to lock up; how is this possible? Let’s review what we’ve learned so far: There is substantial play between the original crank pins and the connecting rods, as well as […]

Percy and the loose drivers

The more I drill Percy on the test track, the more the little engine mystifies me. Up until now, I’d cherished the theory that a shifting driver could cause it to lose quarter and ultimately bind the mechanism. To probe this theory, I deliberately reamed one of Percy’s front drivers (the geared axle) so it […]