Wanted – pressure vessel

Readers of this blog will know that it is unusual for me to admit defeat. Usually, I will doggedly pursue an idea until everyone has pretty much drifted off to cat videos, except for a few readers who check back to shake their heads and mutter such things as “he had so much promise.” However, […]

What’s the big idea?

Mike Cougill posted one of his thought provoking missives this week. Then this morning, Lance Mindheim announced his new book. Both encourage us to think of model railroading as art. Now, I’m absolutely looking forward to the day when Canada Post drops Lance’s book on my doorstep. He has done far more research and education about art […]

Necessity invents a palette

A couple of weeks ago, as I was setting up to demonstrate at VTE, I realized I didn’t have anywhere for my puddle of glue. I normally use an old CD for this purpose, and for years AOL provided me with an almost monthly supply. I still have a lifetime of CDs ready to receive […]

Perfidious air

The past couple of weeks have been all Christmas gifts all the time, but tonight I finally managed to get few minutes to spend on my projects. With the heavy shop out of action until we rebuild from the flood, I’m reduced to the crowded garage floor for heavy shop work. I’m still working toward […]

More O Gauge Canada Atlantic

Richard Guitar sent some more photos of his O Gauge Canada Atlantic equipment on the weekend of the the Vancouver Train Expo. My apologies to Richard for not getting this up sooner! It’s amazing to me how recognizable these scenes are. Richard seems to have a knack for distilling the elements of a scene

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 […]

Drywall removal

Well, here we are, drying out the basement again. This time we chose to do some of the demolition ourselves. The contents were all out on Friday thanks to Laura and the kids (The Girl had a Pro-D day, and The Boy had been up in the middle of the night shifting boxes and furniture, […]

Not again!

Why are those balloons floating just off the floor like that? Remember the flood we had in January? Well, we thought we had fixed it all and capped off the floor drain. Tonight’s heavy rain has come in through the basement door instead. Because we discovered it at ten o’clock, we have really struggled to […]