A Peculiar layout?

The kids and I have been reading a wonderful pair of books by Stefan Bachmann. The Peculiar and The Whatnot are set in a version of Victorian England on the cusp of war with faeries from an alternate world. It’s an evocative steam punk vision of technology diverted from steam-power to magical-power. A grimy, gritty […]

Paint booth installed

Anyone who owns their home will be familiar with the way jobs stack. You just want to change one little thing, but before you can do that, you must move that other thing, and replace the bit there. Before you know it, fixing a light bulb has turned into replacing the drain tile. So it […]

Paint booth turntable

I seem to spend a lot of my time making turntables. Given the amount of stress I feel when I fire up the air brush, I’ll take anything that helps. I left a hole in the fold-down leaf for the spray booth to allow for a zero-height lazy Susan that’s sure to make painting more […]

The new Proto87.org

I just finished updating the proto87.org website, moving it over to WordPress so that someone else looks after concerns such as keeping the server up-to-date and secure. It’s been so long that I posted there that I’d forgotten about the blog completely! There are a few topics that may be of interest to readers […]

Test fitting the spray booth

It seems a hundred years ago that I bought that range hood for a deep discount at Rona. It sat for all those years beneath the pile of junk in the heavy shop, awaiting its moment to be installed. I’d bought it early so I could be sure of the vent location, and it seems […]

Model railroading will save the world!

In Mark’s response to my post earlier this week about the Importance of Model Railroading, he pointed out that the hobby is also beneficial in developing the skills that we need to tackle the world’s hard problems. Several local tech innovators got their starts in model railroading, and Mark is fond of pointing out that […]

The Importance of Model Railroading

You might be surprised to learn how much energy I put into model railroading. Between my own models, friends’ layouts, ops sessions and the Railway Modellers’ Meet, I estimate that I expend over 10 hours a week on the hobby. Sometimes it troubles me that I spend so much of my energy on something so […]

Plans for the Heavy Shop

It’s time to admit it: we have a small house. When we bought it, 1800 square feet (167 m²) felt like a palace. Indeed, we turned down larger homes because we felt we would rattle around in them. Now that this one is filled with two kids and a dog, there is little hope of rattling around. […]

The heavy shop emerges

For a little over a week, I’ve been pecking away at the huge pile of boxes that has filled the part of the basement that has always been tagged for the “heavy shop.” They’ve literally been packed for years, and occasionally I’ve come down to find another heaped on the pile. Now that the cabinets […]

You could be a Model RR God!

I’m here at the Railway Modellers’ Meet, babysitting the display room, which was unlocked unspeakably early due to reasons lost to history. As with any good model railway convention, I’m running on fumes due to the sprint to complete my display and the activities of the meet itself. Being the meet chairman, I’ve necessarily missed […]