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 […]

Roundhouse doors ready for hinges

The train room has converted into a guest room for the holidays. So progress is going to slow down for a bit. I had some pieces of roundhouse doors drying on the lights, which totally messes with the comfortable-yet-tidy ambience we’re aiming for in our guest room. So, while I should have been vacuuming, I […]

Roundhouse doors cut

I warmed up the Cricut for a little workout this evening, cutting out the doors for the roundhouse. The blade is not super-sharp, and two passes didn’t reliably cut through the 3-ply Strathmore on the “Iron On” setting. No matter, it was a few minutes’ work to chase all the cuts with an Olfa knife, […]

The roundhouse man door

My thanks to readers Shawn and Ben for applying their thoughts and experience to the enigma of the roundhouse man door. The question is, what is causing the shadow across the top of the man door? In the previous post I conjectured this shadow was because the man door was a sliding door behind the […]

Roundhouse doors drafted

Tonight I drew up the roundhouse doors, which have a pleasingly interesting pattern of cross-bracing. Some panels have an X, and others have a Z. The braces match a Mattingly photo, taken in the 50’s, but the reasons why these shapes were chosen are lost in time. My friend, Mike Chandler, who worked at servicing locomotives, conjectures that […]

Cade’s Green

As guest editor for Model Railway Journal No. 250, Iain Rice profiled his own home layout, Cade’s Green. Now, Iain’s is one of the few voices that somehow avoids the stultifying muffle of the American press, even when writing for Kalmbach. So, left to his own devices, his feature article absolutely sings with his rich […]

More on driving doors

A couple of weeks ago, when introducing my clinic on the Cricut, my friend Mark Dance claimed that if there is a more complicated way to do something, I will surely attempt to do it. Apparently he knows me pretty well. I don’t know if that is altogether my choice, but the philosophy behind Pembroke […]