Great Workbenches of the World Part X

DB gets a workbench:

Since I have kicked myself off The Linesider's desks a week or so ago, I have been working standing up beside an old set of cabinets in a junky corner of the basement.

It occurred to me that I might as well put up a workbench, even a temporary one, in a less cluttered corner of the basement, and installed this former kitchen benchtop (which must be from three iterations of the house ago, being found in a corner of the garage when we moved in, that "was too good to throw out and will find a use someday", like a thousand other bits of wood and nails and screws and junk that I have squirrelled away for the apocalypse). Quite a few kitchen towels and rags gave their life to remove the mold, dust and a few greasy spills on the surface.

Ta-da:

It almost fits in the space, and I mounted it a little higher than a usual table/desk would be to being the work closer to the eye. I've already celebrated with a coffee and biscuits provided by my far better half upstairs, and by Peco-ing the second XP and painting number panels on a bunch of four wheelers.

I'll put another recycled shelf up above the desk and move the rest of the NZ120 stuff in.

Great Workbenches of the World Part Eleventy-Five - An Ongoing Series

DB exposes:

Now that we temporarily inhabit a small, elevated concrete box, I hadn't expected to do a lot of modeling. But I bought some stuff with me rather than having it freeze in a storage unit over winter.

Unexpectedly, today I continued a never ending journey on my AO cars for the TranzAlpine in the hope of getting a few 'done-enough' for a model railroad club open house this Sunday.

In doing so, I thought it might be time to revive Evan's Great Workbenches of the World series.

Workshop with a view

Yes, here I am decamped on the bed, trying not to get Tamiya smoke and PVA glue on anything (noticeable).

I have a few plastic drawers of stuff that live under the bed. The big one out at left houses paints and plasticard scraps. The three drawer one next to it has various projects in many scales from many continents, lots of US diesel shell parts, decals, sandpaper, glue, knife etc. and on top are smaller ones with various and sundry little parts.

The cardboard box in the foreground has some NZ120 models and partially finished bits, including my DJ in pieces, bits to make more CWs, 4 painted AOs that I'm windowing, and 4 unpainted ones yet to grow wheels. This was an old keyboard box (remember when computers used to have actual keyboards rather than swipey-swipey things?) filled with some tray inserts Rhys procured about 20 years ago that happened to be sized about right for NZ120 things.

The actual 'workbench' itself is a white wooden shelf from a cabinet about 30x30cms square that is being used to paint some clear plastic with smokey shades. At right, Mrs defacto Northern Dandruff is providing encouragement by having a snooze complete with lovely dream about yummy paint smells.

There you have it. Small, compact, and you have to tidy it up when you finish or you won't be able to sleep.

Workbenches of the World Part 37

Tonights workbench:  Cabbage from Marks Model Works.

Or.....maybe not.  Doh!

Making Work Fun

Am_Fet writes:

Lately I've been spending far too long at work. In fact, its getting to the stage where I am creating "Time in Lieu" faster than I can spend it. I've got 2 days up my sleeve and if I dont use them this week that figure will have magically climbed another day.

I'm sure others appreciate my place of employment. Why, even the Head Druff rang this afternoon inquiring "Wheres that train we saw half an hour ago on the Cobden Bridge?". Luckily he had chosen just that moment and found me walking through Train Control, so it was a mere formality to stick my head through the next door and get the guff from TCO Paul Strickland....I'm expecting photos from around Moana when he's back.

The down side to this "Live to Work" lifestyle is that the remaining hours in the day are taken up with family, leaving little (read "no") time for anything else. Even McChicken has achieved more than me recently, which is saying something (However, come November he'll have joined "The Firm" and Train Control School will kill his hobby hours as well...Mwahahahaha)

However, there is a little light on the horizon....introducing "Da Lab":



This is the radio teams lab tucked in behind train control, and already I've started to surreptitiously move my stuff in (for instance, the two brown coffee cups and the empty V bottle are mine).

My cunning plan is to move in a selection of my modeling guff from home and hide away here during my lunch hour (minute?) and actually get something done. No need to poison the kids with soldering and glue fumes, take the proactive stance and knock out the countries train controllers! DB is constantly "guiding" me to continue on with the DAR, so it may well be the first project to get "Da Lab Treatment".

If questioned, I'll just admit to taking "Bring a Train to Work Day" just a bit too far....I wonder if I can get the Jigger up the lift??

Just Back in Cell Phone Range....

Am_Fet writes:

I thought I had better check in and show that I havent had a nasty accident (or even worse)...I'm feeling quite guilty seeing DruffMan with his loyal sidekick Bondyn (The Boy Wonder) keeping the blog ticking over.

So this is what I've been working on (And no, its not the control panel for his Paekak layout):



This is the new "Auckland" desk in Train Control, which will be the heart of the new room controlling the entire Auckland Metro area. Over the next 6-9 months, 3 more desks will take over the roles of the current Britomart, Otahuhu and Papakura boxes.

So, what are you actually looking at here? Going across the left, the first two screens on the top have screen shots of the soon to be delivered WestCAD system, put there as a gag but I didnt have the heart to take them down...in fact, I even moved them around once or twice. The two screens below them were repeaters for the Britomart box showing Britomart down as far as Newmarket and Tamaki, but Tim (in a starring role here) took them off...The next four screens are the CTC screens for the Central, Northern and ECMT areas. Then carrying along the top you have the Radio PC (Showing 5 acknowledged conversations in yellow and vigilance alarm in blue), followed by the Track Warrant PC (mostly for the North Auckland line at this time on a Saturday). The bottom 2 screens are the work PC, with OMS (the GUI front end for Amicus) on the left and the phone software on the right.

All the screens are 22", but the middle 5 will be replaced (much to our chagrin) by 24" screens once the new signaling system arrives. As an interesting aside, on a desk this size it actually works better to "dumb down" the resolution on the bigger screens so they can be read from a distance at a glance....I think I left most of them running at the good old 1024 x 768.

Sorry, realising I'm babbling a bit, so heres another pic showing the Britomart Screens on top before Tim started reorganising things...



Theres been a lot of interested people wandering through during the day (seeing as most people were in for derailments, slips, or both)....and apart from some unhelpful comments from a senior manager ("Call that a panel, Lad? Back in my day we had panels taking up entire rooms...had to take pack lunch to walk from one end t'other...") reaction has been positive.

Now to fix the bugs (that sounds like its Sundays job...)

Dirt

Yes, a topic never before covered in this much detail in this country's model railway press. My module base colour looks far too dark, so I've ventured outside to have a look at the real thing.

'Eee by eck, thats som top grad dirt there mmm'

You can see here that there are 2 different types of dirt, the dry light stuff, and the dark wet stuff. neither looks remotely like Resenes 'coffee bean' which I have used. checking with my colour charts, something from the lighter end of the brown oxide colour chart like 'Silk' or 'Zorba' might be a better bet, or even 'Dusty grey'.
(Go out and get the colour charts. they are free, and you can mix and match the colours that you want to use on the terrain and scenic's. just don't use them on plastic)