Focus boy, focus

I've been buying old books on trademe again, and this time its 'Steam finale'. While its nice to have something like this to browse through from time to time, it allows one's mind to wander to think of other layouts that would be really neat to make. So, now as well as Paikakariki and Southland branch lines, theres also the west coast, with its collection of old steam loco's that survived right till the end of steam, and the midland line. I will obviously have to win lotto so that I can get a Chinese factory to build me all the models I would need ( oh, and the house to fit them in). In the meantime I can just sit and scribble plans in my wee notebook.

Meanwhile, today I have been busy making the world hops shortage worse, and making the house smell of malt.

'mmmmmm, beer....'

This has not been popular with the lady of the house. Wait till she finds out I've spent more money...

Friday night picture

Following this weeks modern theme, we have up to the minute picture's of the latest developments in colour scheme's (thanks to Doug Johnston for the use of these)



Is it the die hards from Toll trying to make the Corn-Cob scheme look good? Or a deeper conspiracy involving the Monks of Kato Blue (there's a good name for a rock band. I went to school with a guy who now fronts a Japanese punk rock band called 'Tripod Jimmy').

A slight hicup

Well, the first quote for laser cutting MDF for the baby baseboard system came in today, and its just a wee bit more than I was hoping (only by a factor of 3). Theres a few other places to check out, but it might be time to look at a saw bench from Bunnings.

I'm going slightly mad

(well, maybe the rest of you won't notice)

They say theres a fine line between genius and insanity. The only way I'm likely to find it is to move from idiot through insanity and sneak up on genius while its not looking.
Tonight I started on that road by soldering up the first piece of hand laid track I've ever made. I started off by taping a piece of paper to a piece of MDF. a line was drawn and then the steel ruler placed on it. Some PVA was applied and then the sleepers were glued down using the mk 1 eyeball for alignment and spacing. A heavy weight was then placed on top till the glue set.
I made up a card guide with 2 slots cut in it at a 9mm spacing, and with a nik for the track center line. The various bits of metal were pre-tinned with solder, and then the first rail (code 55) was soldered down. Hmm, it all seemed to work OK. I then used the card jig to solder down the second piece of rail. To my surprise it actually worked. Here it is compared to a bit of commercial code 70 stuff (its cheap from gawd knows where).


The crap photo is the best I can do tonight. Its probably best for all concerned if everything stays slightly blurry, as it makes everything look so much better.

Modern image mayhem

Well, maybe not mayhem, but a change from the raving anorak wearing kettle fancying garbage I've been subjecting you folk to for a while.
When the wife and kids are away, men get up to things. Some go out with mates for a night of drunken debauchery. Some stay in and dress in womans cloths. Amateur fettler has a different vice.

"Cor, look at the headlights on that then"

"Hmm, I wonder where the coffee machine is..."

Also, theres a new batch of modern image pictures up over at Kiwibonds site. these are not something you'll see everyday, and are coupled with observations on how not to take pictures.

Finally, I've also added a link to an index of N scale modeling in Australia. Its worth a poke round to see what things are like on the other side of the ditch.

And now for something completely different

Well, the last couple of weeks has been a bit single topiccy really. certainly a valid topic, but you can have too much of one thing. So tonight, its track plan time.

A station type that is fairly commonly modeled overseas is the Junction. Normally a busy mainline with plenty of trains for interest. the main drawback is that they tend to be quite sizable chunks of real estate with complex track work. Maybe this is why they are not that commonly seen at local train shows. However one does have options that are not particularly large like Frankton or Addington. The first is Lincoln, Junction of the Leeston and Little River branches.

Its not a particularly large station, but still one with a bit of interest, especially with the odd shaped station platform.

The second option tonight is Lumsden.

This is a far more interesting beast as it was on the line from Invercargill to Kingston, and also a connection to Dunedin through the Wamea plains 'branch' through Gorre (phonetic spelling). The Mossburn branch was a few km futher up the road, so there is the possibility of 6-8 trains a day. to cap it off there is a small engine shed present as well. Locomotive optuions would be A's, Ab's, Q's and later on Dj's and even Dsa's (I've seen pictures of them running the shunt from Gorre to Lumsden and back. Add to this a collection of interesting old wagons and there is quite a bit of potential for a home or exhibition layout.
(A warning, these are a bit big file size wise, I couldn't really trim them down much further)

Not quite the silver bullet

Further to the last post, and one of the comments that was made. I don't see CAD as a solution to all my modeling problems, but I do see it as a useful tool to solve my lack of being able to cut a straight line or measure anything the same twice. And if you want to use etched parts its either that or get out your crayons and a big sheet of paper to draw everything 4 times the size.

I've also always been good at breaking items down into separate assemblies and thinking in 3D; its just a logical extension of that. I don't think its going to slow me down much. I think a large problem is deciding when something is good enough to print out or etch, and in Nz120 thats when I can see all the detail that I want from about 18". I struggle to have 4-5 goes at a master for something, I either get it right, or it goes to the back of the que.

To finish tonight, and another reason why i would like to be able to source more bits on shore, heres part of a newsletter from Austrains, an Ho scale manufacturer in Australia ( no kidding) who (like everyone else) get their models made in China.

"A couple of months ago we were advised by the factory that, effective 1st August, all product prices will rise by 10%. This will be followed by a further 10% increase commencing with product shipped after 1st January. At the moment the price rises apply only to product but we can be certain that individual quotations for new tooling will now also rise accordingly.

We had always worked on the basis that once the tooling was paid for the product price could be held almost indefinitely. This is now longer the case.

As an example. Three months ago the rerun of the JX Cement Hoppers was quoted 30% higher than a similar run at the same time last year. Now we have another 10% on top of that. Effectively 43% more than last year. With the help of the strong Australian dollar we can absorb some of the price rises but not all. In recent weeks the A$ has fallen from a high 0f $0.97c to $0.81c as this is being written. If the dollar falls dramatically we will have to have a major rethink about both product and pricing.

This price rise does not only affect Australian importers. It is the same for the 80+ companies who use the same facility in China and we can only assume that other factories will follow suite."

So the take home story is that you can get everything done overseas, but there are hidden surprises and what looks cheap to start with, can suddenly become quite expensive.
personally, I'd like to at least try to support NZ industries to keep some people in work here a little bit longer.