Just a couple of pictures of Canyon and I working together last night after work. It was a rough day at work, but this made up for it. It was just a short ride, but we were practicing a few things and he was perfect. The sunset was the icing on the cake.
Month: October 2015
Some Fall Colours
We’ve had a gorgeous Fall this year in the mid-Atlantic region. Yes, I call it fall rather than Autumn, because everyone here does. But note that I spelt “colour” correctly – I haven’t gone that native!
Normally Fall starts well in this region, but then all the leaves get knocked down by rain and wind. This year though, we’ve had great weather for several weeks and the colours have really developed. I’ve been most remiss about getting some good photo’s, but here are a couple looking out outside of our house.
Another Car Show – with pictures
Last Saturday, Libby and i went to the Fall Car show. It should have been held last month, but we had the remnants of a hurricane passing through at the time and so it was rescheduled. Unfortunately, Saturday was the first wintry day we’ve had (we’ve had a gorgeous fall this year) and so attendance was a little sparse. Still, there were some interesting vehicles on display. Land Rovers were thin on the ground, just Libby and a Defender 130 being rebuilt, although a Santana 88 turned up for a short while (so short that I couldn’t get a picture of it). There were however a considerable number of Triumphs – I think I counted 10 at one point, as well as a large number of British accents. It seems like the Baltimore region is home to a number of exiles!
Still, here are the photo’s for your enjoyment.
K1 All Ready for Departure
I’ve been building a model for a client back in the UK. It is for locomotive K1, one of two K class garratt articulated locomotives built by Beyer Peacock in 1909 for operation by the Tasmanian Government Railways. These were the first ever garratt class locomotives built and the first one, No K1 was repatriated to the UK and now lives and operates on the restored Welsh Highland Railway in North Wales. More information on these locomotives can be found here and here.
I was asked to build a model of this loco for a client in OO9 scale. This is the same that I model in and is 4mm/ft (OO scale, 1:76.2), with 9mm (N-gauge) track. This results in a narrow gauge model. I’ve always wanted one of these locomotives for the railway, so ended up building two in parallel. The models were based on etched brass and nickel-silver kits by Backwoods Miniatures, though I modified the kits with a certain amount of scratch building including replacing the boiler barrel, new firebox front sculpted from brass and new smoke-box door. These were certainly tricky models to build and get running well, but the first one is now finished and ready for dispatch to it’s owner in the UK. The locomotives is equipped with DCC control, which drives two motors, one for each power bogie. Valve gear is functional and the locomotive is outside framed with both axles of each power bogie driven through a layshaft worm / gear drive. The full story of the build can be found here, though you may need to register to access the content. The boiler unit of my own locomotive has been completed, as have the front and rear tanks, and work is ongoing on the two powered chassis units.
So without further ado, attached are some pictures of the build.
So there we are. A very tricky and frustrating build, but it finally yielded a decent model. I hope my own comes out to the same standard.
It will go in the mail tomorrow and i hope the client is pleased with it. Now to finish my own loco and on to the next project…….
(PS and by the way i hate this new WordPress – it makes it very difficult to lay out pages with pictures correctly. There, I’ve gotten that off my chest now!)
Another car show
Libby is supposed to be out on display again tommorrow. We’ll see if the weather holds.