N Scale Model Railroad Build

[pmmjarrett]

Thank you Irvin. Thank you to everyone here for the thoughts and prayers.

My FIL is recovering and was supposed to come home and was discharged Friday but about passed out in the parking lot on the way into his favorite seafood place to eat, Joes Crab Shack. Back to the hospital he went. Having problems with his blood pressure as it drops like a stone when he sits up and worse when he stands. They did a bunch more tests and have him stable for now. Doc wants to do surgery to fix the problem they found with his heart, they want him to continue to get stronger over the next few days before surgery... It won't be open heart surgery thank god. Now they are talking possibly mide to late next week for him getting out of the Hospital. My Wife, My oldest daughter and my sister in law are with him constantly and are renting an adjoining room there so he's never alone.

I'm trying to take care of myself too. Right now I'm waiting on some nerological testing in a few weeks and to talk with the NeuroSurgon. I finally made a decision and I'm officially out of business hauling RVs as of today, by the time the doctors are done poking and prodding me it'll be the end of the busy part of the RV shipping season which cranks up right now and lasts into July/August.

My Freightliner haul and tow truck is 99.9999999% sold as of today, should start wrapping up the paperwork monday. It'll be in good hands, still with Indiana Transport and still hauling Heartland products. Time now to sell the dually and the fifth wheel and buy possibly an E36 BMW 320 series or M3 Convertible..... My next project

 

[billd]

Thanks for sharing your train build. It looks great. Sorry to hear about your FIL, glad to hear he is doing better and he has a place to go. Sorry about your medical issues, I do know about the bulging disks. Had to have one removed in 2001. I hope your recover quickly and no more pain from that.

Bill

 

[pmmjarrett]

Thank you Bill.

It's my pleasure to share the model railroad build.

Our parent always have a place to go. I'll do everything I possibly can to keep them out of a nursing home. After all, my own parents adoped me from an orphanage and gave me a great life. I want to see them live out their years the way they want too.

I sure hope fixing these disks and releiving the pressure on the spinal cord helps. Hopefully havn't done too much damage to the cord.

 

[pmmjarrett]

Things are getting a little back to normal. For those that didn't catch it in the other thread, my FIL passed away on the 21st.



I have made a little progress. All of the retaining walls, bridge abutments and 2 of the tunnel portals are installed. The retaining walls wouldn't take the pigment well like the portals so out of frustration I tryed using it full strength to get it to stick instead of as a wash and it looked bad. Ended up switching to acylic paints and it came out pretty good exept for the medium green wash and spots that once it dried, it came out looking more like oxidized copper than moss. No biggie, will put a little "moss" on these spots when I apply scenery. Will cover up a few seams with vines too to hide them.

I have also purchase the Woodland Scenics town and factory set for the Scenic Ridge layouts as well as got my hands on three GHQ Roadmaster crew cab duallies...... Now if I can get Heartland to build my 1:160th scale Cyclone, Landmark and Bighorn Ti I can set up a campground by the river and have my own little Heartland Rally.

Ickkkkk. Pigments didn't work on walls. Probably contamination of the molds when they were made.

Repaint everything in a light gray acylic. The acylics I'm using are Apple Bottom Plaids and a Daler Rowney Simply Acrylic 12 color set of tubes from Walmart.

Spotted, drybrushed and washed in a layers of light Tan, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Medium Green and Black.

A couple shots of some of the bridge abutments. The center pillar is a combination of 2 tapered abutments and 2 retaining walls. Have to get this one right, it's the center piece and a huge focal point of the whole layout.

 

[dewwood]

Glad to hear things are beginning to return to a more normal state and that you have had a chance to get in some therapy with your build.

 

[SilverRhino]

Sorry to hear about your FIL.

Take care of yourself and keep us posted on your progress....both health and with the train build. I look forward to your posts and following your work!

 

[ChopperBill]

Yeah, glad to see you are back on "track"! Pun intended.

 

[pmmjarrett]

Yeah, glad to see you are back on "track"! Pun intended.

Be slow going for a bit as there is plenty to "derail" me with a full plate this month.

• Memorial service if we do it this month - that'll burn up a weekend.
• Filing my Federal and state taxes - that'll burn up 2 - 3 full days
• Couple of doctors appointments. - that'll burn up at least 2 days
• Still clearing storm debris from trees and large limbs that came down a day after chrismas.
• Unloading my big truck and getting it ready for a buyer - that'll burn up 2 - 3 days.
• Cleaning my thrashed shop from the last truck build - that'll burn up a month. OMGawd it's a trashed mess.
• Setting up the shop for my next business venture - Y'all gonna love this venture.

 

[jbeletti]

Happy to see back on track Mike. Best of luck with all the things you have on your plate in February.

Jim

 

[pmmjarrett]

Thanks Jim.

Just minutes after you called I got a call from the doctors office and my appointment with the neurosurgon was pushed back to the 18th because the doc wasn't available on the 1st. Good thing I ain't in a hurry to get back to work. Cripes, if I was in a hurry I have to grab a carving knife, sewing kit and a mirror and do it myself.



Back to the build for a bit.

Working on a JV Models Curved trestle kit. This will consume a few days. This is slow tedious work but well worth it in the end.

Pre stain the wood and let it dry. I'm using Minwax dark walnut. Yea you can stain it after your done but unless you have an airbrush it's a nightmare. Been there, did that... ONCE.

There are several different sizes of wood, keep them bundled separately.

Cut out the template for the bents from the instructions and make a jig. Made mine from a scrap piece of laminate flooring, superglue and a few of the ties I ain't using. I glued the paper to the board also.

You'll need a template for the curve in your track plan. I printed just this section from the Atlas Right Track software. This time I printed out the outline drawing as well as the ties. The rail locations on the plan will be a huge help when laying out the curved stringers.

Go ahead, measure and mark the locations of the bents. Bents in N scale will be spaced at 1-1/2" to 2". My bridge is 11-1/2" long so 1-1/2" spacing makes it easy. I need 7 bents. The ends of the bridge will be supported with cut stone abutments on mine.

Go ahead and pre cut the silss, caps and posts and start gluing things together. Once you have the cap, sills and posts glued together, pull the part from the jig and glue on the sway braces on each side. I'm using Insta-Cure gap filling cyanoacrylate on this one with a very fine applicator. I've used contact cement before also and it works well, takes quite a bit longer and just a bigger pain to apply with precision. I will cut them to length later.

 

[pmmjarrett]

On to day 3 of the trestle build. Sorry about no update yesterday, was having poblems with the internet here.


Glued the track template to a scrap piece of 1x6 and layed out the stringers and glued the caps to the bottom of the stringers. I'm building the bridge upside down. This is what I was working on yesterday. Each stringer is laminated with 3 strips of wood with staggered cuts. I place the bundles together between pins hammered into the template and let some super thin cyanoacrylate glue work itself into the space between the boards. That worked well enough I had to cut the boards from the paper template before glueing on the caps.

Todays progress.... Sanded the tops of the bents level and then glued the bents to the caps.

Start installing the girts. This is a pain to now work inside the model and it's your last chance to make sure the bents are at the correct angle for your grade to the stringers.

Top level of girts installed. Still need to install girts on the next 2 levels down.

Time to take a nap. Wearing my cap with the magnifyer gives me a headache after a while.

 

[pmmjarrett]

Day 4 of the wood trestle build. With any luck it should be done in another day or 2.


Finished installing the girts on the top 3 levels.

Marked and cut into the plaster cloth terrain for the bents to go into. No worries here, paint and scenery will hide all this after some touch up with the hot glue gun once the bridge is permanently installed..

After cutting and trimming the bridge to fit the terrain I installed some structural braces.

And installed the sway braces on the outside of the trestle.

Fits pretty good.

Decided to go with wood abutments instead of using cut stone. I like this. I think I'm going to build my own wood tunnel portal for the portal that leads to this bridge instead of using the cut stone one I have for it.

 

[pmmjarrett]

Here's a good pic I found for those I may have lost with the names of the trestle parts.

 

[pmmjarrett]

I'm so busy around the house since I retired again that i don't have time to work.

It's raining pretty good today so I'm taking a break from clearing some brush and down limbs on the property. Yep, still cleaning up storm debris from Christmas as well as taking care of some other outdoor work that has been pretty much neglected being on the road for 3 years, like cleaning up too much pine straw on the ground from 50+ very large pine trees on the property and cutting down an old half dead Maple tree. Have made about 100 bushel of mulch with the wood chipper so far with just the downed limbs from the Christmas snow storm.

Wrapped up day 5 on the wood trestle build. The wood assembly is done, bare spots touched up with some stain, finished the other retaining wall, trimmed a bit of plaster cloth and foam and have it fitted into place. Need to pull it off the layout one last time and paint the area under the bridge an earth color before gluing it into place and installing the bridge flex track.

 

[ChopperBill]

Hows that choo choo going?

 

[pmmjarrett]

Havn't touched it in a few months. Too much other stuff going on with building a new 30x50 shop right now.

 

[cookie]

Yea Mike, what gives here. You build us up and then slap us down by starting a new project.
I'm Jonesen here...I need my N Scale Model Railroad fix.
Good luck with the new shop, that's quite a project.

Peace
Dave

 

[pmmjarrett]

LOL

I hear ya Dave. I'm going through withdrawls too. Ain't even like I hid it out of sight either as it's still parked in the family room.

Too many irons in the fire right now and my Doc adjusting my meds the last 2 months and being tired all day ain't helping either.

Concrete work started today and the new shop will be here on the 1st of June and hopefully finished and get my tools moved back into it by the end of June so I can get things a little back toward normal.

 

[Ray LeTourneau]

LOL

I hear ya Dave. I'm going through withdrawls too. Ain't even like I hid it out of sight either as it's still parked in the family room.

Too many irons in the fire right now and my Doc adjusting my meds the last 2 months and being tired all day ain't helping either.

Concrete work started today and the new shop will be here on the 1st of June and hopefully finished and get my tools moved back into it by the end of June so I can get things a little back toward normal.

Normal? Seriously Mike, I wouldn't have believed you would even use this word to describe a part of your life.

 

[pmmjarrett]

Normal? Seriously Mike, I wouldn't have believed you would even use this word to describe a part of your life.

LOL

How would Lefty put it.

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave
safely in a pristine, well-preserved body,
but rather to skid in sideways,totally used
up and worn out, shouting Holy #$&^%$^,
...what a ride!!

Yep, got that covered. I'm slam wore out checking off stuff from my bucket list.


I think I have gotten most of the wander lust out of my system. Working on projects that "I" want to do (not have to do) and being kicked back in my recliner watching a movie, taking a nap or killing Zombies on the Xbox with my daughter is getting to be "Normal"......... AND I LIKE IT!!!

Geez I must be getting old.