Scattered Thoughts . . .

I wrote a little bit about a week or so ago about starting to convert some old American Flyer S scale hoppers to O scale narrow gauge. I do a little bit on this project every now and then and today I made some more headway on this project. I had already stripped the bodies in a bath of rubbing alcohol. The lettering and any paint came off easily with a toothbrush after only a few minutes in the bath. Of course, I had previously removed all the trucks and couplers.  After taking a dip in the alcohol bath, I quickly found that three of the hoppers are molded gray plastic and one is molded black plastic. The black plastic is softer than the gray plastic so it is easier to work... cutting, filing, sanding... but that does not mean the more brittle gray plastic makes any of these things difficult to accomplish. I suspect the black plastic will hold paint better too. I built a small jig to start bending brass grab irons. I will need 16 small ones... and 8 large ones. I might also bend

I've been focused on working on Lukey's train set (new scenery, new buildings, new trains) for some presents this coming Christmas. While I was looking for stuff for Lukey's train set, I ran across something which caused me to change gears briefly. For quite some time now, I've been reading about modelers who convert old S scale American Flyer freight cars to O scale narrow gauge. O scale is a larger scale than S scale but narrow gauge trains are purposefully smaller than their standard gauge counterparts so the smaller S scale trains often measure just right for O scale narrow gauge.  "Standard gauge" trains are the trains we see running around our real life world today... the rails are almost five feet apart (4'-8½", to be exact) and the trains are quite large. In smaller, tighter places, however, smaller trains were necessary (and a few are still running today) ... ie, winding through mountains, dense woods, around wharfs, in industrial comple