Scattered Thoughts . . .

W e're still waiting on the delivery of a few presents but most of the presents are wrapped and piled up around the Christmas tree now... There is still a lot to be done around the house before we can celebrate Christmas with the grandkids but things are slowly coming along.

A fter building and installing new front and rear bumpers on my large scale trolley, I felt that these new bumpers were a bit bare for being so large so I went on a search for detail parts that would make sense in this situation and fit on these bumpers. The first thing I knew I should add is an air tank on the rear bumper.  This would be an air tank (or auxiliary air tank) for the brakes so it would make sense that it would be located on the rear bumper.  Many small switching diesels (Plymouths) had rear mounted air tanks so that was the logical place to put one on my trolley.   Unfortunately, it turns out that finding a tank in the size I needed was a problem.   I wasn't finding anything in F scale which is what I needed.  Since I needed only a small tank, I tried finding a tank in smaller scales.  Unfortunately, I didn't find any G scale tanks that would look right.  I tried O scale but most of those would be ridiculously small.  I ev...

I don't know why for sure but Thanksgiving and Christmas really caught us by surprise this year.  My internal clock is feeling like it is only early autumn. It isn't like we've been busy with a full schedule of events or travel.  We've been home.   The summer was wet and pretty much non-existent.  It doesn't even feel like we had a summer.  Summer and fall have been filled with waiting for our new water main to be installed and hooked up to the house.  And, more recently, we've had nothing but problems with that hook-up to the house which is needlessly sapping me of what little energy I have these days. I'm trying to think back on what messed up our internal clocks.  This year started with a few months of COVID yet again.  Since the beginning of the pandemic, I've been sick with COVID from January through March/April every year.  This past year I picked up the virus in Manhattan just before Christmas and was sick and continually testing...

F or the past few years, I've had a specific camera body in my "wishlist" at a used camera website where I purchase most of my cameras and lenses.  It has sat in this wishlist for a few years because this happens to be a very expensive camera that is well beyond my budget even if purchased on the used market.  A few times each week over the course of a few years, I would check the price in the hope that the price would finally hit an affordable range.  Fortunately, this used camera store had a big "Black Friday" sale a couple of weeks ago which allowed me to finally purchase this significantly upgraded camera for a ridiculously low price. My primary camera is a Sony a7 but it is the first generation of the a7 series from 2013.  Since it was released back in 2013 and was the first full-frame mirrorless camera, consequently, it has some compromises when compared to other cameras released more recently.  I really love this camera though...  it is small and it ...

I put together a few comparison "before and after" photos of my large scale trolley and my large scale steam locomotive.  I've been wanting to do this for awhile but never got around to it.  Having just working on the trolley again, I figured it was a good time to capture some "after" photos and then compose "before and after" comparisons. In each comparison photo, the top photo is the train in its stock condition from the factory before I did any work on it while the bottom photo shows the same train after I rebuilt it, repainted it and added details. So, this first comparison photo below is of the trolley.  I purchased the trolley a little over a year ago and immediately started planning for an upgrade and rebuild.  It was not running well when it arrived at my door because the motor had a split gear.  I immediately replaced the motor with Bachmann's replacement drive but, disappointingly and unexpectedly, the brand new assembly still ran quite ...

I captured a few more photos of the trolley this morning and thought I would add them to the blog since they are better than last night's photos. Actually, I wasn't too happy with some of my first photos after working on these steps and the front and rear bumpers.  The light wasn't that great yesterday which made for some mediocre photos.  This morning, the light was a little better in the living room so I captured a few more photos.  This photo, below, is a better shot showing the new bottom step I added.   The next two photos are just better views of the trolley from front and back.  The light on the trolley only lights for the direction it is traveling but, in these photos, I know it appears as though both the front and back headlights are lit all the time.  The front headlight is only lit when in "forward".  The rear headlight is only lit when in "reverse". This last photo is a good photo showing the rear bumper.  I know that these new b...

T his morning, I made quick work of rounding down some sharp edges on the newly installed wood bumpers for my large scale trolley.  Then I put a quick coat of charcoal-ish colored stain.  It is looking much better now! I thought I had blown off all the dust I created by filing and sanding down edges but, clearly, I missed a bunch of dust! I added the bottom step and the triangular-shaped support holding up one end of the bottom step.  I did this on all four of the entries to the trolley.   Maybe tomorrow morning I'll attempt to make four grab bars for next to each of the sets of steps.   I'm waiting on some detail parts for this little detailing project to arrive.  I ordered an air tank for the rear bumper but it might be too large.  If so, I'll need to find a smaller one.  I'm also waiting on a horn and coupler gearboxes.  The coupler gearboxes will fit in well on these new bumpers.  I'm still not sure where to place the horn ...

I did some more work on my large scale trolley yesterday and today.  This is the same trolley we have on our mantle for Christmas.  I've never really been happy with the rounded front and rear bumpers that this trolley ships with and I felt the trolley was missing a step for passengers stepping up from the street so I went about trying to resolve those problems today.   First, I started making the front and rear bumpers to replace the rather toy-like bumpers.  Well, actually, I started by cutting off the front and rear rounded bumpers.  The original front bumper can be seen in the first photo below.  Then I designed a new bumper to be made using wood.  I wanted a chunkier narrow gauge look so I used wood for this.  Anyway, the photo below shows the front rounded, hollow bumper that I cut off... Below, is a photo of the new bumpers being glued up... Below is a photo of the front end after I cut off the manufactured front bumper.  I could...