Now that I have so much new track, I have been having much joy running one little train around headed up by my little 10 ton Bachmann Shay. If one is fun then certainly two would be funner. I have had a Bachmann Climax, another small logging engine, on the shelf for about […]

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While waiting for the paint to dry I was able to fit and attach profile boards around the layout. This essentially completes the benchwork.
I used 1 x 2’s to build support for the profile boards. I again used my brad nailer with 1 1/4″ nails and glue to attach.

The hardest part was to […]

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I was able to spend most of Saturday immersed in the railroad and made great progress on a few different projects. The most visible one was to paint the sky onto the backdrop. I chose a color called ‘Summer Splash’ in the Valspar brand of paint from Lowes. The code was 5002-9C. […]

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Over the last couple of days I have completed the backdrop seam finishing with another coat of thinned drywall compound and a final smoothing with a sponge. Tonight I primed the backdrop.

I was pretty happy with resulting seams but I did find a few nail holes that I did not get covered. I’ll […]

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Tonight I was able to spend a few minutes in the basement trying to make some progress on finishing the backdrop. I am currently finishing the seams with drywall compound and tape. Personally, I think drywall finishing is very difficult and requires a special touch. I did successfully finish the basement […]

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I recently received some additional Micro-Engineering On30 flex track that I ordered from Micro-Mark. I have switched to the non-weathered flex and I am much happier with it. Soldering feeders and soldering pieces together on the corners is much easier. The non-weathered also seems to flex easier and doesn’t seem to bind […]

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I started several projects this weekend and finished almost nothing. It was not a great weekend for forward progress. One small project that I did complete (mostly) was the installation of Universal Throttle Connector Plate for my DCC system. Up to now I just had the throttle plugged directly into the control […]

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Adding the roadbed is actually quite enjoyable for me because I enjoy using my new jigsaw so much. The starting point was my Google SketchUp drawing. I viewed it from above and drew in some rough grid lines. I am sure there was a much more elegant way of handling this […]

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