Cartoon Wednesday

 

What's Next

I have, more or less, been doing lot of soul searching over the last few months on what I want to, what I can do and what is really possible. I still enjoy playing games, both boardgames and miniature games and that's not going away. The reality for gaming though is I have way to much stuff for what I'm probably capable of using or even assembling with the time I have available. I'm seriously considering disposing of all of my WWII 15mm miniatures. This is primarily Afrika Korps equipment but I believe there is a some European theatre stuff in there too. I need to dig it out and see what is actually there and make a list.

At this point I'm going to hang on to my 15mm Union ACW army, along with all the unpainted miniatures to go along with it. The same is true for my 15mm Napoleonic British army. To much time and effort invested in these two armies, I'll probably re-evaluate that on an annual basis and how much space I have available in the future. 

On the 28mm front I'm being wishy washy on what I should keep and what needs to go. I have maybe a dozen kits to go along with the buildings I have finished or are in progress (some were started more than five years ago). I have a bunch of regular German troops along with British and American Paras. If I stay with Chain of Command (which just came out with a 2nd edition) I don't need nearly the numbers of troops that I have laying around. I'll hang on to the vehicles that I have finished or are in progress, I love modeling vehicles to much to give them up just yet (and there is a closet of armor kits to prove it).

My boardgame collection has been much reduced over the years although I'm considering letting my ACW games go. I really don't have anyone nearby to play them with and the time needed to play one of these is starting to exceed my attention span. The railroad games fill my gaming needs quite nicely. I'm also contemplating selling off my Clue collection, although I'll wait for the economy to recover a bit for that I think, its a bit on the niche side of things.

Model railroading has definitely been my highest priority over the last few years and I think I'm going to much further down that road. Space is an issue, but designing something that is portable or at least can be disassembled and reassembled easily can get me around that issue.

The final though along what I want to do is cutting puzzles. I get along of satisfaction from cutting out a puzzle and the process is very relaxing. Its a side hustle that I really want to explore. There is workshop full of equipment that I really want to put to use which includes a laser cutter, a 3D printer and a CnC machine (still in its box, its big and I haven't had a chance to build a bench for it yet). There is plenty of things out there to keep me busy.

This soul searching is definitely the result of coming up on anniversary of my mother's passing last year. She did so much to downsize and make it easier on us but she was still a farm girl and the amount of stuff that she had squirreled away in her apartment was a amazing. I need to emulate that and do better.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Experiment Aborted

Yes, I have been missing in action since April. I have been slowly working on a few projects that I'll share in another post but there were two things that really brought the blog crashing to a halt.

First, the weather here really got warm fast and we spent a lot of time outside getting the house and landscaping in order. After a day spent weeding, repairing, building, painting or whatever I was simply not interested in working on anything let alone talk about it on the blog.

Second, we made the decision that I would go ahead and retire early. So I burned two months of saved up vacation in May and June. The result was I rescinded my retirement request with my employer. Fortunately this is a thing with my employer and I was able to come back to work in my position as my retirement wasn't effective until 7/3/2026.

I talked with my boss before that date, she was happy to have me back. However, the request did not quite get to all the proper channels and I have spent the last few days trying to get  back online and restore my access. I should have known better than to think a request to back out the retirement with HR, even after logging into the right system and checking the right box and hitting enter, would be all I needed to do. It didn't stop IT or Payroll from moving forward with my retirement!

The current administration and the circumstances they have created means that the retiring at this time is just causing a lot on unnecessary anxiety for both of us. We definitely feel that this is the right decision, although somewhat disappointing in the end.

I think the happiest bunch are the dogs, their normal routines have been restored!

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Return to the Brushes IV - O scale continued

I have managed to get to the pants. I relatively happy with the shirts and pants at this point, although I'm a bit tired of blue at this point.

I can start working on smaller details now and will probably go back and tweak the skin a bit more. Plus a couple of them will need their eyes to actually be painted. Its been a while so I'll find something to practice on.

Bob #1

Bob #2

Cartoon Wednesday

 

The Roger Malinowski Tribute Part 4 - The Bakery, Calling it Done

I'm finally wrapping up this build. The weathering is pretty basic and there is no signage but since I don't have a layout ready for it I don't want to go any further with it. Since I don't know if this will be a foreground or a background building I have left myself an out by making the roof removable. If you look at the back you will see a spot on either side of the roof line where there is a gap in the trim. On top of that the smoke jack has been left removable. This way I can rotate the smoke jack out of the way and slide the roof out. Underneath the roof is the ceiling which slides straight out the back.

I managed to spill glue on the front windows and had gone ahead and installed them anyway. I then decided that I couldn't live with them like that and managed to pull them out. I cut four more and I was going to reinstall them when it struck me that it would be easier to put stuff in the front windows if I just left them off for now. So the four new panes of "glass" are currently residing in the "attic" and I'll install them when I'm ready to finish the building when its installed.

Here is what I ended up with.

My favorite 28mm Prospector (approx 1/56th scale) is a bit undersized; 5' tall in O Scale and a whopping 7' tall in S Scale.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday

 

The Roger Malinowski Tribute Part 4 - The Bakery Getting Closer

I had to work my way through a couple of issues with the back wall. In the end I decided that to keep things from warping and trying to keep it square it really needed to be glued into place. I left a small gap in the edging on the back so I can still pull out the roof and the ceiling to get to the inside and add lights if and when that becomes something I want to do.

At this point I need to finish the roof and add the smokejack for sure. I'm contemplating adding knots to the wood, just not sure this is the building I want to practice that on.

Return to the Brushes III - O scale continued

Painting continues at a snails pace but progress is progress.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Return to the Brushes II - O scale continued

I had sometime to get a little paint on the brush and this is where the figures from The Cumberland Shops currently stand:

The shirts and overalls now have their mid tone color applied, next up will be adding the shadows and highlights. I'm not completely happy with the skin yet, so expect a bit of tweaking there.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Another Layout Design

John Olson passed away three or four weeks ago. Other than John Allen, John Olson, along with Malcolm Furlow, had a huge impact on my railroad modeling and how to convey my vision. The first Olson article I read was in the January 1974 issue of Railroad Modeler (now defunct) and it featured his switching layout in HOn3, the bait was set. In 1975 we moved to Colorado and the narrow gauge hook was set; hook, line and sinker.

When I learned of his passing I pulled that old issue out (yes, I still have it and a replacement copy as well) and decided that I was going to finally build this layout and do it in On30. What I found out in later years is that this layout is based on a switching puzzle on a model railroad called the Sagatukett River RR at the end of the line in a small town called Equinox (I found it in a Kalmbach book; "Track Planning Ideas from Model Railroader: 58 Track Plans from Past Issues). John built it fairly close but lengthened the tail tracks on the wye to hold an engine and a caboose as well as an extra siding.

I traced the original plan (because I also have a very dog eared copy of that book) and then enlarged it to my favorite scale of 1/8th of an inch equal to 1". I roughed it in and made some notes. Then I pulled out some On30 freight cars, my small Porters (0-4-0 and 0-4-2) and the Mogul (2-6-0). Made some measurements and determined that I could probably build it in about the same amount of space. I'm going to try and stay true to the original so the tail tracks will only hold an engine which will require 12" to handle the Mogul. If I stick to cars that are at least 20' long then that isn't quite long enough to hold a Porter and a freight car at the same time, keeping true to the original design. I'm not sure about the extra spur yet.

That brings the total number of, potential, layouts to 3; Warehouse Row on the D&RGW set in the 60s, the C&N featuring the town of Salina at the turn of the century, and the Equinox layout (likely to be renamed and it will let me give it a nice puny name).

Here it is in all its hand drawn glory. I'll do something a bit more to scale when I replenish my supply of graph paper.

The Roger Malinowski Tribute Part 4 - The Bakery Will it Ever be Finished?

Work slowly continues on the bakery. I think its approaching completion but time keeps slipping by and days can go by without any real progress.

Here's where things stand at the moment (and actually there has been some progress since I took these):

I really messed up the "glass" in the windows so I pried it out. I have some good plastic to replace it with but I still need to cut it to size and reinstall it.

For the blue trim I thinned down some Reaper Void Blue so it would go on like a stain.

This is prior to some of the framing but I did apply a wood greying wash to try an tie things together better. It did help ease some of those color transitions so it looks better than before.

At this point I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with this back edge, since the rear wall is removable for the lighting it makes for an interesting problem to solve. Not to mention that the damn wall started to warp on me so I have to figure out a solution for that as well.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday

 

The "Cliff Hanger Mine" Down the Historical Rabbit Hole

 Back in 2025 there was a photo and an article in the Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette for a structure the author referred to as the Cliff Hanger Mine. He couldn't find out anything about it and just opted to build the structure, which is great all model railroaders do that. However, I found it so intriguing that I started digging into it, and the hole is deep.

Here is the photo, it is literally built into the cliff side, this photo has cut off the drop off directly under it. 

And some other views I found online, these came from a Facebook Group:

Its missing a couple of key features; there is no apparent adit where the ore would come from and there doesn't seem to be a way to get the ore from the bins to a wagon or truck below it. In the background of the last photo you can make out a structure on the left. That's a set of massive ore bins for the Commodore #5 mine in Creede CO.

In the end I discovered that this is an Ore Sorting building. So it has ore bins, obviously, and then the chutes would be open slightly and ore would be poured out on to a sorting table. The good ore went into a plank chute coming out the open side and down to a waiting truck (this building was built in the early 30's). But where did the ore come from? Looking at the last photo again you can see a pile of waste rock (tailings) running from the complex, with the big ore bins, to this sorting building. There is a rail tram running along the top of that pile and it would dump ore into another chute that feed the ore bins from above. So ore was provided by rail. Apparently the building was not part of the Commodore complex per say but was used by a company that leased a portion of the Commodore mine. The Amethyst vein runs through that mountain and there are literally miles of tunnels in there.

I learned a lot more about the complex but its this little structure that might find a home on my layout.