Wargames and Railroads

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Building Calamity 20 - The "Hardware" Store - Windows and Jigs

I have been messing around with these windows off and on for a couple of weeks now. I finally managed to pull everything together and managed to construct a jig that should allow me to make windows pretty quick. This is a single jig and I can make three different window sizes with it. These will become my more or less standard sized windows. If I mix these in with some commercial parts I should be able to have a nice variety of windows to work with. I ended up using brass and super glue to construct the jig. I used the brass so that I wouldn't accidentally glue the plastic strips into the jig.

I think the pictures tell a better story than I do:

The Hardware store is still just a pile of parts at this point

A little piece of sheet brass to serve as the bass.

I'm worked with both wood and brass to build it. In the end I just went with the brass strip.

Hard to see, but all the parts are glued on to the brass sheet and I succeeded in making a nice square joint

Building the upper window pane

All finished

Strips cut for the lower window. I used .040x.040 for the window sills and sash.

Building up the second window

Comparing against the original windows I cut from a single piece of foamed PVC

This set will go on the back wall

Add more brass strip for the second window size

And the third and final window jig for the hardware store. If I did it right I can build all the windows for the hardware store using this jig.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

First Care Package of 2016 - Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette

I know you are all waiting for the next installment of the Hardware store, but time has been limited. Instead I received something that I have been very excited about since it was first announced, the complete collection of the Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette on DVD, including Slim Gauge News and Finelines. I first started buying NGSG in 1984 or so and have mostly kept up with it, which means I have a lot of issues laying around (some the worse for the wear). So now I have a complete searchable index along with every issue stored directly on my laptop. The discs are safely stashed away in case something happens to the laptop. The biggest advantage I see is finally being able to print off plans on single sheets of paper without dealing with weirdness in the copy because of the magazine binding.

I printed off a copy of the Victor Gold Mining CO gondola from the March 1972 Issue of Slim Gauge News! Definitely worth the money! A nice Christmas present for myself.

Here are some really bad pictures:

Now that's a package worth getting excited about!

The cover, 1964-2014, not quite as old as me but close.

That's a lot of stuff!

Friday, January 1, 2016

Its a Blog Birthday! 4 years old.

Happy Birthday Blog!

I always intend to write a state of the blog every year but never manage to pull it off, but I hit a lot of milestones this year so I'm pulling out all the stops.

Overall the blog has done what I intended, helping me stay on track with projects. Its certainly not foolproof. You can see a lot of projects started in this space that haven't reached completion yet and some of them may never get that far. I think the two longest term projects that are likely to see completion are Calamity and my WWI AEF Marines. I'm easily distracted by shiny stuff and there are a lot of periods that I would like to be involved with that I have stuck my toe into and just haven't proceeded farther. Calamity serves a double purpose as it helps me stay abreast of what is happening in my model railroad hobby and my gaming/painting hobby. Its the only project that I have that combines both. The third project that will reach completion, at some point, is the LA Warehouse District project. Many of the weathering techniques I have worked on for Calamity will translate directly over to that project. Right now its mainly suffering from neglect due to space more than anything else.

I'm not sure what will be up for 2016. My goal is to actually get the town of Calamity finished so that will probably be the bulk of the posts during the year but I'm not sure I can sustain the level of effort that's going to require to get there. Genghis Con is fast approaching but that effort will be a lot lighter than usual, the group that is running it contacted us so late that we don't really have time to get the support we need or even to find instructors. After that there is nothing on the schedule till October when ReaperCon opens on its new dates. That should be an interesting show. I also intend to participate in the Lead Painters League in the LAF forum. I have never participated in this before because its always come right in the middle of getting ready for both the Genghis Con and ReaperCon painting competitions. But I'm going all in this year. It guarantees that I will paint at least 55 minis this year.

2013 – 83639 Page Views, averaging 6969 views per month and crossed the magical 100,000 page view mark. More than doubled the number of page views from 2012, quite a jump.

2014 – 91876 Page Views, averaging 7656 views per month and I crossed the 200,000 page view mark.

2015 – 89955 Page Views, averaging 7497 views per month and crossed another mark; 300,000.

Four Year total 304223

2012 – 19.67 posts per month (there were 43 in January which kin of skews the numbers).

2013 – 14 posts per month

2014 – 12 posts per month

2015 – 13.5 posts per month

My monthly goal is to write 12 posts. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don’t, sometimes I blow it away.

It is a bit harder to translate all of this into people but based on my stat counter (not google's!) the blog has had hits from 65,339 unique IP addresses from 135 countries. That same stat collector also shows flags from the various regions that make up any given country. Being a bit obsessive I like to keep track of those flags. I have a few countries that are "complete" in that respect; US, England (the UK was divided into four sections by the provider in 2015; England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), Germany, France, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic (There are a bunch of countries that aren't partitioned off that would fit here, but that feels like cheating). There are 7 countries that I just need one more flag from; Spain (Melilla), Belgium (Luxembourg), Austria (Burgenland), South Africa (Limpopo), Israel (North District) and Slovakia (Trencin). There are three countries that I need two flags from; Canada (I'm not sure there are even computers in the two provinces that are missing), Finland (this one is odd, because on one screen it says I'm missing one flag and on another it says I'm missing two) and Italy. The number of regions or states that some countries are divided up into is nuts. Malta, as an example, has 68 "regions" listed.

Perhaps the most important number is 196, the number of people that willingly follow my blog! A salute to you, the hardy few!

A bit of a reward! On to 2016!

What this blog is really about though

Southbound UP train south of Ft Collins CO. UP5123 is an SD70M

All the stuff I get to sell at auction at one of the local convention game auctions. Yes, I am an amateur auctioneer and yes I can talk faster than you can keep up.

Rolls Royce Armored Car, Bronze medal at ReaperCon 2015 in vehicles. (Trenchworx model)

WWI French FT-17 (Trenchworx model)

On30 Stock Car (Bachmann)

On30 Mogul C&S #22 (Bachmann)

WWI US Marines, mixed uniform. Mostly Brigade Games Miniatures with a few Great War Miniatures mixed in.

WWI US Marines forest green uniform

A few citizens of Calamity

Ellen Stone by Reaper Miniatures

I'm not sure about this one. He could be from Wargames Foundry, or he might be from Battle Flag.

Male Huckster, Reaper Miniatures
An interesting fact; other than the actual production, packaging and shipping of the miniature at Reaper (and I may know those folks as well), every person involved with this miniature is a friend of mine. The "concept" art for this is a painting by my friend Dan Frazier that appeared on the Huckster book for the Deadlands RPG. The "model" for that cover is my friend Dave Mac. The mini was sculpted by my friend Bob Ridolfi.