Cartoon Wednesday - Oops delivered early

 

On30 Portable (sort of) Layout

I have way to many hobbies and, obviously, I tend to jump back and forth a lot. While my main railroad focus is on the HO Scale Warehouse Row (D&RGW) switching layout. That moves slowly because the space where it will live is not ready, so I do a lot of research and planning. But I also have been contemplating an On30 layout and if you look back through the blog you will see a lot of reference to the On30 C&N railroad out of Boulder.

Original concepts have been for a switching layout based on the Sunset station area where the line from Boulder split, one to Ward and the other to Eldora. I have messed around with this a lot and I just can't quite solve how to work around the wye which is the major component of the area. Then the thought occurred to me that maybe I really needed to go in a different direction with this one, especially as the HO layout is a switching layout, do I really need two? The answer is yes, I need two layouts and no I don't need two switching layouts.

With that in mind I was thinking of something I could put up and take down without to much of an issue. 4x8 seemed a little small though even though, in theory, everything I own can handle 18" radius curves. The issue is more that everything else in O scale is just going to take more space. So I opted to stretch it to the space I could set it up in and it will be 4x10. 

This is very much a round the loop layout so there will be a lot more of just trains running than switching. So think of this one more as a display layout that I can just play with. 

Operationally it will work just fine but with the mining theme there won't be any intensive switching like there will be on Warehouse Row.

Layout design is not my forte by any means, so I went looking for designs that caught my eye. This design is mostly a stretched version of a design by Dave Meek (Thunder Mesa Studios) he called the Rio Lobo and Western Railroad (in HO Scale). It features four good sized bridges reminiscent of John Allen's original Gorre & Daphetid RR. and room for a little action moving cars around and, hopefully, room for plenty of scenery and buildings.

The turnouts are the Peco On30 ones. I took the template I downloaded from the Peco site and then reduced it down to the scale of my drawing. Hopefully I did that right. Its still pretty much a work in progress design wise. My intent is for it to break down into four sections for storage and lot of the elements will need to be removable because of that which will certainly increase the construction difficulty level, especially making sure that the track aligns properly between the sections.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Jigsaw Puzzle - Mistakes!

I have been working on my jigsaw puzzle cutting skills. There is an idea in the back of my mind that this could be my retirement "job". We will see if that comes about, retirement is starting to creep up on the horizon though.

From Oct - Nov 2022 I cut 9 puzzles. I consider two of those to be prototypes and I put out for people to put together. Seven of those were family gifts. This year we have expanded things a bit. I'm cutting 14 puzzles this year, including two that are 11x14 rather than the 8x10s I have been doing. One of those I made a mistake on and I don't feel right giving it out as a gift so it will become another display puzzle,

I start with a picture and a piece of 5 ply baltic birch plywood I then use a dry mount press to mount them together. We purchased a smaller used press last year and it works okay. This year I used it on the first two puzzles and I just wasn't getting a good bond. Out of frustration I went looking for another used one that was in better shape and I found one on eBay that was local and we could pick it up. These presses are heavy and I really didn't want to try and have it shipped. This one is a bit bigger and worked like a charm. However, there was a bit of learning curve with it. I used the same settings and timing I used on the original press and that didn't really end well.

This is what happens when you apply to much heat for to long a period of time:

I think this particular image is cursed. This is the same image that I messed up a cut bad enough to tear it and thus making it only good for a display puzzle to put together on the table.

Jigsaw Puzzles for 2023

One of the things that has been occupying my time is cutting jigsaw puzzles for Christmas. I actually started cutting in October because we are expanding how many we are giving out for gits. Here is what is on the list for this year:

Here is the first batch of 8x10s

The next batch, including three bigger puzzles. 1 is 11x14, the bright orange one is 10x14 and then a panoramic photo that is 8x20.

I had already finished three puzzles so these are not included in the first two photos.

This one was going to be for my wife, but she decided she would rather have the Spanish Windmill shot instead. I'll end with with three of the Spanish Windmills in 8x10 and one 11x14.

Unfortunately with all the puzzle cutting I forgot about printing Christmas cards this year so we are going commercial with those!