Woodyard Crane

Received a kit for a 30 ton Erie crane with clamshell bucket this past week.  Not cheap, but would seem to be a good fit for loading pulpwood from truck to rail, as I vaguely remember it being done in the woodyards of the 1950's.  Will not need clamshell, but will use cable or chain to sling ordered pile of pulpwood and transfer from bobtailed truck to pulpwood rack.

The kit, from Model Tech Studios, was satisfactory, but not the cleanest castings I've seen.

Instructions suggested to paint after assembly. That would seem to be difficult unless spraying -- how would you get inside the boom?  So, parts were laid out and painted:

The metal wire provided in the kit didn't seem to be a good fit for the red disc seen in photo, above, so a plastic rod was pulled out of inventory to use.

Just about assembled.  Installing black sewing thread, I mean, cables was one of toughest tasks!

 

Detail parts came from LASER cut cardboard or something similar.  Now will have to find small chain and some pulpwood.  Have misplaced forklift previously positioned to load railcar so timing is right to add crane.

Closest picture to concept I could find, albeit rubber tired:

Lumberjack Finds His Tree

I couldn't help myself, I had to find those lumberjack tools and paint the handles to look a bit wooden....  Then, the repainted lumberjack and his double bit ax found a resting spot under a tall, Southern yellow pine.  I even included a two man saw -- guess maybe that's why he's relaxing, waiting for the number two man!

Relaxing with two man saw.

Note small chip out of tree and double bit ax!

Somehow I'm reminded that if you have to explain the punchline to a joke, your joke isn't very successful.  Maybe I shouldn't have pointed out the missing chip.

Relaxing Lumberjack Take 2

OK, so I couldn't live with the jockey racing silks look, so I tried again.  Repainted shirt with red, but had to do it twice to come close to covering prior black paint job.  Used Sharpie to add black plaid.  Looks better, though not perfect -- but the whole layout is a "representation" anyway, right?

Original

Take 2

Should I try hair, eyebrows, and eyes. . . ?  Do they make paint brushes with only two bristles?

Relaxing Lumberjack

As a student (a few years back) of NC State's Pulp and Paper Department that was in the Forest Resources College, I saw a logo that I really liked:  a lumberjack relaxing under a tall pine tree, a double bit ax leaning against the tree where one chip had been removed, smelling a flower.  Well, even Woodland Scenics didn't have that figure, so I figured I'd improvise.  I did find a guy relaxing at a Backyard Barbecue that came close.  Only, he had on shorts, loafers, and a T-shirt.  So what, just a little repaint and he could be wearing boots, jeans, and a buffalo plaid shirt, aka:

Buffalo Plaid

Barbecue -- Before

Lumberjack -- After

OK, so the plaid is a "bit" big and he looks more like a jockey than a lumberjack, but just wait until he's leaning against the tree.  From 20 feet or so, it will almost be obvious.  I'll also have the double bit ax. . . .  Notice that he now has a yellow "Cat Hat" as in Caterpillar Tractors -- you can almost read the C A T!  And to heck with the flower.

Pleasantly Plump

So, I've about lost participation from the grandsons what with football and things.  Both are playing offensive line on there respective age group teams.  With a visit from a couple of granddaughters over Halloween, I was instructed as to placement of some figures on the layout.  They had given them to me in September for my birthday.  Woodlands Scenic calls them "full figured", but the girls like pleasantly plump.  They thought too many of the current figures looked too healthy!

I probably should have removed some of the cobwebs before photographing, but, after all, it WAS Halloween!!  And, while I was blowing the dust off of another package of figures, I blew a few of them onto the floor.  There may still be one down there somewhere. . . .

Waiting at the station. . .

as the train pulls in . . .

trying not to let hat blow off.

Having a hot dog outside at Ebenezer Grill.

Farmer admiring his cotton field.

We decided to leave out the guy with the beer belly and a can in his hand!?!?!

Railroading on the West Coast

Well, not much happening at Blacktop Crossing, due in part to a two week vacation in Alaska and British Columbia, plus the week before getting ready. . . .

But, some great experiences.  Rode the White Pass and Yukon out of Skagway up the mountain.  Great views and "period" passenger cars.

Just had to pick up a baseball cap and passenger car.  Don't know how to incorporate EITHER in the layout. . . .

Then, by chance, bumped into Canada's second largest railway museum in Squamish, BC.  We really only stopped at Squamish because The Wife liked the name!  Nice museum, but I couldn't talk The Wife into a full tour.

A Crack in the Cosmic. . . Diesel

A couple of things have been bothering me since switching the SW1 Switcher to DCC with sound -- the lights stopped working and the speaker in the cab was too big for the cab which kept the cab from meeting the chassis/frame cleanly.  That left a CRACK:

Front of cab doesn't meet chassis

After seeing an article in Model Railroading about DCC written by the DCC Guy, I checked the DCC Guy's blog and found a reference to "sugar cube" speakers (http://www.dccguy.com/?p=509).  Maybe that's the answer!  That led me to Streamlined Backshop website (www.sbs4dcc.com) and the purchase of the small 8X12mm speaker.

The next step was installation, and that meant removing the cab and hood.  What the heck, might as well check on the lighting while we're under the hood.  Using a 9V battery, a couple of patch cords, and about a 470 ohm resistor, I touched the connectors for the back light -- bingo, it worked.  So, now I was pretty sure I had wired the LED's incorrectly.

With the instructions for the Soundtraxx TSU-750 and a folder of DCC tips in hand, I cross-checked the wiring diagram with my wiring job:

I was pretty sure I used red wire on the positive side of the LED's, and the wiring tips say positive is blue from the decoder.  Oops, I have white connected to the red (supposedly positive) lead for the front and yellow connected to red for the rear.  Looks like they need to be reversed.  Plus, I need to replace the speaker.  So, some de-soldering is in order:

OK, everything pulled apart.  Note the size of the original speaker; not very big, but just big enough to overfill the cab; and there is NO space under the hood for a speaker.

Carefully (!! these wires sure are small) soldering things back together we get another jumble of wires:

I glued the sugar cube speaker to the top of the cab (you can almost imagine that you see it at the end of the purple leads) with white glue.  Hope it sticks!  Having a rounded cab top and a rectangular speaker didn't help the situation.  Lots more room this time.

Did that help with the CRACK?  I think so:

How about the lights?

Now they are even working correctly!  Amazing what correct wiring for an LED will do.  Seems I replaced the original front light with a "softer" light when I thought maybe the original had burned out.  Don't know when we'll be under the hood again so let's just leave it for right now.

I did note that the volume was significantly lower than with the larger speaker.  I turned up the volume CV's to almost maximum and the little Switcher sounds OK.  I read somewhere that most model railroaders run the volumes a bit too loud anyway.  Certainly on a small, 4X6' layout, you don't need much volume.  However, I'll have to turn the volume down considerably on the F2 loco to keep from drowning out the sugar cube speaker.  No problem.  Just a minor adjustment.

Bottom line, pretty pleased with results -- no crack, working lights, good sound.