Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Distraction progress

My Had's McCulloch Chainsaw shop is moving along at a good pace. The only thing I am having a hard time locating is HO scale chainsaws. A few companies have made them in the past, but they do not look currently available. I have a few hobbyshops I plan to try in the next few weeks and I hope to find some sort of solution. In the mean time I have got all the windows and doors in place on the model and now plan to finish the interior detailing. I also need to figure out my wiring plan for the LED interior lighting. I plan to use Nano LEDs, now I just need to figure out how to get them to work right. I have a few more shots of the build under the Projects in Progress page, or you can click on the link HERE.



 


Friday, March 27, 2015

Getting a date

I have been narrowing my focus down on what time during 1968 I wanted to model. As I have looked through traffic patterns and observed some of the other happenings on the line it looked like fall was a busy time on the Trunk with the added Potato harvest traffic . It also appeared that building materials and other products continued to move in the autumn months so I would have lots of cars to move. I am still trying to narrow down the exact date of the start of the potato harvest, but did find a good article about how the harvest was off to a slow start. So as of now I am looking to model some time between mid September and mid October. One thing I found was that on September 10th 1968 a steam engine from Rayonier was taken down the Oregon Trunk and stopped at the shops for servicing. It was dead in tow, but would make for an interesting move. Here is a clipping from the September 11th 1968 Bend Bulletin showing the unique move.


Tuesday, March 17, 2015

More distractions...

I saw a posting on one for the Facebook pages that Monster Model Works was having a sale. I spent some time looking through their products and after looking at one of their new offerings, which was a medium size auto shop, I found they also had a very tiny building called Triple J Repair. I really have no use use for the building, but had heard Jimmy and others talk on a few different Podcasts about their innovative products, so I bought it. I am currently working on a house for my Free-mo modules that I was going to try to have completed by April 1st, but it just was not keeping me motivated. Not sure what my problem is, but the project is just annoying me. I grabbed this little kit, put the walls together and spent the evening painting it. I was also able to use some of the excess material to build an interior wall. If you look at any of my other projects you will see I have a weakness for super detailed structures. While the paint dried I went through my various boxes of stuff and found enough parts that I am going to change the building into Had's McCulloch Shop, chainsaw sales, service and rental. So here is the building as it stands, if you want to see more "in progress shots" click HERE.