My last couple days of modeling has been a necessary repair on a switch, a three way Shinohara code 83. I'm not sure what happened as I only ran into it after the fact. Long story short, the ties melted under one part of the switch. Obviously a direct short, but cant figure exactly what happened, there was a few people operating here that day, and this is on an industrial branch "Hindsight Industrial RR". You know as they say, stuff happens right? Just gotta deal with it. So, I digs the melted switch ties out then the arduous process of trying to install a new throw bar under the points. Bought a bag of these Shinohara throw bars years ago, never needed one till this weekend, boy I like to never found the bag LOL. After digging out the melted ties I used a cut off wheel to grind the top of that tiny little rivet that holds the throw bar to the points. After much colorful language I managed to use the very tip of a round toothpick glued onto a small flat piece, then managed to get that tiny rivet placed just right and soldered, whew, what a project that was. I then took Basswood ties dipped in Black/Brown (mixed) leather dye, and placed them under the rails, super glued into place. Using a NMRA standards gauge spiked the stock and diverging rails. It works just as good as before, I got lucky, and saved a bit of $$, took a few hours to do it but the repair is done, and ballast re-applied. Should be good to go.
Nice Tom. It was no doubt the colorful language that made everything work out, yeah? It seems to work for me also. You about back to normal now? Hope so! K
Nicely done and well illustrated, Tom. Might have to add data for this chart from before: Bachmann 2-10-0, any good? Best Regards,
Thanks Ken and Chris. Ken I was finally able to lift my right shoulder above my head the first time in almost 8 months. It has been a long process and still have a long way to go. I had no idea how much of my shoulder muscles were so bad lol. But yes, it is slowly coming back prolly be November before I can use it to any real extent. But some of this modeling is actually good thearapy. That's what I am telling myself. Gotta get some stuff done for folks I Promised. Chris I think you are right but I lack the PC skills to even make a simple chart like that LOL.
Nice save Tom. Glad the broken wing is healing up. I laughed reading your description of the events. I pictured the scene in"A Christmas Story". " my old man worked in profanity like other artists work in oils".
Thanks Guys, I dont think it would have been as successful, completing this without my literal right hand guy Adam, an Amtrak Conductor friend of mine, that was here for the afternoon. I was lucky this was only 6- 8 inches from the edge of the bench work.
Tom, I must say that the finished work makes your railroad look even more realistic. The repair looks like any tie replacement job I saw on my years on the railroad. Great job, Terry
Very nicely done! I sort of think that you should have left a few pieces of the "digout" laying around as evidence that work had been done?
Thanks Sherrel That pile of plastic pieces in the first image is what I dug out LOL . I think I may take a few old ties and pile up a few. Gotta figure out how to distress them. I have an idea.
Tom, I once read somewhere - wish I could remember - that someone roughed up some wooden ties with a Dremel wire brush tool to get the roughened look. Seems I also read about someone else putting ties in a secure location in a gutter for a month or two, but that may have been suggestion in jest.
