Howdy from KC!

[klrwhizkid]

My name is Keith Robinson, and I live in the KC northland. I have had HO equipment boxed since I worked at TJ's Hobbies in Cape Girardeau while I was going to college and still living at home. I mostly converted work hours in the shop into 121 pieces of HO rolling stock, 21 locomotives and many structure kits, thanks to the Kmart of colleges (at least it was at that time).

I have now begun planning to build. Since my greatgrandfather was a locomotive fireman on the various railroads pioneered by Louis Houck in southeast Missouri and ultimately on the Frisco, I plan to model those lines in and around the Cape area. In order to cover the length needed, my layout will be multi-deck. I plan to document my progress.

The corporate regional office I work for shares the facility we're in with our corporate parts distribution center and I have access to lots of free (recycling) lumber from the large shipping cartons/pallets that come in but don't go out (1x4s, 9/32"x3"x42" 10ply plywood, etc) so the benchwork will probably be interesting.

I am currently kitbashing the 1522's Main Tender and Water Tender, documenting each step of the process so in the end I will have an article.

My "other" hobbies include woodworking, electronics and computers - all developed to ultimately support railroading.

[yardmaster]

Welcome aboard, Keith. When you worked at TJ's, were you the one responsible for painting an F7 in O/W Frisco's colors? That's the first every Frisco model I bought and it was from TJ's (I think when they were at William and Sprigg by St. Mary Cathedral. I literally wore it out on my 4x8 basement oval in Chaffee!

Frankly, for recycled lumber, the plywood you've used on the photo of the modules you're building looks to be pretty good quality for castoffs!

Best Regards,

[klrwhizkid]

Guilty as alleged! I did a number of special things while I worked there, including installing a steam sound system in a Southern locomotive for some gentleman in Southern Illinois. I figured out how to electronically engineer the sound system to synchronize the sound to the drivers and he was very surprized when he came to take delivery!

The plywood "cast-offs" are unsanded, but that's no problem when you have a random-orbit sander and dust collection system. As it stands right now, the uprights to support the upper deck will probably be built-up from the plywood, glued and stapled.

[River Hills Travler]

Did you do the three Athearn GE u-boat body shells on the Athearn DD-40x frame? I think I saw that there. I thought it was a great kit bash. River Hills Traveler.|-|

[klrwhizkid]

No, I can't take credit for that monstrosity - I did see it though.

[meteor910]

What was the kitbash supposed to be ..... a Union Pacific U50?

Be it in modeling or in real life, that was a terrible thing to do to perfectly good U25b's!

Ken