Rick's House June 25, 2010

Thanks to all for your work and fellowship this past Friday!

Present were:

Packrat Paul
Concrete Keith
Steve-bay

and, a phone-in by Glue Bob who was still on the Cresent returning from New Orleans!

We spent the first part of the evening discussing the expansion track plan and after looking closely at the two plans it was plain that one plan allowed for better following of the trains by operators. I then showed the guys who to make a wire armature tree in the hopes that we could turn out a few before the night was over, but.......

the guys were anxious to put up a little drywall - so that's what we did. I had coved the two corners in the back of the alcove extension and we worked on the one wall.

Pauls is heading up the end on a piece of drywall that will go between the exisiting wall and a new section.

Checking the fit at the top where it meets the ceiling.

Keith checks the spacing at the top for the next filler piece

Paul handles the 1" screws into the studs. Since the studs were only 1" x 4"s we had to use the short screws.

Keith measures for the stud centers for mid panel screws.

Steve functioned as the measure man/ gopher / cleanup / grip for the guys and looks on here as more screws are added. In this picture you can see the coved (curved) hardboard corner in front of Paul

Keeping things straight for the screw line.

Here you can get a better view of alcove and the two coved corners. It was decided that the track and benchwork in the foreground will be detached, turned up on end and and hopefully walked out of the doorway to the right of Steve. Once the doorway is closed up, the alcove finished, new benchwork installed, and track added, then the removed benchwork and track can be reattached outside of the room to provide the temporary return loop.

After the drywall work we decided to solve the world's problems with having some drinks and munchies. It was a early night with everybody leaving around 10pm.

Keith's work session 6-18-10

Many thanks to Bob for taking all of these pictures. Tonight was more scenery work, and we divided into 2 man crews to "get-r-done" Summary: there was a bunch of us, and a number of visitors and we had a bunch of fun! Thanks, Keith for letting us play with your railroad!

Mark & Steve worked on the tunnel area forming the foam.

Bob couldn't resist taking some pictures of this wonderful layout

Father & Son team also working on foam scenery in a different area.

The gang discussing things, including sightings of the very rare Scott P.

One word - WOW!

Keith giving us his input and support.

Steve cuts & Mark glues.

Beautiful!

One of our guests - Bobs neighbor - the future of model railroading!

Steve making sure it's done right!

If looks could kill........

Ken & Rick doing plaster cloth work while mark gives helpful suggestions.

We all took some time to admire the layout, and even got to run some trains!

Friday Night 6/4/2010 at Paul's (and Bob's)

So, last night proved rather eventful...

I had been napping for a few minutes, getting ready for a productive night at Keith's, but Donna let me sleep until almost 6:30. So I rushed on out there, getting on the freeway around 20 to 7, at which time I realized I'd left my cell phone on the dresser. I got to Keith's around 10 minutes after 7, and it didn't look good - no cars in the driveway, the basement door was locked, and (insert face palm here) Keith had told us last Friday that he'd be in Flagstaff this week! With no cell phone to call around, I returned home, figuring someone would know something when I got there. And sure enough, Bob and Mark had called a couple times, and Donna had talked with them. I talked with Bob, and some of the guys had gone to his house to paint backdrops, but several were willing to trek down to Duluth to help me out. "Come ahead on," I told them. Bob, Mark, Steve, and Ken showed up around 8:20 or so, and we got right to work.

I had made a cardboard template for the next length of helix roadbed, and Bob, Ken, and Mark marked out where the template would be cut to transfer the lines to my last sheet of plywood. While they worked on that, Steve worked on installing a sliding drawer in the first corner of the lower deck benchwork to mount the Zephyr. And that's what we did. Mark and Bob concentrated on the plywood, and Ken and Steve worked on the slider. I had also installed another section of Masonite around the curved wall of the helix (I decided to call the thing the Roundhouse, because it feels like being in one now), and Bob and Mark trimmed the top edge to conform to the slope of the roadbed climbing up the helix. Steve left early, about 11:40, and Ken, Bob, and mark toughed it out until midnight.

For an impromptu session, we did great work and accomplished several important objectives. This morning, I wired in the Zephyr in its new location, and it works! Today will be clean-up, and next week I'll concentrate on wiring up the Loconet and mounting some UP-5s to plug throttles into, and powering my UR-91 for radio throttles so at least 3 people can operate trains simultaneously. I'll be able to stage a train on the helix (since it doesn't go anywhere, yet), and have trains in both loops and the passing siding.

Keith, thanks for swapping with me!

Paul