Workshop in the S Gaugian

(Workshop member Jim Martin reports...)

We are once more in print...

This time we have a cover story in the January/February 2014 issue of S Gaugian:

January / February 2014 S Gaugian magazine.
Visit www.heimburgerhouse.com to subscribe.

That's Workshop member John Johnston's beautiful scratch-built through truss bridge on the cover.

Editor Don Heimburger and Associate Editor Susan O'Brien, along with Contributing Artist Joe Kimber, did a great job with the photos and text we sent them.

If you would like your own copy, you can go direct to Heimburger House, where you can order current and back issues of the S Gaugian. The magazine is also available in many fine train stores, including the Credit Valley Railroad Company in the Toronto area.

One small clarification - something I didn't make clear to Don when I submitted the article: Our current travelling layout carries only the S Scale Workshop name - not Ridgehill Central, which was the name of our first portable layout.

Nevertheless, Don and the crew did a great job for us and we thank them.

- Jim

(Editor's Note: While this article is not - yet - available to read online, you can enjoy several past articles about the Workshop and its members. Follow the link to The Workshop in Print.)

HO, HO, HO with S, S, S!

(Once again, the Workshop took part in a holiday-themed railway show. Member Jim Martin reports...)

(John and David peer over the backdrop as the Christmas train rolls by...)

This Christmas season the Workshop was again invited to participate at the annual model train show at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario.

Andy Malette and John Johnston were back this year, joined by David and Oliver Clubine, along with yours truly.

Even without the wide variety of invited layouts, it’s worth dropping by to see the RBG’s own setup of garden scale trains running through landscapes made entirely of botanical materials…scenery bridges, and structures are all living plants or constructs of bark, bamboo, twigs, seeds, nuts…you name it:

Speaking of nuts, this is a show where we permit ourselves to go a bit nuts with fanciful trains we would not run any other time of the year. Model train shows are a form of show business and if groups understand that, they will tailor their “acts” for the audience - in this case, kids of all ages.

Andy is the big instigator here with his Christmas train:

(Andy and John watch the Christmas train from behind the backdrop)

Among Andy's special rolling stock, Rudolf plays his own reindeer game riding around in a covered hopper...

... there is a flatcar load of brightly wrapped gifts...

... and even the caboose is festooned with holiday stickers:

For my part I loaded up some cars with candy canes and had Skippy the Stegosaurus peeking out a box car door:

Kids like dinosaurs, but they like candy canes even better.

What looks like a real big model train riding on a flatcar is actually an N scale CNR E-10 Mogul crafted by a young modeller at the adjoining N-trak layout:

We both thought it would be fun to load it on an S scale flat car.  I think we’ll be seeing more of Frederick at future shows as he spent more time at our layout than his. 

Finally, here's one of our periscopes in action:

We have three of these that we take to shows - primarily for wheelchair visitors, but in their absence we loan them to the kids. It’s fun watching the light go on as they figure out how to use them. For visual continuity, these periscopes are painted in the layout fascia colours and have the group logo for a little additional promotion and good will.

Till next time, cheers - and happy holidays!

- Jim

Pssst! Wanna buy some history?

(Workshop member Jim Martin visited a local train show... and files this report):

I saw and held some remarkable S scale history this past weekend.

A few weeks back I wrote about my S scale mentor, Arthur Lomax, who passed away almost 13 years ago. Arthur was in S a looong time, and the collection he left behind is a tangible record of 3/16"=1' scale. This past weekend his son Phillip Lomax and I worked a table at the Ancaster, Ontario model railroad flea market, selling off much of Arthur’s stuff.

Friend David Woodhead (the guy who composed and played the great original music for The ModelRailway Show podcast) dropped by the table for a visit, and like me, was fascinated with what he saw. Thankfully he had his camera with him.

Exhibit A: HO wasn’t the only scale to have a model of the iconic B&O Docksider. Rex made a fine quality model in S back in the 50s. This one still looks good, and looks ready to get to work in the tight confines of an urban switching layout...

Exhibit B: The two Alco yard switchers you see at the far end of the table are by Miller, probably late 40s or early 50s. They weigh a ton and have actual traction motors on the axles - four per loco - but no gearing. Each motor armature is the axle! Not a lot of low speed control. At full tilt they would likely become armour-piercing shells...

Exhibit C: Wow - an unassembled 75-year old locomotive kit with original box and instructions! This is by The Cleveland Model and Supply Company, Inc. - and the instruction sheet is dated 1937. Back then Cleveland called 1:64 “CD Gage”. David especially liked the lettering font on the instructions. It looks like classic “draftsman” and appears to be done by hand. As for the kit, check out the wood boiler and tender body. Tender rivets are an embossed paper overlay. The white metal bits all appear to be of high quality. This has to be a rare find. It should remain forever unassembled as a part of our history...

None of these items sold - they are still available to interested hobby historians. And there are even more historic loco kits that didn’t make it to the show. Perhaps we’ll look at them in a future post...

- Jim

Getting More Done on New Specs

After Springfield last winter, we decided to work on new specs to protect against shorts and help with track alignment at the ends of the modules.  We came up with a circuit breaker for each module set and rail butt joints soldered to PC board at the ends of the modules.  This was to protect the DCC system and to make it easier with set up with respect to rail alignment between modules.  Prior to this we had shorts and surges in the DCC system and used bridge rails between the modules which proved time consuming and problematic.

When John and I  were setting up at the CanAm 2013 Meet, I noticed that I still had not added the rail butt joints.    So, I decided to correct this omission  as soon as I got the modules home and back on their legs.  I used wet Bounty® Paper Towels to soak the roadbed and ties at the ends for a couple of hours then scraped off the ballast and the ties.  Shown below is one of the ends of the Wetlands.

Once dry, I added the really cool laser cut PC board tie sets designed for module ends by Larry Morton of  Tomalco Track and sold by same.  We got these at NASG Convention in Scranton.  They fit the bill perfectly.  Now there will be no more bridge rails, only butt joints.  As you can see, the ties already have a cut in the foil to insulate them.  I glued them down with water based contact cement.

  

Tomorrow, I will solder the rails in place and now there will be a solid set of rail ends to join to with the other modules.  All my modules are being upgraded in the same fashion.  Now to celebrate(like I ever really need a reason).

The 2013 CanAm S Scale Social: In the spirit of Arthur

(Workshop member Jim Martin reports on this past weekend's CanAm S Scale Social - an annual get-together that he organizes near his home in Ontario's Niagara Peninsula. Well done, Jim!)

One of my early mentors in S Scale was Arthur Lomax, a unique personality and a fine friend. In addition to being a great model railroading buddy, he and his lovely wife Muriel were the poster parents for growing old gracefully. Living in bucolic surroundings; surrounded by friends, hobbies and interests; and joyful in each other’s company; they became life’s model for my wife Cheryl and me. Both are now gone but we think of them often, and fondly.

Arthur was very active socially in S scale, noted for holding gatherings of western New York and southern Ontario S scalers/gaugers in his home in Flamborough, Ontario. They were fun get togethers, but with Arthur gone they sort of petered out… the Canadians staying on their side of the border and the Americans on theirs. Nothing unpleasant, just life getting in the way during the passage of time.

A few years back, I thought it would be fun to restore the tradition, so I emailed my friend Bud Rindfleisch in Hamburg, New York. He would spread the word for me on his side of the ditch and I’d contact the Canucks. I rented a community hall just down the Lake Erie shoreline in Lowbanks - arranged for a buddy to cater soup and sandwiches - and basically left it up to everyone to show up and make their own fun. Easy formula.

The result was a success from the get go. Two dozen people showed up, old acquaintances were renewed, and the conversation flowed effortlessly. In subsequent years the event has had minor tweaks with sell and swap tables, model displays, S Scale Workshop modules, mini-clinics, and visits to local layouts.

I call it the CanAm S Scale Social.

This year’s event is just over, and from the laughter and fellowship I’d hazard a guess that it was a successful gathering. The photo shows us all tucking into lunch. Layout visits after leaving the hall were to Jim and Barbara Tucker’s amazing HO layout under construction in nearby Winger, and my own home layout here in Wainfleet.

Although Arthur and Muriel are no longer with us, I have remained good friends with their son Phillip. He attended this year’s event with some of his father’s S Scale for sale. Phillip has decided he won’t have time for model railroading because he’s engaged in the herculean task of scanning and cataloging his father’s thousands of railroad negatives, a hobby in itself which is sure to yield many treasures.

It was fun watching Phillip making easy conversation with some of the folks who used to attend his dad’s gatherings. It all felt very circular and warm. Here’s to you, Arthur!

- Jim

"New" Workshop articles on the way

(Member Jim Martin has good news for the Workshop...)

Thanks to the Board of Trustees at the National Association of S Gaugers (NASG) and Don Heimburger, publisher of the S Gaugian magazine, we have been given permission to reprint some earlier articles about our work and our group members.

We hope to add them to our RMC and CRM reprints in the near future. (To better manage these files going forward, we've created a new page on the blog called The Workshop in Print.)

Stay tuned and thanks once again to Don and to NASG president Bill Winans for their generousity.

Jim's Doin’ Grass - Legally

(Member Jim Martin updates us on his scenery work on his home layout...)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m redoing the ground cover on Port Dover, a decision spurred by Trevor’s excellent results on his Port Rowan layout. Trevor used static grass to excellent effect, but after a few experiments I’m still not confident in my ability to control the process, so I reverted to the same materials used on the back hillsides when I started building Port Dover seven years ago: wig hair.

Back then I used a chestnut colour synthetic braid marketed under the name African Gold. African Gold apparently has no website and Wal-Mart no longer carries this item. Having used up the last of it, I am now actively looking for another source.


I learned the wig hair technique from Workshop member Simon Parent, who in turn was taught by scenery guru, the late Bill Kerr. As you follow along in the pictures you’ll see that planting the “grass” by hand renders a nice random, wild-looking effect.


I didn’t like the original green aerosol colour but it was the best I could find at the time so I put up with it over the years. For this job I have used Liquidtex water-based aerosol paints. They are found in a wide variety of colours in art supply stores. I chose Chromium Yellow and Moss Green – blended together, they render a much more natural grass colour. These paints aren’t cheap, about 15 bucks a can, but I think they’re worth it. It helps if you can wait for one of Michaels store discount coupons. The cans are large and should last a long time. (Fingers crossed!)


This time around I am dressing up the grass texture with ground foam, flower patches and small bushes. Trees will be added as a final step when the module is placed in front of the backdrop and I can determine where best to place them. I am modelling early to mid-September. I’m striving for an overall green colour in my grass and foliage with the first subtle hints of fall colouration. Follow along, and click on any image for a larger version:

Retrofitting grass to existing ground foam scenery is a bit fiddly. It’s best to work in small patches. As shown above, prepare the area you're working on by removing trees, bushes and larger bits of foam and then mask the areas you want to protect from the spray glue.

In the above image, I’m using 3-M Super 77 spray glue, the low mist variety. With my other hand I’m holding a cardboard mask. Apply generously and work in a well-ventilated area.

The above image shows what the wig looks like when it’s cut into short lengths.

As shown above, roll manageable tufts of hair between your fingers so the strands line up, hold lightly and gently dab into the glue surface, leaving some of the strands behind as you lift up. Repeat, over and over and… Until....

Already not looking too bad. When the hair has been applied over the full area, use a vacuum cleaner hose to help stand the strands of “grass” up and remove any loose strands that didn’t stick. As shown above, the chestnut hair colour isn’t bad looking by itself if you’re going for a really late fall effect. The wig hair appears to have a lower sheen than the static grass products.

Above, the grass has been lightly oversprayed with the Liquidtex aerosol paints. The water-based paints do have a greater tendency to clog so it’s important to invert the can and clean the nozzle after each use.

You can really dress up the appearance of foam foliage clusters by hitting them with a light over spray of the chromium yellow. The above picture really doesn’t do justice to the treated piece on the left, but the spray highlights really help under typical layout lighting.

TaDa! Here’s the finished effect so far. I’ve added a fine landscaping sand into the fibres and around the edges of the treated area to blend the masked edges back into the layout. Other textures and colours of ground foam have been added. The larger bits kind of float on the grass and look really effective as small bushes. I then spray the area with a fine mist of soapy water and follow up with diluted white glue. Pushing the nozzle of the eye dropper or paint pipette into the base of the grass as you apply the glue really helps to anchor everything.

That’s it so far. I’ll hold off on larger bushes and trees until I see how it all looks against the backdrop. Cheers for now!

-Jim