Good Morning All. It's a cool 69° and clear. Last day of our cool spell, high temperature yesterday was only 88°, lower than predicted. Tomorrow should see 99°. Good morning Flo, how about some Eggs Benedict this morning, with the usual orange juice.
Today is an important day in my life. It marks the fourth anniversary of my last day of employment. Retirement is the best move I have ever made. Drinks are on me everywhere.
While we are discussing Irish wakes, my whole family is Irish, my late father was quite upset when he learned that his casket wasn't allowed to be at his wake due to a city of Dallas ordinance. It was traditional in his family going back years. He was quite an anal person and he did however set aside $5000 in his will to pay for the wake. He even specified who to invite and based his liquor listing on those persons. The local deli had a previously made list of the food that he wanted served, and all my brother (the host) had to do was call them and pay the bill. It was quite a raucous affair and my college age daughter later stated that in five years of college that she never attended a party quite as good as that one!
Thanks to all who liked or commented on yesterday's post;
Sherrel, Jerome, Ray, Dave, Phil, Chet, Tom, Garry, Ken.
I managed to get out to the train shed for a while yesterday. Had some unexpected visitors while there. Local neighbors out for a walk with their latest family member.
View attachment 38001
Youngster is the one in the middle still with a lot of down. Too young to fly yet, so they just walk around. Green field in background is the part of my hayfield that was actually planted this year. Closer is the area that has native grasses on it, that was too wet to plow earlier this spring. While it looks close, the house in the background is slightly over a quarter mile away.
I did get some modeling done while I was out there. I posted a blank space last week that I intended to put a low relief background structure into. I am using Walther's discontinued modular walls.
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Pause for a
rant.
Walthers came out with these modular kits probably twenty years ago. I was always looking for an alternative so every structure that I built didn't look similar. They are not as good as similar DPM kits and are a bit wacky in the way that they are made. For example, wall columns. With DPM, the appropriate number of wall columns are included with each wall kit, with Walther's, they were a separate kit. Here's an example of the columns.
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The problem is that they didn't make an appropriate number of column kits to match all of the wall kits, so....
I was
given 36 wall kits by my LHS owner when he retired and closed shop. I had only two column kits that I had already purchased. I tried Ebay and all sorts of other online suppliers and there are no column kits out there anywhere. I have read quite a few comments on various forums regarding this unfortunate situation, but Walther's seems to be standing firm about their decision to discontinue these kits a few years back.
End of rant!
Fast forward, I have painstakingly cut wall columns out of some of their blank walls and off each side of their dock doors, but it is difficult. DPM columns do not work unless the structure might be used in the far background because the brick courses don't line up. So this time I took a different approach. I am using .250" x .020" Evergreen styrene to make concrete columns to secure the walls together.
Here's a picture of the painted assembled walls with the unpainted styrene strips.
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Next is the assembled walls, weathered and in place on the layout. Surrounding scenery will be next. Structure represents a small town newspaper printing company.
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Thoughts?
Ray - You may be correct that the excavator actually was a Trucks 'n' Stuff model.
Let's all keep
Ken in our thoughts today.
I am going to do my best to keep from causing Amazon's website from crashing today. Join me in toasting my retirement anniversary, but not until you get off work today if applicable. Everybody have a great day.