Easy switching at Crushmoore

Hadn't been up to Malvern in sometime, since it was a nice day I took a break from my cabinet shop, grabbed the cameras and slipped up to see if anything new was going on.  The first order of business was to stop at the local Kwiky Mart to get a foamer snack and a soda before running over to the W&OV's shop.

As I walked out the door I was greeted with a big plume of smoke which could only come from an ALCo!  I jumped in the truck and headed towards the smoke.  I was just in time to see the newly acquired S-2 getting ready to switch out some cars at Crushmoore!

Couldn't have timed it better, I had just enough time to get the video camera setup.

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I'm in a holding pattern on the cabinets at the moment, waiting on some plastic laminate to show up so I can cover my countertops.  Which is why I jumped on the closet cabinets.

The other day Doug had asked if he could come over and work on some more chip installs on a few of his locos Friday night since he had some spare time on his hands.  I also thought it might be a good time to get downstairs again and get the layout cleared off and cleaned up some more.  So while Doug worked on his chips I dove into cleaning up the tracks in Malvern.  They were just as I had left them last May after adding the static grass, damn I can't believe it's been almost a year!!!

Of course I needed to see if I could get them cleaned enough to actually run something, and since I had the new Atlas S-2 chipped and sitting in the facility, why not?

Much to my surprise the S-2 sprang to life and after a few swipes on the main tracks in town it was running like a dream.  Then I went after the tracks where I had planted the tall weeds....ugh!

I had to scrape the railheads with a sharp blade, then I used a brightboy and finished the job off with a good eraser.  But I still needed to go in after the insides of the rail to get some of the static grass of them.

Several minutes later things were pretty smooth.  I still need to touch up a few spots, but it was clean enough that the cars were rolling smoothly so I tried the    S-2.  Ran in, ran out!  Awesome!!!

I also grabbed a few of the Bluford Woodchip hoppers that I had recently picked up to see how they looked and ran..... they are nice cars!  Might have to get a few more of them?

The only issue I had was with the tractive effort of the S-2.  It seemed to slip a lot as evident in the video while pulling out the string of 5 loaded chip cars with factory weights.  I'm kind of thinking that it needs a bit more break-in time to get the blacking off the wheels and I also need to check the wheel gauge.

All in all it was good to scratch the itch!!!

Looking forward to getting an op session going again here before the end of April I hope?

I might even have the kitchen close by then...

Is that better Rod?

A New Kitchen part 12

I decided to take on a side project that would help with the issue of storing some of the stuff in the existing cabinets when we start to remove them.  I have a closet at the top of the stairs that has only been used for nothing other than junk storage.  It was made with nothing more than a typical closet normally has, a shelf and closet rod. I always had the idea of making it some sort of a pantry storage.

One day while snooping on Google images for ideas about spice racks I stumbled upon several pictures where they poster had used "Slatwall" paneling in their mudroom or laundry rooms to store their cleaning supplies!

While this one is made of pegboard, I thought slatwall would give a cleaner appearance?

I'm not a huge fan of Euro style cabinets, but for this situation I thought they would work great.

What I designed was nothing more than two open shelving units with adjustable shelves.  These would sit on each side of the door opening.  The left side was 6" deep and the right side was 17" deep, both were 17 3/4" wide.

3/4" white melamine would work perfect for this project, one to brighten the closet and two easy to clean.

After getting the cabinets drawn up, I had my friend draw them on his CAD program and then upload them to his CNC router.  A real time saver!

This video shows the router working on the first sheet of parts.

Once the parts were routed out, I ran them through an Edgebander that applied a 1mm White PVC edging to the face of the parts. Then I laid them out and started to assemble them.

The deep cabinet with one side, top middle shelf and bottom screwed together.

Assembled and sliding the 1/4" back into place.

Ready to install.

Same closet, new interiors!

This whole project took less than 3 hours to complete.

An hour to route and edgeband the parts, 30 minutes to assemble the two cabinets and an hour to prep the closet and install the cabinets and slatwall.

Now we have someplace to store stuff from the kitchen when we start ripping it out.  When we're done we'll use it as a pantry / cleaning supply storage.

Now, as for trains!  I'll have a post next about getting the layout cleaned and ready for a possible Op Session, because this is a blog about my layout in case you think I've forgotten, lol.....

Jump to A New kitchen pt13

SNOWMAGEDDON !!! February 2, 2016

Or at least that's how they were forecasting it for the last week and half....

They were predicting 12-15" in town, but I think we wound up around 5"- 6", which I am not complaining about.

With the doors and drawer fronts done, I had some time to kill before getting the countertops made up.  One thing I've been neglecting has been the basement.  Last fall and early winter I was busy selling stuff on eBay and I kind of let things get out of hand like my box supply.  So I took full advantage of the snowday today and got after it.

After an hour or so of cleaning I got it to look more like this.

Not perfect, but at least I can walk around it now without needing to be an Olympic Gymnast.  I also wanted to test a few locos that I had scored on eBay so I turned the system and got them tested.  Then I thought:

"Why not see if I can get something running"?  I had a trio of units sitting on the mainline from where I left them set back in May.  

"Hmmm?  I wonder if they will even budge or not"?  Dialed them up and they began to move, not very fast, but they were moving!   After a couple of laps to warm them up and dragging the cleaning cars around, they were running quite nicely.

As evidence, I still have a lot to clear off the layout yet, but one thing at a time...