WOW! Hits running wild! * * * 3044 * * *

Sometimes things just happen.  Maybe it is the response to train gifts that have spiked the hits, but I won't argue.  Thanks to all of you who have dropped in from time to time to see what I have been up to.

That Ebay mistake buy (thought it was HO scale), turned out to be On30 and really turned me on to the larger scale narrow gauge.

And now we have two new followers, makes a total of 12.

I owe you more news and happening so I am digging back into earlier writings to bring to light.

 Armchair

Copper Hills Show - A Saturday Happening

One of the goals of our model railroad club, Rail Roadrunners of Yuma, is to take the hobby to the public in schools, homes and fairs.

This afternoon, Marv, Ron and I took two layouts to Copper Hills Assisted Living Facility.  This is about our fourth visit and we shared 4 scales, N, HO, O and G.

Ron

 

 

Here Ron sits comfortably, overseeing his domain, an N scale layout on a 2'x4' Homosote board obtained from Marv, in a wood frame made by me, running on track relaid by Marv.  Encouraged by my Clinic, Building a Diorama, available elsewhere on this blog, Ron and his wife are adding scenery and structures to the small, portable, layout.

 

 Glen

This was Camp Swampy, after the first major changes, removing the flex track and turnouts that seemed to cause derailments.  I had bought a batch of Bachmann EZ Trac and made a simple 22" radius circle.  The white shows where the old track was.  The dark green spot in the center was where the old flagpole stood.

After a week of work I ended with this, a double track, two level circle layout.  The upper level is  1" extruded foam cut to fit inside the 22" radius circle and able to still hold a circle of 18" radius.  Most of the buildings are card models downloaded from the internet, printed on 110# card stock and assembled with glue.  The log cabin and several buildings were scratch built by me.

Another Glen, a Snowbird from Canada, brought this G scale battery powered model to one of our meetings to see if we could help him get it running.  With his permission I took it home and worked at rounding the plastic bearings on the driver axles to allow it to start and run in forward and reverse.  The tender has four orange buttons you press to make different calls, bells, whistles chuffs and running sounds, quit an attention getter.  On a sorry note, I opened the rear door of the SUV in the rain and the box with this and other items fell out.  I have not had the nerve to look yet.

This colorful little train is On30, O scale train running on HO track.  The coach painting is based on Thomas Kincade paintings.  I let this run on the upper level for the entire 2 hour show.

Marv

Marv had a relaxing day, working mostly to help Ron and me move everything in and out.  He also pushed the orange buttons on the G scale engine to create sounds and motions to attract attention.

 

Come join us Saturday mornings from about 9 am till noon for our regular weekly meeting at the Community Christian Church, 6480 East Highway 95, Yuma, AZ.  Pull around back, we are in the South building.

This is an earlier shot of the 5'x10' HO layout we are presently working on during the weekly meetings.  It will be a 2 level layout with 23" minimum curves and 2% maximum grades.  We have the lower level sub-roadbed finished and supported well.  The upper level starts on 12-17-2011.  Be there!

Armchair

Some NEW model railroad and Club news.

I have been finishing the water tank I started a couple of years ago.  I started with a small, 4" diameter peanut can, wrapped it with scribed card material and secured that with 11 bands of .020" wire with 2 twisted "turnbuckles" each.  The support legs are hefty to support the estimated 500,000 pound load of the 60,000 gallons and tank.

The 8 sided roof is covered with hand cut shingle strips.

I still have to attach the spout, ladder and top finial.

Our Model Railroad Club

Added to the pages on the right side.

Armchair

For the Robotic, Geek, Techies

For those of you who may find my postings a little shallow I want to introduce you to my oldest son's site, http://henrytherobot.com  .   Tim is designing and building a robot of a puppy that thinks and acts like a puppy.  It is beyond me, but I hope some of you will find it interesting.

Armchair

Dark and Not So Hot in Yuma

As many of you (in the USA) may have heard, we had a MAJOR power blackout Sept. 8, 2011, in the Southwest USA covering San Diego and Orange county California, Northern Baja Mexico and Yuma county Arizona.  With temperatures in the low 100's F we lost our NEEDED (for modern society) air-conditioning.  Much of the business community shut down with no electricity for lights and operations.  People, like me, were driving miles around looking for ice, gasoline, and a place to eat or stay for the night.

With the gas pumps out of power it reminded me of my years in Sierra Leone, West Africa, 1978-1979.  Over there the power was questionable but you were always able to get gas.  The stations would attach a crank to the pump and have a young boy crank.  People get ingenious when they have to and when the governments don't get in their way.

Summer must be about over as we are looking forward to 4 or 5 days of below 100F temps.  The winter visitors will start coming back in October and the rest of you can "eat your hearts out" come January when we have days in the 70'sF.

Armchair 

Aerospace Modeling

As a child growing up in the 1940's and 1950's we had no real understanding of space flight.  Sure, we had Buck Rogers and Space Cadets, but Sky King was real life to us, sitting in front of the radio each afternoon.  Dick Tracy had his wrist radio and we had "Atom Bomb" rings with a secret message compartment.  Many of us played cowboys and Indians, had scooters, roller skates, balsa wood gliders and made friends by throwing rocks at each other (an early form of male bonding).  Our early life knowledge of solid fuel rockets was learned on the 4th of July.  My first model airplane was a hard rubber, silhouette model used the the Navy for training.  The late 1940's found the war over, cars had radios and gas was plentiful; 1950 had us at war in Korea.

In the fifth grade I bought my first airplane kit, the Bell X-1 rocket plane piloted by Chuck Yeager.  It was a solid wood model about 6 inches long.  That was followed shortly by a control line model and a .049 cubic inch gas engine.  The plane and engine never mated, but the engine did test runs nailed down to a bench on the back porch.  Many plastic models followed from time to time.

Science was a hot subject; crystal set radios, chemistry sets, electric toys, mostly paid for with paper routes or collecting scrap metal and pop bottles.

Just a start here, what did YOU do before the age of electronics?

Armchair

Lionel O Scale Engine Repair

Had a new guy stop by the Club a couple of Saturdays ago with his childhood railroad train, a 3 rail O scale Lionel from about 1949.  It had bounced around the family for years and finally returned to Harvey.  He had a couple of boxes of cars, track, transformer with reverse and horn buttons.   We tried getting it to run but mostly it would just hum.  Having never worked on O scale before I was interested in getting into the workings, so with Harvey's permission took it home for a better look-see.

Click on Pics to enlarge

This is the Lionel O scale "Scout" locomotive with the rear truck removed.   The 3 rail track is O gauge, 1.25" center to center of the outside rails.  The two long screws that hold the motor/drive assembly are at the end of the track.

Dis-assembly is rather straight forward, one screw on the bottom removes the trailing (rear),  truck, and two small screws on the bottom remove the lead truck, headlight assembly and piston guides.  The motor/drive assembly is held in place by two long screws located on the side of the engine.

The "Motor/Drive Assembly" is shown removed for service.  The motor itself sits crosswise in the engine and drives a gear train to the drivers.  The connecting rod between the drivers is for looks only, the drivers are geared together.  The copper windings in the center are the electromagnet that forms the motor "Field", the vertical coil on the left is the "E" "Reversing Solenoid" with the three position "Reversing Lever" at the rear.  Lionel locomotives used 10 to 18 volt AC current, no + or - polarity to the rails as in HO scale DC operation.  In "Normal" operation each throttle "Off/On" operation would reverse the direction of the locomotive.  A "Second" position would allow constant one way direction in forward or reverse.  The "Third" or "Off" position, would disconnect the locomotive from the power, allowing it to remain on the track while other locomotives operated.
                 

This left side view shows the motor "Brushes" between the drivers and the motor shaft between the brushes.  The unpainted plate above the rear driver has a slot that guides the "E" Reversing Solenoid. 

Armchair      Sept. 6, 2011
               Check out additions to Our Model Railroad Club page on the left.

Hot in Yuma, Arizona, USA

You move slowly, but hop quickly when it is this hot; 110F to 116F all week.  Air-conditioning is what makes the modern Yuma work.  How did they do it a hundred years ago?  Agriculture is why people live here and the Imperial Valley 50 miles West in California.  Cotton is just beginning to be picked, wheat was done about 2 months ago.  Carrots, lettuce, melons, onions, alfalfa, grasses, corn, dates, oranges, lemons, almost every fruit and vegetable is grown in the region.  Very few frosts, little bad weather, 2"-3" rain per year, everything irrigated with Colorado River water.

Other big industries are the military air services because of the almost unlimited days of flying weather.  Desert training and testing are another item that relies on our unique hot climate and desert terrain.

Another interesting detail about the area is the altitude; Yuma about 100 feet above sea level, Imperial Valley about 40 to 150 feet below and the Sultan Sink about 265 feet below.  The Sink was flooded in about 1903-4 when a diversion dam on the Colorado River broke and the river flowed into the area for about 2 years.

Armchair

Toys For Kids - Gabby, the Younger

Gabby is the third, and youngest, grandchild in Nevada.  She likes to sit on your lap, get down and run around.

Gabby is just a wonderful little girl.

 While I found a reason to build the doll bed and garage for Olivia and EJ, I didn't have a lead of what Gabby would like.  She didn't talk much so I decided to just make something for her to play with, some houses she could call her own.

There is nothing special about them except the way I did the doors and windows.  The front, back, roof and ends are just flat Foam-Core board cut to any simple shape.  I did chamfer the roof panels a little so they would mate without a vee groove at the ridge.  I made mine so the ends fit between the front and back panels, giving a smoother surface to the front.

The doors and windows were cut from appropriate sized scrap foam-core and glued in position with yellow (or white) glue.  The window panes were made by using the tip of a #11 blade to pierce the top paper surface on four sides and peeling it away.  The thickness of the foam-core seems to add depth to the scene and is easy to do.

Because I fit the ends between the front and back I had to reduce the height of the front and back to allow the roof to fit over them.  If you fit the ends outside the front and back you can leave them the same height as the end pieces.  These are simple enough that I will dispense with construction details as you can refer to the other sites for that info.

Armchair,  The Happy Modeler

EJ's Garage - A Foam-Core Exclusive

Our Christmas 2010 trip to Nevada gave us a chance to get better acquainted with our three grandchildren, Olivia (the Doll Bed), EJ and Gabby.  Being a normal little boy EJ tends to run around and shout a lot, unlike little girls who only run around and shout, a lot.

EJ NOT running around and shouting.

EJ needed somewhere to park his Hot Wheels cars instead of all over the floor.  Two and three year old's don't really understand "picking up" and "putting away" so I had to find a way to make it fun.

Before you begin cutting Foam-Core Board, gather some of the cars that will be housed in your kid's garage.  Some may be a little wider, longer or taller than others so size your stalls accordingly.

My garage used 4 roof supports and 3 stall dividers.

I had a spare piece of Foam-Core Board 9"wide x 12" long for the Base so I made 6  Stalls, 1-1/2" wide.  I decided to make the Stalls 4" long by 1-1/2" high at the front and 1-1/4" at the rear and cut 7 identical Stall Divider/Roof Supports to those dimensions.  Take a moment to mark the square corner at the rear and bottom edges.

I drew guide lines from the back edge of the Base to locate 5 of the 7 Stall Divider/Roof Supports, spaced 1-1/2" apart, the first and seventh will set flush to the 9" sides of the Base  The Back Wall will be 9" wide to fit the Base and 1-1/8" high.  The last part to cut is the Roof.  I cut mine 9" long and 4-1/2" wide

Start assembly by applying glue to one long edge of the Back and locate flush to the back edge of the Base, holding it vertical for a few seconds for the glue to set.  Now apply glue to the bottom and rear edges of one Stall Divider/Roof Support and locate against the Back and flush to the side of the Base.  Repeat with a second Divider/Support locating flush with the other side of the Base.  Now glue the remaining Divider/Supports, placing them on the locating lines drawn earlier.  The last part to assemble is the Roof.  Apply glue to the top edges of all the Divider/Supports and locate the roof to fit the sides and back edge.

I cut a carry handle opening 1" from the "front" edge, 4" long and centered on the 9" dimension.  This allows EJ to carry the loaded garage around the house without dropping any cars along the way. I also cut the sharp front corners at a 45 degree angle. All that is left to do is paint your garage.

I received word a month ago that EJ's Garage has stood up to him standing on it so I believe yours should be just as strong.

Happy Modeling, Armchair

Folk Arts and Crafts

Folk Arts and Crafts Modeling:

In the great unwashed middle of the USA, often referred to as 'fly over country' by those on the East and Left coasts, live a lot of humble people who went without electric power, paved roads, indoor plumbing and other 'big city' things until after WWII and the late 1940's.  I lived there.  Nebraska, in particular, is often thought of as the home of hicks and hayseeds.  Into the 1950's there were only 10 cities with a population of over 10,000 in the state.  Even today, the third largest city is Memorial Stadium in Lincoln when the Huskers play a home football game, population, 87,000.  I only remember one hobby shop while growing up.  But, people did make things, little trinkets, whirly-jigs, bird houses, doll dresses and doll houses.  With no TV, and little to guide us we built what we saw or experienced.

Carnival Rides:

During my 8th and 9th grades I met a local shoe repair man, a simple, unread, old man.  Each year, in this town of about 750 souls, a carnival would set up on the main street for a few days and from his observance he began to build miniature rides.  He had a marry-go-round, Farris wheel, octopus, maybe more.  He built these from what he had around the shop and what he could find at the local hardware store; wire, wood, nails, cardboard, tin, etc.  While not to any particular scale they all fit together and anyone who saw it knew instantly that it was a carnival.  If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, it is a duck.

He inspired me to do my first scratch building, a marry-go-round, hanging swing, ride with 4 airplanes.  Our store basement had a dirt floor, work bench and a light bulb, all you needed for Folk Arts and Crafts building.  Tools were my fathers hammer and saw, supplies were some wood scraps, coat hangers, nails, wire, aluminum paint and toilet paper rolls.  No plans, no instructions, just imagination.  At Christmas it claimed the center of one of the front windows of the store and people stopped to look and enjoy.

Railroad Trains:
Like most boys of that time I did have an electric train, an American Flyer S scale 2 rail system, not a layout, just track and train.  During those years grown men wouldn't play with trains, but some did build them.  At Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska, there is a large scale train running around the walls, just below the ceiling.  The cars are about a foot high, maybe 3 feet long and built with the material someone found around his home or farm.  From the number of cars it must have been done over many years of cold winter nights.  While crude by today's standards, people are amazed by the detail and handiwork required to accomplish such a feat.

Automobiles: 
During high school, 1954-1957, a friend's brother built a riding, one person, model T.  It had 4 bicycle wheels, a lawnmower engine, metal body, sliding convertible top and ran.  While some made fun of him (one of the geek types), he was proud of accomplishing something no one else in town had done.  And done with the little money he earned.

Flour Sack Dresses:
During the 1930's the flour companies shipped their flour in cloth sacks printed like the cotton fabric you would buy at the store.  Thrifty housewives used these sacks to make dresses for their little girls and other needed items around the home.


Doll Houses:
My late Father-in-law, Bob Herrick, was a produce manager by trade, but enjoyed working in the garage.  After retirement they moved to Oregon where scrap wood was plentiful.   He found a travel trailer company scrap pile, collected and filed the clear wood by size and length, filling a whole wall of his garage with boxes.  From this supply he built doll houses for the grand-daughters, daughters  (see Intro to Building a Diorama) and even some for sale.  His greatest one was a three part, eleven room, Victorian, done on commission.

Conclusion:
The collective thing for all these is that they used material found, not bought.  A make-do attitude of self reliance born out of hard times.  A lot of the joy of building these Folk Crafts was more in the doing than in the finished product.  They weren't built to be sold, but to be built, maybe given away, maybe just kept.

Building a Diorama - Part #10 - Surgery

SURGERY:
I hope you are over your fear of change.  As I said in my fit of rage (Part #2) I took the scissors and hacked the middle section of the 'finished' diorama from top to bottom, leaving the track section and a small section at the top to hold the two halves together.  Here are the before and after pictures.

A nice, simple, finished diorama.

A chopped up diorama.

I am going to follow this up with a series of pictures showing step by step how I CHANGED / EVOLVED this simple diorama into a more dynamic and photogenic railroad setting.

My first action was to strengthen the top connecting section by wrapping with plaster cloth.  I then covered the rough edges with plaster cloth to connect them to the profile boards.  To allow shaping the ravine i added 1" extruded foam to the sides and bottom using acrylic caulk adhesive.  Note the pill bottle wedges and the carved out front edge for the little, almost dry, creek bed.  A sharp eye will notice I was still experimenting with  ground coloring.

 

This picture shows more detail of the use of plaster cloth, extruded foam and pill bottles.  Not seen is the ledge I cut into the blue foam under the track roadbed to provide a base for the 1" high end bents for the pile trestle bridge I will be adding later.  Also note the high level of expertise used in cutting the foam and expensive tooling involved.  As they say on TV, "Don't try this at home, I am a professional."  The exam to attain this 'professional' level is to JUST DO IT!

Here is another view of the high level of expertise required to achieve this finely crafted diorama.  I simply used what was available at the time, newspaper, pill bottle and scrap blue foam, stuffed into place to hold the conture required.  As stated before, a clean and neat work area is a necessity to achieve professional results.

Now you see the ravine shaped by adding a back wall of blue foam and plaster cloth, supported in the rear with newspaper and scrap foam pieces.  The sides and bottom were shaped with a rasp and painted with several thin coats of lightweight spackling thinned with water.  The plaster cloth areas were painted in a similar manner to blend into the existing scenery.

 

This low angel view gives a better perspective of the finished ravine and the area to be bridged.  The two ledges are also visible on either side below the roadbed.  The white color will accept color in the next series.

This shot is to show you the type of jig I used to build the bents for the trestle.  It consists of a piece of foam core board with a center line drawing of the pile and cross brace locations taped in place.  I covered the whole thing with a cutoff sandwich bag and used straight pins for locators.  I will have a better diagram in the later part about Driven Pile Bents for Trestles.

The evolving ground coloring proved too close to the rock outcrops and will be changed.  The pile bents are laid out to show their detail, most of which will be hidden once they are installed.  The wet trickle of water maintains a little growth of questionable quality and was created by dribbling several layers of grey, blue, green and yellow down the back wall and let run to the front.  Several coats of gloss poly helped give it the wet look.

The bents are now installed and support the roadbed.  All that remains is to install a few braces and touch up the ground coloring to be more in contrast to the rock carvings.

 

Finally we see the mostly completed diorama, backed by the mountain and sky boards, used as a setting for a little engine and caboose.  Still need to add some scrubby plant life and better contrast between the rocks and ground.  Yes, it is still evolving.

Building a Diorama - Part #9 - CHANGE

CHANGE:  "The more things change, the more they stay the same."  anonymous

Building a model railroad is almost like being a god.  We get to create it anyway we wish; big or small, old time or modern, steam or diesel, city or rural.  But, unlike God, it is not perfect, we see defects and ways to make it better.  We see the need to CHANGE!  BUT, look at all the Effort I put into this!  All the Money!  All the Time!  To CHANGE a CREATION is sacrilege!  So, maybe we aren't ready to be gods!  Maybe WE should consider EVOLUTION!  We start out small and simple, add a little here and there, get more room, find more money, learn new skills.  All this prepares us for the dreaded CHANGE!  But wait, from the beginning this layout has been evolving, and evolution is change.  See, now change is not so big and threatening, it's just a little thing.  Now change is something we can cope with and someday even embrace.

Here is a little about the changes I made, or better, how my diorama evolved over time.

Just starting out with Foam-Core Board and string.

The shape take form with Plaster Cloth.

Some paint makes it start to come alive.

Rocks take shape with Lightweight Spackling.
 

Building a Diorama - Part #8 - An Interlude

An Interlude:
For those of you who have been following this Blog it may be time to press the pause button and look back a bit to Part #2 - Finding Your Setting.  For newbes, that little tirade about change will expose you to an insight into how I approach things, consistently procrastinate until you explode with 'whatever.'  Another insight might come with my blog of June 16, 2011, Who Am I?

I guess a better title would have been "The Lull Before The Storm."  I might be described as an enigma, not exactly what I seem to be.  The cool, confidant, intelligent individual is not exactly who I am.  I grew up with change, 12 addresses by high school graduation.  I have lived my adult life with change, 50 more addresses and 35 jobs of several descriptions.  I have never been settled long enough to have a permanent layout, never learned to get "really" organized, never really learned to make close friends.  At best you could say I live in the present and the past, my future is unknown, sort of a "Doctor Who" type of person.

So back to modeling.  I like to experiment by doing things a different way, yet one of my favorite sayings is "Don't reinvent the wheel!"  That is why this Blog was started, using foam-core board, because the model railroad community consensus was that the material was unsuitable for model railroad construction.  What a challenge!  If you have sauntered off to other model railroad sites you may notice that I am not a "really, really" good modeler.  I believe in caricature, point out the obvious - if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.  Therefore, if it has engines and cars like a railroad, and moves around scenes like a railroad, it is a railroad!  The funny thing is, most people agree with me, maybe not most 'real' model railroaders, most people.  What I am trying to achieve is a step up from a bare plywood board and helping a modeler who may feel all alone in the wilderness.  I want the modeler to gain the confidence to build a little layout, add some track and scenery, run some trains and impress your friends (and yourself) who thought you could never do all that.  So with this in mind let us go into the holy of holy's, the layout, and rent the scenery in two and change the scene.  On to Part #9 - CHANGE!

When Kids Had Jobs

Sacked Potatoes at four years old: 
When I was quite young my parents had a general store in rural Nebraska.  Needing a few cents for a soda I ask if there was any work I could do.  They showed me how to weigh out 10 pounds of potatoes in a paper sack and would pay me 1 cent per sack.  They were surprised when they found I had filled over ten sacks.


Tended Our Motel:

When I was between eight and ten years old we had a motel in Southern Oregon where I helped my parents by showing the rooms, checking in guests, carrying their bags, cleaning the rooms and making the beds with 'hospital' corners.

Picked Blackberries and Hops:

During the summers a friend and I picked and sold blackberries door to door.  Another time we went with his mother to pick hops in the field along with transient adults.  I was allergic to the vines but we stayed with it and made between one and two dollars a day.  It was there that I first experienced seeing two men in a fist fight.

Set Pins, Collected Scrap and More:

During my fifth and sixth grades I set pins in a bowling alley for 5 cents a line.  The evening leagues had five  players bowling three games so I could make 75 cents.  Soon I learned to set two alleys at a time and doubled my earnings.  If I set both early and late leagues I could earn $3.00 plus tips.  All this was not without risks as sometimes pins would fly out of the pit and through a window.  Once I was tired, let my feet drop a little and had a pin hit me in the head.  The manager took me to the hospital and I checked out OK.  Some friends would help unload cream cans from the truck at the creamery and earned some cash.  The Korean war was on so we would collect scrap metal to sell to the junk yard.  I also had a small route selling Grit magazine on Friday afternoon, making a penny a copy.

Full Time Summer Farm Work and Other Jobs:

My seventh, eighth and ninth grades found me with paper routes, working at the swimming pool, mowing lawns, scooping snow and even working a couple of weeks on local farms as well as my parents store.  The rest of my high school years were more of the same with the summers working full time on a farm.  We worked 12 hours a day with lunch provided, six days a week for $25.00 a week.  During my last summer our high school building burned and I got to play fireman and take a hose inside.  Before we were called out I could see the hallway wall bowed in about 6 inches.  These jobs got me a 1949 Cushman motor scooter ($65.00) and the next year a 1937 Buick Special ($55.00).  I graduated high school in 1957 and went straight to Basic Training at Lackland Air Force Base, ending my youthful jobs.

Conclusion:

I am sure that many of you have similar memories, done without worrying about government regulations and onerous child safety laws.  Doing these jobs taught us about work ethics, respect for our elders, the value of money and prepared us for our adult life.  Today adults deliver the papers, automatic pinsetters set pins and most kids are forbidden to work similar jobs.  I believe WE were the lucky ones, gaining knowledge you can't learn in a classroom.

My "Little Boy's Toys"

Long before X-Boxes, Smart Phones, skateboards and Wii, there were scooters, roller skates, chemistry sets, crystal sets and books filled with do-it-yourself toys.  This was a time before lawyers took the fun and pain out of playing.  As an 'old timer', born in 1939, I invite some of you to go back with me and remember this simpler, and I believe 'funner', time.

Our scooters had two wheels about 8 inches in diameter, no lights, a friction brake and back-up parking stand.  They would take us to school or store and only wore out the sole of your pushing foot.

Roller skates had steel wheels, toe clamps, a leather strap to keep your heel in place and a skate key that hung around your neck on a loop of string.  That key would do all the adjusting needed to keep you skating.  When your shoe did slip out of the toe clamps the skate would ride up your heel and take some skin, leaving you hopping along with one skate on and the other flopping around your ankle.  We often combined an old skate with some boards and a wooden crate to produce a scooter more similar to what we see today.

Wooden swords were made by nailing a short piece of lathe (remember real lathe and plaster walls) across a longer one sharpened with an ax or old butcher knife.  These battles usually ended with little more than a knot on the head and some slivers.  If they did draw blood Mom was usually there with a "Band-Aid" and kiss.  If it was more serious she would get out the iodine that caused more pain than the injury itself.  (blow, blow, blow)

Cooping saws, wood burning sets, hammers and nails were other fun tools for unsupervised craft  projects that we would later proudly present to our adoring parents.

BB Guns and slingshots were about the only things that were forbidden or sternly warned about (You will shoot your eye out!).  Old inner tubes kept us with an endless supply of elastic material.

Before transistor radios there were crystal sets you could order for maybe 50 cents.  They consisted of a little bar with a "cat whisker" on the end that we moved about on a small "crystal" mounted in a piece of lead, all attached to a copper wire antenna and ear phones. When we were lucky we could listen to a nearby radio station.  This must have seemed like a miracle as it used no outside power.  These could be upgraded with a tuning coil of copper wire wrapped around a toilet paper roll with a slider made out of a tin can.

Tin cans were the metal of the day for us as they were plentiful and every basement or garage had tin snips.  Combine the end of a tin can with a wooden thread spool, a nail, a brad and a sawed off end of a broom handle and we could have helicopter blades that would sail 50 feet into the air.  Of course this could not be completed without cutting your fingers on the sharp tin, but we all had a lot of that.

Chemistry sets were the pride of geeks to come.  They contained many elements that are banned in mail shipments today.  We could turn water red, heat test tubes until something burnt and create nasty smells along the way.

As I said, most of this was done with little, or no, supervision.  I guess they felt we had enough 'common' sense to not get too badly hurt, and if we did we would learn a good lesson.  And I was a town kid that envied the farm kid who could do so many more fun (dangerous) things.

Stay tuned for "Kids Used to Have JOBS."

Toys for Kids - Painting the Doll Bed

Painting the Doll Bed:

This will be just a short catchup blog to encourage those who built the Doll Bed to finish up with paint and decoration.  I chose a nice pink for mine and added some flowers to the foot board, followed by lace trim to hide the "Box Spring."  The next step will be to make the Cover, followed by the Pillow.  Stay tuned for more!

Ebay - Received Something Different Than I Bought

Ebay Buys:

I am sure many of us trade on Ebay from time to time.  I like the "ending soonest" settings and sometimes bid too quickly, not fully reading the description.  Short of total rip-offs, most of us enjoy the bidding and winning, eagerly await our purchase to arrive.  But what if what you receive is not what was listed?

I recently had that happen to me.  I enjoy colorful locomotives and trains so I bid on, and won, a Spirit of America old time HO 2-6-0 loco, tender and passenger car.  What arrived a few days later was colorful, but not HO scale.  My $35.00 purchase turned out to be O scale narrow gauge, On30 to be exact, O scale trains that run on HO track.  These sets are produced by Bachmann for various "Mints" decorated with noted scenes, this one by Kincade, and sold for quite high prices.  Checking on some sites I found the locomotive and tender would sell for $65.00 and the car for $35.00, a value of $90.00.  But wait!  There is more.  Being used to HO scale I was amaised at the weight and details of O scale.  It runs fine, just needs a little coupler adjustment on tender and car.

Sorry about using a little "journalistic freedom" in the title.  I have had only good luck on the sometimes hated site.  Here is my buy on a temporary track.

Toys For Kids - A Matress for the Doll Bed

Doll Bed Mattress, Pillow and Cover:

Every Girl should have a doll, every Doll should have a bed, every Bed should have a mattress, every Mattress should have a cover and every Cover should have a Pillow.  As promised, here goes.  This was done Christmas, 2010, so I don't have photos, but I will try to describe as best I can.  For you guys out there, this was a first for me, using fabric glue that dries flexible, instead of sewing, so here goes.

Materials Required:

• Foam-Core Board the size of the bed's box-spring
• Soft Foam or padding the same size
• Soft Cloth in very small print for girls - I got 2 contrasting patterns, 1/2 yard each
• Fine Lace - 2 yards
• Fabric glue
• Yellow carpenters wood glue

Mattress:

For the base I cut a piece of foam-core board 1/8" shorter and 1/8" narrower than the 9"x20" box "spring."  I topped this with a piece of 1/2" soft foam, cut 9"x20" to make a tight fit between the head and foot boards.  Check that the foam-core centers on the soft foam with just a bit showing all round, place a small dab of YELLOW glue near each corner and the center of the foam-core, smooth out a bit with your finger, turn over, center on the soft foam and place a weight to hold it in position until dry.

I took one of the patterns of material and cut to fit around the mattress with about 1" extra, or approximately 13"x24".  Place the cut material FACE DOWN, center the mattress and check that about 1" will come around to glue to the bottom of the foam-core on both sides and ends.  When sure, place a small bead of YELLOW glue all along ONE side of the foam core, smooth with your finger and carefully press the material into the glue.  When dry pull the material to the other side, smooth the top side of any wrinkles, and glue the OTHER side as you did the first.  You will have to hold this edge for a minute or so until the glue tacks.

To finish the ends think about how you wrap a present box.  Press the material at the side of the mattress onto the end of the mattress.  Notice how the material now has an angled edge at the top and bottom.  The top and bottom will be dealt with after we glue the side flaps.   Place a dab of FABRIC glue on the inside of each side flap, fold in and hold till the glue tacks.  Trim the 2 bottom pieces to match the thickness of the mattress, fold up and glue as you did the sides.  The last step is to pull the material snug over the foam and glue to the bottom foam core with YELLOW glue as you did the full length sides.  Now repeat with the other end.  You should now have smooth, wrinkle free mattress for the bed.  I will edit this post for the cover and pillow.

Thanks to YOU!

Thanks to all the readers around the world, yesterday we made it to 1,000 Hits!  I hope each of you find something of interest in the Blog.  If you have an area I haven't touched yet let me know.    Thanks, Glen   aka  Armchair

Who Am I? An inside look at this blogger.

Who Am I?  A rambling bit of my thoughts about things.

I just completed watching "Musical Minds" on Yuma's Public cable TV channel 8.  The program was about how music had intertwined with the minds of handicapped people and changed their lives in this narrow section of their lives.  Music has almost always been part of my life, from family times around the piano with my father playing his violin, to piano lessons on and off from age 5, to school bands - trumpet, drums, bass horn, French horn, choirs - soprano in 4th grade to base in college, organ concerts and finally ragtime washboard.  The piano has always drawn me and I am hard pressed to not set down at any keyboard and play - always in the key of C and always by "ear", mostly improvised - just a melody in my mind expressed through my fingers.

By now you probably think "Wow, an accomplished musician," until you realized I disappointed many music teachers by never going beyond the basics - "I can play the instrument, now on to something else."  On the keyboard I quit reading notes as soon as I learned the melody.

But, back to handicaps.  Among my accomplishments were; not lettering in sports in spite of going out all four years and playing my freshman year on a football team of only 13 players, screwing up my 8 note French horn solo on "Over the Rainbow" in 7th grade, never making the honor role, almost flunking college English because I couldn't pass a spelling test, etc.  When our boys tested gifted in grade school, we learned about the stress of raising and teaching gifted students.  Sometime later I tested for, and was admitted, to Mensa, the high IQ organization.

Yes, being intelligent can be an handicap.  My spelling is bad - in college I typed with the dictionary next to me, now it is spell-check.  Finding most things easy does not prepare you for the tough things.  I can't read music or transpose keys.  I have had about 35 jobs in 60 years, most less than 2 years.  I finally graduated from uiversity in 1999 at age 60.  I have no friends beyond my last three years of high school in Nebraska.

But, through it all there has been music, not always accomplished music, but music.  My first record club was classical, I sang a solo at my confirmation, remember a sacred harp concert featuring The Holy City, went to a theater organ concert in the fifth grade, first "popular" record was Al Jolson's  "The Jolson Story".  My first rock purchase was a CD, Eric Clapton's "Unplugged".  In the late 1940's I could have aced "Name That Tune", and still knew all the WWI songs my parents did, and they were both born before 1900.

Whether music is in your soul, or heart, or mind, I don't know.  But, I know that it is "there."  In the late 1980's we lived in Sedalia, Missouri, and attended the Scott Joplin Ragtime festival.  During the festival I would come home feeling creative and would sit down at the piano and play.  When I was sad the music would become more somber, when happy more joyful.  I had an opportunity to play a $35,000.00, 9 foot, concert grand and could feel the music coming out of my fingers, it just flowed and it was GRAND!

The TV program also investigated why some people like music and some don't.  They found that the brain not only distinguishes between pop and classical, but even between Bach and Beethoven.  Maybe that is why I have all five albums of Mitch Miller's "Sing Along With Mitch" and have no knowledge of, or desire for, all the 1960's through today's popular music.

 

Well, now you have taken a little peek into who you are reading; a bit odd, a lot sarcastic, quite opinionated, intelligent, but not street smart.  My first car was a 1937 Buick Special, 2 years older than me, my present car is a 1983 Datsun 280ZX.  I live in Yuma, Arizona, where Summer has finally arrived, it will be over a hundred degrees all this week.  Maybe the sun has fried my brain a bit.  And people think you are crazy.