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
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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