QR @ Pinkenba

Rain Rain Go Away! Annoyed by the rain, I decided to head down to my local model rail hobby shop to have a yarn with the owner about DCC controllers. Looking online there seems to be a gap in the market in what was available in Australia at the time, possibly a result of supply chain fallout from COVID.  In my searches, there was one interesting open-source project I stumbled across  DCC-EX Model Railroading — DCC-EX Model Railroading documentation  for those who are bit techie, there is a great presentation here  "DCC-EX Open Source Model Railroading" - Paul Antoine (Everything Open 2023) . I am keen to explore this solution later and even get involved but was not looking for a new project which would direct me away from my other goals and wanted a plug and play solution for the moment while I developed my hobby crafting skills. When I arrived at the hobby shop the owner was out the front clearing some boxes from the shop entrance. Excited he grabbed my attention an...

Another Modelling Lesson It's Late October / November 2024 and the humidity is kicking up here in Brisbane and I learnt Tamiya Cement and Super Glue behave a little different compared to the cooler months of the year and working with clammy hands is not fun and leaves a residue on your model, so will try and scratch build in the cooler months in the future or when the air conditioning is running. At the time I had purchased 1 tank wagon from Caintode Flats and 2 from PGC Scale Models. The instructions are well laid out for both kits and the parts provided were well presented and step the modeler along in the process. The old measure 3 times and cut once comes into play, however I still managed to make a couple of mistakes which I have learnt from. Both models come in casting form, but PGC Scale Models tank is 3D printed. Below are a couple pictures I took on the Caintode Flats and PGC Models OV tank wagons.  Caintode Flats Underframe with white metal buffers, piping and bra...

Order Sent! After having a go at scratch building with styrene I thought I would up my game and buy a kit from Caintode, so I jumped back on the website and placed an order for a 3 Dome Tanker kit and some more Bar Frame, 5Ft 2Ft 2In bogies for my own model builds. You got mail! My first call for assistance Where do i go now was with PGC Scale Models, after a couple months I received an email from the gentleman who advised he had been busy and been able to produce a range of tank wagon kits and wanted to know if he can organise for them to be delivered to my premises.  A few emails back and forth and the gentleman was kind enough to invite me to their property, so we schedule a time that was convenient and what I thought would be a small visit turned into a couple hours of conversation over a cuppa with some insightful advice and walk through into their processes to get items ready for keen customers. It was such an enjoyable visit that I almost forgot to pay and pick up my 3 and ...

Knock, knock Australia Post My order from Caintode Flats Products turned up and I will be honest, this was a blind purchase as I had never seen the products in real life. I was not disappointed at all by the level of quality, it was amazing. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos but would recommend checking out the website. I added to my inventory the following:  Bogies Bar Frame, 5Ft 2Ft 2In Brake Cylinders, Combined Air Tank Bogie Screws, #1 X 3/8 In Self Tappers Handbrake Assembly Complete Brass Etch Flex Track Purchase Excited by the purchase I headed down to my local hobby shop and took a bogie to show of my new purchase and explained to the owner I needed some track. He reached behind the cabinet pulled out a thick product catalogue and showed me the limited product range and suggested I think about my layout before purchasing too much product. As I wanted to get my scratch build models onto some simple track, I purchased a couple pieces  Flex track ( PECO SL-1400)...

Little Shunters Second Scratch Build   What did I learn from my first scratch build 🤓 Body frame was not square Tanks supports were inconsistent  Styrene welding was poor Styrene cuts not square Superglue and thin styrene don't like each other Thin styrene is going to warp Taking these above lessons learnt into consideration, my goal was to improve the quality of the next model. Jig 2.0 I popped down to Bunnings and bought some dressed pine and balsa wood and decided to come up with an idea of reusing the length but committed to a standard width for my scratch built rollingstock, plus added a working space as my last build I kept losing my styrene pieces on the floor. I also decided to cut an aluminum key for the coupler sections which was a guess as I had not bought any couplers at this stage. Model Output and learnings Using my lessons learnt above, things were improving, this styrene build was stronger, like it was one piece, so that was a positive. It started to look a l...

Little Shunters First Scratch Build Being a generation X kid, I have had to work across Imperial and Metric all my life and got into trouble enough times either passing the wrong socket or wrench over.  I decided to create a excel spreadsheet where I could simply enter the real-world sizes into the calculator and through the magic of excel formulas everything would calculate into the right HO size for both measurement systems.  Armed with the knowledge from my previous post  Where do I go now?  and  how to cut and use styrene  I got to work  measuring three times and cutting once. All of a sudden, I had a heap of styrene bits all over the desk and so back to measuring again to recheck, we will call this rookie mistake number one . After I sorted out all my styrene into groups, I got to welding each piece together, now this where old school modelers can have a laugh as my pieces started to fall over and break apart, w elding the styrene turned into an e...