The Philosophical Musings of Teach Yourself Modelcraft

Back when I was in high school I borrowed the book Teach Yourself Modelcraft from the library quite a number of times. I can't remember what the attraction was, other than just feeding my addiction for reading every book on model making that I could find, so when I saw a copy for sale online at a reasonable price I bought it.

It was written by H. S. Coleman, the editor of Modelcraft Magazine, and published by English Universities Press in 1952. I didn't realize it was that old at the time, and I'm surprised our school library had a copy in the mid-'70s. 

Back then all I was interested in was model building techniques, so I likely skipped what I then considered the fluffy parts and focused on mining whatever techniques I could find. These days, with these older books, my approach is the opposite. Oh, the book presents techniques, but it is equally full of what I'd call philosophical musings, practical encouragement, and pleasant parables. Here's one for male readers who might be concerned that modelcraft isn't sufficiently macho or socially acceptable:

It is one of the strange perversities of human nature that men like, in the choice of their side-interests, to adopt some occupation which, for some obscure reason, belongs to the category that is labelled "manly" or "sporting". The idea seldom occurs to these good people that the terms themselves are entirely arbitrary ones, having arisen from a class of people whose judgement is by no means omniscient.

That sounds rather modern and applicable to many situations.

My copy doesn't have the distinctive dust jacket of the Teach Yourself Books series, but it's in good condition. I think my father owned a copy of Teach Yourself Algebra, or maybe it was the one on geometry. It was something mathematical, as I remember that classic cover design on his book shelf.

I leave you with a musing from Mr. Coleman on The Value of Odd Moments:

As for the actual shortage of time in a busy life, it must be said that it is amazing what can be done in the way of model construction in the most haphazard odd moments. Many of the most artistic examples now in existence have been brought into being during a spare ten minutes here and an odd half-hour there. Actually this is one of the most attractive attributes of the craft. A piece of work can be started, can be left lying on the work-bench for a week, and then can be returned to at any moment. Model making is the ideal occupation for broken time, and will adequately fill up many an odd moment that would otherwise be swallowed up in idleness or reading stale news in the paper.

Or stale 'news' on the internet.

Perry Mason and The Case of the Loopy Leaf

Last fall I dove into watching the Perry Mason tv movies that ran from 1985 to 1995. I gave up after the first 4 1/8 films, but decided to try them again. This time though I figured I'd pick movies at random instead of marching in sequence through all 30. This is proving to be a good strategy as they get better as time goes on. 

Recently I watched The Case of the Silenced Singer from 1990. It's interesting, but one anomaly leapt from the screen: it looked like there was an upside down Canadian flag flying above the entrance to a hotel where Perry was interrogating a piano player. To me it looks like the stem of the maple leaf is at the top of the flag. Given that the movie was supposed to have been filmed in Denver, it seemed odd the Canadian flag would be in the centre of the group, and upside down to boot. Maybe it's a subtle message of a Canadian in distress? Maybe a set dresser was in a hurry to make some nondescript building look like a hotel or restaurant? Or maybe I need new glasses :-)

Testing the track plan, Part 3

I mocked up a passing track with an internal cross-over made from 2 right hand switches. The purpose of all this was to convince myself that it would function ok, and it did. On the layout this section of track will be about twice as long as shown in the mockup, and the simple passing track will be the same size as its mockup. 

I should move on to finishing the disassembly of the old layout so I have room for the new board, and can test putting together the new track plan on it.

E. L. Moore's Branch Line Station: Two scales, double the fun!

Original Rocky Ridge Station on E. L. Moore's EVRR layout

Once upon a time E. L. Moore had an HO scale layout called the Elizabeth Valley Railroad. Nestled in one corner was the Rocky Ridge Station. Let's let Mr. Moore take the story from here:

It seems that of everything I build I eventually get around to making two, and this is my second station of this type, having built my first one some ten years ago, and then in a weak moment selling it and now finding I need another.

It's that 'another', the second build, that's in the collection of E. L. Moore buildings. Mr. Moore continues:

It fits so well on a certain curve on my pike that the only change I made was that the first was built of capped siding while this one is made entirely of balsa.

So begins E. L. Moore's Branch Line Station article that appeared in the April 1964 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman.

This little station is another of my favourites, and since the N-scale EVRR tribute layout needed one, I had a perfect excuse for diving in and building one in N-scale. Those wires you see in the photos are from my model. Mr. Moore's makes no provision for interior lighting, unlike his first version which you see lit up in the night photo of his layout.

The model arrived more-or-less as I saw it back in 2015, although some details had come loose and had to be re-glued. As well, the chimney was cracked and the train order signal had to be unbent.

The model was easily fixed up with a little Weld Bond. If you look at the article you'll see that there were many other details in the scene like milk cans, a wagon wheel, and some barrels and furniture. None of those were present, but I suspect some eBay searching might unearth some of those accessories. 

You'll notice that the bottom step on the front platform's set of stairs is missing. I went back through the packing materials with a fine-tooth-comb as they say, but it wasn't there. The 2015 photos show it was also missing then, so I suspect it's been gone for a long time. 

But, the search was not without its rewards. I found that figure in the very bottom of the wrappings. It looks and feels like a Weston figure. I don't see him appearing in the article's photos, but E. L. Moore used a lot of Weston figures, so it'll no doubt come in handy.

This station is quite small, and even smaller in N scale. 

I had to laugh when I saw Mr. Moore's model had brown doors and yellow trim, and I used yellow doors with brown trim. I don't recall if I did that deliberately, but makes for a nice contrast.

You can also see that I need to add a train order signal. I'm quite impressed with Mr. Moore's. His is made from thin brass, and will turn in its support so you can change signals.

The size difference is quite apparent in this view.

The chimney guy wires on E. L. Moore's model are actually wire, not thread as I had mistakenly thought. Also, look at that window frame. It's quite fine and nicely proportioned.

In this view the weird little warp I have in the back corner of my model is embarrassingly clear for all to see :-(

His roof uses his standard woodburning technique for etching the shingle pattern into balsa sheets. Mine, again, uses the paper strip technique.

To wrap up, I thought I'd test place the N scale station on the layout to see how it looked. It seems about the right size. I tried powering up the station's light with a battery, but although the light lit, the battery was too weak for anything other than a dull glow. I need some new batteries, and probably a dedicated power supply for these sorts of tests.

Recently Updated: Maybe the E. L. Moore Carolina Camera episode still exists

John Carter at WBTV's Carolina Camera graciously answered my emails asking if they had the episode featuring E. L. Moore. So, I've updated the post Maybe the E. L. Moore Carolina Camera episode still exists, and will use that one to keep track of developments to the story.

E. L. Moore's Dilly Mfg. Co.: Repairs and comparisons

E. L. Moore's Dilly Manufacturing Company is one of my favourite projects. A few years back I built an N scale version from cardboard and scrap wood. Dilly's also has an interesting backstory that includes a few major figures from mid-20th century model railroading. I'm surprised that AHM or some other '60s and '70s era plastic kit manufacturer didn't offer this building. Maybe they did, and I just need to look harder.

The model was in pretty good condition when it arrived. The structure was intact, although some details had broken off. Luckily they were floating in the packing material. I've adopted a strict unpacking procedure that starts with clearing off a table, and then carefully unwrapping and opening the packing material over the table's surface so as not to lose parts that may have come loose in shipping. I don't discard the shipping material just in case I may have overlooked a stray component.

The back porch railing and main sign had broken off and needed regluing. There were some additional loose parts included with this model, but after careful examination it doesn't look like they came from Dilly's. I've set them aside as they're likely from one of the other models.

Anyway, some carefully applied Weld Bond reattached those stray parts.

Mr. Moore's model has a rather nice brick foundation whose bricks I speculate were scratchbuilt by scoring a pattern into balsa. My little N scaler just has a concrete foundation - that is, balsa painted a concrete colour.

Looks like I should have added a stovepipe to my roof. 

There's some sort of white, chalky material embedded between some of the bricks. I don't think it's Mr. Moore's attempt at mortar lines, but is some plaster from someone trying to anchor this model into scenery. I don't think I'll try to clean it off as I suspect I'll damage the bricks in the process, or at the very least strip them of their colour.

The difference in size between N and HO seems quite striking in this view.

E. L. Moore's uses his old standby method of creating a shingle pattern by scribing lines into balsa with a woodburning tool. 

On the other hand, mine just uses paper strips with shingles cut in. I don't think the woodburning tool method would work that well in N scale.

The roof is removable, and for this photo I temporarily put an LED button light inside the main building. The upper dormer with the pulley doesn't light up because Mr. Moore didn't cut out the roof under it. On the other hand, my N scale version leaks light everywhere!

The smoke stack on the left looks a little skewed. It's a bit loose in its base, but not falling out loose. I probably need to apply a little glue to it so that it remains intact.

Space hopper?

I was reviewing the photos I shot at the Havelock yard last Saturday. In one I saw, peeking out from behind a foreground hopper, what looks like a hopper with some sort of space themed graffiti or mural painted on. I've marked the section with the red arrow.

I didn't notice that car when I was there, but it was so far back in the yard I probably wouldn't have gotten a better view anyway. I'll be on the lookout for it just in case it shows up again, and hopefully it'll be on a track close to the parking lot.

Testing the track plan, Part 2

The next task was mocking up the passing tracking near the shore. This could be built from a pair of left and right switches, but I wanted something more streetcar-like, which for me meant something like the passing tracks on the Morecambe Tramway.

Let me digress a bit. I'm told my great-grandfather on my mother's side was an inspector on the Morecambe Tramway, but his career came to an abrupt end when he slipped off a tram one day and permanently injured his foot. So, I've been curious about that tramway, and have tried to study its history. This passing track arrangement isn't unique to Morecambe, but it's applied in a few places on its old route, so I thought I'd use something similar on my layout.

I've built mine using a pair of Atlas Custom-Line Mark IV wye switches with short sections of curved track attached to each branch cut from Atlas 18" radius curved Snap-Track such that the passing tracks are parallel. I was concerned that there might be an electrical short in this configuration, but it seems to work just fine. Here's a little snippet of a DC powered streetcar negotiating a pass.

Coffee and hoppers

We swung by the Havelock yard while out on Saturday. It was my first trip there this year. 

Being Saturday morning, there wasn't anything happening, but the yard was stuffed with hopper cars from one end to the other.

I parked the car by the visitor information centre and walked on the park side of the track down to the station. 

The string of hoppers extended all the way down past the station.

As you can imagine just about all the cars were marked with graffiti. This one, with graffiti covering the entire side, was the most impressive.

But, there were a couple that looked like they were brand new and just driven off the lot. No doubt this one's a new canvas for somebody.

As I sauntered down the line I took some time to glance across the highway to see what I might see. And what I saw was the Wildflower Bakery & Cafe.

There was a steady stream of cars pulling up to this place, so I figured it must be good, and it was very good.

Here I am risking my life in the middle of the road outside the bakery to prove it's just a stone's throw from the yard - you can see the hoppers in the distance - so, if you're in Havelock for a little train watching, do yourself a favour and pop over to the bakery*. 

*Fine print: I'm not a shill, just a happy customer.

E. L. Moore's Ma's Place: Original vs Kit

Ma's Place was the 4th E. L. Moore project to be made into a kit by AHM. I had built 2 Ma's Place kits, and a Billy's Auto Body derivative, a long time ago, and was curious to see how the plastic version compared to the original.

Detail-wise, I didn't build mine completely box-stock. I got rid of the base, added wider front steps, changed the signage, put in lots of support blocks, and added a crooked metal chimney. However, I didn't change the basic size and shape of the building. 

Overall, the kit is pretty close to the original, as it should be. And the original seems to have survived the years pretty well - all that's missing is the backdoor. The model was finished on 1 October 1965, Mr. Moore submitted a manuscript describing its construction to Railroad Model Craftsman on 11 September 1966, and it was published in the January 1967 issue. 

I must admit the kit's window frame moldings look a little chunky. Even though the original uses the old method of inking on the window mullions, they and the surrounding frames look a bit finer and more to scale.

The roof uses the old method of burning in a shingle pattern with a wood-burning tool. Again, the patterning seems a little more refined than the kit's plastic shingle moldings.

The Trashman Cometh

I set to work on the weekend taking apart the Ocean Park module for trash pickup today. It's only been around for a year-and-a-half or so, which made me wonder if it was a waste of time and effort.

Yes and no I guess. Yes, in that it was never scenicked, and didn't get used very much. No, in that I learned a lot about module construction and the use of foam as a base material. In fact, taking it apart wasn't an easy task, and I found the module, and the test track loop, to be quite rigid and strong. This gives me confidence that an all foam layout base will be sufficient for the new layout. Not to mention that this helped me keep my mind off lockdown.

So, getting rid of these pieces is also my way of getting rid of what became my lockdown layout, and getting on with things now that the covid wave seems to be subsiding.

Well, that's that. The pieces have been moved from the garage to the curb awaiting their final ride to the great layout room in the sky - or the dump :-)

Testing the track plan, Part 1

I feel I've gone as far as I can go with developing a track plan on paper, so I thought I'd move on to finalizing the plan with track pieces I have on hand.

The first thing was to make one of those tight curves that lead in and out of the urban section.

Radius? Tests I ran a few years ago suggested that a 7" radius would work with all my streetcars. I used an 8" one on the Mortimer Park Loop, and that worked ok except for the easement-free S-curve entry that caused some serious wheel grinding on longer cars, and at time derailments because of expansion and contraction of the roadbed that often had to be adjusted. I figured I'd use a 9" radius curve on this layout so my short diesels could also do a little street running. There are no S-curve entries, so that problem is eliminated.

I thought I'd make a 'free-standing' 9" radius curve by gluing some flex-track to a base of 0.040" styrene. The lead picture on this post shows how the track was pinned against a cardboard template cut to a suitable radius, and then glued to an underlying sheet of styrene. 

When it was dry the styrene was cut to fit the outside of the ties, and the whole thing was painted black. The length will no doubt need some further adjustment when assembling the layout.

On the aptly named layout table I laid out some track pieces to start puzzling out the left side arrangement of the track plan. The new 9" curve is seen in the upper left of the board. The layout table is 2' x 4', and the train layout won't be more than 4' wide at one side, so the table width is ideal for seeing how things will shape up.

I'm using standard Atlas code 100 track pieces for this. Most curves will be either 15" or 18" radius, other than those two 9" ones in the city section.

The first thing I learned was that I needed to use a left-hand switch for turning off into the inner loop instead of a right as per my drawing. The right-hander wouldn't leave enough room for buildings in the urban area and also provide a generously curved outer loop.

Next up, mocking up a passing track.

From 30Squares Labs, Where the Future is Being Made Today

Well jeepers, not much doin' today, but I did take a few minutes to salvage the track from the test track loop I made back in January.

I built this thing because the modular layout was disassembled most of the time, and putting it together, and then taking it apart again later, just to test some streetcars was a bit time consuming.

It's built up from scraps of foam I had stashed away in the crawlspace. The pieces were held together with carpenter's glue, and the top side hosted a loop of 18" radius HO track. The hole in the centre was for a T-clamp that allowed the whole thing to be grabbed in the jaws of a WorkMate.

The board itself feels quite stiff, and I decided to put it to the test in the 30Squares Labs Structural Testing Facility: also known as the backyard potting bench and some bricks.

I stopped loading it at 6 bricks because what you see in the picture is all I had. Those ones at the back balancing everything should be replaced by a suitable clamp, but I'll need a funding grant for that enhancement :-)

But, no cracks and it didn't break. Ok, I agree, it's not the most scientific test, but it shows it has potentially enough stiffness for a model train layout. The LOL Mk II - ugh, still no name comes to mind - is going to be all foam, no heavy wood that turned out to make Mk. I quite cumbersome. 

That's it for now. Gotta run and interview a couple prospective Lab employees.

Foldaway mountains

I'm thinking a lot about layouts these days and came across some photos of the first layout I built upon returning to the hobby after being absent for a couple of decades. 

These photos, and the layout, date from around the summer of 2002. There was some gloppy stuff on one - semi-dried adhesive from an old photo album - that smeared on the scanner as it went though. I think the scanner is now hosed :-( 

Anyway, the track plan was based on the Lake District Ry. that appeared in Kalmbach's 101 Track Plans for Model Railroaders. 

The flip-up stand was built from the design discussed in Francis X. Klose's Design for a foldaway layout published in the Nov '74 issue of Model Railroader. I'd been fascinated by Mr. Klose's design since I'd read about it in the '70s. Since the layout was going to be in the workshop, and the workshop can't accommodate a large permanent layout*, this seemed like a good time to build the fold away support.

The support and the layout both worked well. The problem was that I was discovering that I rather liked making miniature buildings, and this layout didn't provide much room for any. So, I disassembled the layout in November 2008, keeping the support's wooden 6'x5' flip-top table, as well as the rolling stand. Those components became the basis of a crude switching layout that was to represent a freelanced small town in Ontario: 6' x 5' = 30 square feet, so it was 30 Squares of Ontario. All this and more was the subject of my very first post :-)

Speaking of layouts and mountains. My last layout in my parent's house in the '70s was to be a modular one. I was infatuated with an article I had read about casting mountain scenery from home-made latex and gauze molds, so I thought a small modular shelf layout would be good for playing with those methods.

I built one module with plaster rocks cast from molds I made and had a second module started. Real-life was kicking in, so those got moved aside, and eventually trashed. No doubt there was some residual love for rocks and mountain scenery that got me working on the 2002 layout.

*I never seem to learn. One of the main reasons I'm disassembling the Ocean Park Line is that when all the modules are connected together, it's too big to keep assembled in the workshop for any period of time without it becoming a nuisance. It's predecessor, the Lost Ocean Line, was a compact, self-contained layout, which I think made it more fun to build, use, and show-off. Hopefully with the new - and yet still unnamed - Mark II version I'll have designed out Mark I's limitations and have kept its good features.

Layout deconstruction has begun

I thought I'd keep the two main road sections of the layout for use as photo stages. The loop module though will be taken apart so its track can be reused.

Once the layout's been disassembled a little bit of work will need to be done to the support structure to ready it for the new layout board. 

Fun times ahead!

Right-to-Repair the Northern Electric Baby Champ?

I've been chatting with Dave and Vince about Steve Wozniak's Right-to-Repair video (I've embedded it at the end of this post). It got me wondering if my father's old radio could have been repaired by him back-in-the-day if he needed to.

That radio is a Northern Electric Baby Champ. It seems there were several versions of this 'rainbow' style made between 1946 and 1950. I think my father's is a model 5104, which sold between 1949 and 1950. One of the links suggests that in 1946 the radio cost $28 CDN, and an internet inflation calculator tells me that is about $412 CDN worth of buying power in today's money, so this was a rather pricey piece of equipment.

Why was it called 'Baby Champ'? Probably because of its relatively small size for the time. This one doesn't say Baby Champ on the front, but on the back is that photo of a baby wearing boxing gloves.

Does it still work? I don't know. All the radio broadcasts are digital, so it can't be tested just by turning it on and listening for what it picks up. 

I do recall that while things were still analog, it did work, and I don't remember it ever needing to be opened up to fix. It did take a long time to warm up, and it hummed loudly while doing so. My father kept this thing on a high shelf in the workshop, and it was tuned to some country and western station at all times.

Here's the back, and its got the usual warnings, brandings, certifications, and, given it's a tube radio, a tube layout schematic. The red label gives you a stern warning that you need a license to operate this radio, but doesn't mention any prohibitions about fixing it:

Warning: Any person installing or operating this receiving set without first having obtained a licence from the Minister of Transport of Canada is liable, on conviction, to a fine not exceeding twenty five dollars, and the said receiving set may be forfeited to his Majesty by order of the Minister for such disposition as the Minister may direct.

(Extract from Canada Gazette Radio Act of 1938 Revised Jan. 26 1939, Regulation 66 Part II)

I've never opened this thing up before, but this is what the innards look like after removing 4 screws on the back panel, and carefully sliding off the front knobs. It's completely caked with dust, but it looks intact.

However, if you flip over the chassis, the components down there are looking just fine.

Any factory warranty? That's all that's left of a notice stuck on the bottom of the cabinet. It looks like there might have been free service for a certain period after purchase, but from the pictures it looks like if you were a radio tinkerer, you could likely attempt to fix it yourself, or maybe just replace tubes. 

So, fixable by an amateur? Looks that way. Here's what Steve Wozniak has to say: