Marmora station?

I was going through some old files and came across these two drawings I did sometime in the '70s. I recall there was a small train station in Marmora, Ontario; however, I don't have any photos and I can't remember visiting, let alone measuring. I was a kid then. An internet search shows there was a small station, but it's a little larger than my drawing suggests. I suspect I selectively compressed whatever I did or didn't see in order to fit it on a single piece of 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Crude drawing skills aside, with a little adjustment it might make for a small, utilitarian depot.

Update, 23 March 2016: Looking back through some old photos and posts, I think this drawing might actually be based on the station in Hastings, Ontario. 

[18 June 2020 Update]: No, it's the station at Marmora.

HO scale Piper J-3 Cub

I thought I’d be starting on a new layout about this time, but things have gotten a little chaotic, so I thought I’d drift a bit and just build and write whatever struck my fancy. I had a laser cut wood kit of a Piper J-3 Cub in HO scale by Osborn Model Kits  I bought at a train show a year or two ago sitting on my shelf, so I thought I’d give it a go.

The Cub is one of my favourite airplanes, and when I started the kit I pulled this old issue of Model Builder from February '83 out for inspiration. I love model building magazines that have few words on their covers. That cover painting is by Mr. Bob Benjamin and there's a short note in from Bill Northrop's workbench about the plane and painting.

While I was feeling all nostalgic, I thumbed through this issue of Model Airplane News from January '83. Turns out there is a great article inside by Clyde P. Matteson and Bob Tyhurst about building 1/96 scale solid model airplanes.

The article explains how to build some amazing fine-scale 1/96 model airplanes from scratch. The article mentions 1/96 scale was chosen because many model airplane plans were available in 1/48 scale, and they could easily be made smaller by reducing them by 50% on a photocopier; hence, 1/96 and not, say, 1/87.

This little Cub model isn’t fine scale, but it’s quite handsome when done. I found it a little tricky to build and I’d say it isn’t for absolute beginners, but if you’ve got a couple of simple laser cut kits under your belt, you should be fine.

I won't explain how to build it - the instructions are good. 

Although I will say that fumble-fingers me managed to break the landing gear and an engine cylinder-head and the engine cowling during assembly, but more-or-less fixed them. No doubt because the components are crisp and could be glued back together without too much trouble. 

I used good old acrylic paint on this model. The decals are self-stick items. They don't look too bad. Overall, a pleasant little project and a nice, brief trip down memory lane.

Burger with a side of meccano

Last Sunday evening I drove the van over to hodgepodge to pick up a piece of Faux Meccano I had delivered there. The boys were having some stuff shipped in by boxcar and they let me include the gear. That was the easy part. Bribing them to schlep it into the van was the hard part. I owe a lot of favours now. But that’s for later. I was hungry, so I dropped into Mels on my way home for a burger.

E. L. Moore on reading

I’m saving television for my old age when I get the palsy and can’t see to read -- I’ll probably be deaf and blind then. Anyway that’s one thing I never complain of -- TV programs. All I know about them is what I read in the papers and I sometimes wonder why, if they’re so damned bad, people just don’t shut off their sets and ignore them. Me, I’d a heap ruther read when I’m tired of modeling or writing or walking or sleeping. 

From a letter to Bill Rau, On a Friday, 22nd day September ’67.

Little did E. L. Moore know then that in the early ‘70s he’d be something of a TV star himself.

HOJPOJ Reno: Done!

Yes, it’s finally done. I can hardly believe it myself. Looking back over the posts in this series it’s taken around 5 months of on-again, off-again work. Although, a lot of that time was spent thinking about how to solve particular problems. And there was a bit of an intimidation thing going on. I didn’t want to screw up, or do wrong by an E. L. Moore model. It’s the only one I’m likely to ever work on, so, no pressure :-) But, it’s been a great experience for me and I’ve learned a lot. Anyway, let's move on to the last few things that had to be finished on the diorama.

The main brick building still has the light E. L. Moore installed in the clerestory. The wires run out through holes in the floor and then are bent sideways and out through those two little holes at the bottom of the back wall. 

You can see that one wire is broken. I soldered some extensions to both, but instead of running them out to power through the back wall, I simply drilled a hole in the diorama and ran them out the bottom of the building.

Mr. Moore used the same idea on the other half, but the internal lights were long gone. The holes for the wires in the back wall were still there though.

To light the multi-unit complex I inserted a small LED strip into the bottom. You can see in this picture that the wires were run out through the bottom of the diorama and then through the side frame.

In this photo you can see the lighting wires for both buildings protruding through holes drilled in the diorama side frame.

I hooked the lights up to a couple of 9v batteries for this photo. The LED lighting is rather subtle given that the widows in the multi-unit complex are frosted.

It wasn't until I got the diorama all put together that I realized that it's got lots of potential for staging scenes. 

To finish off the fencing I needed to the build the gates over the track. In this photo I've glued up the frames and inserted them over the track to test the fit before gluing on the fencing.

The gates are hinged so they can be opened and closed. To make the hinges I folded a strip of paper into an L-shape and coloured it aluminum with a Sharpie pen. A couple of short pieces were cut from the strip and then glued to the gate ends and fence posts.

Here are the gates after the hinges are glued in place and the balsa pieces have been stained with some thin dark brown acrylic paint.

The next task was to install the 'pipes' that cross over the tracks from the shack and into the brick building.

In the upper right area, just above the roof, you can see the very small holes that E. L. Moore drilled into the brick building for the pipes.

The wire needed is very fine indeed. To figure out what diameter was required, I inserted drill bits into the holes until I found the one with just the right diameter for a snug fit. I then bought some piano wire of the same diameter.

Mr. Moore's design bent the pipes in a very flat V-shape. I found that with such a shape, I couldn't get the the right clearance for boxcars to roll cleanly underneath, so I went for a slightly more elevated design. 

All that was left to do was anchor the smokestack guy-wires around the property. Each thread had a balsa stake attached, and that stake was glued to the diorama base. A pair of tweezers was used to hold each stake down and its weight applied the small amount of tension to the thread to kept it taut while the glue dried.

I'm happy with the way it turned out. It looked a little shabby - although in good structural condition - after 3 decades in storage, but it seems to have weathered the years quite well.

Modern digital photograph helps to show how good these old models were. Although not fine scale, they would look quite at home on many of today's layouts.

Well, it looks ok as long as you don't look too closely at the back walls :-) The multi-unit complex never had complete metal paneling applied to it's rear wall.

Well, that's that. Please close the gates on your way out.