Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

I never realized how relaxing it is to do a puzzle, and ... I never realized that I have the patience to sit over it for a few hours in the evening after a busy day and think while finding and placing the right pieces.

Working on last year's Christmas puzzle.

Spending candle light quality time with family in the evening.

Let's start with a naked bird... ... open it up, and stick it into the oven butterfly-style. A couple hours later ... Yummy!

This is my first time, that I build a model completely from scratch, in this case styrene sheets and strips. While I'm really enjoying myself building this model, I can see why people that scratchbuild regularly have a stash of doors and windows. They take forever to build yourself and the result is at best acceptable, unless you are really good (not me), or going for the shabby look with odd angles and pieces that barely hold together. Anyways, ... here's how far I got since yesterday: Using paper cutouts from the prototype as a guide , I cut the inside walls from styrene sheet, ... ... and glued them to a box. This is a sturdy base for gluing the outer walls and building doors and windows. I started with the rear wall, which has only one door, to make the inevitable mistakes face the backdrop, instead of laughing into my face every time I turn on the light in the layout room. Sure enough, the one-piece v-groove siding below didn't survive in one piece because I managed to...

The main station building in Emsingen, based on a prototype building in Trossingen, is rather ornate and fancy. I've kit-bashed the shed on the northside of the station building, and I've been on the lookout for a bland outbuilding ("Nebengebaeude") that would contain restrooms as well as a couple storage rooms for lamps and heating wood. Since I model the Black Forest area, I wanted the building to have a typical Wuerttemberg look. One version of Faller's excellent "Gueglingen" station kit comes with such an outbuilding, but I didn't have a good example to work from. While searching the Google for plans, photos, footprints, etc. for such building I came across Godwin T. Petermann's site on cardboard modelling . Godwin did ten years ago what I'm still planning to do: Go to the Staatsarchiv in Ludwigsburg and look up the original building plans. What's really cool is that he made various cardboard models from what he found in the archive...

[ Schrebergarten posts ] The area between mainline, gardens, and backdrop is pretty much taken care of now . In the last couple days I built the floor of the Koef shed and ballasted the tracks in the vicinity. I used cork to raise the shed floor to the height of the track ties inside the shed, and covered them on the outside with styrene sheet. Between the rails I used Evergreen 0.010 x 0.150 styrene strips to cover the gap between rails and the stud contacts. For the gaps between the stud contacts I cut Evergreen 0.010 x 0.040 styrene strips to length with the NWSL Chopper, which allowed quick and accurate production of enough pieces.  The sheets were glued in place with wood glue. Between the rails I used plastic cement. The 0.040 strips are a little bit too thin to match the stud width, but the gap is easily filled with some white glue and paint. The bright white styrene was painted with Pollyscale Concrete, and later weathered with powdered pigments to create an oiled and dirt...

Gloomy, rain, and morning thunderstorms. Pretty much unheard of in the Bay Area. Feels like 5 in the afternoon but it's barely 9am. Oh yeah, we have hail, too: And in the afternoon we had a beautiful double-rainbow:

[ Schrebergarten posts ] In my spare time this weekend, the garden spots finally got the greenery treatment. It took several days for the Scuptamold ground shapes to dry. Below is what the area looked like yesterday morning. The Scuptamold is dry, the rails are painted, and the retaining wall near the turnout is glued in place. That wall is a concession to adding the longer run-around track for switching, and now having a bit less space for the garden spots. Since I didn't want flock and grass fiber to get into the gardens, or the existing track ballast, everything was covered up with blue painters tape. Then creative chaos took over, the scenery supplies and tools came out in force, occupying every available square inch around the work area. It might have been a good idea to move the trains out of the way ... I started off with a base cover made from matte medium and dirt, topped with flock, more matte medium, sand, and static grass. An approach I used elsewhere on the layout . ...

Last night Franziska made magic wands from pencils, hot glue, and marbles. My task was to do the  finishing of the wands. First a coat of spray primer. Followed by satin brown spray paint. And here they are, ready for their boxes.  

Biking in Santa Teresa County Park