The On30 Guy

I’m actually starting to get excited about the prospect of moving. Yeah, it’s being a real pain in the ass right now, going through stuff and getting the house ready to sell. But, as I weed through things and clear out all the accumulated stuff that I’ve been dragging around and not using, I’m starting to feel some weight lifting. Sure, right now it doesn’t look like much has happened in the house. But, there are at least a dozen big Hefty garbage bags lined up beside the house ready for Monday morning trash pickup. And, a full van-load has already gone to the dump (it was almost all biodegradable).

John, our agent and long-time friend of mine is great, helping us with a million stupid questions and putting us in touch with contractors to get the work done that we need to get the house salable. I don’t think we’ll make the December 1st target for listing the house, but we’ll see. Maybe we’ll go ahead and listed even before some of the work is done. We have our next meeting with John on Sunday, and we’ll discuss that possibility. We’ve seen pictures of lots of places on the MLS that are being made ready after the house is on the market.

We’ve also learned, I think, what we want in a house and where we’d like it to be. That will help John greatly in helping it find our new home over the next few months. We’ve certainly started to learn what we don’t want.

Anyway, off now to lunch!

We have a target date for getting the house on the market — December 1. And so, we’re heavily into the “getting the house ready to sell” business. Tonight, I tore out the layout and benchwork. There’s a huge amount of work to do, and our agent wants us concentrating on two things: finding our new home and reducing clutter. He’s much less concerned about the “fix-up” aspect of things than we are, and has his fix-it man coming over tomorrow to discuss things. It’s time for a pretty wild ride, I think.

Read this post about On30 Guy Pickup Wipers.

Those of you who visit the site with your iPhone (or iPod Touch or other select mobile device) will notice that the On30 Guy looks like many of your other apps. And, the site will load faster, because you won’t have to wait for pictures and all of the body text to load (especially important for 2G users!). You’ll still be able to see any posting you want by tapping its title. All of the pages are accessed from the drop-down at the top of the page. Cool.

With the complete dispensation of The On30 Guy Store, I’ve reverted this site to being an On30-specific model railroading blog. All of the “store-front” content has been removed, leaving only the content relating to the actual design and construction of a model railroad.

A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT ON30GUY PICKUP WIPERS

Pickup wipers for the Bachmann On30 Shay are no longer available.
They have been out of production and I have no plans to produce them again.

Pickup wipers for the Bachmann On30 Mogul Tender are no longer available.
They have been out of production and I have no plans to produce them again.

These items were discontinued due to a marked increase
in the cost of manufacturing.

Please do not ask for copies of the designs for these items.
They are not readily available and I am not at this time
inclined to do the work necessary to provide them.

PLEASE DO NOT ASK ABOUT THESE ITEMS

I received an interesting question via the site today from Tom Rose:

I am learning about the differences in coupler height on the different Bachmann issue freight trucks.  It seems like I can easily buy the center height shank coupler, but how about the shank even with the top of the coupler?  Does Bachmann sell these too?  What is the number of this coupler?  Are the EZ-Mate HO Couplers really the same size as the On30 couplers?  Thanks much!

The short answer to your first question is that Kadee, Bachmann and McHenry all make “drop-in” couplers with center-shank, over-shank (shank even with the top) and under-shank (shank even with the bottom).

For your second question, Bachmann uses the same couplers for On30 as they do for HO. So, the Kadee, Bachmann and McHenry HO couplers will work fine.

Now, it gets knotty. Bachmann has made On30 trucks and underframes in two heights — the original “high” riding cars, and the newer “low” riding cars. Bachmann supplies the appropriate couplers with the cars so that the height will be consistent across their product line. This coupler height coincides with the  NMRA-standard HO standard gauge coupler height. This, traditionally, has been the height that most On30 modelers have used, even before the Bachmann products came on the market.

Some modelers feel that this coupler height is too low, especially if they’re trying to represent 3-foot prototypes using On30. Other modelers feel that they would prefer to use On3 couplers, as they are supposedly more appropriately sized, and mount them at the correct On3 coupler height.

So, Tom, I hope that I’ve answered your questions!

New Bachmann Modern Outside-frame 4-4-0

As some of you may know, I’ve never been terribly find of the “American” 4-4-0. However, Bachmann have released this new model, a “modern” outside-frame version that has a great, funky, low-slung look to it that I actually find really appealing.

I just may have to have one of these things, if I ever have any money again…

I’d guess some of you might be wondering where I’ve been. Busy, in a word, with work and other issues. The most recent tidbit to rear its ugly head is the realization that we have a wasp infestation somewhere in the basement — and it’s in either the walls or the ceiling of what is supposed to be the layout room. That means bad news — the whole basement needs to be ripped out and rebuilt — and good news — the basement can be rebuilt the way I want it!

Right now, there’s a fireplace situated in a corner of the basement. It’s angled, and so it eats up a huge amount of space. I also believe that the area surrounding the fireplace is where the wasps are hiding and that it’s also hiding the water shut-off for the hose-bib on the back of the house. So, that’s where I’ll start demolition.

Our plan is to replace the fireplace with a pellet/wood stove, which will be free-standing, and will allow me to make a smaller chimney chase. That means that the corner will be more useable for layout space (not ideal, but at least useable).

So, now I have to get up the inclination to box everything up and get it stored somewhere, figure out where the money for the renovations will come from, and get to work.

Fooling around on a scooter....

I’m fooling around with a new version of the web site CMS, a system called WordPress. They’ve recently released a major version enhancement, version 2.6, which incorporates a lot of functionality that’s really pretty cool, that used to require a zillion add-on plug-ins and hacks.

The picture at left was taken on our last trip up to Maine, at one of the entrances to Acadia National Park. It’s where we spent a lot of our time the last trip, instead of going to the National Narrow Gauge Convention, a few hours away in Portland.

I’ve made a bunch of changes to the On30Guy site, and more will be on the way. The idea is to make the site better reflect my modeling direction. To that end, I’ve started to delete a lot of the older content, much of which was out-of-date anyway.

I’ve chosen a new design for the site, based on a template by Anthony Baggett. Of course, I’ve already started modifying the design to better suit my needs, and more tweaks will be forthcoming.

One of two neat features I’ve added to the new site is the ability to e-mail an article or page to a friend. Just click on the little envelop icon next to the article or page title, and fill in the form that will pop up. The entire article or page will be delivered to the recipients’ e-mail. The other new feature is the ability to create printer-friendly versions of a page or article on the fly. Just click on the little printer icon next to the article or page title, and the page will be re-rendered in a format that will look great on any printer. Scroll down to the bottom, and click the link to print. Any comments posted to the article or page will be included as well.

That’s the news for now! At some point, I’ll actually get some modeling done.