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Catching up -- I may not have been very social. I have been busy, though.

I'll catch you up, since my last post. I've been buried with a variety of issues. 

I'm back from Japan. Most of those posts (and there are more to come) were published on an after-the-fact basis. 

In December 2023 (just before Christmas), I developed a left inguinal hernia. Surgery fixed that on March 22, 2024. Just when it seemed that my health life should calm down, last week, I caught Covid. I'm still recovering from both.

This spring, I sent myself back to college. I'm taking an architectural rendering class (using computers) and a Japanese tools and woodworking class. The architecture class is teaching me how to use Sketchup. 

I'll use the skills from the rendering class to start designing custom structures for the B&OCT layout and Takadanobaba in Alameda.  

I have historical pictures of four interlocking towers I want to represent on the B&OCT layout (Western Ave., Ash St. Jct., 49th St. and 75th St.) 
Pictures of 75th St and Ash St. (If you zoom in on the Ash St tower photo, you can see that B&OCT is incorrectly spelled. Thanks to Thomas White for the photos. 

I'll adjust the perspective in Adobe photoshop and then draw over them in Sketchup. I'll export the Sketchup file to a 3d printer or a laser cutter. Presto, highly accurate and not available structures that will be properly proportioned.

Meanwhile, I'm picking away at small model railroad projects -- such as building FastTracks switches or prepping for assembly. 

The other model railroad project, which is related, is I am building a small Japanese layout strictly for display. The layout viewing portal will have a pair of shoji screens that slide back. I had to go take a Japanese woodworking class to learn how to do the screens. I'm not sure if I'll build them using traditional joinery. (Read that as no using power tools/.) Perhaps I may use more modern equipment, which will be a bit more efficient. But, it will miss the journey. I could build two sets of screens. 

Anyway, college has been time consuming, 10 hours of class per week. I've pushed aside a lot of other things so that I can focus on school. That's been somewhat of a bummer because I've gotten a few operating invites as everyone around here is getting ready for ProRail to invade later this month. School ends in late May. 

I also plan to take intensive classes to learn Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. That will help me with the structure design and development of signs for structures and other layout uses. Later in the summer, I hope my schedule will free up. Then I'll be able to devote more time to my projects and come out of social isolation.  

It's not boring here. I realize that I do not have unlimited time or even energy. A key to my maturation as a modeler is improving my skills to make fewer mistakes, growing comfortable with the reality that I will make mistakes and gaining confidence in my abilities to fix mistakes 

Here are a few photos of: my first 3d print -- a larger than scale rendition of a subway opening in Tokyo. This is the one from the area I plan to model; 
This is a first try at 3d printing. The prototype is the Takadanobaba subway station entrance, adjacent to the entrance to the JR East Yamanote Line Station. 


a T-Trak module prototype that Steven Cox designed. That will also be a Japanese street scene. I'll use Outland Model structures for the building; 
Really nice T-Trak module. Went together smoothly.


and a tool box I built for my Japanese woodworking class. It seems reasonable that a carpenter should build their own tool box. This was made of scraps of baseboard material, a 1/2" dowl and scrap hardwood flooring. 


That's it for today: a cold, windy drippy day in Alameda. 
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