Messy work desk syndrome

Some people do their modeling on a work bench.  I do mine on a work desk.  A work bench is something you have your tools on in the garage!  Anyways, is it me or is keep your work desk clean hard or what?  This evening, I cleaned it of pretty good.  I had a few items I wanted to finish up,  So, I cleaned it off pretty much.  Got my little bit of work in and boom!  Its a mess again and that's the way I left it until tomorrow.  Now, I got a question.  If we cleaned up at the end of the day or a project, would be get more stuff done?  Probably!

My main work desk.  Being organized helps me big time and this was something I did about 5-6 years ago.  Labels help you find stuff faster.  But being organized doesn't keep the desk clean!

Side desk.  This area seems to collect overflow from the main desk.  The On30 layout is above this area  and HO engines are even on it.

New shot I'm using for the blog now.  These are my main engines for the VM on the layout.  There are a few missing but the "Red Baron" CF-7 makes an appearance behind the tree. 

Regular updates and actual modeling time

Been enjoying my time off from school and trying to get some modeling done.  I got 2 custom locomotives I'm working on right now for a gentleman in Texas.  I'm about about half way done with those.  I also want to get back to updating this blog every week.

The 2 SD22ECO locos I'm building for a customer.

 So what been going on lately with me?

-Yardwork: it seems like it never ends around here.  My grass is terrible and full of weeds but its green because of all the rain we've had.  It seems that we have had storm after storm the last couple of weeks.  Had a nasty one yesterday and now the yard is calling to get up all the branches all over it!

The storm that came through yesterday.  It was a doosy!

-Deck work:  My deck was looking quite old and unstained.  I decided to get the Restore covering from Rust-oleum.  Looks really good but I need to put one more coat on it but I cannot get it done because of all the rain.  It needs a good day to dry.  Its hard work going on but it looks 100 times better.

-9th anniversary:  My wife and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary yesterday.  She's the best wife and mom than I could have ever asked for. 

Now trains:
I'm still working on that list of all the things I need to work on this summer.  That will be out soon.  I did the show up in Timonium this past weekend.  Sold several things.  Norm Wolf joined me up there as a last minute fill in.  Kevin Olson who usually sells with me could not make it down.

Heard about a multicolored textured paint by Rust-oleum somewhere in my travels on the internet.  Cannot remember what they used it for, so on a recent trip to Home Depot I picked some up.  I was looking for the perfect weathering inside of open hoppers.  I have a few aggregate hoppers on the layout and I usually mask the edges of the hopper and spray a primer brown in them.  So with this stuff, I do the same.  It takes a bit to dry and comes out of the can quick so be prepared.  I thought they gave it a good weathered look.  It looks to me like spray on sandpaper.  You could also use it on gondolas.

A RF&P stone hopper.  Gives a nice used looking inside.

A VMID stone hopper

Another VMID stone hopper.  These are made out of shortening a Walther 2 bay Greenville hopper.

 

Another year done... now to some modeling!

Just finished another year teaching and coaching, my 14th year.  As you might know, I have not done any posts since April.  Coaching in the spring takes up all my free time.  At one stretch, I believe I did not go into my train office for 3 weeks straight, not once.  I do get a little down time at the end of May and did get a little modeling done on the Memorial Day weekend.  I have some big modeling plans this summer.  I will post those in another post.  The main one is that I want to get the scenery finished.  That means no plywood showing.  That should get done. But on to what I worked on Memorial Day weekend.

I've been wanting another diesel for the Midland and ready wanted a B40-8.  I stumbled onto one at a show in April.  The price tag was a real deal.  It is in the GE red scheme so I blacked out the GE logos and did a simple VMID under the cab.  Looks good and no reason for a short line to paint a engine that's got a newer paint job. I also put a Tsunami in it with the newer GE engine.   So, the 808 is the second red engine on the VM roster.

The VM #808 looks good in the red and yellow.  Still need to weather it up.   

I also had a HH660 that was numbered 33 and was for a sand plant that was off the layout.  This concept never took off and Battlefield yard took that area.  I finally settled on it as "older power" for the Virginia Central.  It's smaller engine and used when #3 & #5 are not functioning.  I added a generic VC decal and this too has a Tsunami. 

HH660 #33 waits on the conductor for it's next move.