Great video, Ton. I really like the custom built cars. Did you use your Silhouette Cameo for any of it? Just curious. Thanks for a great video.

Thank you for the heads-up, Lee. Looking forward to reading your article.

Fred

Scotty,

I ordered my first issue of the Annual in 2018, thanks to a post from someone (can't remember who) on this forum. I thoroughly enjoyed it, so I ordered the 2019 and 2020 issues also, as well as my current order. In the meantime, so that I didn't get withdrawal symptoms, I ordered back issues through 2013. So now I have all of the issues from 2013 on and I'm looking forward to the 2021 issue. Hopefully, Bachmann will have something new that I can't live without. 

Terry,

I'm happy to hear you didn't get damage in the house - well, maybe a little what with having to cut the access holes. Here in Florida it only gets below freezing every great once-in-a-while where the temperature drops for a long enough time to cause any damage. Thankfully, we've always managed to run the water a little when that happened and we've avoided any damage. Most of the time, when it gets to freezing, the temperature only gets maybe down to about 28 or so and then for not long enough to freeze the pipes solid.

Now the plants are another matter. We had a cold snap about 1-1/2 months ago that got down to about freezing right at dawn but it was enough to wipe out all of the tomato plants in my wife's garden.

Anyway, glad you're doing OK and hope your soldering station works out well for you.

Terry,

Sorry to hear about the pipes - what a bummer. Hopefully, there was not too much damage to the house and only the pipes were affected. Best of luck.

Terry,

I've owned the WLC 100 for several years and am very happy with it. The only thing I did was to order the pencil tip at the same time. All of the other tips that came with the set are resting comfortably in the bottom of my tool drawer. At the time I purchased the soldering station, I was working in N scale and the pencil tip was perfect for everything I did. Now that I've switched to On30, I find that it is still my go-to tip and has handled everything I've thrown at it, from soldering rail joiners to installing decoders on PCB boards.

Even though I'm a retired electrical engineer, I still learned something new recently from David Popp on MRVP and that is to use some additional flux, besides what is in the solder, and your soldering jobs will go so much smoother. Just goes to show, you're never too old to learn. I use SRA rosin paste flux #135 (Amazon) and apply it with a toothpick - a little goes a long way. You definitely want to use a non-acidic flux for soldering anything electronic. Anyway, after I started using the flux, all of my soldering went a lot better and used a lot fewer "colorful" words.  Hope this helps.

P51,

Looking forward to reading your article. I've enjoyed all of yours that I've read so far. Now if that darned Annual would only get here.... 

For anyone that's interested, the 2021 On30 Annual is now available for pre-order from White River Productions. Pre-order price is $22.00 plus free shipping. I just placed an order for my copy but I'm going to assume, based on past years that the book won't be available for a couple of months, which is a serious test of my patience  .

Well said, John. I totally agree with you. Thanks to Bachmann, I switched from N scale (also about 95% Bachmann) to On30 (100% Bachmann) because of the affordability that Bachmann's mass-production provided. I am not a rivet counter or purist. I do model railroading simply for the fun of it. Do I wish that Bachmann would offer a more comprehensive assortment of locomotives and/or rolling stock? Sure! The kid in me always wants the most he can get but I'm very familiar with the constraints placed on a company by having to maintain a viable bottom line.

Like you, I have been waiting patiently for another run of Combines - I just don't want to pay ebay prices. Some day I'm sure my patience with be rewarded (hopefully).

Fred Klein
Okeechobee, FL

Thank you, RailMan63, and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and everyone. Hopefully the new year will be better than the one behind us.

Although I didn't get any rolling stock (don't need any at the moment), Santa brought me an Anycubic Mega Zero 2.0 3D printer to help with my scratchbuilding. I'm having fun playing with it right now to see what it can do (and what I can do in designing stuff). So far its a lot of fun but the learning curve is steep.
Anyway, wishing everyone Happy Holidays and a Healty, Happy New Year.

Fred Klein
Okeechobee, FL

Nice layout. It's amazing what can be done in On30. Thank you for sharing the video, Fred.

Fred Klein
Okeechobee, Florida

Ton,

Thank you for the quick reply. The fact that you use plastic is great news. I have done a lot of research on the 'net and have found various sites saying that they have cut plastic anywhere from .010" (.3mm) up to .030" (.8mm). From what I can find, the plastic you are using equates to roughly .020". I agree with you about needing 2 layers to make the model sturdy enough.

According to the hype from the Silhouette website, the Cameo 4 is supposed to exert more downward pressure than previous model, so I'm also going to attempt to cut some .030" (.8mm) styrene at some point. However that will be somewhat in the future. When I do, I'll post the results here.

Again, thank you very much for the information and the great layout.

Sincerely,
Fred Klein
Okeechobee, Florida

Hello Ton,

I just saw the video of your layout and I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you how much I enjoyed watching it. What a great layout! It's kind of what I'm striving for in my layout (when I get it built - have to tear down my N scale layout first).

I have a question: In the comments for the video, you mentioned that you scratchbuilt the rolling stock for the train using a Silhouette Cameo 3. I recently acquired a Cameo 4 with the same intention in mind. Is your rolling stock made from styrene or from another material and did you have any problems cutting whatever material on the Cameo 3?

Thanks for sharing your video of your great layout.

Fred Klein
Okeechobee, Florida

I don't know whether or not the lettering on the Porter is paint or decals, so I can't help you there.

As to the second part, I have had some luck SOMETIMES using 70 percent isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab to remove lettering. People have also reported using the 91 percent but I have also had that strength remove paint, so your mileage will vary. Cody Grivno from Model Railroader also states that he has had good luck using decal setting solution (can't remember the name) in removing some lettering from Athearn rolling stock. Again, your mileage may vary. Hope this helps.

Terry, I think that you found the problem. Getting all of the fuzz out of my engines has become routine maintenance for me at the start of each Christmas season. My On30 trains are part of our Christmas village - my wife does a fantastic job of setting it up each year, but in order to make it look good she has to put down a lot of the, don't know what its called, fake snow cotton. Well, it seems that this fake cotton finds its way into and onto the axles and wheels of my locomotives and cars, as well. As I said, this is an ongoing problem for us so I just resign myself to taking an hour or so, along with my Optivisor and tweezers and picking out the fuzz. Best of luck to you. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.