Week 296

Sunday, March 29, 2020 thru Saturday, April 4, 2020

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Work continues at Global 2

I will point out what the changes are to each picture.
Here you can see the borders are up and ready for "concrete"

I also thought I should close the gaps in the ties so I came up with these gap fillers.

Here you can see how the vertical ties are in the gaps of the horizontal ties.
I had to do a lot of cutting and fitting.
Turns out the "concrete" mixing was so thick I didn't even need to do this.
Oh well.

Ready to pour the concrete.
You can also see the tool I'll use to smooth it out.

Half done.

The mixture was 3 parts plaster of paris with 1 part gray grout.
It set up way too fast. Dang!

I will try another application next time.

Monday, March 30, 2020

I let it set over night, but I still feel parts were still setting.

I went ahead and sanded and then I'll clean between the tracks.

Cleaned out the plaster from the rails.
Ready to remove the border...

Sanded a bit more...see how some looks lighter and other parts look darker.
I think that's because the light is dry and the dark is still setting.
Removed the border.

Installed the bumpers.

Ready for the first shipment.

The first car jumped the rail and went right on the "concrete".

Here are all my piggy back flat cars.

I wanted to check to see if the 5-car well cars fit in place.
Yes they do.

Global 2 filled to capacity.

Here's the view of Global 2 from Central Control Tower.

I still need to fix one of the switches and install the tall light fixtures.

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

NTA

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Today I'm going to begin the installation of the two tall lights at Global 2.

One will go on this end.
The other goes on the other side just off the concrete pad.

Here is the base tubing in place.
Same is installed on the other side, which you really can't see from this angle.

Here are both tall post extensions installed.
Now I need to add the light poles.

 Back at the workbench...

Here's where I need to do some work to connect the tall pole extension to the actual light pole.
Take a look...

Here are the wire connections before putting the sections together to make one complete unit.

Next I covered the connection with liquid tape.

Thursday, April 2, 2020

Today I published a YouTube video made especially for my grandkids,
Josiah (age 3) and Charlie (age 2).

Season 1 Episode 1
Click here to view YouTube video
Length: 00:05:35 min.

Now, back to the layout...

Here are some other updates from today's events.
More progress on Global 2:

From the Workbench...I describe what I needed to do to connect the extension pole to the light pole...

Length: 00:00:28 sec.

From Global 2 tall light details...resistors.

Length: 00:00:29 sec.

Global 2 Tall lights installed (next up...wire up the lights).

Length: 00:00:11 sec.

A view of the tall lights installed (minus the lights being powered)

Friday, April 3, 2020

NTA

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Today my goal will be to light up the tall lights at Global 2

Here's the wire diagram under the table.
Unfortunately the wires got switched from positive to negative when I wired them up to the main power source.

This picture show the main power source.
I'll try to edit this picture and show the connections by circling them.

Really the white wire should be the orange (+) that's why I circled it in orange and the orange wire should be the negative (-) and that's why I circled it in white.
It's just the way I wired it.
I had a 50-50 chance to get it right or wrong.
Unfortunately I got it wrong.
But it still works, that's why I labeled the wire diagram the way I did so you could see I accidently switched the wires.

Here are the new lights all wire up.
You can't tell they're on because I used a flash.
Take a look at the next picture without flash.

Much better.
You like?