Ken Liesse

On Thursday, March 15th, JJ Johnston got the train out of the station on time at 7:30 with his words of welcome and introduction of guests. One of our guests was Sharon Ricketts, who models in 1:32 scale and holds two open houses a year at her layout. The next open house will be the 4th Saturday of April, so JJ may have more information on this at the April meeting. We also welcomed back Don & Beth McClaren, long-time Eastside members who have returned after a lengthy absence.

During the announcements, Charles Jackson stated that H&J (the tree making people) are having a roll out party at a hobby shop in Port Moody, BC and to see their brochure. There is no information about the roll out on their website, but you could probably email Charles to get the information.

Other announcements included reminders by Ed Liesse and Russ Segner about upcoming conventions (joint PNR/PCR and the Narrow Gauge Convention respectively), an open house on April 29th at John White’s layout (extreme north end), and a word about the upcoming elections by Superintendent Ken Liesse. Roger Ferris was present with the Mart and CJ Riley also had some items for sale from his vast collection.

Model of the Month consisted of two Milwaukee Road cabooses by Ron Cole; a collage of paperwork from Bob Rorabaugh’s mother showing a connection between her life and the trains and logging in this region; and a Campbell Products station built by David Yadock, who once again went home with the prize.

After the break, Ron Cole presented a clinic on how to cast resin parts for modeling. Ron makes 1:32 scale models. He walked us through the steps of transforming an idea into a passenger coach complete with seats. Some of the tricks Ron employs are using baby powder as a mold release and heating molds in a microwave oven before using them. Ron also mentioned that you can rebend a slightly warped resin kit by running it under hot water and gently bending it back into shape. He makes mold boxes out of PVC sheet, which is relatively inexpensive and can be glued together with the PVC pipe glue you can find in any hardware store. For a final tip, Ron told us that molds will last longer if you get the resin out of them as soon as possible. Ron demonstrated the mixing of the resin and actually cast a part for us to see. All in all, a very interesting presentation.

See you on April 19 in Bellevue.