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Grab Iron Posts

Upcoming Clinic – Mount Vernon Clinic – November 8

Written by Anton Faulk
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By Tom Buckingham

At our November 8 clinic Mark Malmkar will dazzle us with photos and information he gathered while spending 2 weeks on the other side of the world!

The full program for the evening will be:

  • Review of upcoming events and clinics
  • Display your work! We invite everyone to bring model railroad items to display in the Showcase. It can be a completed model, work in progress, new purchase, old favorite, photo, book or any other item model railroad related you would like to share. These will be displayed on the long counter space we now have available.
  • Tool & Tips: If you’ve found a tool or gadget especially helpful, bring it in and share the benefits with the group.
  • Build Contest: Bring your entry forms … and bring your projects for the build contest. Let’s see who’s doing what!
  • Clinic Topic: Russian Railroads and Railroad Museums

Meeting place:
Mount Vernon Senior Center
1401 Cleveland St., Mount Vernon
Time: 7:00 pm

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Mt Vernon Clinic

Snohomish County Railfans Monthly Meetings

Written by Anton Faulk
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By Mike Rubin

The Snohomish County Railfans group gathers monthly to enjoy slideshows and video presentations. Visitors are welcome.

WHO: Snohomish County Railfans

WHAT: Slide and video presentations.

WHERE: Hilton Lake Fire Station 12, 3525 108th St. SE Everett, WA 98208

Fire Station Website

WHEN: Monthly: Second Wednesday of the month – 7:30 P.M. October through June.
Remaining dates for 2018-19:
November 7, December 12, January 9, February 13, March 13, April 10, May 8, and June 12

FREE.

EMAIL: If you’d like to be placed on our email notification list, please email Bob Alkire

Mike Rubin

News

Volunteers – No It’s Not What You Think

Written by Anton Faulk
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By Ed Ives

Years ago I used to shadow the 4D; attend a clinic or two; pay to go to the PSC train show; a train nut wannabe but never a member of anything. Well at one of those PSC shows I encountered Roger Ferris on duty at the membership stand. Roger grabbed me by the metaphorical scruff of the neck and convinced me that I really needed to sign up to the NMRA. You know Roger, he could sell ice to Eskimos and have them enjoy the experience. He made sure that I subsequently didn’t go off the boil so to speak and here I am so many years later.

I’ve slowly got more involved in 4D operations, the Hi-Railer’s etc., and from time to time needing help. Of course sending out a message for help, volunteers, realizes minimal response. My thinking was if I keep on making these requests the results would be different but sadly not so. I then got to remembering Roger saying to me, “You have to ask people face to face. You will get results that way”. Ah the very Rev. Roger Ferris. So imagine one cold frosty morning as you go out the front door you just might be approached by a fellow model railroader saying, “Would you not like to volunteer for ……….?” You just might say yes rather than freeze to death on the spot and who knows in the end you might enjoy the experience of being more connected to and more involved in 4D. Try it you just might like it.

MOHAI Train Show

Ed

Model Train Show, News

Clinic Report – East Side Get Together, October

Written by Anton Faulk
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By Syd Schofield

The October gathering of the East Side Get Together at the Redmond Community Center commenced by Alex Brikoff promptly at 7:10 Thursday evening. VIPs in attendance were introduced and upcoming events of interest were announced. Alex also solicited the audience for possible nominees for the Golden Grab Iron Award. This is an annual award to be given to an exemplary 4th Division member at every year’s Spring Meet. Nominees and their bios are to be submitted to Ted Becker at rail.bird@att.net. See the Grab Iron for further details.

Alex also announced plans for an evening of Mini-Clinics, or “How I do Stuff on my Layout” for the March 2019 clinic. Here is a great opportunity, for everyone that wants, to share with us how you do something on your layout or in your model building. Although participation is optional, but if you do participate, these Mini-Clinics are to be no longer than 10 minutes each. We will only have time for five or six mini-clinics. They can be either a short demonstration or short PowerPoint presentation. They can be on any aspect of model railroading that you would like to share with us and tell how you accomplish a certain task or process during your model building, or, just a status report on how your layout is progressing. I will have a sign-up sheet for the Mini-Clinics at the next few clinics.

Clinic introduction by Alex Brikoff

The evening’s presentation was by Kevin Klettke on “Fleet Weathering” of model railroad rolling stock. The emphasis was to make a production line process to more efficiently and artistically treat the many pieces of equipment we have on our model railroads. In addition to the talk, Kevin showed slides and actual models with the weathering (with rust, dirt and graffiti treatment). He handed out a sheet of helpful hints for those of us not able to take good notes.

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Eastside Get-Together (Redmond) Clinic

Upcoming Clinic – Burien Clinic – October 25

Written by Russ Segner
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We meet at the Pacific Northwest Railroad Archives this Thursday at 7:00.

We will discuss modules for the new Hon3 Modular Group. A module featuring the early coal bunker at Newcastle is being constructed. Research of photos and maps are being used to design the first one which will be 60 inches by 30 inches.
Plans for the bunker drawn by John Paschal will be shown.

We will review the standards used by The Nearsighted Narrow Gaugers, a very successful group recently seen at the National Narrow Gauge Convention in Minneapolis. This a Free-Mo group.

The archives are located at:

425 SW 153rd St.

Burien, Wa

Russ Segner

Burien Clinic, News

Clinic Report – Skagit Valley and Whidbey Clinic October Meeting – Short Attention Span Theater (Mini-Clinics)

Written by Rich Blake
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By Rich Thom

Photos By Rich Thom Unless Noted

Clinic Chair Rich Blake got a good laugh introducing the evening’s program: “Short Attention Span Theater” he dubbed it, aka the now-customary October program of mini-clinics.  Despite Rich’s humor, no-one exhibited short attention span–as far as we know–and interest was high.

Rich showed how he treats RTR On30 plastic freight cars, such as those produced by Bachmann, to upgrade them from shiny plastic models to realistic, weathered rolling stock.  He described these steps:

  • Apply a basecoat of grey or brown to represent raw wood, using any type paint OK for plastics
  • Weather the basecoat using standard wash techniques
  • After all paint is thoroughly dry, coat with hairspray and allow to dry for at least 10 minutes.  Rich’s preferred hairspray is Aquanet or TRESemme.  The hairspray provides a water soluble layer between the topcoat and basecoat.
  • Following the hairspray, apply acrylic topcoat.  Rich prefers airbrush but rattle cans are OK.  Brush-on may be an option but Rich has not tried it
  • Revealing the basecoat: After paint has dried, using Q-tips, toothpicks and/or stiff brush with water gently remove top coat to reveal basecoat “bare wood” in areas of your choice; you can go light or heavy (this step illustrated in Fig 1)
  • After removing the desired amount of top coat, weather per usual with powders, washes, and a no. 2 pencil to highlight worn “metal” edges
  • Apply dullcoat to seal finish

Fig 1 – Critical step in Rich Blake’s weathering process (photo Rich Blake)

Fig 2 – Rich Blake’s weathered car

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News

MOHAI Train Show – A New Show

Written by Anton Faulk
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By Ed Ives

Do you remember with affection the Science Center train show when it was held at Thanksgiving, the start of the holiday season? Due to factors beyond our control that show was moved to a different date. Now we have a new show at a new location, MOHAI the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle over the Thanksgiving weekend and as always we REALLY, REALLY need your help. This is the first year for this show and we need to make a good example. There will be three modular groups in attendance as well as a small number of single person displays, all from the 4th Division.

How can you help? On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving we need folk to assist in directing on-site traffic and man the building doors to facilitate rapid and orderly load in. On the days of the show, Friday, Saturday and Sunday we need members to assist those running the displays so they can take a break from time to time. On the Sunday evening, from 5 pm we need help in directing on site traffic and manning the building doors for a quick and orderly tear-down and pack out.

The hours are:
Wednesday 11/21 – load in from noon until done.
Thursday 11/22 – turkey day, feet up.
Friday 11/23 – the show from 10 am until 5 pm.
Saturday 11/24 – the show from 10 am until 8 pm.
Sunday 11/25 the show from 10 am until 5pm and load out until approximately 8 pm.

We need your help for as little as two hours on any one day to all day each day at your discretion.
For their part MOHAI are providing us a break room and refreshments for our members on all days.
Offers of help, please call Ed Ives 425-391-3313 or e-mail Gresley7@gmail.com

With a successful show and your help we will be invited back next year and hopefully this will become a Seattle tradition as well as a needed revenue stream for 4D.

Ed

Model Train Show, News

Upcoming Clinic – October Eastside Get Together Clinic – Redmond

Written by Anton Faulk
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By Alex Brikoff

The October 2018 Eastside Get Together Clinic will meet on October 18, 2018.
As always, the Clinic will be at the:

Redmond Community Center at Marymoor Village
6505 176TH AVE NE, Rm. 202
REDMOND WA 98052-4930

Doors open at 7:00 PM and meeting starts promptly at 7:15 PM

We will begin by mentioning any noteworthy, upcoming model railroad and railfan events in the area for the fall months ahead. We will also have a Model of the Month contest and Rail Photo of the Month contest. So, please bring your best models and photos for the contests! Winners will have first choice of many fine items from our Door Prize table.

This month’s clinic “Weathering Fleets of Cars” will be presented by Kevin Klettke. We’ve all seen and heard of many techniques that modelers use to weather their locomotives and cars, but Kevin uses his methods and techniques to weather many rolling stock and locomotives at once in a relatively short amount of time. Kevin’s own Washington Northern Railroad in Tacoma is a great example of his outstanding modeling skills where he puts an incredible amount of realism in a smaller layout.

We will have refreshments and snacks available as always. We’ll also have a great selection of Door Prizes to give away at the end of the clinic.

Alex Brikoff

Eastside Get-Together (Redmond) Clinic

Clinic Report – October Tacoma Clinic

Written by Dale Kraus
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By Dale G. Kraus

Photos by author

Twenty-three modelers gathered at the Paradise Lanes  to see a video presentation of the history of West Coast Steam Logging. Our own Jim Sabol  had a significant part in producing the video, and many of the scenes were shot by him with a 16mm movie camera.

Prior to the presentation  Rob, our local purveyor of model railroad stuff, show us several new items, the most interesting of which were  weathered and graffitti’ed city water towers on “O”, “HO”, and “N” scales.

The Modeler’s Showcase had the following entries (All HO):

A small coaling stand and rusty ole’ water tank by yours truly

Two rail barges, one finished, one under construction , by Tyler Whitcomb

A finished and weathered cement plant (Faller kit) by  Ken Levine. This was the model of the month.

 

Paul Vaughn showed us this  I-Phone extension for getting above crowds at photo run-bys. It’s made from an old paint roller pole.

The next Tacoma clinic is 7 PM,  November 8 at Paradise Lanes.

 

Tacoma Clinic

Your Chance to Give Back

Written by Russ Segner
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By Russ Segner

Once again, the 4th Division will stage its 45th Annual Model Train Show over the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, January 19–21, 2019, at the Pacific Science Center. And we need YOU!

We all enjoy the benefits of this hobby; the PSC Show is a way for you to share that love with the public. It only takes a few hours.

Plus, the PSC Show is the Division’s single largest means of financial support. Without its proceeds, you wouldn’t have all the wonderful things the Division makes available, things like our many monthly clinics, our modular groups, the Spring Meet, the Achievement Program, the Grab-Iron Service Award, our website, and more. Give a few hours and our hundreds of members get a year of benefits.

But what can you do? Here are just a few of the needs you can fill:

1. Staff the outreach table to convince new members to join the NMRA

2. Tend a hands-on model railroad for kids

3. Teach a short class in any aspect of modeling (rocks, trees, weathering, you name it!)

4. Help us load-in or load-out. We need you during the time slots below:

a. Friday load-in: 5 – 9 PM
b. Saturday: 6AM – 6PM
c. Sunday: 9AM – 6PM
d. Monday: 9AM – 6PM
e. Monday load-out: 6 – 9 PM

The PSC requires that every volunteer undergoes a background check, but they make it simple. Just go to their website during January and complete a form. (Details will follow later.) Parking may be provided (details are coming for that, too).

Right now, before you forget, volunteer a few hours by emailing David Yadock at hi61izq@hotmail.com or calling him at 425-226-7518. Spread some joy!

Model Train Show, News