Al Babinsky

MMR Gene Swanson opened the clinic and welcomed all to the October clinic. Announcements were made for 4D Board of Directors Meeting on November 17th. November is National Model Railroad Month, the Boeing Model Railroad Club swap meet is on the 2nd Saturday in November, the 10th.

We had 35 modelers in attendance; three were newcomers. Bob McDuff is starting modeling in ON30 logging operations, Bill Gillespie and his friend Mike model in N scale.

George Bourcier presented what’s new in the Hobby Shop with books, 0-6-0 sound-equipped switcher from Mantua, and ready to use building from Woodland Scenics in N, HO, and O scale.

The Model of the Month contest had a number of models two of which were Dave Faussett’s entries in the Narrow Gauge Convention model contest. His black smith car won 2nd place and his other entry 3rd place. Dale Kraus had a substation and 15,000 volt transformers for catenary and a 760 mm scratchbuilt turntable. Scott Groff brought an O scale resin freight house kit slightly modified with individual planks on the loading platform. Jim Murrey had a Milwaukee Road Train shed built from three Walthers kits plus some extra parts; the shed featured scratchbuilt floodlight towers. Paul Vaughn showed some SN3 cars and a HO building converted into S scale. Patrick showed a planted field using corrugated cardboard as rows and green pipe cleaner as plants. Stew showed a 30-year-old work car kit and Walt Houston a 14-car reefer set. Chip had some old passenger cars he picked up at a swap meet that he was going to redo but found out that they were cardboard kits with the sides made of individual cardboard strips. The Model of the Month winner was Scott Groff’s O scale freight house.

The clinic was presented by Paul Vaughn on a three-color signal system originally designed in the 70s and updated for modern use with LEDs. The system was reasonable in cost and easy to build. The information for this system is online here.

Next month’s clinic will be at our usual place in the Pierce County Library Admin. Bldg. at the corner of 112th Street and Waller Rd. at 7:30 PM. The clinic will be presented by Paul Rising on scratch building. We will also present a check to NW Food Network from the donations that we have collected in the past year.