Etch Buddy Photo-Etch Bending Fixture

so, I would like to suggest something.
maybe you could use some brass strip and "brake" it like sheet metal.
might take some effort to make a micro brake, but you'd have the problem solved from then on.
just an idea, hope it helps you.
Kevin.

Chris,

Thanks for jumping in here.  For most of you, I'm recovering from having my right knee replaced.  So thanks again Chris.

As for a update,  on the Tank cars, they are still moving along,  in fact, Robert my partner will be flying to California next weekend to meet with the owner of a factory we deal with in China.

In the past year we have imported three different projects, HO standard gauge tank cars, ON3 trucks, and On3 switches.  All of these project were much later then we expected.  Being new to the import business, we have taken date that we were given and past them along.  We are learning not to do that.  But,  rest assured the project is moving forward and I will offer up a update after Roberts meeting.

As a quick look back, it was a year oct 1 st we received our first truck load from San Juan, in the time since we have moved a total of five companies to our office in Colorado.  The last of the moves took place in may of last year.  We are making progress on inventory, not as quickly as we would like, but we are making progress.

Thanks,

Doug Junda

On Oct 2, 2019, at 12:21 PM, claneon30 via Groups.Io <chrislaneon30@...> wrote:

I had Doug Junda (one of the San Juan owners) at my On30 meeting at the NNGC and he was entirely frank about how things are taking longer in all aspects of the business than they had planned. Getting the machinery running to mold parts, especially the former Grandt machines, required all new wiring, motors and hydraulics. Because the machines had been in the same location for many, many years, the move to Colorado was really tough on them, and they found that replacing a part that had been stressed in the move, resulted in other parts of the machine failing, costing time. And obviously production. They ae moving the ball down the field and he asked the guys present for some patience as they get all the aspects of the company running smoothly and at capacity.

Regarding China, the government was changing policies there that was negatively affected production and delivery of models for all companies even BEFORE the trade issues came up, so everyone is trying to deal with that, including San Juan. I’d say watch their ads for updates on delivery schedule, based on what they are hearing from their builder.

Chris Lane - Editor HOn3 Annual

chrislaneon30@...

On Oct 2, 2019, at 8:36 AM, DaveS. <dsheber@...> wrote:

China issues.

Get Outlook for Android

Mia Culpa; That’s supposed to read 18 inches by 21 feet long, ell shaped layout, not 18 feet x 21 feet.🤔

Mike

On Oct 5, 2019, at 5:25 PM, Mike Van Hove via Groups.Io <vanhovem22@...> wrote:

Russ, I still have my toe, but the business is no longer mine.

Still have the same wife, and she’s still not up for another train trip.

I’m 81 and retired several years ago.

But, the best is yet to come.

We have just moved to a retirement community, have a nice 2 bedroom house, in a very quiet village, and,  I have space for an 18’ wide, by 21 feet long Ell shaped HOn3 layout.  I just gave my hand drawn layout plan to my good friend John Scherr, to see if he can do a computer drawing for me.

Oh yes, somebody else mows the lawn.😊

Mike Van Hove Columbia, MO

On Oct 5, 2019, at 5:12 PM, Russ Norris <rbnorrisjr@...> wrote:

Wow.  What a trip! Do you still have your business?  And your toe? And your wife?My wife accompanied me to Sacramento, God bless her, and along the way developed a new appreciation for trains.  I think.  Anyway she blew my mind when suggesting (out of nowhere) that it might be fun if I built a garden railroad (I model in HOn3, mind you).  This could be a major turning point in my life.

On Sat, Oct 5, 2019, 5:58 PM Mike Van Hove <vanhovem22@...> wrote:

Well, it’s a long story, but here goes:

We decided to take a 2 week trip to the West and see the sights.

We got hooked up with Amtrak’s super deal whereby a person can stop over 2 or 3 times for 3 days at no extra cost, so we went for it.

It was the first time I’d had the opportunity to be away from my business for any extended length of time, and we were really looking forward to the trip.

Now, I should make it clear that I owned a 3 bay Amoco Full service Station, in the college town of Columbia, Missouri.

We did lots of major repairs, and still had full service gas pumps.

I had a fine young man who was going to be in charge while we were out west.

First thing you should know, you can’t take a train from Columbia, Kansas City, or even St Louis, directly to Denver.  We wanted to go thru Denver so we would see the wonderful scenic Glenwood Canyon and the like.

So we stayed overnight in St Louis, got on the train headed east (Remember, Denver is west of here) and went to Springfield, Il, where we got off the train, waited awhile, got on a bus and headed north to Galesburg, IL

Waited some more at Galesburg, IL, and finally got on the train, actually headed west.

By this time, it was coming on toward evening, and we’re still way east of where we started.

I’m enjoying the ride, and Ginny is still having a good time.  (I think)

We are now headed across the open country of the Midwest, and have to stop every now and then at some station or other.

I noticed several folks piling off the train and buying newspapers.  Just bored, I thought, and turned back to looking out the window and listening for the clicking of the rails.

At lunch, I noticed several folks talking rather animatedly and referring to their papers.

Finally, I asked someone what was going on.  Guess what?  A guy named Saddam Hussein had just up and walked over the border into a place called Quait, and all hell had broken out.

As most of you will remember, the price of oil went right thru the roof that day and for days thereafter.

The poor young man that was in charge of my station told me later, that he spent a lot of his time, dealing with Amoco calling and raising the price to us, and he then spent all the rest of his time changing the pump settings, and changing the price sign out at the corner, and making price change reports for Amoco, and listening to the customers complaining, and before he would get all this done, Amoco would call again, he’d have to start all over again.  This went on almost the entire time I was gone.  You should know, to appreciate how hard it was for him, in those days, we still had to change the price in each pump by hand and replace the price signage by hand.  None of this changing all the pricing from a computer, like it’s done today.

Of course, I was unaware that he was having all this hassle, so I kept looking out the window the rather flat scenery of Iowa, then Nebraska and into the sunset.  Ehaaaa!  I’m riding a train and loving it!

My wife is still doing okay.  (I think).   Lots of folks to talk with and she loves that.

We get to Denver and have a layover for some reason, maybe get different engines or something, but it’s at night, so we just sleep, in our little compartment thing that’s only marginally larger than 2 phone booths side by 

side.  I get the upper bunk, and sleep well, the sound of the rails clicking is music to my ears.

We head out from Denver the next morning, start to climb.  I’m loving it.  Her ears are popping.

All the way thru Glenwood Canyon, the view is magnificent, we parallel I70 and at times the train is going so slow that guys on bicycles on the I70 side of the river are actually going faster than we are. Really.

Nothing much out of the way occurs and we end up in Sacramento, sometime in the morning.  We get off and head into the station while our good old train continues on to wherever it was headed.  San Francisco, I guess.

Our train up the coast to Seattle was to leave at 2:00PM but it was late.  I’ve allready covered that part.  We leave at 1:30 AM the next morning, headed toward Seattle.

During the night, I needed to visit the mens room, as guys will sometimes need to do.  The “Facilities” are located in the basement of this train, and you have to go down a winding stairway to reach the bowels of the car.

I found the aforementioned “Facilities”, did my business, and started back up the winding staircase.  As I was transiting from one step to another, the train did one of those funny things they do sometimes, where it goes both right and left simaltainiously.  I really stubbed my toe.  Damn, it hurt, but since I was all alone, it wasn’t going to do any good to make any unkind statement in regard to the quality of the track work, so I limped back to my lovely upstairs bunk.

Next morning the toe was a lovely shade of purple, and I later found out it was broken.

But, I’m riding a train, and lovin’ it, right?

We make it in to Klamath Falls, where my wife’s brother picked us up and drove us to his home in Grants Pass.  We stayed there for three days and had a great time.  Saddam Hussien is still having a wonderfull time, raping and pillaging across Quait, the oil market is still going berserk, and I can’t do a darn thing to help my poor employee with all his woes. 

On the third day we go back to Klamath Falls, retrain and we’re off, once again.

Nothing eventful happened on this part of the trip, except that my toe hurt like hell.

In Seattle, we visited my daughter who was going to college there, and ate a lot of fish.  My toe still hurt like hell.

Third day we got back on the next train, headed up thru the beautiful Cascades and on to Glacier National Park.

Got off at the town where the train stops, I forget the name of the place, it’s really small, but the car we had ordered was there.  Hoo Ha!

We drove and drove and finally got to the Many Glacier Hotel, which is a beautiful old building built many years ago, by the railroad, if I recall correctly.

We enjoyed our stay there and hated to have to drive back to whatever the town was, turned in our car and waited.  And waited, for our train.  It finally got in, only 3 or 4 hours late, and we got on.

This train was on pretty good track and I broke no more bones.

Eventually, we arrived in the charming little hamlet of Chicago, where we had to wait a long, long time for our comuter train back to St Louis.

This was a fairly uneventful leg and we got into St Louis almost on time. 

I enjoyed the ride, and Ginny was glad to be getting back home.

So, that’s why I said:  "I had a ball, but my wife said “Never again, on a train!”.  And she meant it.”

Aren’t you sorry you asked?

Mike Van Hove  (Still ready to take another Train Trip)

, 

On Oct 5, 2019, at 1:22 PM, Climax@... wrote:

Hummmmmmmmmmm, what exactly were you doing on that train?  "I had a ball, but my wife said “Never again, on a train!”.  And she meant it."

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Van Hove
Sent: Oct 5, 2019 2:17 PM
To: HOn3@groups.io
Subject: Re: [HOn3] The 39th National Convention - The Shop Tour

Great photos.

Those Sacramento shops are one massive set of structures. 

I visited the Museum in 1991, but didn’t have a lot of time, as we were between trains.(Amtrak) which was running late.  Very late.  Supposed to leave Sarcamento for Seattle at around 2:00 pm as I recall.  We finally left at about 1:30 am the next morning.  My brother in law was living in Sacramento and he and his wife came out and picked us up, took us the the Museum and out for dinner.  We couldn’t get very far away as the Amtrak folks said to stay nearby, so the train could leave as soon as everyone was on board.  Only problem was, there was no train to get on.  And at that time we didn’t have cell phones, so had to keep phoning the depot for updates.  The “Updates” were mostly, “Train is due in any time, so don’t wonder off too far”.

Those guys were good enough liars that they could easily run for an office in Washington, DC. 🤔

We eventually had a train come in, we got on and had a great time, going to Seattle, stayed there for 3 days, and then on to stay at Glacier Natl Park for 3 days, on to Chicago, then back to St Louis.

I had a ball, but my wife said “Never again, on a train!”.  And she meant it.

Thanks for the report, and we’ll all look forward to the next installment.

Mike Van Hove

Columbia, MO

On Oct 5, 2019, at 8:17 AM, Russ Norris <rbnorrisjr@...> wrote:

It's been a month since the National Narrow Gauge Convention, and I have finally posted the first installment of my report, beginning with a rare tour of the Sacramento Locomotive Shops.  You can read it by clicking on this link:

http://blacklogvalleyrailroad.blogspot.com/
--
Russ Norris, MMR
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
http://blacklogvalleyrailroad.blogspot.com/

--
Russ Norris, MMR
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
http://blacklogvalleyrailroad.blogspot.com/