ON MY WORKBENCH.

As long as there's noplace to go, there's a backlog of small projects to work off, and the hot spells are simply more reason to head down cellar where it's cool.

The latest effort has been making rail worthy a string of vintage metal freight cars that have come from a variety of sources over the years.  In the early days of O Scale there were all sorts of ideas about how best to mount trucks on freight cars.  I'm partial to a captive 4-40 nut, but soldering those into tight spaces is a bit of a challenge.

It might have been doing things the hard way to leave the frame soldered together rather than drill the holes, unsolder the end parts, mount the nuts, and put the whole works back together on the one closest to the camera.  Note the two cars behind, it's somewhat simpler to drill the holes (Number 31 clearance drill) and attach the nuts, then attach the whole works to the channel section that is the frame.

It was relatively easy to put the diagonal bolster braces in place, getting those captive nuts in was a two hour exercise involving some burned fingers and language you don't want me to repeat.

Here's the string, some still awaiting an improvised coupler installation (my standard is Kadees, drill and tap 2-56 or add more captive nuts as required) and a trip to the sink to remove flux and tarnish, and then to the paint booth.  Yes, there are collectors who would prefer to run 'em in their brass state.  Keeping track of what car goes to what industry, though, is not so easy.