G'day all ..During today on a pretty chilly windy autumn Tassie day and on the first of three RDO's we were asked to take I decided to start running and soldering wiring on my 15 ft x 5 ft HO Scale (1:87) modern era model railway . Haven't really done much on it for a few weeks now .. Even mentioned on another thread that might be something to fill in a few hours .. Loved every second of it and worked through a few jobs I wanted to do and I lost myself for about four hours . Before I knew it the time was well after lunch .
Started me thinking (that's dangerous) with all this virus stuff going on around us what do fellow AFFers really find helps redirect your attention to things that are just plain enjoyable to do ? I asked via PM one of our moderators and he said it might be worth a try so here goes ......
Anybody into any form of modelling too including Lego, Radio Control , Scalextric , restoring old stuff , making new things , collecting things,sports stuff , wildlife rescue or pet foster caring , ancestry research , video gaming , robotics etc etc..would you like to tell us about it and how you got started ? .
Camping , 4WD , outdoors topics , photography , boating/fishing already are pretty well covered in The Bar topics so that's pretty good already but anything else really ..
If it's okay I'll start with model rail . I visited an exhibition in 2007 in our Institute Hall one Sunday morning as I was returning from collecting the papers . Two hours I was there...The main exhibitor was a truck driver that had started 30 years before . It was a modular set up that took up about a third of the hall . It was also analog N Scale which is 1:160 size ..I didn't go straight into it , took about a year but in 2008 when I finally hooked up the internet and also joined EBAY I suddenly realised that model rail wasn't too expensive to give it a burl .
I speculated $89 on a starter set in N Scale and mucked around with it and soon discovered how much fun it was especially recalling Rob Mathews exhibit layout . Bought another set , bought some additional track , made a baseboard and was hooked . Telling a friend one Friday night soon after at the Golf Club and he told me I'd better come and look at his then . That next day I called in and was confronted by a layout that took up a fair chunk of his garage under the house . Paul's layout was in HO though which is the single most popular scale of several scales approximately twice the size of N at 1:87 .. I stuck with N for a bit longer but eventually succumbed before I'd spent much and switched to HO . The rest as they say is history .
Probably spent way too much time and money on it but love it to bits and building scenery , sorting out issues , hunting for loco's or rolling stock , collecting magazines on it is just fun . Good thing though nobody else here to deal with my addiction ...
Built one layout but about a year ago I dismantled much of it to head down the new tech path properly which is DCC . The even newer tech via wi fi is incredible so the future is pretty bright
By the way if and when you have time this video on a demonstration layout in the USA in HO shows how far you can take sound and detail in the hobby .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt430GmLTRA&t=239s
So lets see what fellow AFFers are in to these days.. Cheers all ..