Saturday, April 18, 2015

Friday, April 10, 2015

Noodling some Worms

What does one do during an endless telecon at work on a Friday morning? 
Simple, one doodles. 
Years ago I decided to stop fighting it. As a young naval officer I learned to keep notes to myself, work taskers and the like in what we called a "wheel book". I still do. New page every morning. I'm a dedicated doodler meaning my wheel book is filled with mundane work stuff and, of course, doodles. 
Considering yesterday's blog post it should come as no surprise that I tried some more variations of "SNE" in the post-1963 "wet noodle" CN logo. 
On the CV I often heard the employees refer to the CV intertwined logo as a "pregnant tapeworm." 
My collection of SNE wiggly worms is shown above. 
Not quite there but, but a couple of them show some promise? 

*A "Wheelbook" technically is (or at least used to be) a book kept by all naval officers standing bridge watches listing all the helm and rudder commands, ship sightings and the like. Kind of personal ship's log book. It's totally a CYA device. 
It's evolved over the years to mean a running log of work assignments - it's quite common for the ship's Executive Officer to "review your wheel book." That's not considered a pleasant experience!

Friday, April 3, 2015

Derby and Ball Woodworking Shop

Back at the modeling desk adding some details to the Derby & Ball woodworking building. I have several photos George Dutka sent me as a guide, but clearly the structure had seen better days by the time he snapped these images.
Chief inspiration is a Phil Hastings photo of the Ambassador rounding the curve at Waterbury. That's the woodworking building to the left of the locomotive.
One thing that barely shows up in the photo it a "box on stilts" to the left of the gable window.
As far as what it actually was - my guess is it was some sort of sawdust handling/storage/collection system. Someone suggested it might be a steam box of some sort since the company made skis that would have been bent and formed from wood strips.
Here's one view of the woodworking shop. That "box on stilts" is just out of view to the left.

I'm not sure what it is, but it certainly adds some visual interest to an otherwise plain Jane building, so last night I cobbled it up out of styrene. The black styrene is a subshell that will be sheathed in Campbell's corrugated metal. I also got the roof panels cut out.
The door and windows are painted and I got about half of them "glazed" before calling it a night.