Spanned

Successfully Strung a Span Wire Between Two Electroliers - Without Blowing out the Lamps!

This is a big relief since the brass Electroliers are ground for the 3 volt DC streetlamps AND act as an anchor for the 15 volt AC overhead.

The fear being that the 3 volt LEDs are exposed to the 15 volts running current. But since each have their own power source it doesn't seem to be a problem.

Now that all of the Electroliers are in I would really like to install the span wires between them. The overhead in the intersection is a bit bouncy without them. After the success of a little test rig I have commenced stringing the span wires.

These old wooden temporary poles and span wires can finally be removed. The poles were on the building property line and with them gone now, I can finally get to building the buildings.

Trying something new here.  The rule has been Nickle Silver wire for the contact wire and Phosphor Bronze for the span and pulloff wires.  But for these new span wires I'm trying 30 AWG High Quality Polyurethane Enameled Copper Wire. This wire is softer and much easier to work with. The phosphor bronze I was using just loves to pierce the skin!

I found the Polyurethane Copper Wire much easier for wire wrapping and its easier to straighten than the phosphor bronze.

Hmmm... seeing my wire wrappings up close in photographs I see that my wrappings are kind of loose. I need to work on tightening my wire wrapping skills.

Yes sir! Tighten my wire wrapping skills.

Dandy

Horsing Around

 Horse Trading and Harnessing

Comparing HO scale harnessed horses and adding duct tape reins. 

After finishing construction of the Berkshire Valley Models Buggy (right) I needed to add a horse. But the horse that Berkshire Valley offers (left) is rather heavily harnessed for such a light buggy. So I looked around at other HO scale harnessed horses.

It wasn't until after I ordered horses from Knuckelduster Miniatures that I noticed that their horses are identical to Berkshire Valley's horses! (They do come in two poses though). So choices are limited. Taking a look at the Jordan Highway Miniatures (out of biz sadly) horses (left) I noticed that they are more lightly harnessed. So I swapped out the horses with the Highway Miniatures Delivery Wagon since heavier harnessed horses would work better with that.

So I painted up the Jordan horse and attached it to the buggy. But after the previous blog post, the lack of reins bothered me. I considered different materials for the reins (thread?, tiny brass or styrene bar?) But as I was repairing a black leather seat with black duct tape it occurred to me this might make for great reins material.

I laid a piece if duct tape on a piece of glass and sliced off a very thin piece.

And stuck it on. The bottom and sides of the duct tape is white, so a little touch-up paint is required. But I really like the leathery look of the duct tape. Note to self: start with the driver and work towards the horse. Its easier to trim the reins at the nose of the horse rather than inside the buggy.

It was a little tricky installing the reins. But it took me longer to write this blog post than it took to install the reins, so... yeah. But I'm pleased with the results. We'll see how this holds up long term.

It occurred to me that duct tape might be a viable way to add harnesses to ho scale farm horses like these from Woodland Scenics. Then we can press these guys into service! (Except for the pony of course - I'm not heartless!)

Then there are also some well done draft horses available on Shapeways. I'll probably give these a try at some point.

So there are some good options out these these days for a variety of harnessed horses.

Yes sir! A good variety of horses these days!

Dandy