Sunday, January 18, 2009

Desktop Picture Change

Yesterday I bought a 21.5" Full HD wide screen LCD monitor for my PC and realised that my desktop pictures being 4 x 3 proportions get distorted badly on a wide screen.

So I have reverted to a previous desktop picture but have added a wide screen 16 x 9 version.

Programs that show pictures seem to handle the different proportions OK but the Windows desktop does not have an option to show different proportion pictures properly.

I will do the same on the Eureka Models Blog desktop pictures that I do for Ron Cunningham.

I hope that this is of some use to you.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Back to Work

Well, I went back to work this week, what a joy!

I did however enjoy myself over the break, kit bashing my flour mill. It started as a Walthers kit for a steel merchants, I can't remember the name but you should recognise it. Anyway I had started it many years ago before the Walthers sugar mill was around, it was the most likely candidate. I had realised later that most flour mills had three or even four floors so two wouldn't do and the project stalled, I'm good at that, 3/4 finished models are my specialty.

After pondering over the problem after Christmas I realised that with a few bits of spare brick material and part of the rear wall (out of sight) I could give the mill a third floor.

I still have to build the rail unloading shed and vertical conveyor tower to the two silos but I thought I would share what I had done with you, after all, I am now 3/4's of the way through the total project.

So here it is, I'm pretty happy with it.



It has a mixture of features from several mills, double multi-pane windows, external fire escape stairs, explosion wall, bricked up windows, etc., see below.

Conquerer Flour mill - Cootamundra
Photo from http://www.filmcentralnsw.com/film_tv_nsw_home.shtml

Flour Mill at Murrumburrah
Photo from http://www.filmcentralnsw.com/film_tv_nsw_home.shtml



I cut a point into the main just west of Wollar in the area of the panorama photos of the layout that you can't see, just to the left of the camera (see earlier posts). The point is controlled by a push-pull rod to a Blue Point mechanism so this should make shunting interesting, most other points being electrically controlled.

I will post a photo of the completed mill with silos when I get it done but don't hold your breath.