A major life decision

 Nothing like a cancer diagnosis to get one to reappraise one's life direction.
At the beginning of the year I was diagnosed with Prostate cancer. 5 weeks ago I had robotic surgery to remove the offending bit. And all went very well. Almost fully recovered.
Massive thanks to all the medical people who were with me through the process. You guys are stars, all while in the middle of a 6th Covid wave.
A cancer diagnosis has a way of slamming home the point that this life adventure is very much finite.
As a result I have decided that I will be phasing out the custom building aspect of my business.
I have a ton of things I want to do for me
I will no longer be accepting new commissions effective immediately and hope to have the existing commissions done within a year.
Kits and detail parts will continue for the foreseeable future.

My thanks to all those who entrusted me with their resin kits over the years.
It has been fun, mostly. 😏

When it looks this good...

 You just have to share.
These are photos of our Armour Reefer, just completed by George Toman.
What can I say? He makes me look good.
Great work bringing these to life George.
Thanks for sharing

This kit is still available, btw.

Progress on Tulare Ave

 With prostate surgery looming next week, I've been focusing on the layout and some personal projects this week.
I've been able to make really good progress on the first row of houses along the north side of Tulare Ave.

While the houses are not "California" style, they fill in the space and help tell the story. Street running along Tulare Ave. Once fences, hedges and static grass goes, the space will be busy enough to distract from specifics.
There will be another row of houses on the other side of the street as well, and with that, the scene, which is the first thing you see when visiting will be quite striking.
The house colours were chosen from an neat online site I found showing 50s era house colours
5 of the houses are laser cut kits that were once offered by Southern Car & Foundry. They are some of the nicest designed house kits I've encountered. They went together like a dream and the architecture is stunning.
Bug Jon to get those back on the market.

With surgery next week, I will not be at the Indy RPM, but fully expect to be at the NE RPM and St Louis.
See you there

Some new stuff for spring

 To complement the 10'0" IH and 10"6" IH boxcar shells we've recently released, we now have added 5 new ends.
They are;

YMW 2140, 4/5 W corner 10'0 IH http://www.yarmouthmodelworks.com/index.php/Products/2140E

YMW-2142, 5/5 W corner 10'6"IHhttp://www.yarmouthmodelworks.com/index.php/Products/2142E

YMW-2144, 4/4 IDE 10'6" IH       http://www.yarmouthmodelworks.com/index.php/Products/2144E

YMW-2137, 4/5 Sq corner 10'0" IH http://www.yarmouthmodelworks.com/index.php/Products/2137E

YMW-2151, ACF Carbuilder 10'6"IHhttp://www.yarmouthmodelworks.com/index.php/Products/2151E

All ends are $7.00 a pair and are now available

Soon we will be releasing a number of additions to our sill step offerings, 2 rung sill steps in a variety of configurations. Just waiting on supply chain issues to resolve themselves 

damn Bureaucrats

 The following statement will soon be up on the Yarmouth Model Works website;

Due to changes at US Customs and Border Protection and Canada Post, we are no longer able to mail small parts orders as letter mail. As a result we have to implement a minimum order policy effective immediately.
Orders will now have to be have at least $40.00 before shipping costs are added.
I very much regret having to do this, but the government agencies leave me with no option.

Government sticking it to small business yet again.

Well that only took 2 years

 It's been one of those on again, off again, on again, off again projects.
2 years ago, a client sent me 4 Mullett River Sacramento Northern caboose kits to finish for him.
3 had been started by a 3rd party, but I was tasked with finishing the first 3 and completely doing the 4th kit
Now I enjoy Mullett River O scale caboose kits, but as with all things, they have their challenges.

A few of the things to address
Draft gear mounting. There is no provision in the kits for mounting draft gear, so I cobbled up something to take the Protocraft scale couplers
End railings. The supplied parts did not reflect the tapered vertical stanchions used on the prototype, so cast parts were sourced and railings built up from there
End ladders. The supplied ladder stiles are not at all like the prototype, so custom etchings were done and 0.033 wire formed and soldered to the top of the stiles
Marker light brackets. No parts supplied so I cobbled up something out of styrene and modified some plastic marker lamps so that they can mounted on either end of the car
Lateral running boards at the cupola. Again the kit supplied parts were not reflective of the prototype so new ones were created.
Hand brake mounts had to be cobbled together from Precision Scale parts

Along with the fact that a few key parts were missing from the first 3 cabooses, which required sourcing from a few suppliers
All the windows have real glass panes installed
The client supplied very specific custom mixed colours for each car.
Now we're just waiting for some custom decals that are faded like the prototype and these babies can make their way home

Packing is going to be a tad tricky, but I have a few ideas...

Another Blast from the Past

 I've just had the enormous pleasure of completing 4 very old Storzek kits

These kits were originally manufactured back in 1985! The pattern work is has good as anything we've seen since.
Mind you they are the old metal filled epoxy castings, which are the killers of drill bits, but the detail is fantastic.
The only real concern I had was with the old dry decals, which is where Microscale Liquid Decal film comes to the rescue. The decals will coated with a layer of the film and left to dry. NO splitting or shattering of the decals as a result. Phew.

The DSS&A yellow and red scheme for Merchandise Service is quite striking. Until these were sent to me to build I had no idea of these cars.
So yeah, they were fun to build and finish. Nice way to start the year.
And even after all these decades, we can still say, "Well done Mr Storzek"