Before we moved down here I dug out my old American Flyer train set to evaluate it. The original pieces are mostly gone or damaged but the engine and tracks are still in fair shape. If I were lucky to find an interested buyer I could get about $125 for the engine. It's not in pristine condition which would double the price. The rest of the cars would be most useful for parts but still are operational. I took pictures of it all, plus the dual transformer, and was going to try selling it on E-Bay or something. Never did that, and I seem to have lost the pictures. If I still had them I'd post them here. The train is in a box down in the basement and maybe some day I'll try to get it working. I doubt that the engine still works, but who knows?
I think I understand what your ship building tools look like. They would be a variation of chop sticks. LOL I know that you would have the talent to be a master toolmaker for model shipbuilding but even then it takes a lot of patience and a steady hand to place those tiny parts. The finished product is worth it, I guess, but it's not for everybody.
There is an old RR caboose in the parking lot of one of the strip malls around town. Apparently they sell food if you happen to the there on the right day at the right time. We've never seen them open for business when we are there, but they do have hours posted on the door. This caboose is pretty small and I can't imagine more than a dozen people seated inside. It's got to be a hot house during the summer too. But, never having been inside I don't know much about them. It just seems that old cabooses make great eating places.
Two Bad Tracks`
Re: Two Bad Tracks`
When the auctioneer was hauling things out of my house for the auction, he found an unopened small N-gauge train set up in my attic of all places. I have no idea what condition it was in, being in the heat and cold. I think my late wife bought it in the middle of the year to put out around Christmas time since we didn't have an indoor tree during those years. And she probably forgot about it.
There were only a couple of things the auctioneer found in the attic to have brought down, so anything else that was up there was left when we moved out, hi hi. One of them was a large 10 gallon box of glass radio tubes, and in that box he found a couple of transmitter tubes, so placed them on top for the auction. I still think both items only brought around 5 or 10 bucks is all.
Hard to explain what a lot of these tools looked like, especially the ones with handles and scissors or pliers like ends.
This might explain it a little bit. If the handle area was bent at 90 degrees on the handle side of the rivet including the rivet, and then at the other end of the rods, the scissors end was also bent 90 degrees, but past that lower rivet. You could then open and close the handles and the scissors blades would open and close at the other end. Or the pliers grip. Although these were terrarium tools, a few of them were great for building ships in bottles, and easier than using the bent pins on the ends of sticks.
The ship in the bottle kits that came with these pin sticks had the pin coming out the tip and bent 90 degrees, whereas the ones I made, I just pushed the pin through a balsa stick, that way it wouldn't spin if the glue came loose like the ones that came in the kits.
Another tool that may sound odd, is like a rubber bulb, similar to that used to clean a baby's nose. These had a small aluminum or brass tube which you used to hold a small part, like a cannon. You squeeze the bulb, and the open end of the tube had a soft rubber collar, so it would hold the item long enough to get it inside the bottle and hold it in place for the glue to set. Hopefully, before the suction finally ran out, hi hi. I rarely used this item myself, but still had one. I used it mostly for getting things out I dropped inside the bottle, hi hi. Man that was a lot of years ago I messed with doing that, hi hi.
One RR Caboose was an ice cream shop, and you only walked up to the windows on a deck to get your ice cream.
Another was a sit down diner, but also had outdoor tables on both sides.
Both of those were real cabooses. We had a few stores that were built to look like a caboose, or a diner car from the parking lot. Heck we had one down here that looked like a riverboat from the parking lot. It's now gone though.
Remember the old photomat boxes in the middle of parking lots?
Some man bought like four of those, plus a booth from a gas station, and put them all together to make a hot dog joint.
He was only in business about two years, and they sat there for about another two years empty, until an apartment complex was being built behind that parking lot. Now that parking lot is a two lane decorative entrance to the back side of the apartment complex.
There were only a couple of things the auctioneer found in the attic to have brought down, so anything else that was up there was left when we moved out, hi hi. One of them was a large 10 gallon box of glass radio tubes, and in that box he found a couple of transmitter tubes, so placed them on top for the auction. I still think both items only brought around 5 or 10 bucks is all.
Hard to explain what a lot of these tools looked like, especially the ones with handles and scissors or pliers like ends.
This might explain it a little bit. If the handle area was bent at 90 degrees on the handle side of the rivet including the rivet, and then at the other end of the rods, the scissors end was also bent 90 degrees, but past that lower rivet. You could then open and close the handles and the scissors blades would open and close at the other end. Or the pliers grip. Although these were terrarium tools, a few of them were great for building ships in bottles, and easier than using the bent pins on the ends of sticks.
The ship in the bottle kits that came with these pin sticks had the pin coming out the tip and bent 90 degrees, whereas the ones I made, I just pushed the pin through a balsa stick, that way it wouldn't spin if the glue came loose like the ones that came in the kits.
Another tool that may sound odd, is like a rubber bulb, similar to that used to clean a baby's nose. These had a small aluminum or brass tube which you used to hold a small part, like a cannon. You squeeze the bulb, and the open end of the tube had a soft rubber collar, so it would hold the item long enough to get it inside the bottle and hold it in place for the glue to set. Hopefully, before the suction finally ran out, hi hi. I rarely used this item myself, but still had one. I used it mostly for getting things out I dropped inside the bottle, hi hi. Man that was a lot of years ago I messed with doing that, hi hi.
One RR Caboose was an ice cream shop, and you only walked up to the windows on a deck to get your ice cream.
Another was a sit down diner, but also had outdoor tables on both sides.
Both of those were real cabooses. We had a few stores that were built to look like a caboose, or a diner car from the parking lot. Heck we had one down here that looked like a riverboat from the parking lot. It's now gone though.
Remember the old photomat boxes in the middle of parking lots?
Some man bought like four of those, plus a booth from a gas station, and put them all together to make a hot dog joint.
He was only in business about two years, and they sat there for about another two years empty, until an apartment complex was being built behind that parking lot. Now that parking lot is a two lane decorative entrance to the back side of the apartment complex.
Re: Two Bad Tracks`
When I was a circuit board tester/analyzer at Motorola I acquired a collection of unique tools. Most of them were picks of various shapes that my dentist broke or no longer needed for some reason. These tools were short for working in a patient's mouth and ideally suited for picking away at circuit boards too. One of the things I had, and still have, is a surgical clamp. This is basically a long scissor type tool with short stubby clamps at one end. I can see a tool of that nature working very well inside a bottle. It would squish a terrarium component into oblivion, but it was perfect for something more solid.
My dad had a grabber that he used for working on automobiles. It was an armor covered wire about three feet long; kind of like very thin BX but with a single wire. At one end of the wire was something that looked like four metal fingers with a 90 degree bend all facing the center. The other end was a spring loaded knob that you could push with your thumb. When you pushed hard enough on the knob the fingers on the other end would spread apart so that you could grab something in a confined area where neither tools nor fingers could reach. I can see a variation of that kind of tool also being useful for bottled ship building.
I've seen crafts people use some very strange pliers to make jewelry. Some of those pliers have multiple grips at various angles. These people mostly work with beads and bobbles which would drive me crazy. However the tools they use are totally awesome. LOL
My dad had a grabber that he used for working on automobiles. It was an armor covered wire about three feet long; kind of like very thin BX but with a single wire. At one end of the wire was something that looked like four metal fingers with a 90 degree bend all facing the center. The other end was a spring loaded knob that you could push with your thumb. When you pushed hard enough on the knob the fingers on the other end would spread apart so that you could grab something in a confined area where neither tools nor fingers could reach. I can see a variation of that kind of tool also being useful for bottled ship building.
I've seen crafts people use some very strange pliers to make jewelry. Some of those pliers have multiple grips at various angles. These people mostly work with beads and bobbles which would drive me crazy. However the tools they use are totally awesome. LOL
Re: Two Bad Tracks`
I've used a lot of dental and other tools for years.
Heck in my drawer right now I have a needle and sheath used for a cardiac cath. I used it to refill ink cartridges, hi hi.
I had one of those myself. Very handy. Actually I had a three prong and a four prong. Looked like an old speedometer cable, hi hi.
I've also had some specialized tools, such as a bag tie, I used to twist wires together, and even to wind up a rubber band powered larger size model airplane too. Windshield washer pumps I used to add fuel to my model planes. And old glass and steel with chrome hypodermic syringes I connected to an eccentric wheel to do controlled pumping to fill small vials with the exact amount I needed. You would laugh at some of the things I made before I could afford to buy the ones made for the job.
In fact, I think you saw the ashtray on my desk that uses a dishwasher blower motor and a spaghetti canister and a swimming pool hose to export the smoke to outdoors, hi hi.
As they say, where there's a Will, there's relatives, hi hi.
Heck in my drawer right now I have a needle and sheath used for a cardiac cath. I used it to refill ink cartridges, hi hi.
I had one of those myself. Very handy. Actually I had a three prong and a four prong. Looked like an old speedometer cable, hi hi.
I've also had some specialized tools, such as a bag tie, I used to twist wires together, and even to wind up a rubber band powered larger size model airplane too. Windshield washer pumps I used to add fuel to my model planes. And old glass and steel with chrome hypodermic syringes I connected to an eccentric wheel to do controlled pumping to fill small vials with the exact amount I needed. You would laugh at some of the things I made before I could afford to buy the ones made for the job.
In fact, I think you saw the ashtray on my desk that uses a dishwasher blower motor and a spaghetti canister and a swimming pool hose to export the smoke to outdoors, hi hi.
As they say, where there's a Will, there's relatives, hi hi.