Tag: featured
The BUG Photo Etch Bending Tool
My Z scale tool arsenal is very basic, really about as fancy as I get is my resistance soldering unit. I now have a new favorite tool on my workbench… the “BUG” made by The Small Shop. Conceptually it’s a remarkably simple little device in that it allows you to make clean, precise bends in […]
New Z Scale Forum?
I’ve been in both a reflective as well as a looking-forward mood the past week or so regarding things that pertain to Z scale, the overall community and my own Ztrains.com. Earlier this year I moved my site to this new software platform and overall I think it’s has been a solid success. Bit of […]
Good Economy For Z Scale?
With the recent opening of our own Ztrains Store, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the business of Z scale is now doing in the current economy. While I don’t know the numbers of the larger Z scale players like AZL or MTL, in many ways I’d think the business of hobbies should do […]
Occupy Z Scale (aka The Coffee Party)
I like revolutions, not full blown let’s burn the thing to the ground revolutions, but smaller and more focused ones. Pretty much everyone in the US, and likely worldwide, has heard of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. Without getting into the politics or the specifics of either group, what I find appealing […]
Stress Free Z
Here at Ztrains we’ve recently; last night actually, reopened our own Ztrains Store. As with many things in model railroading, schedules and deadlines are sometimes more… flexible than we plan. Personally, I lean on the old chestnut: It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish that counts. Plans and schedules are great things to […]
Waterfront Project | Part 10
In our last Waterfront Project installment I mentioned the dock we were building would also be home to our next kit and here it is, the Micro-Trains Line, Canning Plant Kit (MTL Part 799 90 931). Continuing along with trying to keep some of these kits looking utilitarian and down to earth, I went again […]
Waterfront Project | Part 9
Today’s MTL Waterfront Project kit is the Pier & Building Kit. At 8″ long by 2″ wide, it’s a large piece. The size of the dock will provide a home for our next kit… but we’ll get to that kit in our next article. The building portion of this model is built on a separate […]
Waterfront Project | Part 8
Here’s our version of the Micro-Trains Line, Pier Warehouse Kit. As with our last build, the Hotel Kit, this one has lots of interesting angles and is also surprisingly easy to assemble. On these kits I find myself more and more playing with slight color variations and subtle weathering ideas. I don’t want to go […]
Waterfront Project | Part 7
Our next Micro-Trains kit build is the Hotel Kit which has some great features including a second story outdoor deck, a pair of roof dormers and lots of windows, 40 windows in total! There are only 39 windows on our version of this kit but we’ll get to that in a minute. For a building […]
Z Scale Clearance Gauges
It doesn’t come up every day but it most definitely does come up: how big should my tunnel portal be, how much height do I need under a bridge, why didn’t I think of train clearance before I built my layout? It’s really unfortunate when someone builds a scene and only then realizes they can’t […]
