Mik had no hobby room. he lived in a trailer. and not a big one.
but he never let himself down. he had no hobbyroom? well, the washingmashine had a flat top.
he had no razorsaw? he cut with a kitchenknife.
but he had an oval of track beside the trailer, with selfmade or bashed buildings and roling stock and he had fun!
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thanks for Catching that John
Korm,
I really wish I would have been around during the actual MIK years of the challenge. I really do appreciate all the ingenuity that the must have had so that he could play in our hobby on a shoe string budget. From all I have gathered he proved you donāt have to have money to be a G scale modeler. But you had better have some good ācobbling togetherā skills.
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Actually he had money, Iām sure not a ton but itās all in how he decided to spend it. Mik derived from his ladies name spelled backwards.
Just saying
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interesting did not know thatās where the nickname came from.
Roosterā¦ Do you have any contact with Kim, and if so does she know that we still do his challenges?
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Dave,
ā¦I do notā¦ (20 characters yet)
Does anyone on this site?
So resisting the urge to build. So I am gathering materials. And imagineering. As a reminder this is my take on the Carrick furnace blower and boiler.
I found a bag of concrete that I can sift the rock out of and use as morter. I am going to break down and buy the concrete patch to mix with it. I will use just strait concrete for filler once I have the walls and top of the base done with the cobble. I have wire hardware cloth for reinforcement. And thanks to George Bush I have plenty of corregated plastic sign material for the form. I bought a huge bush political sign back in the day for a buck. I have tons of pop cans for roofing plus some panels left over that are already made. I have 1/4 ply for the build. And all kinds of scrap wood for the details. I am thinking that other than the concrete patch I shouldnāt need to buy anything.
Will go old school and hand craft all the detail parts this year. This isnāt going to be a fancy build by no means. In fact I am already having trouble in my mind NOT adding details because this is a dumb idaho redneck back woods operation.
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You canāt use that word, you are too far north. Its reserved for those of us that are true rednecks 
Great job on the furnace, Devon. That strikes an eerie similarity to the original. Once the shipping building is added, it will become a nice industrial scene.
Well my first day was a bust. My only hope was to make the cement base with the exposed rock face. Epic fail. Hats off to Ray and Jim because i didnāt pull it off. Such a fail I donāt even want to make a second attempt. None of the rock really looked smooth and flat. And would have required a ton of cleaning and just wouldnāt have looked good. So now instead of stone I will make the base with wood cribbing. I am going to see what I have in pvc lumber and use the grain side of it for making some cribbing timbers.
Part of the problem is I do not want to be in my shop. We are in the negative single and double digits. Itās freaking cold
Ugh! Sorry, Devon. None of my walls were particularly smooth. I filled the gaps with grout. And yes, a fair bit of cleanup. Sorry to lead you down a dead end. The cribbing will look great, Iām sure.
If I recall Rayās building Devon, he used nips on a number of the stones as he placed them to give them the flat face
Sorry to hear it didnāt turn out well, Devon. Photos may allow those that have tried this method before help give you pointers. Iām not one of those folks, but I know there are others that would be glad to help.
But I do like the cribbing idea.
I think yours looked great and I will attempt this again at some point where I am not wanting a nice flat surface. I wanted that nice flat flagstone look and it just didnāt happen.
But as I was digging for scrap pvc wood to make the cribbing I came up with another idea and did a test piece and I like it. Ray and so many others have carved stone surfaces into other materials. I have done it with foam. I figured why not the smooth side of the pvc lumber. So I took a sharpie to it and then carved out the grout lines with the Dremel. I then used the Dremel to distress the stone faces. Some layering if paint using a dry brush technique and I think I have a winner.
It looks decent to me and will make it so the entire base is pvc. The only thing Iād say is my grout lines are to big but I donāt have a smaller dremel bit.
Very cool. Now I see what you mean by smooth. Bruceās technique would also work for you, Iām guessing, but this carving will be a low risk (and warmer!) way to go.
King Fah is ruler of the poles. When he decides to send it, he sends us the Fah King Cold!!!
I thought I was on your cooking thread and this was the recipe prep page for Devonās Devine Candied Bacon Ice Cream with a Salted Caramel Drizzle, but I wonāt because @Korm would say youād be obligated to post the recipe with photos. 
On the other hand I hear itās pretty cold out in the shop, it will be getting dark soon, and the Test Kitchen is insideā¦ emptyā¦
Oh crap! That didnāt work now Iām craving bacon.
That sounds good I might have to make that.
Holy cow itās cold. Went out and cut down some of the pvc wood so I can start gluing it up and cut some pieces of the building. Wasnāt out there 15 minutes and my hands are frozen. I really should insulate my shop. I have an old palor wood stove that I love that is put there but it puts out enough heat to make you know itās burning