Layout of LION has many locations where wire must be passed trough several levels of table, most without access. This signal was installed in a place where the use of the straw is demonstrated. A 16" long drill bit will make the hole, and the straw will line it so that the wires will simply drop in.
The straw also provides a secure socket for the signal mast. A second straw wends its way through to the bottom of the table although all wiring is done in the front, and not under the table.
ROAR
So the hobby is expensive [:^)]
Cheers, the Bear.
yeah, no kidding. Better get out now before he’s in to deep and flat broke. Unless of course he recycled the straw after buying a drink off the dollar menu…
Or buy a box of drinking straws…Over the years I bet I found dozens of ways to use straws from culvert pipe to industry stacks to pipe loads…Don’t overlook the round coffee stirrers since they have dozens of uses…You can buy these by the box too.
Me thinks Lion takes more than one straw when in cafeteria of Abbey.
Bad Lion!!![oX)]
Got a bad Indian too. I almost always take two or three home with me from whatever restaurant I’ve gone to. They’ll never miss them.
A good thing about straws these days is that you can find them in so many different sizes. This came about with the popularity of various Asian “bubble tea” drinks with the big pearl tapicoa in them. Yum![dinner] Some are really huge, like the ones I used for the blower ducts that feed the furnaces at the smelter.
They’re roughly 3/8" or 3’ HO in diameter, a nice size for culverts, too.
Mike,Excellent idea. I would have never thought of using straws for blower ducts.
But this hobby is so…so expensive that I cannot afford to go to restaurants…[:'(]. Seriously, I like the examples pictured. Also drainage culverts and other uses. There are numerous day to day materials that can be used, Just need some imagination.
Lion, you may take all the straws you need, but not the Brandy[angel]. The Abbott would not be pleased.
The black ones, bundled together make nice loads of of water pipe. That’s a good way to add a construction scene-repaiting commercial water lines.
I like the straws from tropical drinks, but what to do with the little umbrellas? And the 3-inch cutlass from the maraschino cherries? Yes, I save all this stuff just in case I can come up with a modeling opportunity for them.
th umbrellas could be used on an outdoor deck of some tropical tiki bar. The cutlasses can be used for an Oldsmobile dealership. Oh wait, not that kind of cutlass.
LION is many things. Of these him is Registered Nurse. Him bought a case (10 boxes of 500 straws) for a patient who could not drink except through a straw, Patient died, LION is left holding the strtaws. Him still has thousands left. Now, 20 years later, I have found a use for them.
Zookeepers NEVER throw anything away.
ROAR
Been there, done that on last layout. I just used the bendy part since it looked like a courgated culvert. I painted it a rusty brown, I draped some yellow and green yarns from it and poured Duco Cement down the yarns into a puddle on the ROW to represent a minute flow of water, after all this was just a weep pipe in a retaining wall and not a river that was being represented.
LION does not need no stinking brandy, Him drinks Diet Pepsi, or Diet Dr. Pepper when him can get it (but the Pepsi is on tap : ) ). But LION is also keeper of the Whine Cellar and him just received a truckload of 18 pallates of whine from Lost Angeles. But no Brandy. Our original wine maker had a beautiful brandy, but him sold out and is gone, Our present winemaker does not dew brandy. (more’s the pitty!)
ROAR
Hello Good job Lion Well I made this I used a straw,T/P roll half of a small plastic Easter egg ,some brown thread and a few bits from the scrap box. The straw is the brown pipe on the left.
Have a nice day Frank
Quite strange, Brother Elias, that you haven’t “appropriated” (monks never steal, of course) coffee stirrers for use as downspouts/drainage pipes which run vertically along support columns under elevated subway stations…(or at least haven’t admitted to doing so).
Lots of uses for straws. As long as you don’t find yourself holding the short straw.
LION bought stirrers at Walmart. Very Cheap. Here they are in one of my subway tunnels. The stirrers are dual chanel, so this was a simple construction. You could also use them for lapm posts since the hace two electrical chanels.
ROAR!
LOL!
I use the small coffee stir straws for various reasons, one of which was in making a stack of oil pipe with that I painted sand color then painted the ends flat black and glued to a flat car. The larger ones can be cut and painted silver and glued on a flat car or in a gondola to represent drain pipe.
Tracklayer
