Now Available: Detailed Clinic Schedule (subject to change)

The 2008 Convention timetable features a large variety ofrail and non-rail clinics for attendees.

Well-known author and scenery expert, Dave Frary, will be with us Saturday to provide a clinic titled "Building Waterways on your Model Railroad".  Dave is planning to demonstrate how to build rivers, ponds, harbors, and even a waterfall.  He will show which colors to choose for a realistic appearance and then how to "build" the water surface using gloss acrylic medium, gloss acrylic gel, acrylic modeling paste.

Dave has been an active professional model builder, model railroad builder, photographer, and instructor for more than 40 years. His photos, plans and stories have appeared in Model Railroader, Railroad Model Craftsman, Classic Toy Trains, Great Model Railroads, The Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette , Fine Scale Modeler , Model Railroading , and many other publications.  Dave Frary's model railroads have toured the USA with the Greenberg Train Shows, are located in Tokyo Disneyland, several museums, retail stores, and used in TV and motion picture productions. He's a member of I.A.T.S.E. Local 481 stage and motion picture technicians union and for fun he's a championship BBQ cook and a certified Kansas City BBQ judge.

Another active model railroader, published author and our own local DCC expert, Stan Ames, will present a clinic titled "How to Select a DCC System".   Stan has been a proponent of DCC since its early inception and has published a book on the topic. Stan has also written articles for numerous railroad publications on different aspects of Digital Command Control.   Stan and his wife Deb maintain an ever-expanding garden G gauge layout that sometimes seems to be taking over their entire back yard.  It's possible their garden layout may be available for NASG convention attendees to visit when they are leaving on Sunday.  More details to follow on this possibility…

A fun event we have scheduled for a clinic is "Building an S Scale Kit". Here you will have the opportunity to create a small S scale structure from a kit. This clinic will require payment for cost of the kit and building materials.  This clinic is sure to give you lots of helpful advice and tips for kit building. The instructor, Steve Huntley, will include information on painting and weathering the building when it’s done.

Professional model builders Mike Tylick and Leon Wasiak (WhatDetail.com) are on the Convention timetable offering attendees two clinics – one on Designing Scenery for Tight Places and another on Scenery Techniques. Both Mike and Leon are well known model railroaders, and can usually be found at regional and national model railroad conventions sharing their expertise with others. If you’re working on the scenery and/or structures for your layout, you don’t want to miss these clinics. Learn from the pros. Here’s a short video segment on using weathering chalks from Mike Tylick:

We also have planned an evening clinic by architect Alan Bliek titled "Old Colony Railroad Stations".  In this presentation you will learn how one local railroad took a basic set of floor plans and produced seven different passenger depots.    Alan is also offering another clinic for attendees that is a review of Gondola's in S gauge. For many years S modelers did not have much to choose from when it came to gondola styles. American Flyer made only one and kits were mighty few.  Now you can have a wide variety through the use of ready-to-run, kits and easy conversions of non-S cars which will be discussed in this clinic.

 Other clinics will cover topics on:

• Decaling and Weathering Freight cars  by Steve Allen,  
• Mountain Building and Rock cuts using ceiling tiles by Charlie Bettinger,
• Creating Backdrops by Charlie Bettinger,  and
• Re-wiring American Flyer Accessories to work with Command Control by Rob Quimby.  

 A unique clinic titled "Historical Research" presented by Jerry Rivet will provide attendees instruction on how to locate information about old prototype railroad equipment. 

We are also planning a series of informal demonstrations in one or two of the large hallways at the convention. The intent is to allow attendees to have informal discussions with the demonstrator, and in some cases, see close-up hands-on work being done.  A few topics for this category will be "Building Turnouts from scratch", "American Flyer repair" and "Kitbashing" clinics.  If you would like to volunteer an hour or so of your time to participate in a Demonstration, please send us an email with your name and a short description of your topic.  We'll see about getting you scheduled for  a Demonstration.  You can send email to doug@portlines.com.

Workshops and clinics are also being scheduled for spouses and non-rail attendees.  Plan to bring along some of your train (or other) photos if you may be interested in a Scrapbooking clinic called "Preserving your Train Photos".   Details for other non-rail clinics will be forthcoming nearer the convention.

Detailed Clinic Schedule

Please note: Clinics are subject to change. Some Clinics will involve a minimal fee to pay for supplies involved in the clinic, such as the Kit building clinic.