What is your other preferred hobby...??

What is your other preferred hobby…??

My other hobby is slot car racing. Simple one on one racing at ten/tenths ! Before getting back into model railways, I spent many hours building tracks and racing cars, from historic F1, sportscars, rally cars, touring cars, etc etc. Then the time came to build up a 22 metre long slot car track in the garage. I had spent many hours racing my mates, trigger in one hand, a beer in the other, (sometimes coffee as the night wore on !) ! Here are a few pics of what I had built up, using techniques from railway modelling.

From building temporary tracks…



To building up landscaped tracks…




To having fun on a landscaped track…



^ 1976, what a year in F1… Jochen Mass (McLaren M23) leads Hans Stuck (March 761)



^ Typical Holden Racing Team driving here… OUCH ! Mark Skaife (Holden) takes out Craig Lowndes(Ford), with a touch of smoke for a little reality !



^ Denny Hulme leads the Can Am/Sports Car Drivers Championship in his McLaren M20…

All good times to be had racing cars, but now I'm back into the railway modelling…, But I still have it all !!

Cheers, Gary.

Hi Gary,

You are obviously not short of space anyway.

My other hobby is photography ( although you wouldn't be able to guess it. More specifically, wildlife photography. Before I started working away from home I used to belong to a camera club. We met on Tuesdays and Thursday with some occasional weekend outings etc.

Unfortunately it does not fit into my Callander at the moment so I rarely get the opportunity to get out now. In saying that, I am based up in Dalwhinnie through the week which is a beautiful part of the highlands but my attention has been more focused on the railway layout when Im sitting in my digs at night………….I've got the bug.

The photography will raise its head again at some point.

Cheers for now.

Toto

Where do I start. From the beginning I suppose. Here goes:- Mineralogy (collection of Cornish and British mineral specimens which is now about 1000 pieces in size. Mostly self collected from both above and below ground.); Stamps (Great Britain and Commonwealth, Germany, Switzerland and several others as well as Thematics; Railways (History, Photography, Modelling); Natural History ie. Birds, Bugs, Flowers & Animals (of Devon and Cornwall of course both studying and photographing); Vintage Road Transport (photos and visiting live steam galas etc; Building Websites and Reading when I have a spare minute or two. Keeps the little grey cells turning over and I'm never bored. Go to http://www.dcminerals.co.uk for an example of some of the things I get up to. For the websites I write all my own coding. Fun and sometimes very frustrating. It could be where my hair has gone. Oh! Almost forgot, I collect coins as well.

Guitar, Home Brewing, general model making not just railways.

My (new) other hobby is jumping out of aeroplanes without a parachute.  I plan to skydive until I reach the treetops.  Then I'll grab a branch and swing downwards from branch to branch until I land neatly on my feet.  I'm very excited as my first jump is tomorrow.  I'll tell you all about it on Thursday.

 

Terry

It seems over the last year or two many of my other interests are falling by the wayside, my garden full of roses has not been dead headed or pruned in over a year, now more like a rose jungle, photography has lessened, the layout and associated projects being just about all I shoot now, I used to go to the Bournemouth air show and fire off up to 900 shots in a day, same with folk festivals at Wimborne and Swanage, 1200 shots in 2 days, drowning worms AKA fishing, only been once in the last 6 years, which leaves me with railways, music and reading. Old age is no longer creeping on, it's galloping!

I know the feeling Mike. Where has the last seventy years gone? And don't you find that that list of jobs you were going to do when you retired seems to get longer.

 

Not too many hobbies now.In the past i was well into tropical fish keeping having a space heated fish room and i was secretary and then vice chairman of my local club.I do like local history and world war two has always held a special interest.Now it 's just football as you may tell by my username and model railways.SWMBO has over the years put up with all my hobbies as they changed,golf was another one,but model railways she likes as it gets me from under her feet as she puts it.

Bass Guitar ( re learning as have had a 40 year layoff ), Gardening, Reading.

Yes retirement does not bring the required hours to fit it all in.

Last year I decided to take up self-defence training.  I figured I would go along, do a couple of lessons, and then call it a day, having learnt a few 'tricks'.  Now, aged 62, I find I attend twice a week, wear a martial-arts uniform, and am progressing, via regular gradings, through the different coloured belts (currently Yellow Senior).  In spite of arthritis breaking out in various places, I'm much fitter now than I was thirty years ago!

Age is just a number and a state of mind.

Terry

As they say Terry, "Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional…" ;-);-)

Cheers, Gary.

I like that bit Gary. Oldest teenager i the buisness. Peter Pan does exist.

Walking my dogs around the beautifull Dorset countryside, and going to the pub, either with or without the dogs:), especially this one;-

http://squareandcompasspub.co.uk/

Well for me my love of gardening is no longer and the car I had for car shows is gone.

Cant physically look after each.

But my other hobbies apart from the trains is most things Military.

Have been able to add a Flying Club and airfield (Many thanks to MR Revell & Mr Airfix) to the layout so that helps.
Also have a small collection of German armour awaiting at the rail yards for the Tank Museum to be built.

Plus what I have still in boxes awaiting to be built. Mainly 1/35 or 1/48 scale planes.

Have 5 super large scale Tamiya ship models to be built but have to get some where to display them first. 

And my love of music, Classical and pre 1980 pop.

For the past 12 months my main hobby has been converting a mk6 transit van into a motorhome. :roll: Last month I managed to get the logbook changed over with the DVLA. So far we have managed 3 trips up north to the scotish highlands where we enjoy a spot of wild camping (ie not paying through the nose to go on overpriced campsites). Other intrests include music making with my home studio set up, video editing and photography. Oh then theres the new exhibition layout under construction ….

Other interests include music making with my home studio set up

My music set up is on my second PC, most of the time it is streaming last.fm I select  a load of albums or tracks mostly either baroque, big band swing or Jazz, last/fm streams random tracks. Not being a fan of PC speakers, that PC is hooked up to a Technics receiver driving a pair of KEF speakers. Same PC has a considerable amount of downloaded music which I can listen to if I fancy a change from the last.fm stream.

There is also an application called "Grand Orgue" (free download) which is a virtual pipe organ, load it with a set of organ pipe samples, then play it via a MIDI keyboard or in my case as I am not a keyboard player I "play" it with MIDI files, having downloaded scores to a piece of Notation software which allows me to edit if I want and then send a MIDI file to the "Organ". It will also work with most other sampled instrument files, so I could "play" a harpsichord and flute together or separately.

Keeps me off the streets!

It keeps the brain active as does modelling, I find that important since retirement, I never watch TV except occasionally to a railway documentary or wildlife programme if it catches my attention, even programmes like that I'm more likely to  watch on the PC.