[maple_leaf_eh]

Welcome.

As has been intimated, MLU is a very collegial place to learn and share. No matter what comes to mind, remember you're not the first person to worry or wonder.

The advice about tracking down the missing bits might become a compulsion! These green trucks have a tendency to accumulate in the yards and driveways. Now departed Alex Blair, who limited his collecting to paper manuals, coined the nickname "Rusty Old Truckers" or Rotters, for the likes of us.

You'll find you have to become an amateur metal worker. The Hammond Barn crew are a stellar example of self-taught fabricators. In their professional lives, none of them swung a rubber mallet, sparked a weld, or changed an axle seal. But of necessity, they are now setting a high standard of workmanship.

A professional colleague of mine uses the phrase, move move lose, as the biggest threat to any form of collection or archives. I know my father's example is to spread things out horizontally but my mother's nature was to keep like things together. It saves space, focuses the mind, and prevents over-buying of shiney bits. I find organizing my parts with durable hang tags and some numbering system, tracked in a spreadsheet, makes restarting a project after any length of time, so much easier.