Coffee Shop XXXVIII-7/20/2013


Good Morning:

75° and cloudy this morning, with a 60% probability of rain. We had several "light" showers yesterday, which ended the 8 day dry spell.

After my son and his family drove off, the wife and I just vegetated. The house was suddenly too quiet. Time to move on to other projects that I can handle. I need to reorganize my MRR stuff so I can store it. Then there is the indoor painting. Lotta work, little time.

Have a good day.

Joe
 
Good Morning

mmmmm...where did our sun go....mmmmmm...we be kinda dull today...gonna be a high of 82 feeling like 92....

Had to do the lawn again this fine morning...it grew 4" since last week!!:eek!:

Gonna be a somewhat slow day which can be a good thing...so have a good day!!
 
Hi y'all, just got back from a camping vacation Friday evening. Spent most of the weekend mowing my overgrown lawn, then struggling to learn how to use JMRI Operations software. I'd really like to avoid using car cards again if at all possible...

Ack!! Camping!?? :rolleyes: Did too much of that in Scouts!! Nowadays "roughing it" for me is a hotel without room service!!:eek: Unless you're talking trackside camping,,then I may consider it. Of course then I would suggest "camping" at the Station Inn in Cresson PA. A trackside hotel that GUARANTEES at least a train an hour 24/7. Now that's camping!!

Let me know how that JMRI OPS is coming along. Also check with Keith. He's a JMRI guru but uses these nice, little car cards. Not sure how he makes them but they appear to be computer generated.:)
 
Camping.......When I lived in western colorado I went camping in the canyonlands area of southeastern utah about ten times every year in the spring and fall. The scenery in the road runner/wiley coyote cartoons is modeled after the red sandstone arches, spires, and cliffs of this high desert wilderness. I really miss those times but my lower back gave out in 2003.....and it does not enjoy waking up on the ground ever since. Some of the four wheel drive roads going up and down those cliffs are incredible.

Plus it's kind of hazardous with anvils laying around everywhere and fake tunnels painted on the rocks. :cool:

Okay.......I went back and looked at some looney toon pics and there are big saguaro cactus in there with road runner.....so that was more down arizona way not really utah.....in the interest of accuracy in camping stories. Blah! :eek: But hey.....I camped in arizona several times too.



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Already been to town and back. My father was going in so I got a ride with him. First stop, the pharmacy to drop off a list for refills on my meds. Then to Wal-Mart so he could get some frozen shrimp and a couple other items. I got a 1.75 fluid ounce bottle of GO2GLUE. Never tried it before so I have no idea how well it'll work. Back to the pharmacy to pick up the meds then home.

I worked on a clean-up project this morning. An old Quentin 5.25" computer disk drive. Those not interested in this kind of thing can stop reading now.

This particular drive survived a house fire back in 2001-2002. Mostly smoke and water damage. The electronics were trashed so I replaced the those with boards from an old Apple Disk II drive. I didn't know if it would work. It did. The Quentin is after all an Apple Disk II clone. That took care of the inside. Now for the nasty outside. Now I know there are some out there who don't want to see photos of this kind of thing so I'll post links to the photos.

In photo #1 you can see the drive pretty much as I got it. Brown, dirty, nasty, unpleasant to look at.

Fired damaged drive

I removed the shell from the drive. I then scrubbed the shell down with Krud Kutter on a paper towel to remove as much of the dirt and smoke damage as I could. I used a plastic bristle brush and some 91% alcohol to get off what was left then a little more Krud Kutter to do a final clean-up.

Cleaned Drive Shell

I then reassemble the drive and took the final photo. The drive looks and operates like it was brand new.

Reassembled Drive
 
Snow flurries this morning, followed by locusts, frogs and . . .

Oh, who am I kidding. It's hot and humid in Alabama with a strong chance of thunderstorms. In other news, the sun is still hot and ice is still cold. :p I need more coffee!
 
Went to my fathers place for dinner today. Chili dogs. I chopped up one of the garden grown peppers on mine. Wow! Those things are hot!

Two more disk drives I worked on today are these two Apple compatible Franklins. They are slightly different models but they have identical chassis. The top drive has no write protection so it can write to a disk even it it has a write protect tab on it. The shells of both were stripped and repainted. I made up the drive badges in MSPaint.

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Good Evening:

This evening we had the mother of all Thunderstorms. it just sat over us, for forever. Lots of lightning and rolling thunder. The rain came late, then opened up 2½" of rain later it went away. That's our daily quota, plus make-up for all the rain we didn't get last week.

My latest project is a modernized 1950ish HW daytime passenger train, based on the Reading. I plan on using Athearn BB HW cars which are similar but not exact. I just ordered interiors for 2 coaches and a diner. I have some under body and body details already so I need to figure out what else I might need. New trucks and bolsters are also a possibility as the Reading cars had 4 wheel trucks and the BBs come with 6 wheel trucks. I'm not a rivet counter, but I like my models to be plausibly close to the real thing. There are models of the exact prototype available in kit form, but I want to use stuff I have on hand. Not only is it cheaper, but most people who would observe my railroad wouldn't know the difference. Beside it gives me an opportunity to be creative, and I need something for my Atlas/Roco FP7 to haul around the layout.

Tomorrow looks like an interior painting day, subject to change due to mood swing. I hate painting, and generally look for a reason to get out of painting.

Have a pleasant evening.

Joe
 
Good Really Early Morning...

Lawn cut, mower cleaned, floor of garage/studio cleaned, weeding done, mmmmm, seems a lot of nothing got done...lol!:confused:

Today apparently will have those ol' t'underin'boomers come through..high of 82 expected feeling like 93...not bad...:rolleyes:

Have a good day!!
 
Good morning all ye people! It's routinely early here before 6am (is it like that everywhere? :confused: ). Kind of entertaining a notion at the moment....now that old toyota's running superbly again (yay!) to possibly motor up to marion, ohio about 35 miles to go watch big freight trains! Have breakfast at McDoodah's on the way. Take camera and tripod. Marion has an old Erie-Lackawanna passenger station downtown. Double tracks surround the station on three sides creating two quad crossings within 150 feet or so. All tracks are active.....trains pass every 15 minutes all day! Guess I should get ready to go. :D
 
Marion, OH, eh? Never been there, but back in the '90s, there were several former EL conductors from Marion, (and Cleveland), who could no longer hold jobs in Ohio, and had to come East to Newark, NJ to earn a living. Worked with them numerous times......they were good guys. Once they could hold jobs in Ohio again they went back.

Have fun Mike, and be safe around the tracks.
 
G'morning gang, and thanks for all the welcome-backs! The weather here in central MD matches my nose: steady drip-drip-drip and I feel stuffy-headed. I've managed to re-accumulate some sick leave, might as well use it.

Joe, I see that your modeling philosophy is pretty close to mine: To have trains that look good at arms length viewing distance, and are plausible for the era being modeled. Lifes too short [and money too tight] for me to worry about getting rivet-level detail on every piece of rolling stock.

Mike - have fun railfanning in Marion, and share some of the pics you get!

Karl - I think I'm very close to a point where I can generate exactly the type of switchlists and manifests I need for a typical op session. I've already accumulated many hours of practicing and learning from my mistakes. I'll send Keith some PDF samples and see if he thinks they would help him manage the yard.
 
Good Morning:

It's 73° and 100% humid this morning in Coastal New Jersey. The temperature is supposed to reach 86° with 60% chance of heavy rain forecast. Yesterday, according to my rain gauge on the front lawn, we had nearly 4" of rain from two slow moving storms. I imagine that today might be similar.

I am having an arthritic day, stiffer and more sore than normal. I hope the anti-inflammatory kicks in soon, as I have a lot of stuff to do.

Have a great day.

Joe
 
Joe, I see that your modeling philosophy is pretty close to mine: To have trains that look good at arms length viewing distance, and are plausible for the era being modeled. Lifes too short [and money too tight] for me to worry about getting rivet-level detail on every piece of rolling stock.

I found these BB cars in a container filled with Rivarossi and ConCor 80' cars. It occurred to me that the BB cars will blend in nicely with the small fleet of Bethlehem Car Works Reading cars. So what if they are "Not Exactly". They will also look better on my 24", 26" and 28" radius curves. I definitely agree with your philosophy, Ken.

Joe
 
Good morning folks.

The heat wave has broken around here and we have highs in the upper 70's the rest of the week.

You can count me in the close enough group. Most of what I've modeled has been a plausible representation of what really existed. If I had more time, money, space and drive I'd want it perfect. I just seem to run short of some of those things these days. Close enough makes me happy.

Nothing happening on the train front. I sanded some trim this morning.:eek: I'm trying to figure out my process for refinishing this oak trim. After doing a crappy job stripping, and then a crappy job sanding, I'm learning to do a better job stripping! Sunday will be my first all day home improvement day since finishing the painting. I've been dragging my feet since stripping ALL the wood in a five bedroom, three bathroom house sounds like lots of fun!:rolleyes::) Oh well, I agreed to this project in order to get the wife to sign the mortgage. I get a train room AND a pool table/pinball/movie room, she gets dark trim. I guess my motivation to do this project is knowing that I can't touch the trains until it's done.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their summer.

Have a good day.
 
Good morning all. I got back from the NMRA National convention and train show yesterday afternoon. The convention itself was fun, and the train show a lot of work, though successful. Decompressing today, and back to the day job tomorrow. <heavy sigh> It was great to sleep in my own bed last night! Would you believe the weather in Milwaukee is exactly the same as in Atlanta? Weird!
 
Good morning. It's currently 78° with 98% humidity. The high will be 95° but will feel like 103°.
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There's not much going on this morning. Weather is nice. Due to the high humidity my a/c unit sounds like it has a waterfall in it. There's a steady stream of water flowing from it outside, maybe as high as a gallon an hour. I was looking at the inside of an old Apple disk drive that I keep around as a parts source and got a fairly descent shot of it. It'll be at the bottom of this post. I may mow the nieces yard today depending on how high the grass is. With the rain we've had it should be about ready for a cutting.

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The black piece in the middle with the red mark on it is the read/write head, rather large and clumsy by today's standards. The motor in the upper left corner is big enough to use in a G Scale loco and may fit in some of the O Scale diesels. No way will it fit in anything that's HO Scale.
 
I sanded some trim this morning.:eek: I'm trying to figure out my process for refinishing this oak trim. After doing a crappy job stripping, and then a crappy job sanding, I'm learning to do a better job stripping! Sunday will be my first all day home improvement day since finishing the painting. I've been dragging my feet since stripping ALL the wood in a five bedroom, three bathroom house sounds like lots of fun!:rolleyes::) Oh well, I agreed to this project in order to get the wife to sign the mortgage. I get a train room AND a pool table/pinball/movie room, she gets dark trim. I guess my motivation to do this project is knowing that I can't touch the trains until it's done.

Here some motivational music for ya pal! :cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bLX06yR3wY

:rolleyes::p
 



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