Good Evening:
...I elected to grill burgers and dogs for our dinner. Once the sun left the patio, and with the wind out of the NW, it was cold. I turned the first two burgers into crispy critters. Losing my touch as a "Grillmaster" The replacements + the hot dogs turned out much better.
Well, it was Monday, all day....
Joe
Hey Joe! What a coincidence! First yes, it was Monday all day here too
. I had my IGG treatment today, and this one was rough. These things make me feel like I've been beat with a baseball bat, and today was worse than others. The air was just cool enough to make me cold all day due to the IGG temperature, (from the fridge). It got to 70` at my house and I had to wear a jacket to try to keep warm. Then the wife woke up, she's been working nights the past two weeks, and she wanted some burgers as well.
I made up the burgers, putting some shredded cheese and bacon bits in them, and smoked them in the smoker for almost 2 hours. Even I have to admit, that as bad as I felt, they were worth the pain! Talk about melting in your mouth!
I had finished basically rebuliding two Rivarossi Allegheny's for a customer down in South Alabama, and when we put them on his layout they ran flawlessly. The Tsunamis I installed in them were in top form and they performed fabulously as well. The customer was so satisfied, he didn't even blink an eye at the bill, and even gave me a substantial tip.
The locos had been at another repair shop for over 18 months, and that guy had been unable to get started on them, other than to destroy a early Tsunami in one of them and remove the wiring from both of them. He was just supposed to replace the front engine on one of them, and install a Tsunami in the other. Why he stripped the wiring out of them, IDK. Instead when they were shipped to me, I got two Alleghenys in parts, and another that was broken to be used to supply parts to repair both of them. Both of the locomotives were missing a lot of detail parts from them, but I was able to find most of the missing parts scattered in the boxes the locos came in. The eccentric cranks on one were totally shattered, and being plastic, there was no way to replace just those. It took an entire set of axles, wheels and valve gear from the parts queen to repair it.
I also had to totally rewire them, replacing the lights with LEDs, and using some Circuitron mini connectors to repair one with. I had to rewire them without any kind of diagram. I tested wire ends with a meter separating all the wires so I could attach the wires where they were supposed to go. the guy has also removed some components from the circuit boards inside the loco and tenders, so this turned into a true hard wire install of the Tsunamis.
There were supposed to be also two numbers, 1631 and 1633. Instead there was only two 1633's and no extra cabs in the boxes. I had to repaint one of the cabs and renumber it, and had discovered that the lower boiler shell had been broken, and I replaced it with the lower boiler shell from the broken parts queen. It had been heavily weathered and I had to paint the lower section of it as well. The paint didn't quite match, but it did turn out well, and the customer said it added character to the loco.
Overall I discovered that I no longer wanted one of these from Rivarossi, and I will definitely keep my 1964 brass Akane!