Running Bear's LXXIII Coffee Shop


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Gary: great looking railroad, very real looking everything blends naturally. Thumbs up..

Greg: I bet something like rustoleum alum would give a weathered flat look

greg
 
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Greg (WI) .... I made the large flour mill several years ago. If I recall correctly, I painted the dust collectors with rattle can paint . First I sprayed with mineral red. Before that was all the way dry, I sprayed with silver . The result looks like rusted metal. ..... .. (edit follows ) ...to build the structure, I started by making a box from plywood. I painted the plywood box flat black . I glued the building pieces to the plywood box. I did not use clear plastic window glazing because the flat black surfaces looked close enough to glass behind the window parts. I recall measuring over and over to get everything to fit together. (End if edit)

Greg (GA) .. thank you for your remarks. .
 
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As of 4:30 this afternoon, we have heat. Forecast high temp tomorrow is 74, and Thursday is 82...
 
As of 4:30 this afternoon, we have heat. Forecast high temp tomorrow is 74, and Thursday is 82...

Fantastic! Now, does your air conditioning work? Seriously, Terry, they may have screwed it up while installing the heat. You need to check it out, before it gets much above the low 80s. I am happy the heat ordeal is over. If you find Mr. Murphy, send him back to Trenton where he belongs. :rolleyes:

Sounds like Bob is on the way to resolving the hosting issue. I'm kind of cheap, but a donation every now and then won't break me.

Heard from Louis this afternoon. He is in the midst of remodeling the new home. Big difference from renting to owning, eh?

Garry: That's a good idea for the dust collectors. BTW the "Builder" with helpers looks great.

Someone else published a nice street scene, about a page back. I don't recall who, but there were two photos. Nice!

Have a good night.

Boris
 
Willie,

Heck I can fix that, the 32 truck is my wife's, the 34 mine. Truck power built 327, the car 350 stroker motor. The B&W picture, that Bike in the back, was the means for the machines.

greg

I got a '34 too!

Hot Rod & VW rod 003.JPGHot Rod & VW rod 005.JPG

Can't get the hood open, so can't say what motor.
 
Chet, I had a snow blower that I used for 20+ years. It never failed; but, when it snowed one day, the next when I could get to the driveway was always -20 below and blowing strong right up the driveway! I would be headed down the driveway with the blower and getting the blown snow straight back in my face and at -20 below with wind, this was frostbite city! The last time I blew snow, these where the conditions and I ended up driving off the driveway and got the tractor and blower stuck, big time! I told the wife "THAT'S IT", I'm done with blowing snow, I'm going to call someone to plow us out! I haven't looked back, since! Where I live, a garden tractor with a snow blower and no cab is a brutal way of removing snow!

It melted hard yesterday and will do so again today. Even if temps do not get above freezing the sun is high enough that snow is loosing ground.

Well Flo, you've had to listen to me complain for the last little bit, bring me a big expensive-breakfast, there's a nice tip in it for you! Oh, Coffee, too!
 
Good morning everyone. 46 and cloudy, heading for 60 with a chance of rain all day. Had to take an alternate route in to work because of a flooded river crossing.

Chet, Garry, Willie, Curt, and anyone I may have missed - thanks for the comments on my layout progress.
Terry - Right on time. Should we pray for a late winter storm to head your way so you can use your heater?
Toot - Great mini-car video - two downsides I can think of: can't bring much groceries home, and no back seat action with your girlfriend :eek:

In the trainroom, just keep plugging along with the house kit build and putting down roadbed for the extended main line. It's getting to be more fun though now that I have a town that's looking more like a town. Got several kits coming from MBKlein that will be industries scattered around the layout. Picking up and dropping off cars will be a lot more fun.

Have a good day everyone.
 
Good Morning All. 52° and overcast. Ended up with 1.6" of rain in the gauge from yesterday, looks as if it has all moved east for now. Still looks to be a dreary day. Today's the big prep day for tomorrow's colonoscopy. I'm not really too keen on not eating at all until around noon tomorrow. But it is what it is. First one for me. They'll be doing an upper GI as well, hope that they don't use the same tube or at least do the upper first.
Out in the train shed yesterday, I finished drilling all of the holes in the fenceposts for about 28" of barbed-wire fencing, and threaded all of the wire. Painted the posts also. Drilled all of the holes in the layout and got started on the installation, but had to stop for supper. Thirty more minutes today will complete the install. This fencing is going along the ROW for the track, to separate it from the homestead. Next up for this scene are the trees along the various fence lines. Finally located the picket fencing that I had stashed during "organization" and I can now do the small family cemetery.

Johnny - Town is looking good.
Brian - There weren't many comments in the Coffee Shop regarding the forum software changes, but there is lots of participation on several other threads.
Chet - I'd take you up on your offer except it's too damn cold up there.
Greg (GA) - Super cool.
Garry - You certainly keep the engine washers busy on your layout. Looks great.
Ken (D&J) - Yep! Murphy has made a side trip to visit you from his permanent residence at Terry's house.

Everybody have a great day.

Willie
 
Good morning. 34 degrees with light snow flurries this morning.

Joe - Thanks on the heads up about Louis. I have been wondering how he was doing. It does make a difference when you own.

Toot -
I don't think I would even try to get into that Sunbird. Don't bend as good as I used to.

Mark - It's hard to get out of the way of the discharge from a snow blower. We had an Ariens tractor with a blower on the front and I dreaded changing directions because I knew I was going to eat a lot of snow, but it did do a heck of a job. One year we had a 14' snow drift across the entire driveway and it was able to get it cleared out. It did take a while, but it did clear it. Wish I still had it, but after around 30 years of working 12 months out of the year, it died. I was mowing the lawn one afternoon and it started running rough. Turned it off and looked at the motor and saw the rod and bottom of the piston through the engine wall. Not good. They wanted $1,900 for a short block Kohler motor. I about fell over. There were only 2 motors that would work to line up with the PTO drive. Ended up picking up a little Husqvarna 26 hp tractor with a 48" mowing deck for $2,100. The plow for snow only cost $250 and for most snow falls, it does the job.

Curt - 30 bags??? Going to have a yard sale ??? With the winds we can get from time to time, what ever is in the yard usually winds up a couple of counties away. Hope you enjoyed the cruise. Must have been different seeing things from the surface.

Greg (GA)- Like the hot rods. Sweet. Over the years I have restored numerous classic cars and muscle cars, but never built anything like those.

Ken D&J - What a crock. It would be nice if they were up front with you instead of telling stories. Guess there will be no movies in the near future.

Greg - Waiting to see some photos. Sounds like you enjoyed the break in session.

Willie - Come up in the summer. When it's hot out, the train room is the place to be.

Here's a rail photo for today. Joe, this one is for you.

7755.1483711926.jpg

Later
 
Good Morning Everyone....sunny and mild in Wisconsin.

Garry: Thanks for your responding to my questions about the mill construction. Like the way the collectors turned out. The plywood box is a great idea for larger background buildings. Going to check my Walther's background building supply of unfinished kits and maybe I could combine several of them, if not, I'm going to Walther's on Friday anyway.

I have a long industrial area behind the Saxeville Interchange area and maybe I'll attached the buildings to plywood to make handling easier when removing them for dusting, etc.

Found a sheet of commercially made faded and aged building signs I didn't know I had. They're on paper and I may scan the sheet to a disk and have a office supply store copy them to decal paper for a better installation.

Chet: The SOO GP38-2 #4441 will get to run again today this time backwards to finish its break-in session. Like to get the gear lube evenly distributed and the motor brushes broken in to provide a sweet runner. Some of my older Atlas locomotives run better with more use and are extremely smooth at slow switching speeds.

Going to use my phone later to take some additional shots of my completed Ale House building.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do an inventory of my supply of DCC decoders. I have no idea how many or what type of decoders I have left to install. The decoders are just kept in a small box. Years ago I purchased a lot of decoders on EBay at reasonable prices for high quality decoders. One of my favorite decoders are the inexpensive, Atlas Dual Mode Decoders designed to fit Atlas Classic locomotives. Their functions are limited, but for switching locomotives they work just fine and I can find them for under $20 each. I should have a decoder to install for almost all my NIB, DC locomotives I yet to have run. (I hope.)

Terry: Glad your heating problem is solved.

That's all for now.

Greg

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Good afternoon gang, just a quick drive-by post...

Terry - glad you have a working furnace again!

Garry - great looking Empire Builder photos

Greg in GA - Sharp looking "wheels"!

On the subject of snow blowers: Y'all remember last week when my region got walloped by snow from that nor'easter, and you convinced me I should invest in a snow blower? Well, I've been perusing whats available at Home Depot and reading the consumer reviews. On the 1-to-5 star ratings I always look at the 1-star ratings first, to see if there is a general pattern. It seems that even among the top-rated models - i.e. the ones with a 4.5 or above - it seems like at least 5% of the respondents rate a given model at 1 star. When I read the individual negative reviews, what I often see is "...my old _________ lasted 25 years, but this new one crapped out after only 2 seasons - and I did ALL the required maintenance!" This is complaint is common across all the major brands: Ariens, Cub Cadet, Toro, you name it. Conversely, all of the 5-star reviews seem to be written by customers still in the "honeymoon" period, where they only recently got their machine. So apparently anything that was manufactured after the 1980's is junk, or has a much higher probability of being a lemon.

Now I'm having second thoughts about sinking $1K into a machine that is likely to fail after a year or two. Even the best manufacture's warranty is totally useless if my machine dies when I have an 18-inch layer of snow on my driveway. I'm tempted to follow Mark's approach and just setup an annual contract with a local professional plowing buisness.

Time to run, got a "fire" to put out here at the office!
 
Good Afternoon All,

Ran some errands earlier. The Tichy NBW's came in so I painted them with Zinc Chromate and after they dried I cut them off the sprues.

I will most likely be absent until the Friday after Easter. My youngest grandson's school is having a book fair starting tomorrow and going thru Next Thursday. MOH is in charge of it this year so I "volunteered" to be there every day all day. I helped out at the last one and after 4 days I was over dealing with all the kids:mad:. This coming weekend I'm tied up with family events.

Toot- I thought it was a large RC car until the guy crawled out.

Terry- I hope your heat and A.C. issues are done.

Willie- Lucky, lucky you. I hope everything comes out OK.:eek::eek::eek:

I hope everyone has a good night and a Happy Easter (if you celebrate it).
 
I thought it was a large RC car until the guy crawled out.

Yes, until that great big hand appeared on the door :confused:. Somehow it's motor sound was lacking the essentials, bit like some of our sound equipped locos.
 
Good afternoon gang
Flo, coffee please, black with Splenda. Sitting in the hospital waiting room while GF is getting her girlies parts overhauled (hysterectomy). Booooooring, but necessary.
Ken do like I did, buy a gently used one for $350, mine sat for the 1st 2 years I had it, but then it saved my back last week.
Got a lot of posts to read yet, and a weak battery
TTYL
 
Soooooo........I have had another no duh moment I wanna share with yall. Being as I live in coal country here in West Virginia I have not been using actual coal on my layout constructions at all. Buy the Woodland Scenics stuff and have been using that. I....have....been....buying....coal. Why am I buying coal when I have two abandoned mines that doesn't require any illegal activities to get actual from West Virginia coal? I mean after all I have a brother who is a black hat coal miner of all things. Yet another no duh moment I thought I would share with yall. This idea actually comes from a video that I have viewed based on the Clinchefield lines in Kentucky where they use coal from the actual Clinchefield territory. So food for thought for me.

Justin
 
Soooooo........I have had another no duh moment I wanna share with yall. Being as I live in coal country here in West Virginia I have not been using actual coal on my layout constructions at all. Buy the Woodland Scenics stuff and have been using that. I....have....been....buying....coal. Why am I buying coal when I have two abandoned mines that doesn't require any illegal activities to get actual from West Virginia coal? I mean after all I have a brother who is a black hat coal miner of all things. Yet another no duh moment I thought I would share with yall. This idea actually comes from a video that I have viewed based on the Clinchefield lines in Kentucky where they use coal from the actual Clinchefield territory. So food for thought for me.

Justin
As long as your operations don't give you black lung, you should be okay. And from what I remember about that disease, you have to be heavily involved with it for a long time for it to be a problem.
 
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