Running Bear's March 2021 Coffee Shop


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GeeTee said:
I bet thats exactly whats happening Av should hold the aperature constant and float the shutter speed . Cannon T5i . And now that I think about it , I think the Rebel 35 did exactly the same thing . I probably need to go to full manual. I'll try that tonight.
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I've got a rebel 3T - check for auto ISO in the menu. They default to PHD mode (Push Here Dummy).

On a side note, I went with a Fuji XT1 as my retirement camera when I sold off my wedding photo gear. Love it due to the old style knobs and dials. But, they don't do macro on any of their lenses save a 60mm prime. I love zooms. And want macro. So, I kept my Rebel
 
troyphoto said:
I've got a rebel 3T - check for auto ISO in the menu. They default to PHD mode (Push Here Dummy).

On a side note, I went with a Fuji XT1 as my retirement camera when I sold off my wedding photo gear. Love it due to the old style knobs and dials. But, they don't do macro on any of their lenses save a 60mm prime. I love zooms. And want macro. So, I kept my Rebel
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The 50 prime focus on my Rebel was shot the coating were full of hairline cracks . I still have the body and the lens from the T5i will fit. I got the T5i used in excellent condition on ebay for about $250 with batteries lens and power supply . My main reason for getting it is 1080 video and its an (i) model with the swing out screen so I can set it on the track , flip out the screen and see the shot without contorting to look thru the viewfinder.Also the operation is similar to Rebel 35. I am pretty well satisfied with it so far. I just haven't got used to the bells and whistles yet.

The Rebel 35mm is the original model , I still believe film is the best way to store pictures , I've seen to many hard drive failures , especially Seagates , 7-10 years seems to be about max. Film is immune to hard drive failure , you just have to store it in dry place and it will last .

Digital is just a matter of cost convenience and versatility. No film cost , instant gratification,video.
 
GeeTee said:
I suspect it has as much to do with re-starting as water freezing. Diesels are notoriously hard to restart at low temperatures , the cyclinders and fuel have to be pre heated and it takes a considerable amount of time for the engine to fully come up to temperature. Its hard on the batteries ( the glow plug on my 3 cyl tractor draws about 15 to 20 amps) , they have to run a heater to heat one or more cylinders for several minutes and then turn over a 12-16 cylinder engine with ridiculously high compression ratio's > 20 :1.
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The industry has tried just about everything imaginable to try and find a device that will enable them to save costly fuel. Block heaters, temperature actuated devices that automatically start the engine when approaching 40°F and shutting it down when the locomotive temperature hits 120°. When it gets cold, nothing really works, so they are left idling. To prevent cooling water freezing many engines contain a device that dumps water at 40°. So the instruction was to shut them down unless the forecast temperature was to remain above 40°. This is in addition to other conditions such as fuel and lube oil etc.
 
GeeTee said:
The 50 prime focus on my Rebel was shot the coating were full of hairline cracks . I still have the body and the lens from the T5i will fit. I got the T5i used in excellent condition on ebay for about $250 with batteries lens and power supply . My main reason for getting it is 1080 video and its an (i) model with the swing out screen so I can set it on the track , flip out the screen and see the shot without contorting to look thru the viewfinder.Also the operation is similar to Rebel 35. I am pretty well satisfied with it so far. I just haven't got used to the bells and whistles yet.

The Rebel 35mm is the original model , I still believe film is the best way to store pictures , I've seen to many hard drive failures , especially Seagates , 7-10 years seems to be about max. Film is immune to hard drive failure , you just have to store it in dry place and it will last .

Digital is just a matter of cost convenience and versatility. No film cost , instant gratification,video.
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When I shot weddings (20+ years) with medium format (Hasselblads) a friend and I started saying "Well, that was a dollar..." every time we clicked the shutter. (Film$ + Process$ + Print$)

Digital was a fraction of a penny per click of the shutter

When I retired, I took three carloads of negatives and prints that the clients never wanted to purchase off to be shredded. I was moving and didn't want to move those negs.
 
Sherrel

the yellow truck says HotWheels, the other has no markings and both have to be 30 years old as the son will be 36 in May. Between ages 3-6 when he went to the grocery store on Sunday morning with me he could pick out something for a dollar or less. This is part of that haul. We saved all his Lego for him that as an adult unmarried and with no kids he didn’t want when we moved in 2014. Our now 7 year old grandson played for a few years but has no interest anymore. So, I kept some stuff close to HO scale and our daughter’s former day care got a large bin of Lego and a small bin of Hot Wheels.

I started to file off the paint to start the weathering of the dump bodies.

TomO

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Greetings, Shop Dwellers! It's 54*F under mostly clear skies with a 9mph SSE wind at my central MD abode.

A tip o' the hat to each of you who clicked the button on my Sunday mini-post - Jerry, Joe, Tom (Cambria), Phil, Hughie, Patrick, Jaz, Guy, TomO, Sherrell

Lots of interesting conversations and photos over the past 2 days! It took me over an hour to get thru them all and now I'm running behind on writing my own post!

PNKFLOYD said:
Well, it is official now. My personal layout has just been shoved behind the back burner.
My daughter and SIL have decided to build a storage shed for a popup camper, couple motorcycles and a work bench, so a 16' x 20' building will work. I drew up some rough plans about 6 months ago to get a materials list. We checked Home Depot for lumber prices for an estimate.
Last week, we finalized some design details and checked lumber prices again. Big shock as most prices were up over 50%.

Last Saturday, we visited a local part-time lumber mill owner. He will cut untreated pine lumber in custom 16' lengths and 12" wide board and batten siding for about 40% of our estimated lumber cost. It will take 2 to 4 weeks to cut everything, but we are not in a hurry. Somehow, I got promoted yesterday from draftsman and estimator to construction foreman and chief carpenter.
I plan to impart a little of my construction experience to my SIL and two teenage grandsons. We will start with " measure twice and cut once".

I hope to continue a few small projects that I can finish on the club layouts.
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Mikey - the main problem you're dealing with is, you're just too dam good at what you do!

Sherrell - Sure does seem like those lifeguards are grossly overpaid; but aren't housing prices [and the CA cost of living in general] also obscenely high? I've often wondered how can anybody but a Silicon Valley CEO can afford to live there...

* * *
Didn't do any mrr stuff this afternoon, I was busy "summer-izing" the snow blower - siphoned out as much leftover gasoline as possible, and let the motor burn up what was left in the fuel line. Also had my mower picked up by my local small engine mechanic for the annual pre-season maintenance, apparently just in the nick of time too; he says he'll have it back to me in a week. He anticipates that by COB Friday, his backlog will be 4 to 6 weeks! Still have a lot of other yard chores in front of me, including cutting up and clearing away a number of branches that got blown off our trees over the winter. Those and my mower blades don't get along terribly well.

I did, however, find time to finish the external work on my project Stewart F7 model, all that remains now is for me to put the correct horn sound in it, a Nathan M-3 like the majority of B&O F-units had. Of course when the photo of my prototype unit was shot in 1974, the M-3 had been replaced by a leftover Leslie 3-chimer. I shot a few pics of the model with my cell phone camera, but I couldn't do it on the layout because it's in such deplorable condition with too many background eyesores - so my workbench had to suffice.

First, the prototype in 1974: http://rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo4598goa.jpg :
...and an earlier shot from ~1963: http://rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo4598alb.jpg (Notice the Nathan M-3 horn)

I didn't directly insert the proto images since I don't want to run afoul of the rr-fallenflags.org webmaster's copyright policy.

Now, the model:
Stewart_F7_PaintedAndWeatheredTopDown.jpg


Stewart_F7_PaintedAndWeatheredHeadOn.jpg

(There actually is a piece of "glass" over that twin-beam headlight, just hard to see it at this angle!)

This was shot under normal layout lighting, so any subtle color differences are somewhat washed-out:
Stewart_F7_4598_withMate_4563.jpg


Been sitting at the 'puter for too long and now my legs are starting to feel stiff, so I hafta run - g'nite!
 
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I figure it's time to check in. Purchased a pair of hoppers today that were made for the C&O Historical Society. They are an old run from 1993 but they look pretty decent. That's sums up my train adventures for the day. May very well have to put trains on the back burner. Both of my vehicles are having mechanical problems. My truck needs a battery which I'll handle tomorrow. My wife's car looks to need a new engine as it is consuming a lot and I mean alot of oil. It's pretty much drained itself in less than a month. So excessive oil consumption. Really glad it's a warranty repair and not something I have to pay out of pocket for. New engines are extremely pricey. It goes to the dealer tomorrow. I ended up buying oil for it today so we didnt chance a catastrophic engine failure. Atleast the truck I can jumpstart if need be. So one vehicle at a time. Just work through as best as I can. Well that's all I have for now. I'll stop by again when I get a chance.
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Good Morning!
28°F at 2:40am, and I can't sleep at all. Best thing to do is just get up and read until the eyes get heavy again.

The neighbor was telling me he had an expensive bicycle stolen out of his backyard, night before this one. Said he saw a couple of unknown young men walking the alleyway earlier that day, and looking over into peoples yards. Anyway, he lost his bike. - I don't have anything worth stealing, so I feel fairly safe. Never had an issue over the 30yrs I've lived in this home.
My opinion is that the lock-down coupled with dismal oil-patch activity has made finding work fairly difficult, for many. Lots of people can't pay the bills. I suppose some are turning to theft to support themselves.

I went for a walk into the CN staging yard yesterday. The wife dropped me off there while she went shopping.
My goal was to hopefully catch the local switchers at work, or at least get some photos of different railcars waiting for pickup. As it turned out, there were no switchers in the yard and the trans-loader people were there; so I couldn't get close enough to get a whole lot of good photos. I did get a few, though, that I will post later today.
Here's the scene as I was walking up to the staging area. The trans-loader is on the left.
A crappy photo with a bit of blur:
StageingYard_03-30-2021.jpg

I'll post the railcar photos I acquired after I try and get some sleep.

Best get out of here for now, as it's too early even for coffee to be on! See ya'll later!
 
Morning all...

Welp ... today is the day of the big Kamado Joe grill delivery.

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The problem is: The Sala Trucking company dispatcher has called and told me they'd be sending a "full sized" truck to drop it off. Problem, we can't handle semi tractor trailers in our neighborhood. A 30-ish foot box truck (lorry) are about the max due to twists and turns.

So I asked the nice girl on the phone: what kind of truck was doing the delivery?

"It's a full sized truck."

I asked if that mean a tractor-trailer/semi.

"It's a full sized truck."

Full sized local delivery? like a fixed flatbed, or a 30 foot box truck?

"It's a full sized truck. we don't use box trucks..."

Is it a semi? A tractor trailer rig? How long is it?

"It's a full sized truck."

Dispatcher was a nice young lady (with a highpitched voice that hit my hearing aids right where it compresses frequencies...) Someone needs to educate her on what a tractor trailer combo is. Hopefully the driver will call as I requested.

We may need to meet in the shopping center next to the condos. I'm off this morning to borrow a friend's SUV, since a kamado won't fit in my Camry.

In other news

Got the strong tone applied, and a dusting of khaki dry brushed over the Soviet Army models. Colored the molotovs, and I added a flesh tone wash to the fleshy bits. I'll dry brush on light flesh, as well as some gun-metal to the weapons, and then detail out the straps. That will call them done except for basing and dull coating.

Screen Shot 2021-03-31 at 6.51.48 AM.png
 
Morning all,

38° and mostly clear with winds finally down to a manageable 10-15mph. Supposed to get to 56° today, and warming back up to the mid-upper 70's over the weekend.

Got the second covid shot yesterday. Arm is only sore at the injection site when touched, not the feeling like it's going to fall off at any time. So far no other symptoms.

Got home and the wife wanted to get more done at the boy's house, so we finished cleaning and lining the cupboards and I got the over the stove microwave hung. Now once the floor is cleaned we can get the stove and refrigerator in place and move on to the utility room. Looks like he'll be ready to actually move in within the next couple of weeks.

Jaz: My father-in-Law was a carpenter and helped me on many of my first home improvement projects over the years. So now because I'm cheap I do a lot of my own projects anymore. Due to the help I got early on by my father-in-law dad get volunteered for home improvement the kids want to do.

My son and my local son-in-law aren't handy. They'll help, but I don't know how much of it sticks.
 
Good Morning Everyone. Cloudy and 52° here on the SFW estate. Blustery winds this morning, variable but mostly from the north. Despite clouds all day yesterday, it did get up to 78° for a while after lunch. Besides doing some housework, I mostly mowed the yard. I did the whole south side in the morning, and the east side in the afternoon. About 1.25 acres done. Took a while since I had the mower deck as low as I could go, and there are a lot of trees along the road on the east side. On the south side, I had to also maneuver around many of the newly planted trees that I put in Sunday.
I am continuing to pick lettuce and arugula from the garden, looks like the first radishes will be this weekend. My wife brought home an additional 18 tomato plants from the seed store yesterday. They still don't have our favorite variety, so it looks like we'll skip that one this year. I am up to my allotment of 42 plants for the season. I could plant more, but the other half of the garden is laying fallow this year.

How about just a ham & cheese sandwich on rye toast this morning Flo. I guess that makes it a grilled ham & cheese on rye! Diet root beer to wash it down with. I'm needing a bit of caffeine this morning.

Thanks for the many likes and comments regarding my project progress and other posts yesterday; Tom O, Chad, Guy, Karl, Hughie, Joe, Justin, Tom, Phil, Rick, Ken, Garry, Jerry, Patrick.

Another short day in the train shed yesterday, some of my other hobbies are getting in the way. I made some more progress on the grade crossing; I wouldn't usually have taken another picture yet, but Guy would berate me for not posting any. So here is the progress. Naw! Never mind, none of the three is worth showing.:(
So here is something from the archives this morning.
The Cut and Curl Beauty Shop is tucked away on the other side of the tracks on a road leading out of Vernon. Here's a trackside view.
03-01-16 001.JPG

A view from town.
03-01-16 002.JPG

A better view, but it shows that I continued the road onto the backdrop.
03-01-16 004.JPG

From normal aisle viewing angles, this view cannot be seen like this.
This structure is actually a Grandt Line Company House. The outhouse out back came with the kit, but I boarded it up for visual interest.
03-01-16 005.JPG


Mikey - I can relate to that cutting on the right/wrong side of the line. And I am by myself!:mad:
Tom O - Interesting trivia regarding the Suez Canal; the toll to go through averages $700, 000 per ship. The Panama Canal on the other side of the world only charges an average of $150,000. And yes, the Panama Canal Authority once charged a swimmer 36¢ to make the passage. It's all based on weight.
I have read that the trip around the Horn of Africa is rather treacherous. Some of our Navy vets might know.
Greg - Good luck with the fence.

Everyone have a safe and great day.
 
McLeod said:
I went for a walk into the CN staging yard yesterday. The wife dropped me off there while she went shopping.
My goal was to hopefully catch the local switchers at work, or at least get some photos of different railcars waiting for pickup. As it turned out, there were no switchers in the yard and the trans-loader people were there; so I couldn't get close enough to get a whole lot of good photos. I did get a few, though, that I will post later today.
Here's the scene as I was walking up to the staging area. The trans-loader is on the left.
A crappy photo with a bit of blur:
View attachment 126501
Click to expand...


I like the coloring of this photo. It is evocative of an older time photo. Very nice.
 
GeeTee said:
Add to that No 2. Diesel starts turning to candle wax below freezing . I don't know how available No 1 is these days , I 've heard of contractors having to mix No 2 and gasoline 50/50 to start equipment at low temps.
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We did snow plowing operations where we cleared 82 acres of parking lots by 9:00 AM after a snow fall. Some of these snowfalls could be in the 10-12 inch range. To get the job done we used large, stone quary loaders with12 yards buckets to remove the snow. Many time the temperature would fall in the single digits or lower. At time like this the operators of the heavy equipment mixed gasoline with the diesel to keep the diesel fuel from jellying.

Greg
 
Morning RR Friends! The Weather person was precise yesterday at 79 degrees. Today is forecast to be 80 with clear, and sunny.
Todays mission is the MIDWAY aircraft carrier museum in San Diego - the G-Sons father served on the Midway in his past NAVY life.
The boys are looking forward to the adventure ... me too ... as I have not been on a carrier before.

Everyone! Once again the pictures posted are great. I love your work. I'll try and check in later today!

TROY - funny about the "full size truck", I bet her voice got louder with each exchange?

IBKEN - Locomotive looks really good!

Coffee to go FLO -
 
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