Coffee Shop XXXIX-9/21/2013

[DairyStateDad]

Hey, congrats on #47!

My ex- and I bailed on each other at #17, but DSM and I marked #8 this year and we know we're in for the long haul...

 

[railfan]

Well I went to thanksgiving dinner with my brothers family as usual which is always a large and tasty event. Today now in confusion faced with too many great friday shopping deals at my favorite online radio control hobby store.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Well my computer parts shopping will be a bit meager for December as I have Christmas shopping to think of. I can afford to devote a whopping $130 to gifts for the family. I hope they're not expecting anything expensive. For myself I picked up two antique disk drives. One is an Apple 5.25" Disk II drive, the other is an Apple compatible 5.25" Lobo drive. The Disk II drive includes an "Elephant Memory Systems" disk. Hand written on the disk are: "Infidel, Pest Patrol, Ms. PAC-Man, Frogger, Lady Tut". I'm hoping this software still works. Those are good games.

 

[Cjcrescent]

Congrats on the 47th there Rex! Please give Carolyn our best. I ain't giving you nothing as you'd just mess it up!
We're still looking forward to coming over next week.

Had a good Thanksgiving with the new half of the family yesterday. The turkey was cooked to perfection and I'm still half asleep with the tryptophan I was forced to consume yesterday.

This morning we went to a Christmas Tree Farm to get the Grandson his first real tree for Christmas. When they were growing up, my kids always had a ball at these places. Aiden showed that he is just like his mommie was, when she was his age, 4. He ran all over the 100 acre farm, and picked out about 22 trees that he wanted. Why 22, well he actually picked out more, but couldn't remember where the others were. He is a very smart kid BTW.

He demanded at one point that his legs had stopped working and that his Gop, (me) had to carry him. You'd be surprised at how heavy a 4yo gets after the first mile. Needless to say, he set off my RSD, and when we got home, I crawled inside a pain pill.

But he got his tree, and after he gets up from his nap, we'll be putting it in it's stand, and he and his mommie will start decorating it tonight. I get to pull our tree out of storage, and we'll get it up this weekend. This means I have 2 G-Scale trains to set up and get running as well, one for each tree. Ya'll wish me luck.

 

[kbkchooch]

Hi gang!

Carey, something tells me Gop would do it again tomorrow is asked.

It was too windy to rake leaves today, so we went to clean swmbo's office building, the stupidly, tried to do some shopping afterwards. Even at 2:30 in the afternoon, Walmart was packed! Just for a can of spray paint and a tablecloth! Then went to Lowes for parts for the grill, then Radio shack for some LED's , battery holder and shrink tubing. Got home, then delivery Pizza. Then the call , my Aunt/Godmother succumed to complications from the stroke this evening. We'll miss her. Even at 80, keeping up to her around the farm was a chore, her walk was a light trot to most folks, and she always had a smile on her face.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Sorry to hear of your aunts passing Karl.

*

Well I never did get a chance to work on Oliver's adventure today. Other things kept getting in the way. Maybe someday I'll have a layout to work on again. I have some locos and cars to work on once in a while but that's not the same. Until then the computers are going to have to my fun things to work on.

Time to call it a night. I'll see y'all tomorrow.

 

[IronBeltKen]

Good evening. Thanks everybody for the kind words on the coke oven photos, that project consumed ~75% of my time today. I'm hoping I can have it installed on the layout before Christmas, or maybe even sooner.

Karl, condolences ont your Aunt. At least her final days [before the stroke] were happy, and she passed quickly.

Carey, please say hello to Rex for me when you get to T-Town next week.

. . .

It's almost midnight and I'm ready to pass out - see y'all later!

 

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

Good Morning! from Tipton IN.

It's Sat 11/30/13

Temperature in TIPTON IN

Temperatures will range from 29 to 41 degrees with clear skies. Winds will remain steady around 14 miles per hour from the south. No precipitation is expected.

 

[DairyStateDad]

Sorry for your loss, Karl. No matter how much time it is, we never have enough with our loved ones.

 

[Boris]

Karl, Sorry for the loss of your Aunt.

Joe

 

[GarryCBQ]

Hey Look ..... It is an 0-5-0 ! .... really.

Bill T ..... Thanks for posting the elephant photo. I have not seen it in years, but it brings back memories.

In the late 1970's, I worked in the GTW RR HQ in Detroit. I saw the same photo then, and decided it was time to be creative.

Technology for such things back them consisted of a Xerox machine and a typewriter along with cutting and pasting. The GTW Marketing Department published a monthly newsletter. Using their letterhead, the elephant photo, and my own typing, I created my own "news release".

I recall it was something like this. ........

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GRAND TRUNK MARKETING NEWS

GRAND TRUNK ACQUIRES NEW SWITCHING LOCOMOTIVE.

(Insert elephant photo)

To reduce fuel consumption in the energy crisis, a Grand Trunk "Tusk Force" has acquired a new switch locomotive. The engine is much quieter than conventional diesel switch engines. President Jimmy Carter was elated at this news because the switch locomotive uses an alternative fuel - peanuts.

GRAND TRUNK - THE GOOD TRACK ROAD


_____________________________________________________________________

There was more, but that is what I remember now. I made several copies on the Xerox Machine to post on bulletin boards. One of my coworkers showed a copy to the VP of Operations, and he laughed at it. I'm glad he saw the humor. Some people got in trouble if they were considered disrespectful of the company. One guy was handing out bumper stickers that said "Ship you junk on the Grand Trunk" and he got in trouble.

Glad I'm retired and don't have to deal with that stuff now.

 

[GarryCBQ]

Karl .... Condolences to your family regarding loss of your godmother/aunt.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Good afternoon. It's 59° with 32% humidity. The high will be 62° with some clouds.

Woke up this morning to a house full of ants! They were mostly concentrated in the great room. We can't find anything they were after and we haven't found any trails going outside. The ants were seen as being an offensive attack force and were executed via a counterattack using chemical agents.

In other news I may get a chance to work on Oliver's adventure today, I hope. I found a box of ten blank pre-formatted 3M double-sided,double-density 5.25" floppy disks on Ebay for a real good price and free shipping so I snapped it up. I believe they're formatted for IBM but I can easily reformat them for Apple. So there's he 3M disks, two disk drives and a Monopoly game disk coming. That should keep me happy for a bit.

Nothing special going on here that I know of. I'm giving serious thought to stopping the posting of the computer related photos. I don't think anybody really cares for them anyway.

 

[kbkchooch]

Thanks gang, for all the condolences Auntie is going to be cremated, then they will have services next week.

Hopefully my Uncle will be ok,,,,,,when my Dad passed, it left him as the oldest male in the family,,,,if he follows my Aunt,,that leaves me as the oldest!

 

[Cjcrescent]

Hi gang!

Carey, something tells me Gop would do it again tomorrow is asked.

...

In a heartbeat for him.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Well so far I've gotten only three affirmatives on continuing the posting of the computer related photos. Think I'll wait out the weekend and see if there are more but so far it's looking like I'll be going back to two photos a day, both of layout related content, no more computers and components. Don't DCC systems and decoders fit in there somewhere?

 

[Trussrod]

Good afternoon all,
It's a very nice day outside and not too cold. WW says it's, 64.7 °F with a Hum-i-dity of 42% and going for a low of 41 °F tonight. I imagine there will be a lot more moisture in the air though.


** Say Karl: I also want to express my sympathy about your Aunt's passing, at least it happened quickly and you and your wife gave her an enjoyable life in her later years. Up your Uncle is holding up fairly well? It's not easy loosing a loved one for him or you and your wife.
Btw: You refer to her as SWMBO yet you seem to have a considerable amount freedom which I'm glad to see for your sake.



** Say Jeffrey: I hope everything is going along well for you too.



> > On the C & S West Short Line scene:
After getting the three curved turnouts built and installed, well one was done some time back, as well as getting the Whiskey mainline and siding in partially, 3' each of rail, it was time to do some operation over/through these to ensure they worked properly? For the most part they did but I had a few minor problems too but just finished correcting the last one, a short, last night. Fortunately my Quest Radio controlled Hand Throttle has a built in short detector/circut breaker which just kills the power when a short is encountered so it's just a matter of pushing the button/bar to get the Loco going again. I guess when I built the first curved turnout I made the throw bar point connector a little too wide so that when I soldered the Points on the flattened U shaped piece it made the Points too Wide and the Loco drivers would short out going through them sometimes. I couldn't have that so I corrected it.

I was usuing my MDC Old Time Box Cab Diesel Track cleaner to test the track work out as well as clean it and it broke down. It seems that in lubricating the front bearing of the motor, which is fairly close to the drive gear on the armature shaft, over time enough oil leached forward to this press fit gear and it started to slip a little and then a lot which stopped the turning the central drive transmission and no power to the trucks. So I had to pull the motor and remove this gear and clean out the small central hole with a dental brush-toothpick that works great for this when dipped into some old Diasol to pass through it like a bore brush. I then cleaned off the armature shaft and then filed a couple of V's in the shaft hole on the gear and repositioned it and applied some more Super-Glue and headed to the kitchen to use the heat from the toaster to dry the SG. Then while I figured while I had the motor out I would use some strips of Parchment paper to clean between the comutator plates on the armature.

The Box Cab uses a flywheel weight that connects to the end of the armature shaft using a small section of nyprene? tubing and that was slipping and I tried using SG on it a couple of times but it still slips and I was trying to come up with a way to make a more positive connection and was racking my brain and then it hit me. Why not use Hobby Tack on the armature shaft and that would give a 360 surface for the tube to grip on to so when I remove the shell again that's what I'm going to do.

I then reassembled everything and I was back in business


In between writing this at just about last light I decided I'd better take out my heavy duty ladder and climb up to check the cover I have stuck up on the vent over the end of the garage and sure enough it wasn't sealing very good so I pealed it off the rectangular vent and climbed down and came inside the kitchen and quickly applied four more double sided carpet tape to the old existing DST and then went back out, climbed up and at litteraly last light got the new seal pasted over the vent to help keep the atic area warmer.

Glad I got that done as a storm is moving in and the nights are getting quite cold.

Hope everyone has a good evening and Sunday.

 

[Trussrod]

Happy Thanxgiving all!

I definitely had my fill of turkey, tators, and all types of other high-calorie foods. Most of the family members were here except for my 23yr-old who lives in South Cali (probably not very far from you David), she and her husband will be joining us for Christmas though.

BTW Rex - congrats on the 47!

I managed to sneak down to the workshop and get a little bit more done on my Walthers coke oven upgrade project. What a complex kitbash this has turned out to be. The concept is simple: Take an existing 'vanilla' coke oven battery and sandwich a second set of ovens between the original set and the charging tipple. As I soon discovered, doing surgery on an already built structure without irreparably breaking anything takes an enormous amount of patience! And I think I mentioned earlier about the missing panel of oven doors missing from the kit, which I had to recreate myself using a wide range of Evergreen dimensional strip styrene.

Finally got the new set of ovens shaped approximately close enough to graft them in.

Need a lot more filler material <JB KWIK>. that will require a trip to my LHS and the LHW. Fighting the Black Friday crowds, oh joy!

Enjoy the rest of this 4-day weekend, and those of you travelling home, be careful!

Hi Ken,

Sorry for not replying sooner, I didn't get on here till today Saturday. As far as your daughter and her husband I'm not sure where they live but generally Southern Calif is considered from the Los Angeles area South. I'm in what they refer to Central Calif., with Fresno considered by many to be the approximate center of the state. Fresno is 218 miles from Los Angeles and I live due North of Fresno by another 31 miles. The exact center of Calif. as determined many years back is about 11 to 12 miles West of my location in the Raymond area very close to where my other RR buddy John lives.

So depending on where your daughter lives there can be a tremendous difference in distance.

> >

The work your doing on duplicating the Coke ovens is quite a challenge for sure but building your steel mills was no easy task either.

How are your turnouts coming along. I'm having to retrain myself as I got too careless in the last couple I built but I got them to work but they are rather crude, especially where the points meet the stock rails, as it all free-hand with me. I guess I need to be a bit more precise, but most won't even notice. The main thing is that the trains roll through them without derailments, right?


Take care,

 

[kbkchooch]

** Say Karl: I also want to express my sympathy about your Aunt's passing, at least it happened quickly and you and your wife gave her an enjoyable life in her later years. Up your Uncle is holding up fairly well? It's not easy loosing a loved one for him or you and your wife.
Btw: You refer to her as SWMBO yet you seem to have a considerable amount freedom which I'm glad to see for your sake.

Thank you for the kind thoughts David. The secret to keeping SWMBO happy is the same secret to which David Copperfield subscribes.

Its the illusion of being a SWMBO which causes her to relax the reigns!

and ,,,um,,

if you mutter this to anyone outside the forum, I'll be forced to hunt you and put you down!

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Well I didn't get much of a chance to work on the game today other than do a little debugging. In this particular part of the game Oliver has entered seating compartment seven in the old coach where he of course starts searching. You'll see here he gets one of his pockets picked!

And who says you have to go to a city to see something tall?

Here's an update photo showing my little homemade redneck style card spacers. I painted them black (only color I have) so they look better. They look good in contrast with the platinum color of the case.

*

There's been a bit of activity here today. My niece is already starting to string icicle lights along the front of the house. Somehow or another she managed to pop two circuit breakers. Of course one of them is the one my //e is on. I had corrected some bugs in the game program and was about to save it to make the corrections permanent. Oh well. I can make the corrections again tomorrow and save the corrected version then. In the office where my internet computer is located we have a window unit for ac/heat. It's only 5,000 Btu and I have to say the little heater in it doesn't do much on cold mornings. Yes, 32 here is cold. So lately I've been setting the window unit on fan. I moved a small DeLonghi electric radiator heater about a foot in front of it and turned it on high. The window unit blows the heat across the room and that works much better.

Well time for me to call it a night. See y'all tomorrow.