Running Bear's December 2023 Coffee Shop

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Nice! Everything I have still works, including my autowinder. Unfortunately, I never got into film developing. that put an end to using that equipment. I miss them sometimes. They were comfortable, like a broken in set of walking shoes. I learned on a friend's Canon FTb, which was totally manual, and I took lessons from a photographer onboard the ship. I bought my SLR's in the 1970's as a young kid in my 20's. Long deployments were the only way I could afford that stuff on an enlisted man's salary! 😁
Good morning folks,

Cloudy and 29 in SW Montana. The "town" run yesterday went well and included a stop at Michaels for some snap lid storage containers. It was good timing as they were 50% off.

My first camera was also an FTb, purchased in 1970 from a coworker who bought it just for a university project (he was deep into 2 1/4" and not much of a 35 mm fanatic). I still have it and it still works-pretty much indestructible. An A1 followed that and that too remains functional. We had been using digital cameras at work since the mid 90's but I didn't purchase one until 2005, a Canon 40D. I still use that quite a bit but most photos these days emanate from a Sony mirrorless. Sooooo much lighter, especially when you are backpacking the gear. That said, I suspect my backpacking days are over. They are most definitely past tense for my wife. But those memories remain high points in my life.
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I unpacked the last of my railroad stuff last evening, all the containers of "brass". I didn't recall putting anything but brass in those and I had been scratching my head as to where a few things went missing. The missing items were all in those containers. There must be a couple of dozen projects in various states of completion and, as previously noted, it's sort of difficult to decide the queuing order. Maybe some of that will be determined by what additional parts are required-and PAINT. What in the H are folks using for paint these days? Floquil and PollyS were my previous go-to's.
 
Lots to do today! I'm ending the year on vacation and catching up on stuff I didn't do during my sabbatical. I moved project stuff over to my own thread "Espeefan's Passenger Car Modeling". This way the projects don't go away when the coffee shop closes at the end of the month, and I don't take up a ton of space here. Take a look if you're so inclined. I have a decoder install to do on a Christmas present to myself, and I'm working on some Roundhouse passenger cars. Yeah I do cheap stuff too! 🤣 Club night tonight so I'll be testing that Christmas present! Gotta run those four passenger cars through the blasting booth, but I've been waiting for the wife and daughter to get up so I don't get yelled at for running the big compressor too early. :)
 
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Another "Dipstick Day"

Got up this morning, and had to take the car in for a new radiator, 8 am I'm there to drop it off for the day, booked the taxi home, aaaand.....................Nope not today, the appointment is for 8am tomorrow :confused:

Came home, decided a Bacon Butty was in order, aaaaaand cremated both the bacon and the toast.

Went to do a few odd jobs with my trains, add some numbers to the roof of two switchers, as I couldn't see the cab numbers. I especially bought some new, white, US gothic dry transfers for doing this, did that, went to brush some dullcoat to seal them aaaaaand, nope, I've used silver lettering not the white ????

Went to swap out a LaisDCC decoder for a Soundtraxx drop-in decoder on a Atlas/Kato Norfolk and Western Alco C-430, did that, nope motor wires are the wrong way round, fixed that, and tried again, headlight only works in reverse not forwards, fixed that, put on the JMRI programming track read the decoder fine, changed the loco address, won't write to the decoder tried again, nope and again, nope, 20 mins later I realise I've got JMRI in Edit mode not Programming, wrote to the decoder again, success, at which point the loco flew forwards smacked the wall and fell 4' to the floor.

It was at this point I realised I really shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning.:)
 
Another "Dipstick Day"

Got up this morning, and had to take the car in for a new radiator, 8 am I'm there to drop it off for the day, booked the taxi home, aaaand.....................Nope not today, the appointment is for 8am tomorrow :confused:

Came home, decided a Bacon Butty was in order, aaaaaand cremated both the bacon and the toast.

Went to do a few odd jobs with my trains, add some numbers to the roof of two switchers, as I couldn't see the cab numbers. I especially bought some new, white, US gothic dry transfers for doing this, did that, went to brush some dullcoat to seal them aaaaaand, nope, I've used silver lettering not the white ????

Went to swap out a LaisDCC decoder for a Soundtraxx drop-in decoder on a Atlas/Kato Norfolk and Western Alco C-430, did that, nope motor wires are the wrong way round, fixed that, and tried again, headlight only works in reverse not forwards, fixed that, put on the JMRI programming track read the decoder fine, changed the loco address, won't write to the decoder tried again, nope and again, nope, 20 mins later I realise I've got JMRI in Edit mode not Programming, wrote to the decoder again, success, at which point the loco flew forwards smacked the wall and fell 4' to the floor.

It was at this point I realised I really shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning.:)

Oh my! It sounds like Terry has sent Mr. Murphy on a transatlantic voyage! Oy Vey!
 


Maybe some of that will be determined by what additional parts are required-and PAINT. What in the H are folks using for paint these days? Floquil and PollyS were my previous go-to's.
I had to switch to Tru-color paints where my supplies of Floquil were exhausted. It is acetone based so cleanup is easy, and dries quickly. I don't care for acrylic water based paint because the paint film is too thick, obscuring details. There is a learning curve, but I love the results.
 
I had to switch to Tru-color paints where my supplies of Floquil were exhausted. It is acetone based so cleanup is easy, and dries quickly. I don't care for acrylic water based paint because the paint film is too thick, obscuring details. There is a learning curve, but I love the results.
I switched to Tru-Color as well, though I do have a stash of Floquil and Scalecoat still on hand. Tru-Color isn't bad once you get up the learning curve!
 
Well howdy there internet peeps and those awake at 4 am EDT

It's Tinnitus Troy again...

Woke with a headache for the 3:30 bathroom trek, and headed downstairs for some water and an ibuprofen. Realized that the ringing in my ears was louder than normal.

So, instead of trying to get another hour of sleep, I headed down to the basement with the recliner. Turned the Youtubz to this:


and put the big can headphones on. Sometimes it take half an hour or so, but it generally knocks the ringing down a couple of decibels....
I hear you, I have suffered tinnitus since having covid 3 years ago. I think it can also be symptomatic of stress/hypertension, is certainly worse for me if I'm stressed. Or the classic of too much loud tunes back in the day.
Rain certainly helps. Any white noise or "binaural" music works for me.
 
Another "Dipstick Day"

Got up this morning, and had to take the car in for a new radiator, 8 am I'm there to drop it off for the day, booked the taxi home, aaaand.....................Nope not today, the appointment is for 8am tomorrow :confused:

Came home, decided a Bacon Butty was in order, aaaaaand cremated both the bacon and the toast.

Went to do a few odd jobs with my trains, add some numbers to the roof of two switchers, as I couldn't see the cab numbers. I especially bought some new, white, US gothic dry transfers for doing this, did that, went to brush some dullcoat to seal them aaaaaand, nope, I've used silver lettering not the white ????

Went to swap out a LaisDCC decoder for a Soundtraxx drop-in decoder on a Atlas/Kato Norfolk and Western Alco C-430, did that, nope motor wires are the wrong way round, fixed that, and tried again, headlight only works in reverse not forwards, fixed that, put on the JMRI programming track read the decoder fine, changed the loco address, won't write to the decoder tried again, nope and again, nope, 20 mins later I realise I've got JMRI in Edit mode not Programming, wrote to the decoder again, success, at which point the loco flew forwards smacked the wall and fell 4' to the floor.

It was at this point I realised I really shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning.:)
I believe it's a full moon.
 
Im guilty as well. We still have a DVD/VCR combo. We still have a ton of Disney movies on both formats that we bought when my daughter was younger.

She hasn't watched them in years but refuses to let them go.
I recently hooked up the DVD recorder and VCR combo. I gave it to my Mom when hers broke. No learning curve I had gotten her the same one. It sat on a shelf since she passed away.

My grandson found the "Frosty the Snowman" VHS and wanted to watch it. I was pleasantly surprised it still worked and the tape looked good. For a VHS tape that is. The Toshiba DVD recorder and VCR combo upscales to HDMI, as best it can.
 
Afternoon All,

Started out the day at 56F and raining. It rained for about 14 hours now it's supposed to cool down over the next 2-3 days. Today we went to Wally World and spent too much money. After that I glued the foot stirrups in place on both cars. The project is ready for painting and decaling by my buddy Jon Shubert. After I was done in the train room, we packed up all the Christmas things. MOH believes it's bad luck having it up past the New Year. :rolleyes:

Thank you for the photo likes yesterday.

Willie- I used to watch them every week back in the day. Nice layout scenes.

Bill- Nice photo. I thought the architecture looked familiar.

Troy- I'm glad you found something that works for you.

Joe- Welcome back.

TomO- My Dad has several of those bad habits when driving on highways. That's why I drive him to VA appointments.

Mike- My first trainset was a Tyco.

David- Sounds like good riddance.

Sherrel- Nice photo. I guess we know the prototype for the Bachmann rail crane.

Grizzled- Beautiful scenery.

Smudge- I hope your day gets better.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 


Good morning folks,

Cloudy and 29 in SW Montana. The "town" run yesterday went well and included a stop at Michaels for some snap lid storage containers. It was good timing as they were 50% off.

My first camera was also an FTb, purchased in 1970 from a coworker who bought it just for a university project (he was deep into 2 1/4" and not much of a 35 mm fanatic). I still have it and it still works-pretty much indestructible. An A1 followed that and that too remains functional. We had been using digital cameras at work since the mid 90's but I didn't purchase one until 2005, a Canon 40D. I still use that quite a bit but most photos these days emanate from a Sony mirrorless. Sooooo much lighter, especially when you are backpacking the gear. That said, I suspect my backpacking days are over. They are most definitely past tense for my wife. But those memories remain high points in my life.
14827754425_ba0a569796_b.jpg


11675130956_4b4ccf0448_b.jpg


I unpacked the last of my railroad stuff last evening, all the containers of "brass". I didn't recall putting anything but brass in those and I had been scratching my head as to where a few things went missing. The missing items were all in those containers. There must be a couple of dozen projects in various states of completion and, as previously noted, it's sort of difficult to decide the queuing order. Maybe some of that will be determined by what additional parts are required-and PAINT. What in the H are folks using for paint these days? Floquil and PollyS were my previous go-to's.
More specifically, this comment: "But those memories remain high points in my life." I completely get it.

Back in the eighties I wanted to go racing (but couldn't afford it), and happened to buy this little book: https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Drivers-Handbook-Peter-Scott/dp/083006219X

The author wrote at one point about how the subject of his racing made good conversation at cocktail parties. "So how much does it cost? being the most common question."

"About $1,000 for a weekend of racing (Formula Fords). Covers gas (for the race car), gas for the tow vehicle, motel, food...

...and tires for the race car."

"And how much do those cost?"

"Roughly $400 for a set of four, and they'll last for about two race weekends if I'm careful.*"

[*Goodyear Eagle racing slicks]

"Good grief! That's expensive! Why you could buy a refrigerator for that much."

"True. But thirty years from now I'll look back on my life and I'll remember the racing.
I wouldn't remember the refrigerator."
 
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