Running Bear's February 2023 Coffee Shop

[dennis461]

Raining again in NJ.
Stay inside and play with trains.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Good Morning Happy Campers er.. modelers !
It is a nicer 48 degrees at this time and expected 63 with partly cloudy and breezy.

FLO, I'm feeling good this morning despite a rather "toss and turn" night. How about asking MEL if he feels up to a chicken fried steak, eggs sunny up, hash browns, and biswits thios morning? (See - I can't spell correctly without coffee?). Big cup of that, please.

JAZZY - That was such a nice thing to say - brought a smile to my face!
JOE - May I ask what your heartrate is - mine has been pretty low since my "shock" treatment? I run mostly mid 40's - low 50's. Dr's had rather it be 60 and up a little - makes me tire quickly!
Christian: Love the pup - he needs coffee too!
JeffH - That is a beautiful layout! So Cool! Astounding.

Fridges: We had a Sears in our old home here that was going strong after 16 years; had to replace the icemaker somewhere around 12 - did that myself.
Moved to Laughlin - bought a pretty expensive Jenn-Air (double door). Had not had it a month when compressor went out and a new fridge was exchanged which ran for 5 years and compressor "tanked" again; replaced for $700, lssted for 3 years and "crashed" again.
Bpought a Three door (freezer on the bottom) Frigidaire - so far it is going on 4 years (knock on wood)!

 

[Sirfoldalot]

GARY - Where's the roof off the Steam Loco? Looks as if it is missing?
Those number boards - I have not seen like that before?
Good Luck to the restore personnel!

 

[Smudge617]

It brings up that old discussion Smudge; great hobby but with huge prices! There will be many that wont spend that much for sure and the others will counter that many still are buying.

I agree, but then you get things like this, which goes to show some manufacturers are just in it for the money, this is from Accurascale. It's a class 92 Diesel Electric loco with 21 pin decoder, directional lighting, cab light, sound, stay alive, all wheel pickup, all wheel drive.

And Hornby want £320 for a 8 pin DCC Ready steamer, and not even with all wheel pickup

92001 - 'Victor Hugo'​

£279.98 inc VAT

 

[Sirfoldalot]

TROY - You need a higher class bunch of characters! What a motley looking squad?

 

[Chrιstιaη]

Christian: Love the pup - he needs coffee too!

Thanks. You're right !

 

[BigGRacing]

I agree, but then you get things like this, which goes to show some manufacturers are just in it for the money, this is from Accurascale. It's a class 92 Diesel Electric loco with 21 pin decoder, directional lighting, cab light, sound, stay alive, all wheel pickup, all wheel drive.

And Hornby want £320 for a 8 pin DCC Ready steamer, and not even with all wheel pickup

92001 - 'Victor Hugo'​

£279.98 inc VAT
you are right if I could get a nice engine like that in the style I want, I would consider that price if in Cdn dollars as well.

 

[TLOC]

Good cool Wisconsin morning. 12 now feels like 4. At 5:45 I went out to clean away the 7-8” of white powder from the sidewalks and driveway. It was +10 but felt like -6. While I was out there I could feel the breeze getting less.

My driveway, the neighbor driveway and 7 houses of sidewalks only plus my own corner lot walkways. It actually was pleasant and even the snow plow placing its load in my driveway apron wasn’t an issues today. Just under 2 hours out there. Last Friday just my driveway and front sidewalk took 90 minutes of very hard work. That’s the difference between last week’s heavy wet 8“ and this week’s powder. Just over 11000 steps per the IPhone health tracker app. My daily goal is 9000.

My very short maybe list of things to purchase at the Train Show this weekend has me wondering if I should even bother. But I am going. I did not get to Hiawatha Hobbies (70 miles) yesterday because of the snow storm. They got it looks like 12”+. The storm followed the US Hwy 151 corridor out of Iowa keeping the angle to Milwaukee along I94 east. Those are the roads I needed to drive. I need more than just the Woodland Scenic stuff and I have found at Train shows do not buy scenery items. Generally they are very old stock, IMO.

After school I will take the grandson to the Pure Hockey store, he needs a new stick. 5 Guys is out though afterwards. The High School hockey game yesterday was cancelled because school was cancelled. It is rescheduled for tonight and he is going with his buddies. I’ll give him $10 cash so he has food money at the game with his buddies. That’s still cheaper then what he would have ordered at 5 Guys. Plus what his parents give him and he’ll make out like a bandit.

Some weathering, some wire armature assembly and some bush assembly are my things for today since I handled the snow already. In inventory I had 42-6” trees completed 13-7” trees and 3- 9” trees. He will stop before he goes to the train show Sunday and pick those up. I have bushes from my layout that I can give him a good price on and would more than cover the 200 he wants. There are a very few wire armatures, some pipe cleaners and lots and lots of sisal 1/2” banding rope. He will look at them. He asked me about grass tufts on the phone last night. I told him I can show him how to make them and he could borrow my static grass machine and make his own. I dislike making bushes of any kind and grass tufts are a piece of cake to make.

Ok, I am relaxed now after the snow cleaning, off to the showers.

 

[BigGRacing]

GARY - Where's the roof off the Steam Loco? Looks as if it is missing?
Those number boards - I have not seen like that before?
Good Luck to the restore personnel!

Yes, I wondered about the roof as well. I will get down in the spring to investigate for sure. No doubt they are probably building a roof or had to cut it off to get roof restrictions for transport. I think likely it was removed for transport.

 

[Smudge617]

I've a class 37 on pre order (2021) with them, that was £236 sound etc. might get a class 55 Deltic yet, that's £260, with all the same features as the Class 37 including engine bay lighting which is an "extra" you have to buy yourself. It makes no sense to me anymore, I don't mind spending the cash for one from Hornby, but it's the old "value for your money" I'm having an issue with.

 

[BigGRacing]

I've a class 37 on pre order (2021) with them, that was £236 sound etc. might get a class 55 Deltic yet, that's £260, with all the same features as the Class 37 including engine bay lighting which is an "extra" you have to buy yourself. It makes no sense to me anymore, I don't mind spending the cash for one from Hornby, but it's the old "value for your money" I'm having an issue with.

I am thinking that more and more. Want a new vehicle, but I am too cheap to spend what they want. I made an offer the other day and they took away all my discounts when I said I was paying cash……remember when cash was what people wanted?

 

[Smudge617]

I am thinking that more and more. Want a new vehicle, but I am too cheap to spend what they want. I made an offer the other day and they took away all my discounts when I said I was paying cash……remember when cash was what people wanted?

Yeah, thing is it's never really a discount, you'll always have pay up. The fact you want to pay cash means they'll actually lose money because all those little extras they offer you that are discounted is actually how they make their profit because they're overpriced to start with along with the interest %

 

[chadbag]

Chad- I'm not asking actual dollars (not my business), but roughly what percentage of total cost are you saving by the work you are doing?

I'm not really sure right now. Besides the structural work I will also be putting down LVP, hanging cabinets, laying hydronic floor tubing, etc.

Based on what I am paying these two guys right now it is quite a lot. Also by contracting it myself and just paying a contracting consulting fee I am avoiding a large cost of the normal contractor profit. Against that, there have been additional costs due to the extended amount of time it has taken.

Once the whole thing is done I am going to try to calculate in some way.

 

[Smudge617]

It's Friday, it's 15.55 so 3hrs to go and I'm off for a week (half-term). Have to post a package and a Dr's appointment next week.
So I'll have time to finish off the Grain elavator.
Build the Tank Farm.
Some remedial layout lighting wiring.
Get some scenicking started.
Make a list of everything that's got to go OO and HO wise.
And hopefully run a few trains too.

After all that, I think I'll have to come back to work for a rest.

 

[chadbag]

I am thinking that more and more. Want a new vehicle, but I am too cheap to spend what they want. I made an offer the other day and they took away all my discounts when I said I was paying cash……remember when cash was what people wanted?

They probably get an incentive from the finance company to send them the business. If you are not financing it then they are not getting the incentive, and the discounts they were giving were subsidized by the finance company.

What I do is finance it and then pay it off. Usually they tell you you need to finance it for 4 or 6 months. So you pay your first payment immediately as the total amount minus 4 or 6 months worth of payments. If the car is $30000 and the monthly is $300 and you have to make 6 months of financing then your first payment should be $28500 and the next 5 payments should be the $300 (plus whatever accrued interest is on it). That low $1500 balance after the first payment won't generate a lot of interest.

Just make sure any finance contract doesn't include prepaymet penalties or disallow larger payments etc.

 

[shortwrench]

When I re-did the review of best refrigerator of 2022/2023 yesterday before we went to purchase it plainly said stay away from LG and Samsung. Turns out besides all the myriad of problems the refrigerator has, neither has a repair network.

We had Wolf appliances in the last place we built. One of the compressors leaked and they were there that afternoon. The repair was handled, he cleaned up and did a great job. Even premium machines have issues and I think we all understand that. It’s how they handle the repairs that mean so much.

I had an LG dishwasher which leaked from day one. Bought it from Home Depot with their extended warranty. Called them and
an appointment was set up with a local contracted appliance repair service. A tech came, made a phone call, and said there
was a problem with the rails for the washer racks (?). He ordered new ones which came in about about a week.

After changing the rails and test running the machine, the motor started smoking. He said that a new motor was needed.
I told him not to order the motor. Went to the Home Depot where it was purchased and discussed the problem with the
appliance manager who called the store manager. Considering the problems from day one, I told the manager I didn't
want the machine since it was a fire hazard. I wanted a replacement machine from a different manufacturer. He agreed.
Between the manager and assistant manger, they went through hoops with LG and finally getting the OK to take it back.
The appliance manager came and picked up the LG machine.

I purchased an Kitchen Aid dishwasher from Home Depot which I'm very happy with. Can't say how much I appreciate
the efforts of the store manager, assistant manager, and appliance manager.

 

[chadbag]

No, I haven't. Actually he was in to do warranty work on a Whirlpool appliance and saw our LG dryer; and remarked that their company (which primarily sells appliances) won't sell or work on LG products. I have never had an issue with the dryer, but I have had problems with several LG window air conditioners. I do about 80% of my appliance repair myself because of the premium charged for coming out to the boonies. Many times this guy has come out, diagnosed the issue (the hard part for me), ordered the part for me to install, thus saving the expense of a second visit.

We have two LG appliances that we've had about 15 years. A front load washer and dryer set. I wouldn't buy new ones from them but these have worked out.

 

[Jim 68cuda]

Trains are nice, but, the new '68 Mustangs are in!!

Well, the 1/87 scale Mustangs by Brekina, anyway.

 

[BigGRacing]

They probably get an incentive from the finance company to send them the business. If you are not financing it then they are not getting the incentive, and the discounts they were giving were subsidized by the finance company.

What I do is finance it and then pay it off. Usually they tell you you need to finance it for 4 or 6 months. So you pay your first payment immediately as the total amount minus 4 or 6 months worth of payments. If the car is $30000 and the monthly is $300 and you have to make 6 months of financing then your first payment should be $28500 and the next 5 payments should be the $300 (plus whatever accrued interest is on it). That low $1500 balance after the first payment won't generate a lot of interest.

Just make sure any finance contract doesn't include prepaymet penalties or disallow larger payments etc.

Thanks chadbag, was debating doing that as well that for sure.

 

[BigGRacing]

Yeah, thing is it's never really a discount, you'll always have pay up. The fact you want to pay cash means they'll actually lose money because all those little extras they offer you that are discounted is actually how they make their profit because they're overpriced to start with along with the interest %

Exactly….