Running Bear's January 2023 Coffee Shop

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Good morning Crew from the early morning chill in So. Central Wisconsin. I have been up a few hours spending time trying to put humpty dumpity back together. Between catching portions of the NFL games I worked on finishing a long term on/off weathering project. After the game I finished the weathering project by clear coating it with a mat finish and I liked it. Put it in the dehydrator, turned the machine on and went to find something on Netflix.

A couple hours later I woke up, turned the monitor off and headed to bed. No idea why I decided to check the weathering bench but there was my dehydrator on the floor and the finished weathered car also scattered across the floor. In shock and not really awake, I unplugged the dehydrator and went for 3 hours of lousy sleep. Around 4 I had enough tossing and turning. I went downstairs cleaned up everything and I just finished re-assembling the car. Sent pictures to the purchaser with an explanation.

He is one of those who has me purchase his cars for him as I find deals he is too lazy to search for. I love the search, find and buy portion of model railroading. I buy for 4 others but he just seems so apathetic where the others are appreciative. That is why I call him lazy, the others truly don’t have time. He has the time and money but is used to getting his way!

While I can write that I don’t believe anyone else can tell where I reassembled it but he didn’t want it or the 2 previously finished matching cars to it. This project has been on and off since 3/2022, so knowing how he is, it was not a surprising response. So I just refunded his money. I know my LHS had the same car but for $20 more, so I think I just added a car to the fleet (that’s ok) that fits the scheme of my non-existing layout. I just notified some of my client list that model modern that the 2 cars are available until noon. I did mention the 3rd car is available and what happened. If they don’t sell to the client list the 2 will go on Facebook.

Other than the “mishap” yesterday was good. Worked on 12 pieces of rolling stock for me plus finishing the 3 pieces mentioned above. I got all the wheel sets painted, the trucks tuned, painted and re-assembled. All cars had a clear mat varnish applied and the underbody weathered. Other than packaging if the cars sell today, I am not going to look at the bench until late evening if even then. I will worry about the dehydrator on Monday.

The WeatherChannel app says it is 27f degrees, feels like 11 and heading to 47.

The grandson has a game this morning and the NFL plays later. I will attend hockey and watch the NFL

The son yesterday invited me again to Austin. Says he’s worried about me being alone! Told him, he’s alone and I can worry about him but he cannot worry about me. Besides, without my traveling companion I would go nuts from boredom there.
 
A couple hours later I woke up, turned the monitor off and headed to bed. No idea why I decided to check the weathering bench but there was my dehydrator on the floor and the finished weathered car also scattered across the floor. In shock and not really awake, I unplugged the dehydrator and went for 3 hours of lousy sleep.
Any idea how the dehydrator ended up on the floor?
Cat?
Intruder?
Dog?
Ghost?
 
Probably...

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Just keep practicing. I use 20-25 PSI for almost everything. Start at about 4" spraying distance. Start and finish spraying off the model. It can also depend in which airbrush you're using, single or double action. I've seen guys weather with single actions but IMHO you cant get the variations you need unless you can throttle the paint flow while spraying. That means double action. Tool quality does also matter. I always recommend a good quality airbrush. Some of the Chinese knockoffs are OK, but the Harbor freight 10 and fifteen dollar wonders are notorious for poor quality, and I wouldn't recommend them for students. If memory serves you are the one who bought that Harder & Steenbeck, so it isn't tool quality. Just perfect your technique. That's what all those cheap two dollar freight cars at the swap meet are for!
Yes I did, and it's still in the box :) , at the moment I'm using the cheaper Abest double action airbrush, which seems to work well now I have a decent compressor. I figure that if I can master using this one, I'll be a flipping genius with a good quality one.😂
 
Good Morning All. Clear and 46° with a wind advisory for the day today and probably tomorrow. Still fair weather for a while, with overnight temps dropping into the 30's toward the end of the week.

Indoor chores and outdoor tasks occupied most of the day yesterday, a very boring life. Things liven up this morning with a visit to church, but otherwise more of the same. I really need to get more serious about doing the winter tree pruning or I'll be buying wood next year. Right now though, it looks like I'll be carrying about a months worth from this winter.
Baby back ribs for supper tonight, I'll take a prime rib out of the freezer for tomorrow and a couple more meals later in the week. I bought several when they went on sale late last year.

Thanks for the comments and reactions to the layout pictures posted yesterday.

I did not have a good day out in the train shed yesterday. I started by finishing up the last tiny bit of track cleaning on the north wall, and then tried to run a train through. I was using a lash-up of P2K SD45's when the lead engine developed a problem. one truck completely quit working. Apparently the drive shaft dislodged from the flywheel, they're press-fit in. The strain caused the same thing to happen to the second engine. OK, I have had this happen before but not two at once. So apart comes the first one. In these models, the rear truck tower, flywheel, drive shaft and engine are completely surrounded by the weight. I managed to disassemble in a somewhat normal time frame of 20 minutes, took far too long to get the drive shaft universal back into the flywheel, but I finally did get it to seat properly and I reassembled it. That shot about 75 minutes. Put it on the track and NOTHING!. Several times. Tried a different engine on the same track and it ran correctly. So back to the workbench. Fortunately I had known better than to put the shell back on, or add all of the screws to the weight, but nothing I did with the circuit board worked. Then I spotted it. When moving the weight out of the way of the truck/shaft/flywheel, I had inadvertently pulled the top power wire loose from the engine. Those of you who have read my posts over the years already know that I hate soldering and I am the worlds worst at it. But I had no choice. The very tiny (and short) wire and the very hard to access wire mount made for a real tough job. But I got it done, everything worked and I put it all back together. Two hours that I will not get back. Reluctantly and frustratingly I started on the second engine. It went better, I was done and running in 20 minutes. I noted that the power wire in the second loco had been re-soldered by me at some point in the past. I didn't have time to look at the maintenance records yet. This has happened before with P2K engines, but I hesitate to super glue the parts in, just in case I actually have to remove them intentionally in the future.
Today I will begin to remove structures from the east wall for individualized cleaning and possible repair or detailing. Here's a picture that I posted yesterday with some markups. The structures along the wall beyond the pink building are first, well after the switch tower.
IMG_2747 (2).jpg

The structures on the right from the pink building to the corner of the picture, are just temporarily stored there, having been built ahead of time. I need to fill the two areas outlined in red but I don't have any plan yet. It's possible that either the pink drugstore or the three story structure will remain in the area. The track to the far right is mainly a tail track for switching those industries on the far side of the red outline. It and the other RH track lead to an unfinished engine service area. The two LH tracks are the main line (far left) and the passing siding that cross the bridge in front of the doorway to the south side of the upper level. This bridge is a "stoop-under" at 54" and allows for continuous running on the upper level only. the blue building on the left is also temporary; I have a place for it in a residential neighborhood on the lower level in the unfinished third of the layout. The Ethanol refinery under construction is the start of doing something with that unfinished area, but I wanted to complete a lot more scenery elsewhere before I started that area.

Troy - You're right about Grover. However his advocated policies benefit all Americans, some more than others though.
Swal - Nice progress on the bathroom.
Patrick - Just blame it on the software, which it probably is anyway. Even when our IT guy made a mistake, he blamed the software to everyone except his own boss (the CFO); who didn't understand what was being said anyway! Updates/upgrades were always tricky anyway.
Good Luck today.

Everybody have a great Sunday.
 


Any idea how the dehydrator ended up on the floor?
Cat?
Intruder?
Dog?
Ghost?
Troy, I want to say ghosts, but it wasn’t that. It had a slight vibration to it but it had rubber feet and I have had no issues with it moving. I say had, as it is currently residing in the recycling bin. Not repairable.

Looking for bigger and better. Maybe this but seems pricey. I can be cheap sometime. I have read the good and the not so good on the Doctor Dry booth
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Good morning and happy Sunday to y'all!

Went to visit my friend Ken's layout (not IBKen) yesterday. He is building a MASSIVE triple deck layout in his basement of B&O prototype. He's been bugging me for a long time to be part of the construction crew but Saturdays between working every 3rd Saturday, kids and grandkids, plus SWMBO, I don't get there often. Yesterday was an exception and WOW, has he built a doozy. It's all just benchwork with place names and a few structures scattered about, but it is being fully signaled with detection circuits everywhere. I did steal some ideas from his lift bridge for use on my layout. I spent a good part of last night skulling out how to apply his bridge to my layout and early this morning cutting and clamping wood. Now I'm just waiting for my Dewalt® drill to recharge so I can get it assembled. (Yea, I forgot to put it on the charger last time I used it)

Weatherwise it is sunny out, but cold, with temps in the mid 30s. However the Vermont Castings woodstove has basement temps at a comfortable 72° right now. I let it die last night, because at bedtime last night it was 88° down here last night, and 73° in the rest of the house.

TomO The Doctor Dry booth looks like an interesting tool, but how warm does it get? Hopefully not much over 125° or I'd be scared of plastics or low temp solders.

Well, the charge light just went solid on the drill battery,

BBL
 
I took a break from the bathroom tile planning and decided to install 2 of the Scale Sound Speakers in my GE-C39-8's.
I used their photo of the installation because my photo came out very dark and you can't really see the speaker but that's how it fits in the space given. The one problem I had was the grey motor is so short when you access the speaker space it broke and now has to be resoldered.
Swal

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Afternoon All,

Started out with chores and a temp of 37F but no wind. MOH had me helping in the sewing room (no sewing-thankfully). I'm watching British mysteries currently. I'm not sure what's happening tomorrow.

Joe- How about a picture of your gondola modeling?

Christian- Nice cars. I was going to ask about the couplers, but it's already been answered.

TomO- I was going to ask if the machine "walked" off the counter, but that's been answered also.

Willie- I feel your pain. At least you got it working (both units).

I hope everyone has a good night.
 


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