Quote from: Larry C on December 02, 2025, 11:34:38 AMDang MJ!! You have to be one of the few people laying track and has functional switch stands to boot. Fantastic!!!!

Bernie Kempinski has working switch stands on his O gauge Civil War railroad.  He also has working link-and-pin couplers.  Operating on his railroad is an unique experience.  Fortunately, he doesn't require that you also learn Morse Code.

dave

Definitely a cool setup, Jeff.  Thanks for the workflow discussion.  

Light snow in SE NH.  We'll be sitting on the transition line between rain/sleet/snow for much of the day.  

Back to the train room in a bit, the dog with the runs made it through the entire night last night with no episodes.  

dave

Light snow this morning, it's sticking on the roads.  We'll be on the snow/sleet/rain line for much of this, so we could get as much as 8" or as little (when the storm is done) as 1".  

Back to the exercise machine and train room, the dog that had the runs for the past nearly week is doing much better.  No trips out in the middle of the night last night.  Dog & owners both happy about that.

dave

VERY nice!  I particularly like the vertical joints splitting up the mostly horizontal strata.  

dave

Well, I'm back at this, after losing about 5 days due to taking care of a sick dog.  (Didn't want to be in the basement when she decided "I need to go out IMMEDIATELY!")  I glued most of the corner trim into position (back wall, boiler room) and clamped that.  I also finally figured out the various parts for the trim, in some cases AFTER I cut alternative pieces.  That's OK, but the instructions for this kit were definitely "minimal".  Still, I'm back to making progress. 

 
(You can't have too many clamps...)

Tomorrow I'll do the corner trim attached to the acrylic front wall.

dave

We're back from our regular vet.  She gave us a prescription that should help with The Runs.  It's stuff I have to squirt into the dog's mouth, so I watched how the vet tech does that.  (Livia HATES any handling of her mouth/muzzle...)  They said she should be better in a day, if not sooner.  

dave

Seasonally cool with clear skies, but snow or rain or wintery mix due tomorrow.  That's the same storm that dumped on Chicago and upstate New York.  

I'm still dealing with a sick dog, unfortunately.  We took her to the Vet ER Saturday, they did an (expensive) full work-up and didn't find anything serious.  But the vet there said "If this doesn't clear up in a couple of days, then maybe an overnight stay for more intensive care would be warranted."  We'll see what our regular vet says today, I sent her a message.

dave

Quote from: Pennman on December 01, 2025, 01:05:47 AMWhat makes you say he may have cloned them for sale? Any why would that be a copyright violation, since they are no longer produced?

1.  If someone 'cloned' by creating a new mold from the figure, you'd expect some loss of detail.  (Some of us are old enough to remember Paige Industries, who cloned the SS Ltd kits.  The cloned castings were nowhere near as good as the SS Ltd originals.)

2.  Copyright doesn't run out just because the company went under!  

dave

I'm looking forward to seeing where that piece of basswood ends up.  I'm glad I had what you needed. 

dave

What I did was set the machines, then glue (drop of CA) the shaft pulleys into position, to make sure they line up.  (I mention this for others contemplating the joy of a belt driven machine shop.  i learned A LOT from studying build threads by others.)

dave

To pick a nit:  On the shaper, the cones are slightly misaligned.  The small pulley of the top cone should be directly over the large pulley of the lathe's cone.   And is there enough room for the full travel of the shaper front to back? 

Your approach with the lathe is the same as what I did with all my machines.  I looped the belt over the driveshaft pulley, then trimmed the bottom to cover as much as I could to the bottom of the machine pulley, on both sides.  So there's a gap that can't be seen at the bottom of each of my machine pulleys.  I had the advantage of access from all sides, since i didn't affix the walls until after the machines and belts were installed.

This is the kind of work that is both frustrating and rewarding, particularly as you think through and understand the shop and tool engineering.

dave

A photo from James' layout, showing the spectacular set of (authentic to prototype) historic Newburyport houses built by his wife:

That's the hole for the Newburyport Station on the lower right.

dave

Quote from: Philip on November 30, 2025, 10:04:10 AMMorning all,

Thanks for the coffee Larry!

Rick, crazy prices on meat now.

Mike, I'm working on a re-working a dynamite shed and some raised letter signs. The actual walls on the buiding are going back to the drawing board. 

We are waiting for the big storm but nothing yet. A lot of wind and some freezing rain so far.

I just noticed a couple of new things in O scale. This fellow is now reselling selling PFM figures again cheap.

PFM

Cumberland shop, KY is also selling scale figures and they look nice.

url=https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheCumberlandShops?ref=shop_profile&listing_id=4399122317]CSK[/url]



Have a great Sunday.

I recognize some of those "PFM" figures (Motopurr Studios) as the old Lytler & Lytler figures.  That makes me suspect he's cloned them for sale, which would be a copyright violation.  It's also possible he found a huge stash of those somewhere.

dave

It's cloudy (I looked up through the skylight to verify this, to see a line of geese flying south), and chilly.  We'll be at real winter temps later this week.  

I ended up taking one dog to the vet ER yesterday.  I had them do the full check-up, including abdominal ultrasound, to rule out all the Bad but unlikely stuff.  That all came back negative.  We came home with a couple of prescriptions, and the warning it'll probably take another 2 days for the runs to stop.  We were up twice overnight, which is better than 4 times the night before.  After the second time, I just stayed up since it was nearly time to get up anyway.  She is eating, which is good in part because that makes it much easier to give her the medicine.

Later today I'll head down to James Van Bokkelen's house and drop off some wood for a project.  With the sick dog, that'll be my only 'Tour de Chooch' visit.  

dave

Bernd, are you thinking about something like this machine?  https://presse.surplex.com/pressreleases/precision-work-in-xxl-7-facts-about-vertical-turret-lathes-3300472  Apparently vertical lathes were widely used for large gears.

dave