Quote from: friscomike on Today at 01:42:39 PMit will be NBW week.

:-) :-) 

dave

Did you get the box of pulley parts?

dave

Pipe racks from the Mine Mount kit, bottom left and top right.


dave

Quote from: GaryMc on Today at 11:35:37 AMThank you everyone for the kind comments, I really appreciate them. Started a DPM kit to sit next to the drug store and should have it done in a few days.

Rail-Scale Models is doing laser-cut windows to replace the thick cast windows for DPM kits.  https://www.rail-scale-models.com/HO-Scale-Window-Inserts-for-DPM-Round~Top-Windows-~-Door-Assemblies  Strongly recommend you consider these before you dive too far into the DPM kit.

dave

My computer standards group met quarterly, it was several hundred people and we needed a hotel with lots of breakout rooms.  One year we went to the Hyatt (I think) on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.  A few gambled, but most of us tossed a quarter or two into a slot machine, just to say we did it.  At the next quarterly meeting, the conference coordinator reported on locations.  "We're not invited back to Lake Tahoe.  When I asked why, they told us, 'Your people don't gamble enough and eat too many desserts from the buffet.'  I responded, 'It's a conference of computer nerds, what did you expect?' "

dave

Much needed rain here today.  The oaks are turning.  Unfortunately, even after they go brown, the leaves hang on for a long time.  Our yard guy needs to come by and run the mower to pick up what's fallen so far.  

Back to the train room in a bit, today is a free day with no appointments for anything, and no need to go to the store.

dave

A miracle!  It's raining again.  Twice in 3 days, that feels like a record.  It's still relatively warm, 53 heading to 62, with some sun possible this afternoon.

Another free day, I'll work on both the machine shop and the DCC testbed.  If I get ambitious, I'll do the 'minimal hook-up' of the DCC-EX to the HO standard gauge track and see if I can actually run the one loco that I tested on DCC last month.  (At the NMRA NER convention, a group was setting up their modules and running some stuff.  I asked if they could put this loco on the track, dial it in, and see if it works.  Debugging works best when you've limited the possible points of failure.   )  

dave

Quote from: KentuckySouthern on October 21, 2025, 02:46:59 PM

Quote from: deemery on October 21, 2025, 12:02:06 PM

Quote from: Larry C on October 21, 2025, 11:47:59 AMDave the photo you snapped of the foliage shows your house having a "mean lean" to it; hope it's just the angle of the camera and it's not actually like that.

Yeah, wide angle lens barrel distortion (https://www.ico-optics.org/spherical-aberration-and-image-distortion-in-simple-lenses ) ...  I've been in some old houses that have tilts to them, but not quite that bad. 

dave

I rented an upstairs apartment once the entrance door scraped at the hinge end and the latch end was close to a 1.25" gap to the floor.

I bet that door either slammed shut or sprung open when not latched!

dave

Quote from: Larry C on October 21, 2025, 11:47:59 AMDave the photo you snapped of the foliage shows your house having a "mean lean" to it; hope it's just the angle of the camera and it's not actually like that.

Yeah, wide angle lens barrel distortion (https://www.ico-optics.org/spherical-aberration-and-image-distortion-in-simple-lenses ) ...  I've been in some old houses that have tilts to them, but not quite that bad.  

dave

A picture from here.  Leaves this year are mixed.  When a tree turns, the leaves don't stay around very long. But the colors have been more intense than I expected, the oaks in particular are getting some nice deep red before they turn brown.  The yellow and red in this, though, are maples.


dave

My father's partner moved from coffee to Postum on doctor's orders.  He was never happy about it.  Hopefully the vocabulary applied to the 3D printer produces the same favorable result as the serpentine belt on the mower.

It's sunny and relatively warm, 46 last night, 53 heading to 63 today.  We didn't get as much rain as predicted, but still what we got was appreciated.  Yesterday was a bust for me, I was tired all day, and that was before my PT appointment which was particularly taxing (they tell me, 'that means you're making progress.')  But nothing on the agenda for the next 2 days, so I should get some significant work done.

The Amazon order that got stalled by the AWS "cloudburst" should arrive today.  That has some stuff that I'll use for parts/shop stock once it's painted.  I'll also try to make more progress on my DC/DCC testbed setup.  The RRAmpmeter that was supposed to be part of that is still on backorder.  

dave

Quote from: Rick on October 20, 2025, 06:09:46 PM

Quote from: deemery on October 19, 2025, 02:12:07 PMHas anyone else noticed how unreliable Amazon delivery has gotten?  About half the stuff I've ordered where "next day delivery" is promised has taken 2 days to arrive (or in a few cases, even more...)
dave

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/internet-outage-sparked-operational-issues-amazon-aws-data-centers-northern-virginia

That explains why my packages due today didn't arrive.  But it doesn't explain the problems I've seen the last couple of weeks (unless Amazon has been having persistent intermittent outages they haven't admitted to.)  

dave

Kyle, consider signs of wash-outs along the creek.  Even now on the Durango & Silverton, I think you can see some bent chunks of rail from where the track was washed out in the spring.  

dave

Quote from: Larry C on October 20, 2025, 11:48:48 AMRick thank you.

Mike thanks and that was my intention to maybe help or give someone else modeling ideas.

Doing a detailed machine shop is quite an undertaking!  The more experience we can share about how to do it (or not do it...   ), the better others will be prepared to decide if they want to take on this challenge.   And of course, lessons learned on things like 'attaching belts to pulleys' could well be used for other modeling problems.  

dave

The dogs are staying with friends for the weekend while we go to a Baby Shower for wife's niece (baby was actually born 3 months early, but since she's doing well, they decided to go ahead with the shower.)  So they're off to get baths this morning.  Then I have German Zoom, the teacher is recovering from an ankle replacement(!), so what we're doing is she slowly reads stuff, we write it down, translate it, and then send it back to her to correct.  That's actually good training for my ear and spelling, as well as translation training.  Once that's done (45 minutes on free Zoom   ), it'll be back to the train room until the dogs are ready.

dave