Well, yesterday was OK, a bit warm.  Scotch Club went as scheduled, the theme was "American Single Malts."  

Today is hot and muggy, 85 at 11:30 heading to 91, dew point is 70.  (I've learned that I'm more sensitive to humidity than to absolute temperature, at least for double digit temps.  Dew point above 60 and I start getting miserable.)  

I'll head down to the train room and probably prime/paint the line shaft parts.  I'm still pondering the belt shifter part, one suggestion is to cut the shifter arms off the weak white metal shaft, and drill out for a brass shaft.  The other idea is to carefully scrape down the white metal arms to fit into the bracket holes.   The other thing I'm considering is a small forge in one corner of the building.  

dave

Rich, what's the fuel for that fireplace?  Wood or gas?  

Rick, nice picture.  I like Karl's idea of a book with stories and photos.  

Today's challenge, how to trim down the shaft on the right part to fit into the hole in the left part.

Those are (Rio Grande Models) soft white metal castings.  The holes are drilled out to .032.  There are actually 2 of those brackets, holding the drive shaft for the belt wheels, and the right part is the belt shifter from idler pulley to drive pulley.

I got some new paints to play with, too.  Dark metallic, including a Badger 'silver' primer.  

dave

Well, a decent day in store, after yesterday's perfect day.  I should build up steam to work on the machine shop, I haven't had the motivation all last week.  Yesterday's accomplishments were cleaning a slow running bathroom sink drain (ugh!) and installing a continuous drain hose on the new dehumidifier in the train room.

add::  Dogs did OK with the fireworks, calming treats helped.  I'm sure there'll be some more neighborhood jerks shooting stuff tonight.  (Fireworks are illegal in our town, but not the adjacent town, which is only 1/4 mlle away.)

dave

Curt, I was wondering (as our dogs were cringing from the fireworks) how your critters reacted.  There was a lot of firework noise, but the 'calming treats' worked pretty well.  Titus was anxious, but didn't shake the whole evening.  Neither did Livia, but these days we're not sure how much she can hear, so that helps, too.  

Rick, another winning photo!  

After yesterday's perfect day, it'll get warmer and more humid today through Monday, and seasonably warm for the rest of the week.  I feel about summer the way most people feel about winter, just something to get through...

dave

Yeah, a very nice 4th of July weather-wise.  Our dog who had the dental work Wednesday went back to the vet yesterday to get a bit of painkiller and appetite enhancer.  She wasn't eating.  That worked, this morning she ate everything but the stuff wrapped around her pills.  Time to try something new for the pills...

dave

Quote from: KentuckySouthern on July 03, 2025, 09:24:02 AM62⁰ lakeside going to 71⁰ the watch says. Yesterday it got closer to 80⁰

Venison anyone?  This guy was in the backyard at home.



Hope to enjoy a nice day.

Be well all.

KS

Well, that could be someone's trophy buck in the fall....

dave

Our one dog is back from the vet, less 2 (more) teeth, and my pocketbook is also a bit diminished.  But we're very glad to have her back home.  She should bounce back quickly.  The vet said she did very well through the procedure.  

dave

Cool photo, Curt, and congrats on the good transmission news.

dave

79 heading to 86, humid and cloudy.  In a couple minutes, I take one of the dogs to the vet for dental work, including at least one extraction.  It's a common problems with toy poodles ("not much space in their jaws for all those teeth...")  The other dog will be very upset.

I should get down to the train room for a bit, although I haven't had much motivation the last couple of days.  Heat and particularly humidity just sucks the energy from me!

dave

Quote from: jbvb on July 01, 2025, 10:17:38 PMGood evening, all. I got home just in time for dinner, now I've finished my report and dealt with a couple of phone calls. Taking a quick look around the Forum before getting rid of the day's sweat & dirt, I enjoyed Dave's list of Canadian foods.  Some I've had, most I haven't, but I only have to drive 6 hours to fix that.

Well, driving only 6 hours won't get you fresh BC Salmon :-) 

dave

Today one of my dogs goes in for dental work including at least one extraction.  She doesn't have many teeth left, poor thing!  (Apparently it's a common problem in toy poodles.)  Last night she was on minimal food with medicine, and this morning at 4:30 she woke us up to go out, because her tummy is upset.  But once that nasty infected tooth is gone, I'm sure she'll feel better.

dave

"20 Canadian Foods"  https://www.cnn.com/travel/canadian-food-best-dishes

I've tried about half of these, with no complaints about any of them!  The problem I now have, after 2 years of west coast salmon, the east coast version tastes way too fishy.   My favorite place for a Nanaimo Bar was from the coffee shop on the BC Ferry ride over to Vancouver Island.  

dave

Rick, that's a classic Teton view.    Tom, I had a blood draw this morning, too.  They were triple-booked, so there was a wait, but they worked through the backlog quickly.   Muggy here, the new dehumidifier for the basement was due yesterday but Amazon had a 'service interruption' so it should arrive today.  (Truck broke down?)  

dave

It's the big day for the folks up north.  One description of Canada is "A nation forged by a railroad." 

Muggy and warm in SE NH, cloudy, chance of showers.  I had a blood test this AM, their scheduling system failed and they were -triple booked-.  But the vampires worked quickly.

Today I'll work on cleaning up the belt drive castings.

dave

I ordered some Badger Stynylrez "Metal" primer for the belt drive hangers, etc.  It'll be interesting to see how that stuff works on the pewter castings.

Now I know I've put a lot of discussion and detail in this thread.  But I suspect many of you might be interested in a machine shop model, so I wanted to let you-all know the kinds of challenges I've run into on this project.  It's definitely been a marathon, with lots more to go.

add:  There's a great segment on cutting and installing a belt on this video starting about 11:40 or so:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5TCh0jRX1k  One thing I realized after watching this is that you can use two pulleys on one shaft, one idler and one driven, with a double width pulley on the other shaft.  Here's an image from the video that shows 2 pulleys on one side and a double-wide on the other.

In the video, watch how the belt moves from the driven to the idler wheel by the gentle application of the crescent wrench as a shifter.

another add:  I measured my RGM pulleys.  The large thick wheels are 8" wide, each step on the cone pulleys are 4" and the intermediate size wheels are 6".  So that says my belt width should be 4" or about .046.  That should work OK. 

dave