LisaP4

I follow some Japanese fashions, and I'd generally say that yes they do, as any shoe bigger than a size 6 generally has to be specially made or bought from outside of Japan.

No, but I suspect it was a vampire moth that was drawn to them.

Pulled down an old metal frame that once held some shade cloth today, this clears the way between the workshop and the street so probably counts as "baseboard is ready for track" I guess. Somehow managed to get a moth stuck up my nose, it did not survive the encounter. Groceries arrived though, and hurrah; Irn-Bru is in stock, so all is well again.

I think this is my new favourite word.

I'm now confused as to what there is to be Friendly/Supportive over in my last post. The rating system is odd. Or ER's are odd, but we already knew that!

First morning of the year where the kitchen was colder than the fridge. Excellent porridge weather! Spent the weekend looking at clothes I can't afford, and probably wouldn't wear anyway. This isn't usually enough to stop purchases, but for a change I actually didn't buy anything. Time to find out why this rail supplier has suddenly gone quiet instead.

Nose bleeds appear to have stopped, hopefully, and mornings are now regularly dropping to the low single digits; delightful. Spent another day trying to get dad to realise he doesn't have a car, or at least to not wander around the neighbourhood looking for something that isn't there. Last night I discovered that pumpkin on pizza tastes about as good as it sounds; which is not at all. Also decided to spend some time closing some of the excessive number of web browser tabs I have open, however in looking at pages before closing the tabs I now have about 20 more open than before I started. Tony, deliveries here are always interesting as there's 4 houses in my street with the same number, and not all next to each other. We have all got used to swapping mail about in the afternoons.

Rained all weekend here, but dry again now. Also still getting a bleeding nose almost daily; just to make things that little more fun. Spent most of a couple of days translating some song lyrics from Japanese to English out of curiosity; naturally once I'd finished I found someone had already done it.

On the subject of extreme sports (it was back there somewhere, have a quick flick through the topic and you'll find it), apparently a Rugby League match (top grade, whatever that's called) got cancelled tonight due to severe weather; always thought that lot'd play in just about any conditions.

Still raining here, worms seem to be migrating to the workshop floor. Around these parts, superelevation tends to refer to shifting the centre of gravity and counteracting centrifuge on high speed lines, while cant/camber is for reducing the stress on the outside rail of a curve on heavy freight lines. Doubt it's part of the actual definition, but tends to be how the terms are used. Time for some porridge.

We discovered the solution to scummy neighbours was rivetting, just as they go to bed. Within a few weeks we had a well built 4"/ft scale tender and no more lousy neighbours. On other matters, a friend pointed out an interesting railway related tech support tale on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/349srl/most_expensive_troubleshooting_device/

Managed to achieve on of those near-mythical days where I did essentially nothing yesterday, 'twas marvellous. Then woke up today with a bleeding nose; not particularly unusual as I'm susceptible to them due to various medical oddities, still a nuisance though. Lots of rain here today, and storm warnings for the evening. Saw an owl in the front yard last night, don't see them around here too often, usually it's just possums dancing on the roof and using their kids as airbags.

Slept most of the day today, up till dawn working on some software that was trying to eat itself or something. Then had dad waking me every hour or two for one reason or another; turn tv on, unlock front door, lock front door, scammer on the phone, are you ok? (be fine if he'd stop waking me). Will try to go to bed a bit earlier tonight. A thought occurred to me as I was looking at the roller door in the workshop, a quick measure shows that if I use anything thicker than about 2" for sleepers I'll have to cut the height of the chimney down to get the loco out! Not sure why it was built so low, but I'll probably end up using some 4x2 (as there's some leftover from getting the side fence replaced) and just space them closer together than originally intended.

Got down to 6°C here last night, was lovely. Rail suppliers have put me on to a slightly more local stockist who will happily supply small quantities of 10kg/metre rail, and will also cut it to 3m lengths, bore the ends for fishplates, and deliver; so that's worked out nicely. Still trying to decide what to use for sleepers, as it's going to be workshop track I don't want anything too big and easy to trip on, on the other hand though it's got to hold a couple of tons of loco. Currently waiting for groceries to be delivered, got an email earlier saying they're out of Irn-Bru so I won't be getting any. Smiffy2, first time I tried soldering whitemetal I ended up with a puddle, discovered low-melt solder some time later.

Cold night brewing, should be nice. Regularly applying liberal coats of moisturiser to my sore dry nose after all the sneezing and tissues over the weekend; that'll teach me for buying cheap tissues. Finished clearing out one side of the workshop today, starting to feel quite spacious in there now. The Brisbane model train show's on in a few weeks, considering going for a change, day out would probably do dad some good too: http://brisbanemodeltrainshow.com.au/ Tex, the CC class looked familiar, turns out it's the same design as the WAGR G class which I've always rather liked the look of, apparently also ran in Qld; probably a B13 or early B15 I s'pose.

Neighbour was spraying weedkiller around yesterday, so I've been having sneezing fits ever since. Got the air-con on to filter the air inside, so I'm ok as long as I don't go out. Some kind of holiday to celebrate people shooting each other or something today, mostly trying to ignore it. There's been a few "gourmet fish & chips" shops opening around here in the past few years. No, really, you read that right. They're basically the same as any old chippy, but with fancy tables and higher prices.

Here we, go AME Nov/Dec '94 cover: Was also a large 'centrefold' image of the K with 4 carriages in tow, but if you want to see that you can get yourself a back issue.

Hi Tex, I believe the Bush Mill Mountain Railway's 15" gauge K garratt is now at the Perrygrove Railway. There's some (grainy) footage of her running at the BMMR at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzFdX4rkkCQ Also featured on the cover of Australian Model Engineering magazine when built, I'll see if I can scan the cover in later. Warm and sunny here, and there I was hoping winter was on its way. Regardless, spent a few hours cleaning the workshop out some more, need to make some racks to get some lengths of steel and wood off the floor. Also discovered the chassis for a 5" gauge 4 wheel tender under a pile of rags, fortunately no more snakes.

Try not to get too drunk with the ballasting dd. Tex, was going to ask if the pic' was of K1 in Tas or on the WHR, a quick look on wikipedia to check where the K's were originally used though shows that exact pic' with a caption of it being on the WHR. Somewhat warm and sunny here today, nights are getting delightfully cool though (7°C early this morning). Currently waiting to see if rail suppliers will let me order a ridiculously small amount (4 lengths) of 10kg/metre rail, or if I'll have to buy a ton of it or some such. For any 0-9/0n15 modellers out there who may be interested; 10kg/metre rail is 66mm high, which roughly scales to 1.5mm or code 60 rail in 7mm/foot. I think.

A sip for me, a sip for the ballast... a sip for me, sod the ballast.

Last time I did anything with N gauge, I spread a good glop of pva, pinned the track in place, and dumped some ballast over the lot. Excess ballast was vacuumed up the next day, nice and simple, no brushing required. Not that I've done much with N mind.

Tex' Tassie Tales reminds me of the one and only family holiday, when I was about two we all toured around Tasmania; was too young to remember much of it, but my teddy bear going missing sticks in my mind. He got left at the motel, and I was most distressed. Thankfully the motel owner and bus company helped get him sorted, and he made a solo tour of the island so I had him back before too long. A friend's suggested I write a children's book about his adventures. Said bear still sits on my bedside table, daren't let him out of my sight in case he goes on another crazy adventure. Hiya BoD, Google claims I'm a komodo dragon, so apparently so can I.

Doubt anyone would've noticed if you didn't say anything Tex! I certainly didn't.

I think the plumb line got snagged on something when they built that tower Dave.

Yey! Winter is coming, hasn't got over 20°C all day, lovely. Friend of mine was clearing out a recently deceased mate's place, and came across these sterling silver spirits measures in need of a bit of a polish. Turns out they're from the old ghan (back when it was 3'6" gauge, and arriving on the correct day was considered on time) complete with Commonwealth Railways markings on them. Apparently they may have been accidentally knocked off the bar during the journey.