eldavo

Morning All, Too many oktas today. A GP with Chiropratic/Osteopathy skills! Now how much would that save the heatlh service by getting people up and about quickly? Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning all, Almost a full set of oktas in place hereabouts. Probably be torrential rain this evening as I'm booked to play golf. Hope all goes well tomorrow Mick. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Currently sunny in these parts. Apparently it's Monday. Some plumbing bits to sort out today, thankfully not bodily! Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

At least we aren't saddled with a chain of tyred puns. Sofa so good is all I can say. Have a good one all. Off to the local (Excellent) Indian restaurant for a spot of lunch. The Sunday buffet is rather good. Cheers Dave P.S. Where are the pedals on an armchair?

You just know we all have to have a steak in this. Morning Afternoon All. Cheers Dave

Been gradually working through Waton's fault list and managed to nail a couple of major items today. I was having nasty interactions between the two controller I am using for East and West bound operations. I have the layout wired for common return and after changing round the connections to one of the controllers I can now run trains in both directions at the same time. I've also spent an hour or two fettling trackwork on the Eastbound routes and things are starting to run much smoother. More of this to do but one of the acid tests was whether I could run the 2+7 HST set both East and West bound. Doesn't sound a big deal but bear in mind this is a Farish unit so in one direction the motorised power car has to propel the 7 coaches and the dummy power car all the way round the layout across all manner of whacky point work. It does! Thought I would put together a little video of stuff moving just for the heck of it. Apologies for the quality of the video but this was just shot using the room lights and my crossover/superzoom camera. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=molemPGx4fI Cheers Dave

Had to sort a few items from the "snag list" compiled during the Stafford outing as Waton was the the subject of an (almost) unannounced inspection by the SBSC(SEF) (SAG Beer Standards Comittee(Souther Expeditionary Force)) otherwise known as the gang of five. Hiding behind the backscene and pretending to do something in the fiddleyard didn't cut it with the leader of the band! gordon s: "It looks much bigger in the pictures. Do trains really run on this track? I can't even see the rails!" gordon s: "Did I miss one?" PhilC: "Yes mate. You need to get ya glasses on a bit quicker." Bibby Line (co-opted for the day): "If I stand like this does it look as though I know what I'm doing?" Phil H: "You're turning the wrong knob!" Somehow GMR managed to escape without being photographed! I'd like to assure people that no trains were injured during these tests! Good fun had by all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Lot of oktas about. Taking the opportunity to do a bit of net surfing before SWMBO rises and presents me with "the list". Is this chap sat at the bar or playing the piano? Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Full set of leaking oktas in place hereabouts. In fact the leaking is such that the old dog hurried about his business and scuttled off back to the car and refused to go for a walk. So, breakfast had, coffee drunk and dog (almost) walked. Better get on and clear up the shed as an invasion of 5 RMWebbers is scheduled for this morning. Probably be a good idea if the trainsets worked as well! Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Oktas seem to be burning off gradually. No grand plans for today so I might get some time in the shed unless SWMBO comes up with some bright ideas! Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Bright one hereabouts. Lots of things need doing but for some reason I don't feel inspired to do any of them. Perhaps more coffee is required. Some nice shots of some cracking countryside there Dave. Must get up to that area at some point. Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Looks like the oktas may clear. I've only been done for speeding once (so far) and that was for doing 40 in a 30 zone. I was slowing down as I passed the 30 sign and a chappy hopped out from behind a bush and zapped me with a radar gun. It was chucking down with rain at the time and his first words were "I'm glad I've stopped someone, now I can sit in your car for a bit out of the rain while we sort out the paperwork". Luckily I was on the way to the pub not coming away from it! Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, All oktas in place, solar panels struggling. Major items of "the list" sorted yesterday so it's off to the London Transport Museum and other places for a day of jolly japes. Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Bright one hereabouts. Might even get some power out of the solar panels at this rate! Spent the weekend away at friends and in our absence "the list" seems to have grown. The lawn deperately needs cutting but has been buried under a pile of sundry scaffolding bits for the last week. The guy who collected the scaffolding tower (used by the solar men) managed to knock a substantial branch off the mulberry tree in the front garden. Said branch has now replaced the scaffolding cluttering up the lawn and so I will have to saw that up before I can get to the lawn to cut it. The battery on SWMBO's car is flat again so that is now on charge. I'm not sure weekends are actually restful! Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Damp one again. Leccy man spent the day re-jigging the solar panel wiring yesterday so it's all back online and, as it is now wired on a separate distribution panel, we haven't had all the power for the house trip out! Now all we need is some sunlight. So far today it has maxed out at a whopping(!) 500watts. Expect further torrential rain over the weekend as I'm supposed to be enjoying(?) a BBQ. Have a good one all. Cheers Dave P.S. I tried candles to keep the panels working but the wind kept blowing them out.

Time for a bit of relaxing weathering I think. Haven't had time to wield the paintbrushes for a few weeks what with all this building fiddleyard shenanigans. I have acquired a few GBrF coal hoppers with the intent of running fulls one way and empties the other. I only have 14 so far and on Saturday we were just running one rake of 7. Didn't look too bad though I could probably squeeze another one but they were all in pristine condition! I set about making some coal loads for some of them out of... ...er, coal! Basically just some crushed coal glued to a bit of black plasticard. They are cracking models these babies. After a squirt of mucky blacky brown from the airbrush all over plus some smears of Tamiya rust brown and black weathering material they start to look a bit more lived in. I've deliberately tried to get some variation among them as the prototypes seem to vary from almost new looking to yeuk brown all over. The loaded ones are somewhat overloaded but I didn't fancy fiddling around trying to get separate loads in each of the 3 compartments. They'll do if viewed from a distance or until I change my mind and redo them. They are quite small! Not sure it was that relaxing though as 14 hoppers with 8 wheels each equates to 112 tiny wheel faces to paint rusty brown with a 000 brush! Cheers Dave

Indeed it does significantly cut the electricity consumption. Done 'alf mess up your RMWeb surfin' though. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Ample oktas and the solar panels have been having a serious washdown with rain water for the last hour or so. The saga of the panels continues as we have an intermittent fault whereby when the inverter decides to shutdown due to lack of light on the panels it frequently trips out the RCD on the main consumer unit. The electrician is due to return and reconfigure the wiring of the panels to re-distribute the load and re-wire the whole shebang into a separate mains feed. Seemed like a good idea when we started! Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

I think the major problem at the moment is the panels being frequently washed with rainwater! Cheers Dave

Morning All, Bright one (at the moment). Golf postponed yesterday due to rain but maybe it'll happen today. As predicted the solar panels produced very little power yesterday in their first full day of operation. I'm still expecting the onset of the next ice age or volcanic ash clouds. Need to get myself down to the shed and sweep the floor. As my layouts are currently packed away and I have a fairly large area of clear floorspace the model railway club are descending on me this evening to lay out the track plan for a new club layout. Much cogitation over track alignments and building locations will no doubt ensue. Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Fair number of oktas in evidence. Entirely predictable given that the solar panels were commissioned yesterday! I think a game of golf may be in order today and a concert is scheduled for this evening. Though there also appears to be a list. Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Bright one again. As is now becoming a tradition in this household we await the arrival of the solar panel men. They seem to have managed at last to get 10 of the panels onto the roof but there are still 5 more to go. They are even threatening to bring an electrician on site to wire them up today! I predict volcanic eruptions with ash clouds obscuring 90% of sunlight somewhere around Thursday this week. Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Well the members day in Stafford is over. My that went quickly. On Monday last I managed to get a 12 hour day working on wiring (didn't work this hard when I had a job). On Tuesday I was in the workshop with the soldering iron heating up at 5.30 (am!). The first train to manage a full circuit of the layout didn't run until Wednesday evening. The control box was finally assembled and tested on Thursday and the whole lot packed into the car on Friday morning. Up until Tuesday evening I really didn't believe I would manage to get anything worthwhile running by Saturday but with a bit of a fair wind we got there. There were a couple of electrical gremlins we had to work around but we had trains running all day! Things actually worked surprisingly well even if we were only able to show off a fraction of the layouts capabilities. Rather than confuse the operators with sophisticated track schematics, labels and graphics the fiddleyard control panel was left pretty much blank! How many combinations of 6 rotary controls can there be? The layout is now back home and safely packed away in the shed. It will stay that way for a few days and I will take a break from track and wiring but actually I'm now quite keen to crack on and sort the "snag" list and finish a few more bits and pieces. It was really rather nice to see it finally up and running and great to shake down some of the operational problems in front of a friendly bunch of RMWebbers. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Bright one. Had a cracking day out at Stafford yesterday, even some of the little trains ran! I take no responsibility for the number of pints of scrumpy consumed by one Mr. Harding or for the fact that as a result of said scrumpy diplomatic relationships between the North and South have been set back 30 years. Thankfully the Widnes crew can give as good as they get so a good laugh was had by all. Hope the progress on the leg continues Gordon. It really isn't your turn for more health problems. Now what do I do now that I haven't got a deadline to meet? Have a good one all. Cheers Dave