Late January Ramblin’

Texas weather is going crazy as usual. It is 32 degrees (F) and raining one day then 62 and sun the next which was yesterday. This morning it is 35 and semi cloudy. I know they say this in every place I have lived but, “If you don’t like the weather. just wait a day…” 🙂

Outside Christmas deco was taken down (finally) yesterday. When packing it looked like I cornered the market on outdoor extension cords. I use over 35 to run all the circuits on the computer controlled light system. The weather was perfect and my back feeling good enough to tackle the task. Ten more months and counting… too long to just leave them up.

The online store is doing OK. Gears are starting to sell very well. I recently sold a Proxxon lathe and have two folks at present wanting to know when I can get the next one. The one I own is for sale but to ship it would double the freight cost as I already paid to get it to me. Shipping it again would not be for free. I may just pay the tax on it and keep it for myself. It is a great little lathe and actually the same size Kozo uses to build his 3/4 scale locos. His is an Emco with the attached mill, no longer available.

My shop is a mess at the moment. I have several projects to work on and Christmas piled all around me. We will fix most of the pile problem today with a trip to storage. Here in the Dallas, Texas area, basements are unknown. Shop space is at a premium and usually must be shared. I am actually willing (dreaming) to move the shop to a rental space to use as a shop and inventory storage area for the web business. When store sales can support that, I will make a serious contemplation. An out building would be great but there is no space and deed and zone (business use) restrictions.

CNC is crawling to the top of my want to do shop activities. I just upgraded Rhino (3D CAD) to version 4 as well as upgraded RhinoCAM (Visual Mill) so both will work properly with the Vista OS. Actually the older version would run after ignoring several error messages while starting up. (Thanks Vista! 🙁 ) I have switched my thinking from getting CNC to work to what I can create with CNC. Some A3 locomotive parts are in mind as well as a whole lot more.

The Hobbyist’s Machine Shop (web site) pages have been quite for many months. At lot of the shop tinkering I do is in this section and also in TEDEX from time to time. I need a major project picture event to add to the the shop site. I have one that may get there soon.

~Dan’l