2025: What are you doing today?

[Crosley.In.AZ]

do you still have the simca ?

Yes.  My 1948 Simca is being stored by a friend down in the valley metro Phoenix area.  Of course it needs many hours of work to get ready.

 

[chimp koose]

I look forward to your progress reports on the Simca when you get started on it .

[WZ JUNK]

I am using a technique that Sumner showed me when he was building his Bonneville lakester.  He fabricated a lot of the parts out of wood and assembled the car.  Then he could visually see how everything would fit.  Then he would remove the wooden parts and replace them with metal.  Wood is cheaper and faster to rough something in than metal.  I am working on the power train setup currently.  I have the dummy engine and transmission and the wooden temporary parts in place.  The parts are the main shaft, the coupler, the transmission plate, the front bearing support, the shaft/engine connector, and the engine mount. I will study this setup for a couple of days and then I will change what I have or order parts.

[chimp koose]

just got an email from the new owner of my old anglia . I asked him what it weighs , 2200 lbs street ready. I knew it was light .

[jaybee]

Wood...that's kind of brilliant. I've been working on learning FreeCAD in my spare time. It takes a little effort since I've never done any CAD before, but evidently I'm still capable of learning. I'm finding that it's already changing my way of thinking and visualizing things.

[kb426]

I tried Free cad a few years ago. By them my memory was so poor that it was really difficult to find time everyday to make any progress. I quit but I shouldn't of. All of the really cool stuff requires creating a file in cad and exporting to what ever device you are using. I might have been able to become competent, maybe not.

[jaybee]

From my research, it sounds like FreeCAD has advanced really dramatically over time, so it's probably a better program in some important ways than when you tried it. A good tutorial makes a big difference in trying to teach oneself anything that's complicated. This is the one that helped me start get it figured out: 

&t=19s

[idrivejunk]

Today marks a decade since the impatient and never to be punished liar kid in a Ranger made the decision which ruined my life in an untold number of ways. Bumped out a roof dent this morning and was reminded by the numb, asleep, and prickly hand with hunk of arm bone floating around in my wrist. Still love straightening though. Career doom on top of career suicide, it was. This also means I've been in my GTP that long, 130K miles' worth.

So the 47 job is as together as it can get and yeah it is down to bumping small dents and getting next phase parts in. It is getting bear claws and a coyote heart. Fit is looking pretty good. Yesterday I finished up mods to inner fenders to clear coilovers and control arms. Piece of cake.

Last week was cut short by snow so I finished up a half page sized Fokker triplane drawing I been working on. It is finished, the plane is just flying in fog.

[chimp koose]

nice work making the prop look as though its moving.

[58 Yeoman]

Plane looks good Matt.  In grade school, I would doodle drawing the rears of 55 and 58 Chevies. Now I have a hard time making my cursive writing look good.  My older brother was pretty good at drawing.  And woodworking.  Two things I was never good doing.

[kb426]

Jailbars seem to be a love it or hate it truck. That one seems to be on a very good path. If that is the Red Baron, where is Snoopy?

[idrivejunk]

Hot on the Red Baron's tail, all guns blazing!

Jailbars, I like that.    And I pretty much knew there would have to be a Sopwith Camel drawing next, Bill. Twin Vickers .303 guns chattering and dog ears flappin, rat-a-tat-tat.

Phil I've come to realize the ability to create art is part of the standard equipment gift bundle that is human life. I know if I was retired I would draw or paint as much as I could stand. I wanted to draw one day so asked Pugsy for an idea and got several but liked the triplane one and just did the picture for myself. Doodle for pleasure, whatever floats your boat.

CK, good eye. Special effort went into blurring the prop. The white pencil helps blend colors.

Boy howdy the 47 looks different now. After them glam shots I ran a block with 240 over it for pics that quantify the smoothing-out work needed. You all know how stuff looks dandy in fresh epoxy then you lay a block to it and go oh.

[jaybee]

You do great artwork, Matt. I wish I had that talent. It would really help me lay down some stuff I have knocking around in my head.

[Crosley.In.AZ]

Short version of long story: Had to move my SAT dish from its temporary front yard home to more permanent spot in backyard. Which required me to run two new RG6 cables in the attic to back yard /  patio area. Cable for SAT and 1 for internet service.

Had to rip down 2 layers  cheap paneling on living room wall (No sheet rock) to get 2 new RG6 cables in.  Paneling was coming out any way.  Win ?

Bought 2 rolls of 100 foot RG6 cable after I measured 3 to 5 times. LOL NOT long enough for SAT dish.  SO I got all that crap handled finally today. I installed 4 new cable ends on RG6 with the tool I fought with a few days ago. ALL worked great.  Photo shows cable comes out of the attic , thru the soffit. I installed new ground / lightning connectors too , on each cable.

Public service notice:  BlackStone Laboratories has raised their base fee to 40 dollars for oil analysis testing.  It was raised to 35 dollars last year.  I send in samples of my F350 engine oil

[58 Yeoman]

I always liked the before and after trucks better than the 'jailbar' years, but the '46 I had came up for sale locally for a good price and it was in very good condition.  After I painted it, I took it to the original owner, well, the widow anyway, to show it to her.  She got a big kick out of seeing it again.  She was a local to me farmer, and said that when they got the truck new, it had wooden planks for bumpers  and received steel ones later on.

She also said they drove the hell out of that truck and used it for everything. The original owner manual was still in the glove box, and she had written a grocery list on one of the covers.