Very Dark, SMOKEY Day

 Took this right about High Noon:

 

We're talking gettin' close to midnight in a coal bin at noon here. There's kind of a hole in the smoke, and you can see one lone white cloud trying to shine through:

Looking to the North shows the edge of the plume, with blue sky behind it:

This is a screenshot of the local NWS weather radar in Cheyenne from a couple of hours later. The big green and blue streak across the map is the radar return from the smoke plume. That shade of green normally corresponds to "It's Raining", but it's not rain. It's pretty dense smoke to give a return that strong. It was stronger earlier in the day, but I didn't think to record it.

There's a frost warning for tonight, but no rain forecast for the next week.

The latest incident map shows the fire to now be about 14 miles from here. The new "finger" sticking out from Signal Mountain headed East towards the Horsetooth Reservoir is new in the last 24 hours, explaining why the smoke has gotten so heavy and the air so rancid here. We kept The Little Guy indoors all day, and even Pebbles didn't care to go out and walk the backyard, it was that bad.

If it doubles again like that in the next 24 hours, it will be right on top of the reservoir, and headed for some very exclusive homes.

A New Addition To The Fleet

 Well, we have another new occupant for the garage.

Yep, one of those battery-powered, 90% plastic, "Powered Riding Toy" contraptions that you see quite a few of these days. You can hear them rumbling around many suburban neighborhoods, and they make a very distinctive sound. I could ramble on about soap-box roller skate scooters, but I won't. This is 2020, and this is what kids play with these days.

As features go, this one is a nice one, in the "$300 Class" of Children's Powered Riding Toys, and it appears to be somewhat sophisticated as these things go. The most unusual thing about it, and I'd never seen one, is that this thing is run by Remote Control!

Yup, a "Certified Adult" can watch their offspring driving around, and completely overrule them. One of the buttons is labeled with a big "P", which the pidgin instructions indicate is for "Park", but it's description of operation leads me to believe it should be called "PANIC STOP" because if Mom or Dad mashes that one, it remotely kills the vehicle, and it stops in it's tracks.

It has a nice dashboard with a real-time display of the battery voltage when it's powered on.

 

The red button on the lower left turns on the LED headlights, and they're way better than the ones I had on that electric snowblower! The button on the lower right has the universal "ON/OFF" symbol, and there's a "FAST/SLOW" rocker switch above the left hand A/C vent. It switches from low range @1.7MPH to high range @2.4MPH. I'm guessing it just ups the voltage to the motors as this is the only "Speed Control" it has. The throttle is strictly ON/OFF when you either push down the floor pedal, or select "Forward" on the remote. It has NO brakes, and when you command it to stop, it takes a few hundred milliseconds to cut the power to the motors, meaning it keeps moving for a couple of more feet. The rocker switch in between the A/C "vents" selects "Forward" or "Reverse". Above the rocker switch where the radio would be in a real Jeep, is the battery voltage display.

And the steering is the same "Full Left" or "Full Right" from the remote control. The driver can steer it more accurately, but it takes some muscle because you're fighting the electric motor in the assembly they use to control the steering.

This type of Fully On or Fully Off control system is called a "Bang-Bang" control because you go all the way one way or the other. The Silicon Graybeard had an excellent post on Bang-Bang Control the other day, and how it relates to his A/C system.
 

This "Children's Powered Riding Toy" (I kid you not, it's a whole range of toys and manufacturers) is imported by "Best Choice Products", and has terrible reviews due to their replacement (or not) parts policy. If something breaks within the first 60 days, they give you a new one. After that, Sorry, Charlie! NO parts are available, meaning if something big takes a dump, that's where the entire thing is headed. So since it's here in the garage, and I'll be responsible for it's maintenance and operation, I figured I'd better dig in to it and see what makes one of these tick.

It has a 12 Volt, 10Amp/Hour battery, a very rudimentary motor control, and two 12 Volt motors, one at each rear wheel, driving the wheel through a gear box.

Battery:

Motor Controller:

Motor:

 

Gear Box:

The motor is rated 10,000RPM, so it's geared down quite a bit, giving these things their distinctive sound.

The battery has a 17 Amp circuit breaker in series with the hot lead, and each motor has a 10 Amp breaker.

I looked for something resembling a servo for the steering, and none was to be found. Then it hit me...it's part of the dashboard!

The steering "mechanism" on this thing is incredibly crude. The white star-shaped item is the motor-driven "Left/Right" steering "servo", and the steering shaft goes through it, and has a mating piece of plastic on it to key the shafts together. The "J-Hook" part of it goes to what would be a "drag link" in automotive terms, and that moves the steering arms.

 The gray cable is the 12 Volts for the headlight at the far right.

So that's the newest addition to the fleet, along with a quick analysis of it. If I gotta fix it, and I will, I'd best learn about what makes it tick.....

Crazy Windy Today

 We've had sustained winds of 15~20MPH with gusts to 45 all day, and the trees aren't liking it. The 70' cottonwood in the neighbors yard cut loose with a big branch that came crashing down earlier today.

Here's our Perimeter Security Force carefully checking it out to make sure it's safe.

The branch is several inches in diameter, and if it wasn't cottonwood, It would have been big enough to keep for firewood, like I did to the big branches from the crab apple tree.

And the wind scattered TLG's "water table" plaything, and blew over the patio table/umbrella/IRON base, and chairs.

That cast-iron base weighs a good 40 pounds! The wind was strong enough that it blew it over with the umbrella reefed-and-stowed.

But my wire antenna (invisible here except for the support) stayed up and is still working, and the 20 Meter vertical seen in the other pix stayed up as well.

 

And it appears that we have a squirrel nest in our ash tree. I'd seen some squirrels carrying string, yarn, ribbons, and other "nesty" stuff over the last few weeks, but I thought they were taking it over to the "Squirrel Tree" in the neighbor's yard.

Nope, got our own "Squirrel Tree" now.

As long as they stay in the tree I'm OK with it. The original owner's of this house had a raccoon get stuck in the flue pipe for the fireplace many years ago. Not sure how that turned out, as the neighbor that told us didn't remember.

Beautiful day today, though. We didn't get any rain here, but the weather radar showed what appeared to be some decent moisture in the Cameron Peak fire area, and some went through the Mullen fire area, too.

They're still pretty big, and will probably burn for a few more weeks, or until the winter rains and snow comes.

Fall Color!

 Thought I'd better get some snaps of the maple tree in front of the house before it drops too many more leaves!

This particular variety is the Amur Maple, Acer ginnala, and is known for having vivid Fall colors, and for being a very hardy, vigorous tree.

From the inside:

And from the driveway:

 

And TLG helped put up some Halloween decorations. Supposed to say "HELP" in bloody letters:

And our "Anti Witch Defense System" downed it's first hostile:

-"Roger that Viper-6. Splash One Witch!"

-"Viper-6, Sierra Hotel!"

The crabapple tree has just started showing signs of color, and should be quite pretty in a week or so.

Smokey Night Again....

 The fires have expanded some, and I'm using the plural because one that started up Wyoming way, has burned it's way down into Colorado.

The Cameron Peak fire, the closest one, is at about 125,000 acres, and is 34% contained. It's continuing to burn on the Northern section, and has just about turned to head East down Poudre Canyon.

The Mullen fire, which started in the Medicine Bow range in Wyoming, has spread down into Colorado, and is now about 120,000 acres, with no mention of containment.

The image below shows the two burn areas. The roads in red are the closures.

And we've got absolutely ZIP for precipitation in the forecast for at least another week.

No, I Didn't Watch The Debate

I started to, and then turned it off when I heard the first question.

Therefore, I have no opinion on who "won" the debate.

Besides, I can't stand the after session where the talking head tells me what they just said, what they really meant, and then hear the talking head's opinion of what they said and what it meant.

No

Thank you

If they aren't speaking in plain English (and I suspect President Trump did), then they have no business up there debating in the first place.

Plenty of others will have their opinions, and I'm sure the video will get sliced-and-diced for all manner of reasons.

ARRRRGH! Blew a Shock Out!

 Actually, both shocks on the right side of the little RC truck. This is the right rear, and the right front is equally well soaked with the silicone oil that leaks out when the o-rings fail. The OEM shocks on these cars are notorious for leaking as the o-rings get worn, and these went from being "slightly damp" to "puddle on the floor" in one battery pack. The truck probably has 10 packs usage on it, and I was wondering when they were going to fail.

Geez....I most definitely HATE the way Blogger makes you resize images now. The way it was up to a couple of weeks ago gave you a "+" and a "-" when you clicked the image. Now you have the grab a corner and drag it open to the size you want, and it's a PITA to get the images the same size.

Anyway.....got some shock oil, some rebuild kits for these OEM shocks (Traxxas uses a different design o-ring, of better material, than Arrma does), and some cheap eBay "Big Bore" shocks, that look like they might take a bit of "fettling" to install. I filled them up and bled the air out last night, so now I'll top them off and screw the tops back on.

So off to the workshop to fix the leaks and/or swap the shocks, TBD.

And the Cameron Peak fire has cranked up again, adding over 6,000 acres in the last two days. In the screenshot below, you'll see two big "protrusions" to the North of the largest burn area. We don't have the "apocalyptic" looking sky like we did a couple of weeks ago, but there's smoke in the air you can see looking down the street, and a distinctive smell to go with it. The NWS was predicting a 60% chance of rain on Sunday, but I see they've cut it back to a 30% chance, not good.

And there's a 36,000 acre fire in Wyoming, just across the border in the Medicine Bow range, about 75 miles Northwest of here.

Fun With Rocks!..... Rocks?

 It's not all Radio, Electronics, and Bodywork on old cars here. Occasionally we do Home Improvement Projects, like this one, a part of turning a "house" into a "home".

A few weeks ago we decided that the stone "steps" our handyman guy installed when he put in the edging weren't quite what we needed. They were too small, and too few, for our old bones and shortened strides, and needed replacing. So I figured out what we needed, and we drove up to the Rock Garden on the North side of town, and picked up a bunch of replacements.

We now have a very solid path through the mulch over to where the water spigot is, and another "Little Kid's Path" over to a steel yard-art goat. Don't ask why; SLW thought it was cute, so I planted the flagstone where she directed me to....

 When she thinks things are cute, I just (very quietly!) sigh and say "Yes, Honey..." and let it go.

I think it goes with her front porch "Fall" motif....

And her other whimsical art, placed in various positions around the yard...

While we were there picking up the new stone steps, we looked at the other rocks in the main yard, looking for a decent sized slab we could attach some house numbers to, like an entrance rock alongside a driveway in the neighborhood. This led to discussions with the yard guy, who indicated we could also have the numbers, and a design, etched into the rock. After going through several iterations of the design, and picking some suitable "prop rocks" to position the slab, the "Stone Writer" guy did his thing, and all the rocks were delivered this afternoon.

From the back:

 And from the front:

I wanted to use the city's logo underneath the address, but it's copyrighted, so SLW said no.

Reproduced here for your perusal, all rights reserved by the copyright holder....

The "notches" in the mountain on the left signify Horsetooth Mountain, a local landmark and nav fix, while the blue "wave" represents Horsetooth Reservoir, another local landmark and recreational area.

So the stone engraver guy and I came up with a mountain with a couple of notches in it, and SLW approved.

One of the types of rocks I saw when we were there are "Moss Rocks", which come from wet places, and still have all the dehydrated/fossilized moss and lichen stuck all over them.

The ones we bought weren't as "fancy" as the one in the picture, and this one still has to be moved a bit. I think a simple application of a suitable lever and fulcrum will allow us to wiggle it over into the depression it's pretty much in. It just has to be "adjusted" a bit...

And since we couldn't get this little one placed where we wanted with the forklift, we just dumped it here alongside the garage door. Hopefully it'll sink it a bit over the Winter...

Back to  bodywork.......

RC Car Fun!

 Sorry, no videos, although I did dig out the GoPro mount for the little red RC truck.

We had so much fun blasting around the front yard, that after TLG went home with his Daddy, I dug up the other set of wheels and tires I bought last year, along with my aviation snips to modify the body a bit.

Why modify the body? Well the new tires are a bit bigger than what came on it:

 

 

I had already changed the pinion gear on the motor so that the overall gearing would be the same. With the small wheels and smaller pinion gear, it had a lower top speed, but got there right now! The larger wheels give me back the top speed I lost, and the acceleration is way more than "adequate". The larger tires also make it easier to go over things, like the wacky curbs we have here.

I snipped out the body trying to follow existing body lines, and after a few minutes I had this:

 

I put a flap-wheel in my Dremel and smoothed out all the rough edges. This plastic leaves SHARP edges when you trim it. They can slice you open. It hurts, and you get blood all over your model car. DAMHIK....

And I swapped out the hard plastic steering wheel on the transmitter with a nice, soft, foam unit. Cost about $6, and makes the car much more fun to drive.

So how did it work? Better than I expected. By putting these tires on I now have enough additional ground clearance that I can charge the curb at full-power, get launched about 3' into the air, and carry it out about 12' before it comes back to earth. Couldn't do anything like that before! And as long as you back off the throttle as soon as you get airborne, you won't break any driveline parts when you smack back down.

I tried running it before I swapped the tires, and I wasn't happy with it. I was using a cheap 2S LiPo rated at 4000mAh with a "20C" discharge rate, and it just felt really sluggish. It accelerated to top-speed almost instantly, but with the little tires it just didn't go very fast. Now with the larger tires, the gearing is back in the correct range for this motor and speed control package, and it really honks. I also decided to try one of the 2S 5300mAh/75C batteries I have for my little Vintage Trans Am car. These are far better batteries, and the little Senton is a road rocket now. I'll try it again with the new wheels and the cheap LiPo to see if it's as sluggish as it was with the smaller tires on it. I wouldn't expect there to be that much difference between the two batteries, but it's possible.

Finally Got the Side Steps Installed

 Between all the smoke and ash, an inch of rain and 3" of snow, and several days of 30* weather, we finally had two very nice days on Saturday and Sunday.

The instructions weren't very clear, and some of the illustrations were oriented wrong on them, causing you to either stand on your head, or rotate the page.

The hardware was typical Chinesium quality, all thrown together in a bag so the threads get dinged up, and I spent a good hour with a rethreading tap and die set to get the threads cleaned up.

It took about an hour to get the brackets mounted to the body, and then I fiddled around for another hour or so installing the steps to the brackets. Things weren't lining up quite right, so rather than get all bent out of shape, I picked up my tools and vowed to finish it on Sunday.

Wound up crawling around loosening the brackets to get the steps aligned, made sure they were square and level, and then tightened everything back down.

They're solid enough to hold my disgusting fat body (195lbs) , and SLW was very happy with them once she tried them, making comments about how easy it will be to get in the truck when there's snow and ice on the ground.

My helper was quite pleased with the job, and gave me an "ATTABOY!" with his bottle of soap bubbles..

Today he and I are playing Monster Truck out in the back yard. His little truck is an amazingly competent RC model, but for today we're getting out my Arrma Senton to bash.

M1 Garand Bayonets

 I'm sure you guys know LOTS more about this than I do, so, let me tell you what I'm looking for.

I don't need "authentic" except that it be a real bayonet, and not a chintzy "replica".

I don't need "period correct" for the rifle, but it has to fit properly, and a scabbard would be nice.

What I'm looking for is a functional bayonet that could be used in combat. God forbid I ever have to "Fix Bayonets!", but if I do, I want one that works as intended.

Beans' article about "Knives ona- Stick!" got me thinking again about getting one, so I've been looking into it. 

 My (limited) research shows that there are five available that fit properly.

The Model 1905 "WWI" version - 16"

The Model 1905 "WWII" version - 16", Parkerized

The Bayonet, M1 - 10"

The Model 1905E1 - 10" Basically a cut-down version of the Model 1905.

The Bayonet, M5 - 7"

I think with my level (lack?) of skill, the shorter bayonet would be better. A bit easier to maneuver in tight quarters, too. Yeah, I know, why am I using a Garand for CQB when I have an AR. Well because it's the hardest hitting caliber I have access to, and besides, it needs a bayonet!

The CMP has ZERO. It looks like they got out of the accessory business entirely. Great history of all the different bayonets, though.

Atlanta Cutlery has most of the types, along with some specials for Reenactors.

And I've found several other places that have them.

I'm tending to stay away from eBay and Amazon on items like this, as there's too much Chinesium junk out there that goes for far more than it's worth.

Ideas? Suggestions? Reliable vendors?

TIA....