Ballasting tool
David Nebenzahl
actually be able to work on a model railroad layout got me to thinking.
(Dangerous, I know.) Came up with an idea for such a piece of MOW
equipment, but then decided that it would really work better as a
hand-held tool (certainly not as operationally cool, but more effective).
See sketch at http://www.geocities.com/bonezphoto/models/Ballaster.gif.
(Note: this URL will cease to work after 10/26 when Yahoo! finally pulls
the plug on GeoCities.)
DISCLAIMER: I haven't actually made one of these, so I have no frickin'
idea if it would actually work.
I envision this being made out of cardboard and glued together; the
inserts would seal off the slots that fit over the rail. (Of course, it
would be nicer in soldered sheet brass; that, however, is a bit beyond
my meager capabilities.) The size and shape of the openings would have
to be determined experimentally; one wants the ballast to flow freely,
but not *too* freely. And the side chutes could be angled down away from
the track for a prototypical profile.
So what do y'all think? Might work?
--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism
Special Agent Melvin Purvis
> The recent thread about a hypothetical ballasting car that would
> actually be able to work on a model railroad layout got me to thinking.
> (Dangerous, I know.) Came up with an idea for such a piece of MOW
> equipment, but then decided that it would really work better as a
> hand-held tool (certainly not as operationally cool, but more effective).
>
> (Note: this URL will cease to work after 10/26 when Yahoo! finally pulls
> the plug on GeoCities.)
>
> DISCLAIMER: I haven't actually made one of these, so I have no frickin'
> idea if it would actually work.
>
> I envision this being made out of cardboard and glued together; the
> inserts would seal off the slots that fit over the rail. (Of course, it
> would be nicer in soldered sheet brass; that, however, is a bit beyond
> my meager capabilities.) The size and shape of the openings would have
> to be determined experimentally; one wants the ballast to flow freely,
> but not *too* freely. And the side chutes could be angled down away from
> the track for a prototypical profile.
>
> So what do y'all think? Might work?
>
> --
> Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism
I remember seeing an advertisement for a plexiglass tube with slots
cut in the bottom for the rails, designed for spreading ballast. Did
you see it?
David Nebenzahl
> On Oct 22, 9:28�pm, David Nebenzahl <nob...@but.us.chickens> wrote:
>
>> The recent thread about a hypothetical ballasting car that would
>> actually be able to work on a model railroad layout got me to thinking.
>> (Dangerous, I know.) Came up with an idea for such a piece of MOW
>> equipment, but then decided that it would really work better as a
>> hand-held tool (certainly not as operationally cool, but more effective).
>>
>> See sketch athttp://www.geocities.com/bonezphoto/models/Ballaster.gif.
>> (Note: this URL will cease to work after 10/26 when Yahoo! finally pulls
>> the plug on GeoCities.)
>>
>> DISCLAIMER: I haven't actually made one of these, so I have no frickin'
>> idea if it would actually work.
>>
>> I envision this being made out of cardboard and glued together; the
>> inserts would seal off the slots that fit over the rail. (Of course, it
>> would be nicer in soldered sheet brass; that, however, is a bit beyond
>> my meager capabilities.) The size and shape of the openings would have
>> to be determined experimentally; one wants the ballast to flow freely,
>> but not *too* freely. And the side chutes could be angled down away from
>> the track for a prototypical profile.
>>
>> So what do y'all think? Might work?
>
> I remember seeing an advertisement for a plexiglass tube with slots
> cut in the bottom for the rails, designed for spreading ballast. Did
> you see it?
No, but now that you mention it, if one made this out of plexiglas, one
could simply cut slots for the rails instead of diddling around with
inserts, since the thickness of the plexi is about rail height. Good idea.
Puckdropper at dot
news:4ae13037$0$11302$8226...@news.adtechcomputers.com:
It's not a bad idea, but what about the molded spikes and tie plates?
One tool I've found that works really well is a paint edge tool. The
fine bristles move the ballast off the ties while leaving it between
them.
Puckdropper
--
"The potential difference between the top and bottom of a tree is the
reason why all trees have to be grounded..." -- Bored Borg on
rec.woodworking
To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm
Wolf K
I have one made of dark grey ABS. I can't recall the manufacturer's
(there's no brand on it), but it works well enough.
wolf k.
David Nebenzahl
> On Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:28:17 -0700, David Nebenzahl
> <nob...@but.us.chickens> wrote:
>
>>> The recent thread about a hypothetical ballasting car that would
>>> actually be able to work on a model railroad layout got me to
>>> thinking. (Dangerous, I know.) Came up with an idea for such a
>>> piece of MOW equipment, but then decided that it would really
>>> work better as a hand-held tool (certainly not as operationally
>>> cool, but more effective).
>>>
>>> See sketch at
>>> http://www.geocities.com/bonezphoto/models/Ballaster.gif. (Note:
>>> this URL will cease to work after 10/26 when Yahoo! finally pulls
>>> the plug on GeoCities.)
>
> I seem to remember a whole bunch of years ago in one of the model
> magazines an article on how to convert a round Old Spice deodorant
> stick applicator into a ballast too that looked similar to what you
> are trying to do. You would cut slots in the bottom to match your
> gauge rail and then just file it up with ballast and run it along the
> track. Never tried it so can't comment on how well it worked, but
> sounded pretty good. Now if you can only find an Old Spice container
> that is round instead of those damn oval sized thingies!
Interesting.
Let me throw something else into the mix here. It seems to me, even
without experimenting at all, that such a device probably wouldn't work
very well unless it was shaken by the operator. So I'd add another
detail, which would be a small electric vibrator, to shake it
consistently to make the ballast flow better. Probably one of those
little vibrators they put in cell phones would work here (you can buy
them really cheap from surplus electronics dealers).
Calvin Henry-Cotnam
>
>I have one made of dark grey ABS. I can't recall the manufacturer's
>(there's no brand on it), but it works well enough.
I believe you are thinking of an item made by MLR Manufacturing.
I recalled this from the 80s and went through my back issues of MR and
found their last ad in the June 1986 issue.
Forgive me for posting a binary to this group, but I will follow this
posting with one with a 75 dpi scan (18k in size) to jog memories.
--
Calvin Henry-Cotnam
"Unusual or extreme reactions to events caused by negligence
are imaginable, but not reasonably foreseeable"
- Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, May 2008
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: if replying by email, remove "remove." and ".invalid"
Ray Haddad
<cal...@remove.daxack.ca.invalid> wrote:
>Forgive me for posting a binary to this group, but I will follow this
>posting with one with a 75 dpi scan (18k in size) to jog memories.
Just put the binary on one of those photo bucket things anywhere and
post a link to it. Some NNTP servers won't accept binaries at all.
--
Ray
LDosser
news:20091025-2...@Calvin-Henry-Cotnam.news.teranews.com...
> Wolf K (wek...@sympatico.ca) said...
>>
>>I have one made of dark grey ABS. I can't recall the manufacturer's
>>(there's no brand on it), but it works well enough.
>
> I believe you are thinking of an item made by MLR Manufacturing.
>
> I recalled this from the 80s and went through my back issues of MR and
> found their last ad in the June 1986 issue.
>
They yet live!
PV
>See sketch at http://www.geocities.com/bonezphoto/models/Ballaster.gif.
>(Note: this URL will cease to work after 10/26 when Yahoo! finally pulls
>the plug on GeoCities.)
Well, crap, way to put something up with a limited lifespan.
>I envision this being made out of cardboard and glued together; the
>inserts would seal off the slots that fit over the rail. (Of course, it
>would be nicer in soldered sheet brass; that, however, is a bit beyond
>my meager capabilities.) The size and shape of the openings would have
>to be determined experimentally; one wants the ballast to flow freely,
>but not *too* freely. And the side chutes could be angled down away from
>the track for a prototypical profile.
If I get what you're talking about from lack of picture, I don't see why it
wouldn't work, but I'm not sure it would be that much better it would be
than simply using a paper funnel and smoothing it out with a piece of card
stock.
Also note - soldering sheet brass is easy if you're not trying to make it
look like artwork. All you need is heat - it's easier than electrical
soldering actually. Give it a try sometime. *
--
* PV Something like badgers, something like lizards, and something
like corkscrews.
PV
>Forgive me for posting a binary to this group, but I will follow this
>posting with one with a 75 dpi scan (18k in size) to jog memories.
It's not a matter of forgive - there's hardly a usenet provider on earth
that won't either drop the binary part of cancel your post entirely if you
put a binary in a non-binary group. Don't even try - nobody will see it. *
David Nebenzahl
> David Nebenzahl <nob...@but.us.chickens> writes:
>
>> See sketch at
>> http://www.geocities.com/bonezphoto/models/Ballaster.gif. (Note:
>> this URL will cease to work after 10/26 when Yahoo! finally pulls
>> the plug on GeoCities.)
>
> Well, crap, way to put something up with a limited lifespan.
Not to worry: it's still there. Turns out that Oct. 26th wasn't the
"drop dead" date that Yahoo! had intimated: all the Geoshitties stuff is
still up there. They're in a transition phase where people are
redirecting their pages to new URLs.
> If I get what you're talking about from lack of picture, I don't see why it
> wouldn't work, but I'm not sure it would be that much better it would be
> than simply using a paper funnel and smoothing it out with a piece of card
> stock.
Well, now that you can still see my drawing, you can decide for yourself.
> Also note - soldering sheet brass is easy if you're not trying to make it
> look like artwork. All you need is heat - it's easier than electrical
> soldering actually. Give it a try sometime. *
Thanks; I might have to try that sometime.
Rick Jones
> On 10/27/2009 12:01 PM PV spake thus:
>
>> David Nebenzahl <nob...@but.us.chickens> writes:
> >
>>> See sketch at
>>> http://www.geocities.com/bonezphoto/models/Ballaster.gif. (Note:
>>> this URL will cease to work after 10/26 when Yahoo! finally pulls the
>>> plug on GeoCities.)
>>
>> Well, crap, way to put something up with a limited lifespan.
>
> Not to worry: it's still there. Turns out that Oct. 26th wasn't the
> "drop dead" date that Yahoo! had intimated: all the Geoshitties stuff is
> still up there. They're in a transition phase where people are
> redirecting their pages to new URLs.
What other good, free hosting sites are there. My Geocities page
hasn't worked correctly for some time so I've wanted to move it. I've
saved the files.
--
Rick Jones
Remove the Extra Dot to e-mail me
Worry is the misuse of imagination.
Calvin Henry-Cotnam
>
>On 10/27/2009 12:04 PM PV spake thus:
>
>> Calvin Henry-Cotnam <cal...@remove.daxack.ca.invalid> writes:
>>>Forgive me for posting a binary to this group, but I will follow this
>>>posting with one with a 75 dpi scan (18k in size) to jog memories.
>>
>> It's not a matter of forgive - there's hardly a usenet provider on earth
>> that won't either drop the binary part of cancel your post entirely if you
>> put a binary in a non-binary group. Don't even try - nobody will see it. *
>
>it? There's nothing magic about "non-binary" Usenet groups; most servers
>don't care about the difference (although the ISP may well simply decide
>not to carry any binary groups).
Exactly. Binary attachments must be encoded into printable text, so there
is really nothing special about postings with such an attachment, other
than the fact the text does not have any actual words in it.
Filtering is done on size, so large postings to non-binary groups can
easily be dropped. Encoded binaries tend to be a little more than double
the size of the original binary file (because a byte is represented by
two Ascii characters and lines end with CR and/or LF characters), so it
doesn't take much to hit the limit. Since I kept the image as small as
possible, I doubt many servers dropped it.
David Nebenzahl
> Since I kept the image as small as possible, I doubt many servers
> dropped it.
I never saw that message: did you post it here?
--
Who needs a junta or a dictatorship when you have a Congress
blowing Wall Street, using the media as a condom?
- harvested from Usenet
PV
>> Well, crap, way to put something up with a limited lifespan.
>
>Not to worry: it's still there. Turns out that Oct. 26th wasn't the
>"drop dead" date that Yahoo! had intimated: all the Geoshitties stuff is
>still up there. They're in a transition phase where people are
>redirecting their pages to new URLs.
Nope, it's gone. *
PV
>David Nebenzahl (nob...@but.us.chickens) said...
>>
>>Not true (at least in most cases): see attached (small) .gif. Do you see
>>it? There's nothing magic about "non-binary" Usenet groups; most servers
>>don't care about the difference (although the ISP may well simply decide
>>not to carry any binary groups).
As you can see from the double quotes, your message created a nice little
hole in the thread. Giganews simply threw the message on the floor.
>Exactly. Binary attachments must be encoded into printable text, so there
>is really nothing special about postings with such an attachment, other
>than the fact the text does not have any actual words in it.
You underestimate how thorough they are. Supernews before they became
giganews did the same thing - if you posted anything that turned into a
file, it went poof.
>Filtering is done on size, so large postings to non-binary groups can
>easily be dropped. Encoded binaries tend to be a little more than double
No, it's not. It's done on the type of data AND size. *
Twibil
>
> >Filtering is done on size, so large postings to non-binary groups can
> >easily be dropped. Encoded binaries tend to be a little more than double
>
> No, it's not. It's done on the type of data AND size. *
Bingo. Google does the same thing. Dumps not just the attachment, but
the rest of the post as well.
Every other news server I've ever used has done exactly the same
thing.
~Pete
Wolf K
> On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:28:11 -0400, Calvin Henry-Cotnam
> <cal...@remove.daxack.ca.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> David Nebenzahl (nob...@but.us.chickens) said...
>>>> On 10/27/2009 12:04 PM PV spake thus:
>>>>
>>>>> Calvin Henry-Cotnam <cal...@remove.daxack.ca.invalid> writes:
>>>>>> Forgive me for posting a binary to this group, but I will follow this
>>>>>> posting with one with a 75 dpi scan (18k in size) to jog memories.
>>>>> It's not a matter of forgive - there's hardly a usenet provider on earth
>>>>> that won't either drop the binary part of cancel your post entirely if you
>>>>> put a binary in a non-binary group. Don't even try - nobody will see it. *
>>>> Not true (at least in most cases): see attached (small) .gif. Do you see
>>>> it? There's nothing magic about "non-binary" Usenet groups; most servers
>>>> don't care about the difference (although the ISP may well simply decide
>>>> not to carry any binary groups).
>>> Exactly. Binary attachments must be encoded into printable text, so there
>>> is really nothing special about postings with such an attachment, other
>>> than the fact the text does not have any actual words in it.
>>>
>>> Filtering is done on size, so large postings to non-binary groups can
>>> easily be dropped. Encoded binaries tend to be a little more than double
>>> the size of the original binary file (because a byte is represented by
>>> two Ascii characters and lines end with CR and/or LF characters), so it
>>> doesn't take much to hit the limit. Since I kept the image as small as
>>> possible, I doubt many servers dropped it.
>
Mine provided it.
wolf k.
David Nebenzahl
So did mine. So let's see what we have so far: a list of which Usenet
providers retain binaries:
Verizon (my provider): yes
Newshosting.com (Wolf K's provider): yes
Astraweb: no
Giganews: no
Perhaps others can add to the list. As you can see, the situation is far
from one where all Usenet providers strip out binaries from "non-binary"
(or all) newsgroups.
And I'm not even including Google Groups, which is not even a proper
Usenet provider, but instead is a web based spam portal.