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#1
Tactile / Re: Brass pressure vessel - a...
Last post by Sir Henry - Yesterday at 01:06:51 PM
A bargain but still more than I could afford, sadly.
#2
Tactile / Re: Brass pressure vessel - a...
Last post by yereverluvinunclebert - Yesterday at 12:56:59 PM
It sold for £55.
#3
Off Topic / Re: The Brassgoggles Model Mak...
Last post by Sir Henry - Yesterday at 07:24:01 AM
Quote from: James Harrison on February 09, 2025, 06:34:18 PMThe poser deepens.  I took the motor out of the frames, put it on the track and put the battery to it.  And it moved.  Not a lot, and not quickly, but it moved. 

I think I'm going to service it, and see if that improves things.  If not it'll be a case of isolating bits one by one to find a short.
So I saw. The youtube algorithm showed me a short of the motor running and I thought "I know that train!" Because I have cookies and everything else turned off and cache cleared when I shut down I can only assume that it was random, an unlikely but cheering accident.

Best of luck finding the problem - something to do with it being on its side so a wire fell back into place, perhaps?
#4
Tactile / Brass pressure vessel - aucti...
Last post by yereverluvinunclebert - February 09, 2025, 07:17:26 PM
A rather nice Brass pressure vessel - an item suitable as part of a steampunk uniform/costume.



For sale in the UK tomorrow at auction at 09:30 UK time. If you are interested let me know and I'll drop you a link to the auction site.
#5
Off Topic / Re: The Brassgoggles Model Mak...
Last post by James Harrison - February 09, 2025, 06:34:18 PM
The poser deepens.  I took the motor out of the frames, put it on the track and put the battery to it.  And it moved.  Not a lot, and not quickly, but it moved. 

I think I'm going to service it, and see if that improves things.  If not it'll be a case of isolating bits one by one to find a short.
#6
Tactile / Re: That 'big project' I've be...
Last post by James Harrison - February 09, 2025, 02:33:58 PM






Another couple of square feet of flooring exposed and sanded down.  In the words of one of our supermarket chains, 'every little helps'.

In a very real sense this is about as far as I can go with the floor without having to move heavy furniture around.  And, naturally, I want to do as little of that as I can get away with.  So when I've finished cleaning down the last bit of skirting board I can reasonably reach, I'm going to shift focus toward re-papering the back wall and staining some trim. 

In fact, I think I need to be getting that back wall about as close to completion as I can reasonably get it, and then move the furniture around and start again on the next wall along. 

The issue I'm finding I've got to grapple with is that unlike the downstairs rooms, which I could just empty out and get on with the job, the upstairs rooms I have to try and work on whilst keeping them habitable.  And that makes the whole thing take several times longer and require a lot more thought and effort. 
#7
Tactile / Re: The 2d Art Thread
Last post by J. Wilhelm - February 09, 2025, 01:56:42 AM
A few more images. This time a brief fan fiction / art collection revolving around the Anime series "Last Exile."  So much time has passed that by now this series is "vintage," so not too many people know it, depending on their age.

Prologue
QuoteDear Claudius,

As humans have returned from Prester into the chaos that Earth has become, more details are emerging from the vaults of the Last Exile ship.

Last week I stumbled upon a holographic memory, no doubt taken by the late evil mistress, Maestro Delphine, which clearly shows that Master Dio  wasn't her only sibling.  Apparently, Delphine Eraclea also had a younger sister.

I extracted and attached to this transmission a 2D section of the hologram; it's a portrait of Young Master Dio, before he had been assigned as a ward of Lucciola. The metadata of the hologram is simply titled "Little Dio and Aelia.". They must have separated by the time Dio was assigned a warden. I don't think Lucciola knew her, but I can't be sure.

Sadly I can't say more about this finding. No one knows what became of Aelia, and with an older sister so evil, one can only fear for her fate.

Please brother, wait for me before departing from Earth. I'll soon return with the last shipments from Prester.

Sincerely,

G. Alcimus Caelestius

A holographic slice portrait of a very young Dio Eraclea with an unknown and even younger sister, Aelia:



We also have several age-progression portraits, of the evil princess Delphine of the House Eraclea, who became the leader, or "Maestro" of The Guild. It is clear from the Anime, that Delphine is much older that Dio. I'm assuming a young adult Delphine posed for the second hologram, presumably at the same time when the portrait of Dio and Aelia was taken.




At this time, her and Dio's parents were alive, and Lucciola had not made an entrance into the story line. It is not known what happened, but vaguely suggested in Last Exile that she had some nefarious intent toward her parents and that upon their disappearance, she took the reigns of The Guild. In my Fan-fic, I presume that she was also somehow involved in the disappearance of Aelia - perhaps she hid Aelia or someone took Aelia away, to be raised by someone else for some unknown reason - this is stealing a bit from the Star Wars plot where Luke and Leia are separated. One can imagine someone trying to protect Aelia... The latter would have happened of course on the artificial planet Prester, before the timeline shown on the anime,and thus before the Last Exile ship was activated.

Then we have a slightly older Delphine, perhaps already a Maestro, and this portrait is taken at the time when the parents disappear and the slave Lucciola is assigned to be the warden of Dio. Note that Delphine is already wearing the golden eye makeup of the Guild. The anime shows fleeting memories of the time when Lucciola was first introduced to Dio, as his ward. Delphine would not have had any time to raise Dio, and that is why Lucciola was needed. Dio and Lucciola became fast friends thereafter, until many years later, when Lucciola allowed Dio to escape the Guild, and he sacrificed himself by confronting Delphine (I have yet to make a portrait of Lucciola).


In the last image, I try to make a more accurate representation of Delphine as she was shown in Last Exile, already mature and visibly deteriorated, due to her slow descent into madness.  I presume the portrait was taken sometime after she captured and began torturing Captain Alexander Row of the Silvana, to extract from him the four "Mysteria," poems that unlocked the Last Exile ship.  Just before she died at the hands of Alexander, she was confronted by Lucciola, who had gone to her chambers after Dio's bloody Rite of Passage which would turn Dio into Delphine's legitimate successor as leader of The Guild

Lucciola aimed to force her to let Dio go. Lucciola had to disable various guards before getting to Delphine, and when she and Lucciola were alone, Delphine was most intrigued as to why Lucciola would go through all this trouble, especially since Lucciola was not much more than a slave. "What is Dio to you, Lucciola?" she asked.  "I am Dio's friend," he replied, before being disintegrated upon Delphine's demented stare. "Wondeful, Lucciola!" she laughed maniacally after Lucciola had completely disintegrated.

"What is Dio to you, Lucciola?"

~ ~ ~
#8
Off Topic / Re: The Brassgoggles Model Mak...
Last post by The Bullet - February 08, 2025, 10:08:02 PM
Did you check if any part of the motor is connected to the chassis?
Maybe the wires from the loco to the tender are crossed and causing a short when you try to run it.

Test: Run it on battery like in the video.
While running, use a piece of wire to connect loco and tender wheels on the dame side of the loco one after the other.
A possible short is easy to find that way.
#9
Off Topic / Re: The Brassgoggles Model Mak...
Last post by James Harrison - February 08, 2025, 03:49:41 PM

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Cq3HFpizO1E

She lives!

Err... not quite.  The motor sparks into life quite happily enough when the battery is put directly on the brushes.  I've even been able to get the wiring from the loco pickups to the motor, successfully. 
Where it all falls down is that when I put the loco on the rails, the motor refuses to turn.  Or, at best, it jerks forward a few millimetres and then stalls. 

My best guess is, judging from the noise when it is running, is that it sorely needs a service and a clean.  You can see on the video it's hardly going flat out, I think it's clean enough to barely work but not do much beyond that.  So I think so far as the motor is concerned my next steps are going to be to carefully disassemble it, clean everything with isopropyl alcohol to get any dirt off, have a good look for any fluff or dust caught in the mechanism and change the brushes.
#10
Tactile / Re: That 'big project' I've be...
Last post by James Harrison - February 08, 2025, 10:10:38 AM
5 years ago today I was picking up my new keys to my new house from the estate agent and then walking through the threshold for the first time as a homeowner...

... where, exactly, have those 5 years gone?

... and also, if I know then that 5 years later the thing would be not quite half done, would I have started it in the first place?