Friday Thread

[M 800STD 586]

GSXR 250 - 18500rpm.

[Wooders28 4722]

3 hours ago, Futura said:

Didn't some of those 250cc inline 4s have redlines near 20,000rpm?

Yeah, that's the one, I'm sure 40mph was around 6000rpm in 6th,  and didn't really pull until 8k, so really not the bike to try and sneak about on....🚔

[Mad Ax 9310]

It's Friday again, peeps!  And for those of us in the west, it's the last weekend before the holidays!  So, what are we all up to?  Christmas parties, last-minute shopping, hibernating until it's all over?

For me it's a quiet work day, hopefully.  Had my covid booster yesterday afternoon so I feel tired and achy today.  Wife and child have their last days at work and school respectively, so today is the last day of peace for a few weeks  

Hopefully finish around 4pm and drive out to a nearby lake for a walk.  It's been closed for well over a year due to blue-green algae (secretly I think they closed it to avoid overcrowding during lockdown) but it's open again now.  After that I'll park up somewhere and work on my novel in the van.

Saturday - quiet day at home with my daughter.  Watch some films, play some games, wrap some presents, tidy the kitchen and maybe do some housework.  Enjoy a couple of beers and a new Grand Tour in the evening, maybe a film or something after that.

Then it's Workshop Sunday!  F150 tow truck is the primary project.  Pulley wheels for the tail lift arrived yesterday, hopefully the pinions for the transfer case will arrive this weekend.  With a bit of luck I might actually have a roller by the end of the day  need to look after my daughter for a bit while my wife is out getting her covid booster, maybe I'll start trimming the body for my Christmas build project.

Probably finish the day with some writing, ready for my final week of work  

Anybody got anything exciting going on?

[InsaneJim69 1584]

Finished work at 6am, came home to sort out some decorations for my son's birthday today, he is 5. Funilly it's also my dad's birthday today too. Lol. So gonna be a busy day after a few hours sleep, also working tonight at 10pm. But so far so good, he has opened all his gifts and fighting with his brothers is at an optimal safe level 😂😂👍

I got my work promotion, so mega chuffed about that, started training this week, looking forward to properly slotting into the role after new year.

Ordered some bits for my CEN HL150 monster truck to increase its wheelbase, hoping it arrives tomorrow. Be good to spend some r/c time before Xmas. 

And since it's 8.30am, am now spending some time with my son playing the Xbox Series X before his school. The new Aliens game on game pass is pretty good 😁👍

James.

 

 

[bavee 1032]

53 minutes ago, InsaneJim69 said:

Finished work at 6am, came home to sort out some decorations for my son's birthday today, he is 5. Funilly it's also my dad's birthday today too. 

I got my work promotion, so mega chuffed about that, started training this week, looking forward to properly slotting into the role after new year.

Congratulations and best wishes for your next work adventure!

[Mad Ax 9310]

1 hour ago, InsaneJim69 said:

my son's birthday today, he is 5. Funilly it's also my dad's birthday today too

funny how that works out, isn't it?  My daughter will be 5 in February.  She was actually due on my birthday, but she came 9 days early, so my birthdays are safe.

My sister has two girls, 3 years apart, who share the same birthday.  There must be one pretty special day every year in that household.  No, actually, there must be two pretty special days every year in that household 

[lupogtiboy 454]

Friday - stuck at work til 5.30, hoping it's a quiet day. The boss is off til next Tuesday (yeah, CUNextTuesday!LOL!) Lock this place up and go home. Probably sit and chill for a few hours until I have to go and help my friend dismantle her son's old bed, so I've made sure my drill is on charge! 

Saturday - up early to get to work, do the delivery, then open up to the hoards of crowds waiting to buy their VW/Audi parts (not!) I'm hoping it will be quiet as I want to do a few things to my own car! Far more important than serving customers! Saturday PM depends on whether my son has managed to change his shift at work. If not, I plan to go down to my storage container for a few hours, take some stuff down there from home, tidy it up a bit more, cram more stuff in there if I can. If he has changed his shift, he wants to go and find his mum something extra for Xmas. Saturday evening is fish & chips! Yum! May get a few hours on the PS5 if I'm lucky, depends what is on TV.

Sunday - small lay-in, quick bash on the PS5, get dressed, and I think we're heading out to some shops for any last minute presents/cards we need to get. Need to be back for 5pm to pick my son up from work as he wants a Sunday roast with us! Probably be one of the last times I'll have to pick him up from work as he passed his driving test on Monday, but his car insurance doesn't start until this coming Monday. Sadly no R/C time at the moment, everything is packed away in my container, hopefully next year I can get it more sorted out and get back to some serious R/C bashing!

[Wooders28 4722]

Nightshift weekend, and I've the Clubs Ansmann Mad Rat and my project TransAm's heater box in the boot, incase I get a quiet shift (kiss of death saying that out loud, so to speak.....🤦‍♂️) 

The shift gods have fallen in my favour this year, so I'm off Christmas AND New Year!, (so means I'm not as grumpy with the 'Happy Holiday ' sentiment , for the first time in 16 years...🙄😁) , but with some staff following our southern neighbours ' honestly, there's no Christmas party here' tonight, I forsee a phone call, to see if I can come to work to cover people having to isolate....😷

[Willy iine 18805]

I was going to post earlier, but work had me sitting in front of my work desk most of the day.    I did some last minute xmas decoration outside this late afternoon and played cajon for a few hours.  

Saturday..  I need to do my usual house chores in the morning, but after that just mainly relax.  I recently finished my F100 build on a GF01 so going to work on organization stuff for my pretend RC shop next.  I want to make a small paint brush stand in Tamiya colors.  I also have some small trays coming so will organize my painting tools.   Rest of time I'm going to be playing cajon and my electric piano to relax.  Maybe watch TV in the evening.

Sunday.. No honey-do's scheduled, but I am sure my wife will have something to do for me.  Our electrician is coming back next week to complete the work for my wife's work area so probably need to do some preparation for that.  Otherwise going to drive my M38's and start the new body prep for my GF01-SWB Willy..maybe.  And start thinking about how I'm going to lay out my instruments in my much bigger music room.

One more full work day on Monday from home, and I am done for the rest of the year!   

Have a great weekend everyone!  

[Wooders28 4722]

Stripped ,cleaned and regreased the gears, although the ball diff still feels notchy, but better than feeling full of gravel!! 😁

 

 

[Willy iine 18805]

I keep coming back to this thread since Monday thinking it was Friday as it was my last work day for the year.    

Since things are finally starting to settle down helping my wife move to her new work space (was my pretend RC shop) I'm going to work on painting a new WW2 body today for my GF01-SWB chassis.  Been running a 21 year old restored body on it and while it looks fine I wanted to give my 21 year old Willy a fresh body to drive in.

Friday.. after visiting my hair stylist in the morning, going to be working on finishing the WW2 body painting.  I should be getting my NIB XR311 (xmas present to me) so I'm excited about that.  

Saturday.. Christmas morning with family, open presents, etc etc.  If my wife's stuff is mostly out of her old work area, going to start setting up my music gear.  Its around 300 sq ft so plenty of room for my stage pianos, audio music workstation, cajons.  I'm going to set it up like a casual session room/lounge this time with lots of open space. 

Sunday.. continue on with the music room set up.  Shop for furniture and decor for the room online, etc. 

Have a nice holiday season everyone! 

[87lc2 2662]

@Willy iine I was going to ask how come it seems you're always working on a Willy or SWB model and why not try something new...then I realized I have the same issue with monster trucks...carry on    Have a good holiday!

[Willy iine 18805]

2 hours ago, 87lc2 said:

@Willy iine I was going to ask how come it seems you're always working on a Willy or SWB model and why not try something new...then I realized I have the same issue with monster trucks...carry on    Have a good holiday!

Yeah, right now I’m just concentrating on cars Willy and Billy can drive… ideally one-off originals.  

And thanks, Have a great holiday too! 

[Wooders28 4722]

As far as I can tell, it's just going to be the shift guys in work tomorrow, with all the top brass finishing today, so I've thrown a couple of projects in the boot ,should help me kill 12hrs 😁

Christmas day will be spent cooking /drinking and watching the kids enjoy Christmas.

Boxing day, someone else is cooking , so eating /drinking 🙄😜

Monday, off down south to catch up with family, and restrictions allowing, bring in the bells New Year's Eve.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to all! 🎅🍻

[Mad Ax 9310]

Got a couple of hours at work this morning, but the company gave us half-day leave and I've worked most of my quota already, so I'll be done at midday.  Not much to do anyway, just doing some paperwork first, then work on training projects until close.

Today - finish work at midday, do a bit of tidying, then settle down with wife and child for an afternoon of Christmas films, then a Christmas bedtime story and lights out for the child.

An old friend coming over this evening, met him through Tamiyaclub years ago and he's been one of my closest friends since then.  He lives alone so it's tradition that he comes over every Christmas eve for a takeaway and some silly games to take us into the festive season.

Saturday - lazy morning, open a few little presents at home, then going over to my sister's for turkey and wine.  Then back home to put the child to bed and catch a film.

Sunday - lazy day at home.  Probably have a few more pressies to open, then spend the day chilling out and picking at Christmas foods.  I've got my MST MTX-1 to build, so I might get started on that if we're having an indoors day.

We're all off work until January, we have another family visit planned on Monday but otherwise we're under no particular agenda.  We're hoping to get down to the coast if we get a dry day, although the lovely dry weather we've had for the last few weeks while I've been stuck behind a desk has done its usual English thing of going away for the holidays and leaving us with heavy overcast, drizzle and endless damp.

Have a great weekend wherever you are

[InsaneJim69 1584]

Hope you all have a great Christmas guys. 👍.

Just chilling out before starting work at 6pm. Meant to finish at 2am, but last bus is off the road around 10pm, so should be home around midnight, then I will enjoy a beer and a whiskey before wrapping the kids presents from Santa. 👍

James.

[InsaneJim69 1584]

Well Merry Christmas guys and girls !! 👍 Hope everyone got spoilt a little. 

Last night's work turned into a busy night, even had to attend a broken down bus at 9pm. 🤦‍♂️🙄 Blooming typical. 

Tonight's turn of fortune is a few beers and drams and more food than one can eat healthily. 😂😂👍. 

James.

[Willy iine 18805]

Already Friday again, and the last Friday of 2021.

2021 was a good year, no one in my family got sick or had any major injuries (my son and I got pretty badly bruised this year, but no concussion nor broken bones so that's good), no weather related catastrophes, and there were plenty of good things that happened than bad.  

Looking forward to 2022, I see that I became a hamster of RC stuff so going to start building some of the goodies I got this year... albeit will take my time as I am running out of display space in my downsized pretend RC shop.   2022 will also be a fine tuning year for all my hobbies whether it be my 1:1 garage and cars, RC stuff, and music related.  

 

Friday (today)..  I started off the day doing some house chores, installed a long overdue over-sized wall plate to cover a connector opening in my RC room wall.

Then played my Korg SV2SP (stage piano) that was having some modeled amp issues yesterday where sound would completely cut off while playing... I think I found what the culprit was which was one of the data entry dials that had turned partially and the IC was apparently confused getting infinite readings between 2 values.  I must have touched it while I was moving the instruments around to set up my room.  I spun all dials and it played fine for a full hour this morning, so I am assuming it is okay.. I own other stage pianos so it's not a huge issue, but would have sucked if I had to send her in for repairs.

Heading to my RC shop after listening to some tunes off my new BT receiver I installed in my rack yesterday (Tascam CD-400U.  It sounds good as expected and has a super hot output so sandwiched a dbx 166XL compressor/limiter to attenuate the signal before it blows up my mixer).   I'm going to open the XR311 kit today and begin prepping the body for paint.  I decided I like finishing bodies first and build the chassis later. 

I'm expecting to receive a new non-slip rug liner early evening so going to lay down my new rug that arrived a few days ago under one of my other stage pianos.  This is the last big piece of the puzzle acoustically, so going to prep my instruments for room calibration tomorrow.  

Then enjoy some sukiyaki with my family along with soba just before midnight.

 

Saturday..  After sending out New Years messages to my relatives, I will do a few house chores and proceed to do the acoustic calibration for my new music room.   I think my wife will call us all into her manga library to watch some anime (Conan?) and play some games.. so will play along.

Afternoon, will continue working on the XR311's body hopefully ready for paint on Sunday..   and play my cajon and enjoy the evening streaming a movie.

 

Sunday..   If all goes according to plan, I hope to paint the XR311 and Willy .. and rest of day play by ear.    I'm sure my wife will have more honey-do's to do..

 

Have a great weekend everyone, and have a Happy and Healthy New Year!

[InsaneJim69 1584]

Had a busy day today, 3 hours sleep after finishing work at 6am. Got up bright and early to go look at a new car, really didn't want another Vauxhall tbh, but when a VXR8 Bathurst S came up for sale I fell for it. So still humming it over and haven't decided on it yet 🤔, but with 710BHP and 680lb/ft and masses of space inside, it is very tempting, although the fact it's almost 11 year old is the draw back that's holding me back, but the supercharged LS3 is known to be bomb proof.

Anyways, off to work at 7pm. Hopefully finish around midnight and go off to bed to get a decent sleep. New year's is just not the same these days imo, just another day imo. Hopefully work is quiet and I can think the car choice over. As there is also a VXR8S (non Bathurst edition) for £10k less money, that also has the walkinshaw performance upgrade kit added !! 

James.

[87lc2 2662]

2 hours ago, InsaneJim69 said:

Had a busy day today, 3 hours sleep after finishing work at 6am. Got up bright and early to go look at a new car, really didn't want another Vauxhall tbh, but when a VXR8 Bathurst S came up for sale I fell for it. So still humming it over and haven't decided on it yet 🤔, but with 710BHP and 680lb/ft and masses of space inside, it is very tempting, although the fact it's almost 11 year old is the draw back that's holding me back, but the supercharged LS3 is known to be bomb proof.

Anyways, off to work at 7pm. Hopefully finish around midnight and go off to bed to get a decent sleep. New year's is just not the same these days imo, just another day imo. Hopefully work is quiet and I can think the car choice over. As there is also a VXR8S (non Bathurst edition) for £10k less money, that also has the walkinshaw performance upgrade kit added !! 

James.

That car is awesome.  Equivalent to a CTS-V over here in the states I guess.  Those are really cheap and easy to fix, I wouldn't let the age put you off (unless you don't like working on your own stuff, then it might be something to think about).  Good luck, really nice ride.  

[InsaneJim69 1584]

Yeah they are a rebadged Holden over here in the UK, back when GM owned both Holden and Vauxhall. In Stock form they are around 420bhp (VXR8), and in the S form it adds a supercharger and around 560bhp(VXR8S). Then you could could spec the walkinshaw performance pack. Which was a bigger fuel pump, bigger injectors and an enlarged supercharger pulley, which boosted it upto the 700bhp mark. Being a bus mechanic I wouldn't mind working on the car for general brake pads and discs etc, things like that are all easy enough. Services I always like to have done at a garage to get a stamp in the book etc. 👍

Thanks

James.

[Mad Ax 9310]

Late to the party again - I meant to post yesterday morning but got caught up in other stuff and totally forgot.

No New Year Action Plan or resolutions from me yet - I still haven't really figured out what 2022 means and I've got a lot to think about.  No doubt I'll post some overly-wordy and unnecessarily-protracted thread about it in General when I get around to it.

Anyway, Friday was the best day weather-wise for the entire holidays.  I had hoped we'd have a nice frosty winter sun day on Brean Beach, which is several miles of golden sand (ok, and mud, if you go out to the water) and perfect for making sandcastles and playing with buggies.  But the weather on the west coast wasn't good, so we headed south to Lyme Regis, one of my favourite coastal towns but fairly busy with tourists, and expensive.  Still, we had a lovely few hours walking along the sand and pebbles, making sandcastles and chasing each other around.  Didn't take the RCs as the sandy part of the beach is very small and too busy, although there were some kids playing with toy-grade monster beetle type things on the shoreline - I'll bet they were rusted solid by the time they got home.

Had a quiet night with the wife last night, ate mountains of chocolate and cookies that we got in for Christmas, went to bed around 11pm to read, got up at midnight to watch the local fireworks out the window, then went to sleep.

Saturday I am in charge of my daughter all day, also cooking a turkey for lunch.  We were out on Christmas Day so I haven't cooked a Christmas meal this year, so it made sense to do a Christmas-ish dinner today.  Gotta put the turkey in the oven in an hour.  Might do a bit more on the MTX-1 before then, as my daughter is buried in her iPad for the first time in over a week and probably won't come up for air until she gets hungry.

Tonight - going to open a bottle of red wine I've been keeping for the past 3 years, and attack the huge selection of cheeses, pates and olives that we've still got left over from Christmas.  I've got to work on an electronica track for an awards ceremony my employer is putting on in February, not sure if I'll work on that tonight or let the ideas bake a bit longer.  Procrastination is strong with this project.

Sunday is another day with the daughter while my wife goes out to catch up with a friend.  If the rain decides to stop at any point (which looks unlikely) we might go out to the woods with the crawlers, otherwise we'll cuddle, watch films and build monster trucks all day.

Sunday evening is open, I could start / continue the awards ceremony track, watch a film, or catch up on some TV series.

Monday gets an honourable mention because I'm still on holiday, and it's a free day for me so I can do what I like.  Weather looks dry-ish, so I might get up before dawn and go for a walk over the hills, then back home for some time in the workshop - got some great ideas for the King Blackfoot Pro-mod project - and then into the studio to work on the awards track.  It would be nice to start work on Tuesday with some sample ideas that I can play for the event organiser.

Have yourselves a fab weekend and a great 2022 wherever you are and whatever you're doing  

[Wooders28 4722]

On 12/31/2021 at 5:39 PM, InsaneJim69 said:

 

Looks a nice example, and with future cars being ever more restrictive , an investment (although not cheap, if it's anything like the GTS-R a mate bought in work....😳)....

I had an awesome week, saw family I'd not seen for years, had some proper belly laughs with mates (with seemingly zero Covid restrictions, with only me with a mask....🤷‍♂️). 

Back up the road now, empty the car and bed. Tomorrow the washing machine won't stop, and with 3 of my work colleagues on 10 day isolation, looking like I'll be 12hrs Monday, and for the next week at least!...😳🤦‍♂️

Fun while it lasted.....

[InsaneJim69 1584]

Yeah I am looking at it as my last hoorah before I hit the 40 year old mark and have to eventually settle for an electric car or some other sensible thing at some point. They aren't crazy expensive at £30k or so for a S version with the Walkinshaw upgrade pack and will only increase in value, I mean the Bathurst S was £50k when new 11 years ago and is now worth £50k with decent mileage !! . But yeah the newer GTS-R are around £60-£75k 😳, just outside my budget 🤔😂😂

[Nobbi1977 1793]

26 minutes ago, InsaneJim69 said:

Yeah I am looking at it as my last hoorah before I hit the 40 year old mark and have to eventually settle for an electric car or some other sensible thing at some point. They aren't crazy expensive at £30k or so for a S version with the Walkinshaw upgrade pack and will only increase in value, I mean the Bathurst S was £50k when new 11 years ago and is now worth £50k with decent mileage !! . But yeah the newer GTS-R are around £60-£75k 😳, just outside my budget 🤔😂😂

Great roads around you to drive it as well. Anywhere south is so clogged up or full of police and cameras it is no fun.