Car Show Cont.

On the last post, The Fuzz showed a few of these spiffy motor vehicles that were at the Car Show.  Well, he has a few more pix and this is the place for them.

So here goes…

In the BMW district…

The guy that was restoring this one said it was made by a refrigerator company!

It does kinda look like it.

A look at the interior…

And then…

"Under" the hood.

And for a bit more of German engineering…

How about a Porsche?

And now a look under this hood…

Look familiar?

Remember these guys?

And here's one more just…

For the road!

Little Wheels

Over the years folks tend to inherit stuff, and The Fuzz is no exception.  And one of those things is a cool little old washstand.

And it is a nice piece, and still good and solid.

One nice touch was the casters under it.  In a place like this trailer space is at a premium, and it helps to be able to move things around when needed*.

The antique was equipped with antique casters.  And while they were pretty cool, they didn't roll on the bare wooden floor very well.  This made it a bit difficult to move, and had a tendency to skin up the floor as well.

This kinda bothered The Fuzz's Sweetie and she mentioned this to him.  And in the ensuing discussion it was decided to replace these picturesque, but ineffectual little fellers with something a bit more modern.

The first step was to empty the thing out and lay it on it's side to determine exactly what they were dealing with.

Here is a look at one of these little jewels.

The hard metal wheel couldn't really get a grip and tended to slide on the smooth floor.  And with the weight of the piece on it it had a hard time pivoting as well.

So The Fuzz and His Sweetie made a stop at that well known Home Improvement Store and found the best match they could.

These new guys should work a bit better especially with the ball bearings to pivot on.

But a close match is not an exact match.  And the stems on these things, while no longer, are a little bigger around.

The first thing (after actually obtaining them) was to determine the size of drill bit needed to make the necessary alterations to the legs.

That being done, the Fuzz got out his tools and went to work.

The drill to enlarge the holes, A rule to check the depth, and that little sucky thing to blow out any sawdust.

(Or maybe that should be "Drilldust")

Holes were drilled, being careful to keep everything nice and straight…

And the new casters installed.

And here's a look at the finished project.

*Another example of this is the "Car Seat" (actually from a Ford truck) which used to grace the front porch at the Old Place.

The casters under it allow it to easily be used for enjoying the view from the windows, or the "TV" on Movie Nights!

In fact it can be moved to any convenient location when needed.

Antiques and Such

  This was one of the situations that The Fuzz was faced with, from a quote of a never published post.

"The Fuzz has a hard time conceiving of a computer as an antique.  But that seems to be the problem here.  Apparently, this old Mac's OS is as new as it can handle.  Unfortunately, Blogger (and other sites) keep telling The Fuzz that it's just not good enough any more.  Yes, he has been managing to get these posts up somehow, but there are times he has to resort to a few tricks.  This is not fun.  At times it can be a pain in the ass.  Mr Blogger is saying that this situation "may result in unexpected behavior".  This actually occurs, frequently.  But this "unexpected behavior" is becoming expected!  So is it really "unexpected" anymore? 
"Compose" is completely unreliable. He has to keep going back to "HTML" just to get anything up these days! Oh well. Life is like that sometimes."

Here's a look at one of the first home computers that The Fuzz saw at the Smithsonian on a recent trip to Washington.

The equipment we were dealing with was not quite that old, but old enough to be causing a few complications.

Our Fuzz has been running a mac, a bit newer than this one.  But part of the problem could be blamed on Apple changing their processors sometime ago.  Let's be honest about this.  A lot of the problem could be blamed on this.  The newer versions of OS X will not run on the older machines.  That kinda sucks.

The Fuzz realized that although the thing was only 10 years old, (What's 10 years?) we were looking at replacing it.  So when his former employer paid off his unused vacation time, he and His Sweetie bit the bullet, and sprang for this new one.

Ah, the march of progress.

Along the Way He Saw...

On his way across the mountain, The Fuzz noticed a number of "Vintage" Automobiles.
Here at this gas station he saw these.

That Black One was pretty, but he really liked this one.

And *check out this Engine here.


We've got a Rocket V-8 Oldsmobile, with 3 Deuces.

Is this a Classic? or what.

The Fuzz even likes the Paint Job, but he does have a weird taste in these matters.

It seems there was some sort of a car show back in Lake Lure that he missed in passing. But he was headed for the Parkway anyway. He grabbed a sandwich and stuffed it into his saddlebag for later, and headed off to the Parkway for Excitement and Adventure. Little did he know what lay ahead.

To be continued...

*As always, click on the pix for a closer look!

Lawndale Dummy

Back in March I mentioned the Lawndale Railway & Industrial Co. ( Pumped Up, 3/3/07 ) At the time, I didn't want to go into that fascinating little RR. But now, for no particular reason, here goes.

This is one of the original freight-cars, I believe, #314. I believe that because that is what is painted on it. As you might have noticed, the track does not appear to go anywhere. This is, alas, the case today, but it was not so in the early 1900's, in it's days of glory.
Back in that era of the rise of our late lamented textile industry, it seems there was a booming mill and mill-town about a dozen miles from here. Now this metropolis was served by not one, but two modern rail-lines, whereas said mill-town was served by only muddy wagon roads. The Great Industrialist who's mill was lacking this modern transport, was determined to remedy this. When no "real" railroaders could be induced to assist in this endeavor, this Industrialist took matters into his own hands and built his own rail-line. The narrow gage was already largely considered obsolete, but it suited his purposes in that second hand equipment could be had economically, and actually gave some technical advantages in this case. The Railroad operated until WWII when the track was taken up for scrap in those desperate times. But the old LRR had served it's purpose by then, and trucks had taken over from the little "Lawndale Dummy" as it was know.
I think it's kinda cool though. The photo doesn't give a very good idea of the scale of things. Sorry about that. It is a lot smaller than the box cars we usually see. Dig the cool wooden trucks.

Pumped Up

The weather was so nice today I couldn't resist taking out the 'Cycle. Topped off the tank and headed up toward the South Mts. That's always a pleasant ride on the winding through the hills. On the way I passed this place. It's a museum for the late Lawndale Railway & Industrial Co. Which is not the subject here. But I did want to share these cool gas pumps. I already had a full tank, so didn't try to fill up here. I'm not sure If I know how to work these things anyway, and besides, the place wasn't open.
Some other time we'll look at the LR&I RR.