Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Campbell Supply Co. Pt.1

Today I am feeling like giving up my beer adventure. I have noticed that some of the bottle caps of the beer I bottled two weeks ago are bulging. It looks like I have created few beer bombs. I don't know if it is an infection, incomplete fermentation or too much of the priming sugar. Since not all caps are bulging I am thinking it may be the infection or I didn't mix in the priming sugar in well enough and there was more sugar in some of the bottles. And everything was going just fine until the temperature went up from 68 to 74...
The Campbell Supply kit is one of the kits that has been started by someone else. I don't buy started kits intentionally. This is one of the cases when I don't pay attention to the pictures or the auction description. It wasn't too bad though. The roofs had been cut out but the rest of the parts were in sealed packages except for the office door. It is possible, it may have been shipped by the manufacturer that way. Since I own few other Campbell kits, I borrowed the door and made a copy out of laserboard. I have run out of steam building this kit though and I am posting this just as an illustration to my unfinished kit list.


Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Super Trees and AeroGarden Pt.1

I have enough of Super Tree material for at least a decade, but little scientist/farmer in my head is still wanting to grow it. I think, I have mentioned before that the weather in Georgia is not suitable for the plant. It likes milder temperature. Higher temperature makes it to mature too fast. The only option is to grow it indoors. I have tried that too but without good light source so the end result has always been less than acceptable. This time I am using AeroGarden unit. I didn't buy it just for the purpose of growing the Super Trees though. I thought I would grow sage and other herbs for my tea. I am not sure why but my herbs didn't do too well. They were fine for a while but then rotted at the base and died. Then instead of planting other herbs I decided to give STs a try. They started sprouting nicely, but then all but one died off. The one that survived though has turned into a nice plant and has also moved into the neighboring space. Hopefully, it will keep going.


Monday, March 13, 2017

Building Graves Elevators by Bar Mills Pt.5

I admit, I have new distraction. Back in NYC I saw few stands at the markets selling beer making kits and that reignited my interest in home brewing. I have always thought that some semi-serious
equipment was needed for that. I turns out that 1 gallon batches can be done without investing too much so I bought a starter kit and several beer making mixes. So far I have completed one batch, bottled two, and last night I brewed the fourth. This whole deal doesn't impact my modeling because I do it when I usually don't build models. However, it impacts my blog. It seems my brain is preoccupied with beer recipes, ideas for the brews, etc.
Bar Mills kits go together relatively fast and smoothly but not the Graves. It is quite difficult kit and it was clearly rushed to have it out before Christmas. Despite all that, I think I did a decent job on it. Would I build another one? No way. Don't get me wrong though. It is fine to build it once but two would be way too excessive.