Friday, November 20, 2015

Building Duffy's Coal by FSM Pt. 1

I have been gone for a little haven't I. I took a trip to Europe that got extended by a day due to Lufthansa cabin crew strike. I am back now and I am back to building models. Modeling is still a little challenging due to the jet lag. It is hard to stay awake in the evenings yet. I used to get back to normal in a few days but not this time. I am not sure if I am getting old or it is just that time of year. My all previous trips to Europe except for one were in the summer.
After I got back I found that Trainmasters TV episode with George Sellios and F&SM was available so I didn't waste too much time. Unfortunately my Google phone didn't want to cooperate and ruined whole experience. I use screen cast feature to watch videos on a big screen. Before upgrade to whatever version of Android it worked fine. After upgrade I am getting all sorts of problems. Sometimes video stops and only audio keeps going. Sometimes video and audio is out of sync. Other times it throws "Video cannot be played" and quits. I have read that it most likely is because of WiFi bugs in newer version of Android that show their ugly heads more often in older Google phones. I doubt that the issue will ever get fixed. I recently upgraded to yet newer version of the operating system but the situation didn't improve. Fortunately, there are other solutions available. I bought mini HDMI to regular HDMI cable for my Kindle Fire. I had some concerns that it might not work but I was wrong. The cable was exactly what I needed. I didn't spend much time watching Trainmasters TV but I can say that quality of the video has improved. It is much sharper now and has no playback issues. Now I need to find time and watch George Sellios video again.
Coincidentally I am working on one of the George creations. Duffy's wasn't on my short list of kits to build but I have been asked and I have taken the opportunity. I don't think I will be pointing to the errors too much if any at all unless I make my own. So far so good. Like always the pictures don't reflect the current status of the build. I have made a little more progress since then.