Gentle Progress at Pen Mill
Entry posted by Steve Stubbs
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Here's one of the uncouplers embedded in position. Progress recently has been the printing up of production templates, which are printed on 'Toughprint' waterproof inkjet paper, stuck down with 3M Spraymount, then given a coat of shellac. The various electrical connections are then marked on, dropper holes drilled and dropper wire strung down through the holes. This will be soldered onto the underside of the rails as they are laid. The turnout timbering is then cut to fit and glued on using UHU solvent, Photos here somewhere. The Vees for the turnouts have been made by Mark, who has done a great job with these, so for that he also gets the reward of filing up the point blades.
One of our pet hates is watching 00 gauge rolling stock lurching through crossings so as previously mentioned we have gone for a flangeway gap of 0.9mm which current RP25 profile wheels will run through quite happily, and which 'carry' the wheels across to the point of the vee without wheel drop. A batch of half a dozen roller gauges for crossing and checkrail production has been turned up, and the trusty Sherline has also been used in milling mode to start milling the PCB board joint strips. These are half - depth sleepers, milled into a sheet of pcb the same depth as the standard thick C&L sleepering, then araldited across board joints, with a couple of countersunk screws for added security. The rails are soldered across and the board joint is then recut through. This will stop the mis-alignment of rails across board joints, both vertically and laterally, that spoil so many layouts one sees at exhibitions. Once ballasted, the web disappears completely. The 2mm Scale Association sells these (in 2mm form naturally) for their members, but only in straight plain sleeper sections. We are making them in whatever formation the tracks cross the board joints. 20-odd are needed for the first three boards alone! But to compensate for the additional height of the chairs on the track where is chaired onto the ASB sleepers, we are using 2mm association nickel-silver chairplates from their Versaline system to pack under the rails on the soldered connections. These are small enough to fit completely under the rail and allow cosmetic C&L half chairs to be glued onto the soldered sleeper/rail connections.
Needless to say the milling machine failed at the start of the programme, but the versatile Sherline system allows the milling column to be refitted to the lathe bed and production was continued, albeit with a bit a bit more difficulty as the milling table is that much bigger, and on the lathe we are having to grip the pcbs in the milling vice instead.
Finally plain track rail-only temples have been glued down same as the turnout ones, and hand marked into GRW 45 ft and 60 ft track panel sleeper spacing. These allow the sleepers to be freehand laid round curved track, straight track can be assembled in panels on the jigs you may just see in one of the photos. Now for the actual tracklaying!
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