Multi-media and crowd control
Entry posted by KH1
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After having finally recovered from the Peterborough show I have been able to turn my attention to a few little things that have been on my todo list for quite a while. I warn you now this is probably not the most exciteing post ever but might get a few people thinking. Will cover the crowd control first. I must point out straight away that I have nothing against the Great British public (or at least not those who come to model railway shows!), but having a layout which is operated from the front and with rather labour intensive couplings, they do get in the way rather! The big advantage of course is that it is far easier to actually talk to people which is something I do enjoy and think there should be lots of at shows. At Peterborough there was quite a substantial barrier and it did mean we could get all the uncoupling done without having to shove anybody out of the way. Knowing that EXPONG can be a bit of a scrum I have been considering some sort of barrier. I have left it too late to get any comercial system (having to be small and portable is a problem), so have resorted to DIY namely two bits of ply and my wonderful barbed wire. I usually find somewhere to drape my wire (which is just twisted string but looks very effective), and it gets loads of comments but now it is going to have to earn it's keep. I have found a couple of bits of old ply, drilled them to fit on the end boards and and made some notches at the other end to hang the wire off. I am hoping the wire can be kept taught enough but have deliberately not made the suports too sturdy as the theory is that if anyone did lean too hard on the wire they would break before pulling the whole layout over. We shall see;
One thing that really does take time when setting up and dismantleing is screwwing in the supports for the lighting and facia. I have still not worked out a way of hinging them and still being able to pack everything in the car so the bolts are going to have to stay for now. Using a power drill to tighten up the nuts has been considered before but the problem was that the holder for the socket was too big to fit in the chuck of my cordless drill. Answer - one, find some time, two, find an old socket extension and three, mutilate it on the lathe! After much screaming of tortured metal I had produced this.
Before;
After;
No great feat of engineering but should do the trick. Only other thing I have done with it is a wrap of red insulation tape so I can find it in the bolt bucket.
And finally - multimedia. I have long wanted to show people the various pictures that the layout is based on and have considered printing them out and sticking them to the facia boards but why do this when you can involve electricity! A little while ago I picked up a bargain tablet which, although not in the same league as our iPad is fine for the job intended. The various pictures were collected together and cropped to the correct size, a photoframe app was downloaded and I now have a slideshow. A suprising amount of time was then spent working out how to mount it properly but eventually ended up with this;
Am just hoping that it will not make the facia too heavy but have extra Velcro ready and cable ties if that is not enough.
If you are anywhere near Swanley in Kent this Saturday do come along and say hello.
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