Fen End Pit - Lights, Scenic works and a bit of loco progress
Entry posted by Fen End Pit
1,389 views
With the Ely show rapidly approaching a couple of afternoon's help from my friends managed to complete the lighting rig. This is formed of a box girder made from 3mm ply, three rows of 'warm white' LEDs and two rows of colour changing LEDs. I also had to make a 'gallows bracket' for the centre of the layout. The whole lot got a coat of blue to match the facia and the result looks pretty professional, even though I say it myself.
The LEDs seem to work well, and being able to adjust the colour balance slightly seems to work well.
A 'Snag List' was produced which features lots of little jobs which are hopefully a few minutes each. I needed to improve a couple of scenic areas where changes to the layout meant that things didn't quite look right. Four inches were added to the board with the drag line on it and I've used the space to add a dumped wagon chassis slowly getting lost in the weeds.
At the other end of the layout I'd moved the oil tank to go next to the new engine shed and this left a hole next to the siding ideal as a place to put some scrap wagons and other bits of old metal. It needs some more work but is going in the right direction.
I've also done a bit of work on completing my Ruston LAT which has been half built for over a year. I wasn't happy with my first attempts to model the engine in 3D CAD or the quality of the print on my FDM printer. I redrew the engine with some more detail and printed on the resin DLP printer. The print took about three hours and came out on the build platform like this.
I'd modeled the engine block to have a space on the top of the engine to hold a speaker. This has a space behind it about 8mm deep to act as a resonating chamber, the wires to the speaker can be attached and weathered to become part of the engine compartment.
The left and right hand side of the engine compartment look a lot better than the previous efforts.
The locomotive is coming together nicely. I'm considering adding an 'after market' exhaust modification. One of the first things to go on these engines was the exhaust and in a lot of cases the owners would look for a local replacement. This is probably mean a new exhaust pipe and silencer bolted to the corner of the cab and will make a nice contrast with the already completed LBT.
Finally a few hours on Friday night was spent on the Slater's Simplex. I had to get a bit creative with the supports for the fuel tank as I want to be able to remove it to gain access to the speaker. I'm now down to three brass castings to attach, one of which is the brake wheel which is kind of dependent how long the driver's arm is!
Hope you like the pictures
David
-
16
4 Comments
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now