...or, in layman's terms, bu**er.
I had been planning to try and get tracklaying complete during this week, as it's my annual kind-of week off. However, before beginning, last week I had a chat with model railway friends, and they informed me I was right of something I had been concerned about. I have been using cork to boost the height of the copper clad strip up to the underside of the rails for the board ends, but I felt it was really too soft for the job. My friends agreed. I was
...the 7mm copperclad for securing of rail at the board ends has arrived! Yay!
Unfortunately the railway room is in a mess, as I had decided to try and sort out what boxes of stuff I have and try and get everything grouped more suitably in my various boxes. So the floor is not exactly clear. Being a hot weekend and all, I think I won't be fixing any track down just yet. Not so yay.
Currently still waiting on production and delivery of suitable copperclad to allow track laying to commence.
I went to the Bristol show at the weekend and was able to buy a Dapol Class 22 in BSYP, something I'd missed out on for a long time due to money being tight and then there being none to buy. It got me to thinking about headcodes for the S&P.
I've read up a bit on how such four character train reporting numbers work, and realised that though the basic arrangemen
Second, because I'd dropped a board during build which dented a corner and bent one of the join clips.
This time though the damage is a little more terminal to the recently attached barriers:
Occurred during disassembly this morning when I wasn't being quite cautious enough to ensure that the board was properly supported during leg removal. Proves that the acrylic is pretty fragile, and acts as a reminder to me to be careful in all respects when as
Following on from the blog post from some while ago 'Barriers to Entry', I've now drilled and cut the derailment barriers for the 'test track arrangement'. This has been done to fill in time while still waiting for copperclad strips for board ends. I've also marked both outer rail and outside edge of cork underlay positions on these boards for eventually cork and track laying. I will be in need of some kind of 'clip' to hold the barrier ends together between boards, I've not yet researched what
A bit of progress to report. I'm currently waiting for a delivery of copperclad strips for board end track attachment and alignment, so in the meantime I've done some test setups of the boards; checked for alignments; put the templates on top; checked some track positioning issues; cut the cork underlay for turnouts and plain track; and started punching holes into the templates to allow marking of the board surfaces where the rails need to go:
An initial set up of the ends and the pr
... as in ten boards, painted, looking 'decadent'... 😁
I'm now working to make space in the 'railway' room to do a first post-painting assembly to make sure all is still OK with alignments. Once done, I'll be temporarily sticking the templates to the tops to work out the precise track positions at the board ends and deal with any misalignments in the boards due to 'skew' where
A quick knock up of Bere Dene's track plan:
Again, signals are educated guesses, rather than final arrangements. This time the passing loop lines aren't bi-directional. It is my intention to model a section of line between Bere Dene and Arnford as a simple, single straight line through a forest, on a set of 1 foot wide boards I already have. Although I don't think I'd ever have space to put it with this vignette, I like the idea of it being possible to directly connect it to the left e
I've knocked this up today. Took a while to get that subtle curve in, AnyRail doesn't provide any tools for quickly doing curved shapes so shape control points have to be added and aligned by hand:
Note that, in the fiction, the 'goods yard' is a late addition to allow reworking the demonstration freights away from the main station of Tynworth. In the fiction's original idea there would have been no freight sidings for the railway as the station was for boat trains only,
A couple of diagrams. First Cold Holt and then Penmouth Waterside. Both featured in a thread on RMweb for signalling advice. Apologies for image quality, the files get compressed by RMweb's upload process and there's nothing I can do about it (it seems to be something to do with their pixel width, not their actual file size).
Cold Holt is an interchange station between the S&P and the National Network. None of it exists in model form at present so it would be entirely new.
Here's a first version of the diagram for the S&P's line, distances not to scale:
As part of understanding operation and signalling, I've indicated where the passing / run round loops are with green infills.
How's this for a wiring diagram...
This is my first attempt, using LibreOffice Draw in this instance. It really doesn't like the complexity involved in the diagram, but it's what I had to hand for now.
The third board (the first of the fiddleyard throat boards) now painted. I've included a series of images as the painting progressed for this posting to see the 'effect' in action, so to speak. I won't bother with the later boards as it's just outright repetition really.
First white undercoat, brush painted, underside:
Second white undercoat, brush painted, underside:
Topside, ply delamination repaired and abuttment screw dips filled (with wood fille
Second board is painted:
Eight more to go. The next six boards are the ones for the fiddleyard throat, so smaller but more complex on the underside. I think only one of those needs remedial attention (for some delamination of the top surface of plywood). I'm going to leave that till last. The remaining two are the curves into the scenic section.
The first board, one of the straight 4' x 2' boards for the fiddle yard, has been painted:
Top:
Bottom:
Only nine more to do (it took a week to do this one!)
As per a post on in the main forum, I've now started to sort out derailment barriers for the boards. I found a supplier, bought two test pieces and have been able to make choices as per what to get.
The curved boards will be getting 2mm thick clear acrylic, and the straight boards 3mm acrylic. Holes have already been drilled to take bolts to mount the barriers in place.
I've placed an order for enough strips to do the ends and up to four 4'x2' boards on both the scenic an
I completed the boards enough towards the end of last year to do a test assembly in the room where they will go. It does fit with about a quarter inch of space at either end, though the window sill at one end is very 'tight' to one of the angle struts for the legs. The 'scenic' section is an old beginnings of a shed. I hope to 'complete' that enough to represent the heritage shed that would be at Penmouth. I also have in mind an additional 4 foot board each at either end of the shed to open up t
The old boards (three 4' x 2') from an aborted previous build, and the six old 'test track' boards (four 4' x 1' and two 1' x 1') have now had all their components stripped, track removed and all but one sanded to clean off the top surface. The one not sanded was a scenic board that was going to be a station, and I'd glued down a layer of cork and surfaced it for a yard area. Unfortunately this wasn't easy to remove, so there are some gouges in the surface that will need filling. The board is st
The left and right fiddle yard boards are now fully fitted with alignment dowels, and with only a couple of places where I've had to use some cereal packet card to even out the alignment:
Now, a couple of coincidental observations with regards to measurements, if you're into this sort of thing: the width of the minimum arrangement (as above) is 7 feet and a quarter inch. The outer circumference length of each of the old test track curves is four feet, eight and a half in
The first full assembly. With the living room floor cleared, I have been able to do a test assembly of the left and right throat boards, to check their overall alignment in combination with the old curves from a previous test layout build. It was very nearly spot on. Unfortunately the natural variability of a less skilled hand made build has meant that there's a slight gap between the two fill-out boards added to the curves. I'd already added 9mm ply ends to them as I knew they'd come out short,
I have taken pics as I went through the next dowel fitting so that a more complete explanation exists. I can't vouch for this being the best way, it's just a way I've come up with. Nothing here is to be taken as absolutely the only way to do this.
Marked out end board:
Marked lines for marrying up to the next board:
Beginning drilling the recess:
Test locating the female dowel for depth:
Checking where the
