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The Yard - Small industrial layout in 7mm


Greengiant
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Fantastic! You've achieved so much in such a short space of time. Brilliant looking layout.

 

A few things that jump out at me:

 

The combination of black, open fiddle yard and the continuation of the scenic area in front really appeals to me. The way the scenic area 'bleeds away' is so much better than sky-corners and horizons that are too close.

The baseboard join is very well disguised, it does not look like the typical post-earthquake join that plagues many layouts. How did you prevent the road having a visible join, was it a 'plug' that fits in?

The RSJ is a brilliant idea and really adds to the overall presentation.

 

Was the red lorry the one that worked down at the little hamlet of Brookford for a while?

 

I wonder if Denton Brook could be hooked on to the fiddle yard for an RC extravanganza!

Thank you. The road join is foam covered in the same material that compresses up when boards are joined. The joint in the yard will eventually be disguised when the setts are scribed and a drainage grid is fitted.

 

The red lorry did come from Brookford, where it first went to Theobald’s Yard (our other layout), before coming to The Yard, where it will stay until October for the Uckfield show, after which it is back Theobald’s in November for the Tolworth show.

 

Martin

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At our last session we made a video of typical movements on The Yard. The layout is still a WIP with lots still to do, but it gives a good idea of the interaction of the radio controlled crane and lorries with the trains. It also shows a lot of operation can take place in a 6' x 2' scenic space in 7mm (1/43) scale.

Edit: That is odd the video was there when I previewed the post.

It would appear you need to edit the code YouTube generates from www.youtube.com to www.youtu.be for some reason.

https://www.youtu.be/2jpeZ1zqLHk

Martin

Edited by Greengiant
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Flipping heck, how quick was that made. The building look great, in fact the whole thing looks fab. 

 

Thank you, it was a speed build, but we did have the crane, rolling stock and lorries in stock, we did have to motorise the crane and fit the radio control though.

 

Martin

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Terrific!

One question, what happens at the end we don't see in the video?  Where that lovely Sentinel appears and disappeares?

All the best, Dave.

David,

It just goes into an 18” fiddle yard, basically the standard gauge is just four foot of straight track including the one road fiddle yard.

This end gives us the most options for extending the layout should we ever feel so inclined.

 

Martin

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One of one of the first jobs on the layout build was to motorise the gantry crane. It had been well built but was hand operated so we looked at various options and settled with small geared motors with plastic final drive gears. Operationally we need all the control gear located in the cabin and on the gantry and as it’s going to be RC operated the battery would also be located in the cabin. For the RC we used the Deltang system as it's small with good functionality. Fitting the motors and gears for the three functions didn't cause any headaches. The gears are designed as press fits onto the motors but we felt that as the crane will be the heart of the layout some additional fixtures would be worth while, so some brass bushes that are screw fixed to the gear and the motor shaft should remove the risk of them slipping.  It worked well for the two days of the show, but it did have issues which needed looking into, and as it it centre of operations on the layout we need reliability.

Next is the wheels which need replacing, time to fire up the lathe.

 

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Edited by hobbyhorse
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Does the one Rx control the forward/backward, left/right and up/down all together?

Yes it does, drives three motors. We have one joystick to control forward/backward and left/right, which also gives the ability to feather control and make the crane travel diagonally. The other joystick raises and lowers the hook, which we will probably restrict any sideways movement on this stick.

 

Martin

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Chris the Sentinel is from the Imputus kit, now long defunct. The drive is RG4 via Delrin chain as the photo shows.

I've used a soundtrax USA chip for the sounds and have reworked it to remove the unwanted sounds, its good because of the coasting clanks are better than most of the UK sounds. Also redone the chuff rate to speed it upto 10 per rotation. The sound was a quick install before the show, just got to tidy up the speaker wiring and other than that it sounds good.

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Edited by hobbyhorse
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Chris the Sentinel is from the Imputus kit, now long defunct. The drive is RG4 via Delrin chain as the photo shows.

I've used a soundtrax USA chip for the sounds and have reworked it to remove the unwanted sounds, its good because of the coasting clanks are better than most of the UK sounds. Also redone the chuff rate to speed it upto 10 per rotation. The sound was a quick install before the show, just got to tidy up the speaker wiring and other than that it sounds good.

attachicon.gifIMG_1395.JPG

Very helpful. Thank you.

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After resolving the pulley problem next was the wheels, as it was made to be pushed along these needed replacement as gauging them was a problem with all the wheels rotating on the axles. After a bit of thought it was decided to fit double flanged wheels, which removes a lot of the side play and helps the way the units tracks. As all eight wheels are the same size it was an easy job machining the replacements, four being screwed on with the other four push fits into some insulating material. On the Gantry section of the crane it also became apparent that the frame work was twisted so one of the axles has been modified to give a bit of compensation.

 

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Edited by hobbyhorse
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At our last session we made a video of typical movements on The Yard. The layout is still a WIP with lots still to do, but it gives a good idea of the interaction of the radio controlled crane and lorries with the trains. It also shows a lot of operation can take place in a 6' x 2' scenic space in 7mm (1/43) scale.

 

Edit: That is odd the video was there when I previewed the post.

It would appear you need to edit the code YouTube generates from www.youtube.com to www.youtu.be for some reason.

 

https://www.youtu.be/2jpeZ1zqLHk

 

Martin

What a wonderful display of Engineering at it's best, simply superb.

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  • 6 months later...

'Euston we have a problem!'

 

The heat in the workshop has had an adverse affect on some of the track, the parts where the rail foot is reduced to give space for the switch rail.

 

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The track gang will be out on Thursday with pick axes and shovels to remove some DAS so that the rail can be fixed. The point infills will be lasered again, this time they will be properly bedded in, we just ran out of time previously.

On a happier note, the fiddle yard tracks have been infilled with 2mm MDF, this gives us a larger area to turn lorries providing there is no rolling stock in the way. There is still one more bit to do on this board, then it will be primed followed by a top coat of black. You can just make out in the photo the MDF has been chamfered towards the rail, this is so we have clearance when cleaning track so as not to disturb the painted surface finish. The notches are to clear were the wiring is soldered to the top of the copperclad sleepers, had we known that later we would fill in the surface we would have wired to the underside of the rail.

 

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Martin

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Spectacular- but in an unfortunate way....

Yes, we had not planned for this little extra bit of work.

 

Martin

Today we dug out some of the points to fix the warped rail, now it is a little cooler the rail has straightened a bit, but not enough. Luckily there are fishplates an inch or so from the toe of the point, DAS was dug out and with the aid of a small hammer and a drift we were able to tap the fishplates along the rail. Hopefully we can wizzy disk off a small bit of rail, release the PCB soldered joints, ease the rail into position with the fishplate and resolder.

 

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Martin

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  • 1 month later...

Exhibitions are getting nearer, Uckfield October 20-21, then EXPONG the following weekend.

 

We had a knock on the door, some contractors were doing some tarmacing and had some left over, would we like some for a good price?

Here it is along the rear road of The Yard.

 

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We have a lot to do, so stripped the layout of everything that needs work that could be done off the layout, not much left!

 

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The fiddle yard infills have now been painted.

 

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We binned the fascia panel/lighting unit and built a new longer version, the old one just did not look right.

 

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This has now been sign written.

 

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New LEDs have been ordered. The buildings are being stripped and repainted, never liked them the way they were but time was against us.

The gantry crane hook has been remachined and rechained, plus a back up kit of spare chain has been made along with the tools to fit.

Extra lorries are in production but may not be ready in time for the October shows.

The crane loads have been refined with a new chain system on each load being installed, this should hopefully give us as near to 100% success rate on first time alignment and lift as possible, hopefully.

 

Martin

 

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Excellent!

 

Amazing what you've managed to do. It's always good to see layouts with that extra bit of 'life' such as your crane actually doing its job.

 

The laser cut / engraved buildings also look very well done indeed.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The extra side pieces for the back road have now been painted black.

 

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Really needed to get on with drawing and cutting the 11 sets of railings for the rear wall, so an initial test piece was done in 1mmTrotec, the thinner rails are 0.5mm and the thicker ones are 1mm, all spaced by 1mm. Pleased to say the cutting settings Giles used on his E1 worked just fine on the E2.

 

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So I drew up a panel and went for 0.75mm rails spaced 1mm apart, which worked, but a bit twisty, this picture shows up a fundamental error I made on the drawing, it must have been getting late!

 

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I scrapped that drawing and started again, I went back to 1mm rails spaced 1mm apart, this has stood up well, there will also be an overlay laminate cut which beefs up the horizontal bars and outer frame. This time I got the railing spikes in the right place at the end of the railings. Using the thicker railings means they can also be seen easier viewing from the front of the layout.

 

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Encouraged by this I set to and drew up the doors that have always been missing on two of the buildings, one will be fixed in an open position, so is dead to size and made up of two the layers. The other a much larger door opening will be in the shut position, but also has a feature window at the head, this one is made up of three parts with a large border to give plenty of surface area when gluing to the wall.

In the laser just after cutting, pleased to say the cut outs were dropping already which is always nice to see when you open the lid.

 

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The component parts.

 

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Roughly assembled.

 

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Then I cut the factory front wall windows to replace the piece of black card that currently resides in the apertures.

 

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The corrugated roof has seen some initial colouring.

 

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The gantry crane is also turning from grey to a variety of colours. I must remember to fix the hand rail on the steps.

 

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Martin

 

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