Kylestrome – 2mm scale 2FS

[justin1985]

This is seriously impressive and ingenious work David!

 

Is the soldered joint between the spring and the operating wire the only thing retaining the operating unit? Very neat! 

 

I've never been able to get things accurate enough first time with Easitrac points, and ended up mangling things when trying to adjust soldered joints etc. So on my most recent points I've included not just one or two PCB + chairplate sleepers, but used them for the entire crossing. 

[Kylestrome]

Is the soldered joint between the spring and the operating wire the only thing retaining the operating unit? 

 

The main reason for the soldered on coils of fuse wire is to stop the point blades lifting, although they do also retain the tie bars if the operating relay is removed.

 

David

[bécasse]

The main reason for the soldered on coils of fuse wire is to stop the point blades lifting, although they do also retain the tie bars if the operating relay is removed.

 

 

Ah, I had been puzzling over whether there was actually any need for them to be soldered and this extended explanation seems to suggest not (other than retaining them on the dropper wires). I have used short lengths of plastic insulation (from the sort of low wattage wiring we tend to use) in the past - if they are long enough (5-7mm say) they will happily retain themselves particularly if a dab of Pritt is added just as they are pushed on to the wire. Short lengths of very fine brass tube crimped on (gently) using an end cutter tool also work well.

[Phil Copleston]

A fishing boat that will come in handy for the quayside. This is a dutch kit from Artitec which I have 'anglicised'

 

David

 

"Gaelicised", surely!

 

Really good to see this long-term 2mm project of yours revived, David. I shall follow your posts with great interest (if only so I can nick your excellent ideas and techniques for use on my own 2mm layout!). Come to think of it, I reckon I've 'lived' with your 'big layout' project (in its various incarnations) almost as long as you have - as I remember seeing an early version of 'Kylestrome' at your flat in Twickenham back in the umm... mid-1980s! Almost as long in gestation as my own 2mm circular layout, I fear...   

 

Keep up the inspiring work!  

[Kylestrome]

Wiring. It’s time to stifle a yawn and show a couple of pictures of colourful wires going this way and that. There’s nothing particularly revolutionary about the way this was done except to point out that all the pretty colours come from 13 core data cable, at least I think that’s what it’s called. I bought yards of it, years ago, and it has proved to be a cheap and plentiful source of coloured wire. I use a 'belt & braces' approach to wiring the track; every separate rail has two wire connections and there are two independent polarity switches in the point operating relays for each crossing vee.

 

 

The control panel is about as simple as it can be. 

 

The track plan was drawn on the computer and printed out on good quality ink jet paper. The holes for switches were cut out using a pair of dividers that have one point sharpened to a knife edge.

 

Yeah right, “as simple as it can be”…

 

The red switches are for the points, with two unmarked spares, and the black ones operate the uncoupling magnets and are spring loaded centre-off switches. The 15-pin D-socket connects to the baseboard. The DIN sockets take care of power input and output for an analogue or DCC controller.

 

At last I get to play trains. I won't pretend I'm testing because I was doing that while soldering up the wiring.   

 

David

Edited March 5, 2018 by Kylestrome

[2mmMark]

Most of the wiring on my my layouts has come from recycled twisted pair network cable.  I rescued a load of it from the recycling bins at work when our offices were being upgraded.  This gave me red, black, white & green stranded copper wire. So my wiring scheme ever since has been red & black - running rails, white - common for crossings etc., green - AC feeds for controllers & magnets.

 

I would highly recommend the little soft plastic sleeves David has used on the toggle switches. As well as giving useful colour coding, they make the switches comfortable to operate.  When exhibiting, you do become aware of just how often the direction switch on a controller is operated...!

 

Mark

[dpgibbons]

The prettiest wiring ever.

[Steven Draper]

Being a little bit of an OCD experiencer, I really appreciate those wiring photos - even notice the two nearest screws on the panel look parallel too 8^)

[TheQ]

Being a little bit of an OCD experiencer, I really appreciate those wiring photos - even notice the two nearest screws on the panel look parallel too 8^)

Yes the other two need a little Tweek to be in line, like the 90 in my motor boat aft cabin roof lining.

 

That looks remarkably like copper clad sleepers glued to the baseboard..nice to see such a neat job.

[Kylestrome]

The station building was started a long time ago and stalled at the painting stage. 

 

 

It looked like it would be a tricky job, painting all the details, and it took me a very long time to get up enough enthusiasm to pick up a paintbrush. Once I’d made a start though, the perceived difficulties vanished and it was easier than I had anticipated. 

 

 

 

With painting out of the way, progress has been rapid and it has only taken me a little over a week to do all the white window framing, the canopy and the roof. Before building the roof I fitted the gutters as a single sheet of black styrene sheet with the bottom edges rounded off.

 

 

Despite all my best efforts, the triangular roof supports all vary from one another by a small amount. This discrepancy was corrected by glueing on pieces of square strip which were lined up with a straight edge before the solvent went off. Later, these surfaces were glued to the undersides of the roof sections with cyano gel.

 

 

Not having any suitable castings, or plastic rod, for chimney pots I found some hard wood dowel to turn them from. 

 

 

The pots on the real Kyle building are mostly odd sizes, which also adds a bit of character, so it wasn’t particularly important to make them all the same.

 

 

Here we see the almost completed building. I still have to make rainwater down pipes, door handles and finish the ridge tiles on the roof, as well as some general retouching of paintwork. The bottom few millimetres fit into an accurately cut recess in the platform surface to avoid my ‘pet hate’ of a gap under the building. The roof tiles were drawn on the computer and printed onto a self-adhesive label, and will be coloured with a thin wash of paint such that it will just allow the tile outlines to show through. I’ve come to the conclusion that slates in 2mm scale are much too thin to represent to scale and that a flat surface, with a bit of visual texture, will give a convincing enough effect.

 

David

[bcnPete]

Stunning work David...

[Marly51]

Your standard of modelling and finish is something to aim for, David!

[TomE]

That station building is a superb piece of work!

 

Tom. 

[Kylestrome]

This post brings the story up to the current stage of progress on the layout. 

 

 

The platform has been built up and the stonework painted. In order to represent ash ballast, which is more or less level with the sleepers, I have filled all the spaces between tracks and sleepers with thin card. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of this step which is just as well because it wasn’t a pretty sight. The ‘ballasted’ areas have been painted with some textured dark grey paint from Heki, which has filled in all the gaps nicely and give the effect I wanted. I still need to clean up a bit, paint the sleepers, rails and chairs and give the ballast a more convincing finish.

 

 

The BR pattern buffer stops are from Chris Higg’s excellent etches via the 2mm Scale Association shop.

 

 

Here we see various scenic levels being applied, using 1.5 mm mounting board. The top layer, which includes the platform surface and roads, is all cut out of one sheet so all the ‘jigsaw’ pieces fit together exactly.

 

 

The ramp and bridge abutments, and other elements, have been put together using the same card. I’ve made the stonework from Peco embossed plastic sheets which have been glued on using contact adhesive similar to Evostik.

 

 

This is the present state of play.

 

David

[DavidLong]

David,

 

Do you have a reference number for that Heki paint? It may be just what I'm looking for.

 

David

[Kylestrome]

 

Do you have a reference number for that Heki paint? It may be just what I'm looking for.

 

Hi David,

 

It's Heki 6601 'Straßenfarbe Asphalt' (road colour) and it really is a good colour for roads. It can be 'weathered' (when dry) by gently rubbing with a track rubber or fine sandpaper. It's an acrylic paint that you can use straight out of the bottle.

 

HTH,

David

Edited March 17, 2018 by Kylestrome

[2mmMark]

David -  a question if I may.   Do the relays you use for point control & electromagnets have any designation on them? 

[Kylestrome]

David -  a question if I may.   Do the relays you use for point control & electromagnets have any designation on them? 

 

Hi Mark,

 

After a fair bit of web searching I can only assume that the design of relay that I used for point operation (12v DC 4pdt with an earth screw) is now longer available.

 

One can still buy the type of relay that I took the electromagnets out of, for uncouplers, on eBay from China. Search for "12v DC 5 Amp DPDT Power Relay".

 

David

Edited March 17, 2018 by Kylestrome

[Ian Morgan]

They used to be called 'Continental' type relays. We used them on '50K Coley Park'. They were available in trays on old surplus type shops and trade stands. Note, they were avaliable with 12V or 24V coils, so check the voltage. A search for 'continental relays' on eBay just found some.

[2mmMark]

Thanks - looks like yet another obsolete legacy product that you wish you'd stocked up on.

 

Speaking of legacy products, the Heki paint has possibilties used in conjunction with the plastic moulded "thin sleeper" track, some of which I still have.

 

Mark

[Signaller69]

Superb work David, will follow with interest.

 

Martyn.

[Kylestrome]

 

At last I think I can call the station building finished. Looking at the photos, I can see a couple of places that still need a little touching up, that’s if I can actually see them without the aid of the camera.

 

 

I have recently bought a new LED lighting unit, that I used for these pictures, which will fit the layout perfectly.

 

Here’s a link to it (unfortunately, not in English):

http://www.mueller-licht.de/produktinformationen/artikel/20500072/

 

Since installing 6500K fluorescent tubes over my 4mm layout I am a convert to daylight layout lighting. When I switch the layouts lighting on, it's like the sun coming out and is most uplifting on a dark winter’s day. The scenery and photographic backscene also look a lot more natural now than under the old warm white tubes.

 

I made sure that the new LED unit also has a colour temperature of 6500K and, as it sheds 2800 lumens onto Kylestrome’s single baseboard, it ought to be bright enough too!   

 

David

Edited March 28, 2018 by Kylestrome

[queensquare]

Superb David, a really attractive building. The weathering of the roof and chimneys is particularly effective.

 

Jerry

[Kylestrome]

 

I decided that Kylestrome needs a shop – more specifically, a small post office and newsagent. It still needs chimney pots and guttering, as does the next door cottage. This was built over 30 years ago and will finally take its place on a layout.

 

David

Edited April 11, 2022 by Kylestrome

[Caley Jim]

DSC03138.jpg

 

I decided that Kylestrome needs a shop – more specifically, a small post office and newsagent. It still needs chimney pots and guttering, as does the next door cottage. This was built over 30 years ago and will finally take its place on a layout.

Shades of Katie Morag and the Post Office on Struay there!   

Jim