Fun Town - Ice Cream Wagon MKII : Continuing with the crazy idea of building a few animated wagon's that would run on DCC for Fun Town's market.
Determined to have an animated figure in this build, so I went for a tea drinking ice cream seller that also rotated his head as he eyed up potential customers. Things didn't turn out quite as expected, but the final result aint to bad.
Thanks for Looking............
This is yet another of those jobs that's been on the to-do list for a few years, yet, what prompted me to make a start on this project was the fact that I needed a turntable to showcase some of the rolling stock for future model railway video projects I'm attempting. Therefore, the project will exclude a couple of design components that I will illustrate but not include in the model.
Snitzl
Decided to cover this topic in a little more depth and detail after visiting one of my earlier blogs for some information, only to find it totally lacking in regards to the electric's and programming details for Arduino. Arduino is not something I work with everyday, the last time I tinkered was some 6 years ago in blog 'Funtown Micro Layout - Part 1', so this blog serves as a reminder to myself, for the next time I tinker. So began a re-investigation, what files did I use for programming previ
Fun Town - Ice Cream Wagon.
Had this crazy idea about building a few animated wagon's that would run on DCC for Fun Town's market. The original thought's were to add movement to the 4mm scale humanoids that would occupy these stationary wagons, maybe a rotating head, guy serving ice cream, someone waving, rotating cog's / gears, steam cylinder's, and roof fan's. The animated wagon's would be similar in size to the market stall wagon's and form part of the same train. With very little pre p
Here's a few images following the construction of a 'Replenish Wagon' for 'Fun Town', this wagon will supply good's to the market stall wagon's parked outside both 'The Mart' and by the 'Cattle Dock' area. The wagon carries it's goods in tray's that match those used on the market stall wagon's. Construction of the model is very similar to the market stall wagon's which have a split frame live chassis for DCC led lighting. Unlike the 'Market Stall Wagon's', care was taken to make sure that short
First off I must apologize for the long delay in posting a blog, the truth is that for the time being at least, I cannot spend as much time as I'd like on model railway's. Therefore, after what seems like an eternity, here's part three of 'De Snitzlton'. This blog covers the design and construction of a trailing bogie / pony which I considered a last resort 'steam assisted uncoupler' method as I much preferred the original design that featured in Part 1, but this design failed to deliver. This b
I've been doing a little more work on 'De Snitzlton', a small 0:4:0 shunting locomotive for Fun Town's market stall's. This blog covers the scratch building of the wheels, connecting rods, gearbox modifications, axles, mechanical parts for the steam assisted uncoupler and the animated and non animated 4mm scale figures. I probably got to carried away a little with one figure that seemed like a good idea at the time, but after a period of calm / settling down, this figure was destined for the lay
I've been working on a small 0:4:0 shunting locomotive for Fun Town's market stall's. I decided early on to design a new locomotive drawing inspiration from the transverse cylinder engine "Albion" and a small shunting loco De Winton. To make things even more interesting, the loco would be operated with DCC and include a DCC uncoupler with an animated operator and also, other as yet undetermined animations to be added as the project progressed. The project starts with a compensating chassis machi
I needed a Tenshodo type 14:1 worm and wheel for the current project I'm working on. The Tenshodo's were about the right size and would probably do the job, but a preference for metal gears prompted this sub project. The one thing that this blog demonstrates besides novice gear making, is how much time can be spent making side tracked components before work can begin on the job in hand. Now that the gears are complete, changes have been made in the main project that may render these gears as unr
Modelling the Market Stall wagons for Fun Town.
Searching the web for market stalls that actually ran on tracks and existed in our historic past proved fruitless, I've no doubt that when this blog get's published on rmweb, dozens of examples will turn up, if so, they might inspire further models. The type of market stall required for Fun Town did exist as a road type vehicle and was available in model form as a plastic kit by Wills, therefore the Will's model was used as a dimensi
Part 2 continues modelling of the market stall wagons for Fun Town.
If you've already read part 1 of Market Stall Wagons, then please skip past this intro text to the images below.
Searching the web for market stalls that actually ran on tracks and existed in our historic past proved fruitless, I've no doubt that when this blog get's published on rmweb, dozens of examples will turn up, if so, they might inspire further models. The type of market stall required for Fu
Verne's Tower - Flying Machine.
As part of Fun Town, I was thinking of modelling a hot air balloon that revolved around the large tower, but in the previous blog on Mike Sharmans vertical boiler steam traverser, Mikkel commented that the traverser was very much in the stye of Jules Verne in appearance. This got me thinking about maybe modelling the hot balloon baised on something Jules Verne might have designed, a web search was done and after browsing through many images a compl
Fun Town - Sharmans Traverser.
Mike Sharmans vertical boiler steam traverser appears briefly on a Railscene 2 video that features one of Mike's earliest multigauge layouts with some of the most unusual locomotives, rail stock and features history has ever produced. I remember reading in one of the monthly magazines that lack of information would not prevent Mike from a loco build if one took his fancy, building a scale model from a single photograph was quite acceptable to him so
Fun Town - Monorail Part 2.
In this, part 2 of the monorail tram design and development, a lot of effort has been put into reliable running and how it was or was not acheived. A decision was made in part 1 of the design, to keep areas of development that didn't work out in the blog, this was so that we can see how the final design was arrived at. Normally, when ideas don't work out, I'll delete all the unwanted material, go back a few pages and hide all evidence to give the impressi
Follow the development of a monorail for Fun Town in this part 1,
Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it just Snitzl Town's overhead tram.
To be honest, didn't know whether to call this project an overhead train, engine or tram, technically its not yet a train, so I opted for tram. It's actually been eight months since my last blog, the main reason being that development of this overhead tram system has had a few major setbacks that caused me to take a three month break to sort o
Fun Town Micro Layout - Part II.
Here's part 2 of a small fun type layout which will also be my first venture into DCC. The main feature of part 2 of Fun Town Micro Layout has been the construction of wrought iron railings from 10 thou brass sheet and 0.5mm dia brass wire. Never tried this before, so there was a little learning curve in the initial satges as the process developed. Before starting the job, I purchased 20 x 0.5mm dia twist drills from the bay, expecting to break qu
Fun Town Micro Layout - Part 1.
Here's the humble beginnings of a small fun type layout which will also be my first venture into DCC. The layout will eventually include led lighting, traverser, animated room interiors, animated figures, overhead transportation and a market train that will consist of an engine and market stalls ( running on rails of course ).
Snitzl
Continues with the development of an analog Pentroller type.
This blog brings to an end the development of an analog Pentroller type controller with a couple of versions that have turned out rather well. The blog also includes a shuttle circuit that is designed to be used in combination with the controller in a future fun type layout with automatic trains, automated chimney sweep brushes, people waving, light flashing and whatever else that springs to mind. So, while browsing the r
An investigation into Stewart Hines Pentroller.
This blog investigates Stuart Hines Pentroller and presents a layout of the board, identifies components, includes schematics and presents various oscilloscope captures of the pulse width modulation and timimg pulses in an effort to understand the function of the design. Last night, I was a pleasantly surprised to receive a telephone call from Stuart, granting permission for details of Pentroller to be presented in this blog, howeve
Using a laser printer to create printed circuit boards ?.
Stumbled across the method of using a laser printer to create printed circuit boards on the internet and thought I'd present my experiences with this method as a blog. Not having the appropriate software for creating circuit board artworks, I actually photographed the trackside of a now discontinued controller from the 1990's, made a few alterations, coloured the track in black, mirrored the artwork and then printed nine co
An experiment with full panel decals as an alternative to traditional lining methods.
The idea for this experimental blog came after a second attempt at lining the Beattie Well Tank.
I've often heard it said that lining rolling stock takes practice, practice practice, but I didn't want to spend the rest of my life re-spraying and lining a Beattie Well Tank, I'd sooner spend that time building, building, building, also the Beattie Well Tank required bespoke graphics that would be i
Adding details to the chassis including springes, valves and lots more.
History.
Joseph Beattie was one of the old school locomotive designers who believed in a low centre of gravity for his locos. Boiler centre line was kept naturally low, while well tanks between the frames were employed rather than the higher side or saddle tanks. An whole series of boilers and smokebox's were designed for burning coal instead of coke. The last six and the Nine Elms locomotives had square
Here's a little design and development work on Flexichas Motor Bogies.
Been thinking for quite some time about modelling a couple of motor bogies with Sharman type suspension and although the idea I have in mind is new to me, I wouldn't be overly surprised if the idea had already been done. Some years ago, scale flange wheels were fitted to all snitzl rolling stock, which in turn made all of the fixed chassis locos unreliable due to derailing. Presently, with the exception of tw
Brief Prototype History for the T14.
The LSWR Class T14 was a class of ten 4-6-0 locomotives designed by Dugald Drummond for express passenger service for London & South Western Railway, built at Eastleigh between 1911 and 1912. The T14 was not one of Drummonds better loco designs, they suffered from heavy coal and water consumption and the axle boxes ran extremely hot. Later modifications included removal of the paddlebox type splashers, raising the footplate and forced lubri
This project is to try and do as much as possible to finish off an L.S.W.R. class F9 4:2:4T.
Brief Prototype History for the Bug.
The bug was Dugald Drummonds inspection loco built by L.S.W.R. works at Nine Elms and completed in april of 1899, numbered 733. Original livery for the loco was apple green edged with chocolate with a black line edged either side by white. The saloon was painted dark green / brown with the upper recessed panels in salmon pink, lining for the saloon
