I actually finished all the scenic work on this layout just before we moved house in 2020. Wish I had known about MERG back then it might have simplified some of the wiring for the lighting, not that I would have been able to solder stuff easily as back then the 'workbench' was 10'' 6'' tray!
I' m tempted to take the track up at the points as the inner loop doesn't work that well. Also the back right corner is a bit tight and has always proved problematic with couplings of which I ha
So continuing with the wiring.
I had posted a query on the forum about an AC/DC converter unit and someone suggested making a rectifier. Not made one before and it took an evening of working out which way round the diode had to go and soldering it all up in the shed at the bottom of the garden. Good chance to test out the new adjustable temperature iron something which I have wanted since getting in to my head that I want to start making brass etch and whitemetal kits.
Tested it out on a
I tapped some u shaped nails into the balsa second layer to act as a wiring conduit and started running wiring round from the point motors to the switch panel.
I added a capacitor discharge unit as I don't want to burn the point motors out.
I started adding wiring for the track supply (only 6 wires now required)
I picked up some eye loop screw things for tidying up the wiring and also picked up some 6mm PE spiral and started tidying up the point motor wiring. The plan being that in t
So what to build in a layout that is small and in a box, that will look as realistic as I could possibly make it.
The running line would be a loop There would be a passing place A station A pond A station yard A small goods yard? A house A garden with a potting shed A road bridge A bridge over a stream A small scrub land field A road Running line on an embankment Lights Trees and other vegetation
Quite a list but I reckoned that I could fit it all in.
I drew up on some tracing (bakin
For a few months I had being on the look out for a small box of robust construction, ideally with handles, a lid that would fit in with the rest of the lounge furniture and not look to obtrusive. A lucky find in Hay on Wye led to the purchase of just such an item. The depth of the box was important, it is about 100mm deep on the inside. I wanted to build a small model railway, being a 00 modeller and having a few 009 items of stock, 009 was the obvious choice for scale.
The size of the box i
So to build the layout up in layers I made the unusual step of selecting balsa wood. Usually I would use plywood and softwood for a model railway But with the depths I was trying to achieve it was simply not possible to go for any other wood. I also only had a bike for getting planks of wood back home on.
The bottom layer is for the pond constructed of 3 lengths of balsa wood. The next deck up is for the road and the stream bank, with the planks being laid at 90 degrees to the layer below a
