Trying a new format and a new venture in one.
I have a Lima 87 and a second hand Heljan 86.
I was initially going to cut the roof out of the 86 and put it on the 87, but then I checked the body shells, and it seems that they are the same. Certainly the same enough for my eye - which is along the lines of "if it looks right, it is right". So I plan instead to cut the cabs off each and swap them round. I'll use the 87 body and 86 cabs to practise and do the other way round for real. As
I have now sprayed the ceiling and I am now almost ready to lay track. Just got to build another few feet of baseboard supports and then I can get the track bed set up. I reckon that by the end of my nearly two weeks off coming up, I will have track down, and maybe even trains running.
The other day, at the chemist, I got myself a new tool. Illuminated tweezers. I think they are supposed to be for cosmetics purposes, but they will be very useful for all manner of tasks I have lined up.
It seems that I have to decorate the kitchen before I can carry on with the important work. But it's all more thinking time so that when I get the paint sprayer off a colleague so I can sort the ceiling and walls out, I should be able to get track beds cut and the track down. I sometimes think my proposed track plan (which hasn't really changed from the masking tape posted earlier) is too simple, but I can always stick a siding or two in for a loco at the end. And any excitement I need I can
I have now mainly lined the walls and need now just to put expanded polystyrene sheet up in the gaps and spray the ceiling to stop the concrete from falling. The kitchen flooring has been turned over to give a nice clean surface for the floor to go on, but that leaves the unavoidable dust and debris from building an extension on the underside, and it falls off all over the place, leaving dust and mank everywhere.
And today I got my last order of the initial bout of purchasing through ready
<p>Last weekend I bought a pack of B&Q's finest layout planning hardware.
A four pack of blue masking tape.  I can set out my track plan and see it as it will look in full size without making a single permanent mark on the board. Â
All I need now is to save up for my points.  I've decided that since I have the space, I'm going for nice long Tillig ones.
The first photo is the view along the station throat.  The bendy route on the left will dive under to meet the rig
It was my birthday yesterday. No trains (yet..), but I did get this: of course, when I say "this", I mean the wood not the people. They were already mine.
Today, I have this:
All the while I am thinking through a plan in my head. I am dithering over the four track mainline. I would like one, but my dad's locos require 5' preferably and 4'6" minimum radius (I have a few of his kit built locos: off the top of my head, two Saints and a Pannier, but for sure access to more), a
I am currently clearing the basement ready to set up baseboards for my proper layout. The image shows what I hope will be the basics of the station.
I plan to have only the ends of the platforms visible, with the rest of the station implied while the tracks curve round to continue the continuous run.
It is going to be wired with overhead at least in due course, as I want to run electrics. I have plenty of pictures of Crewe with steam under wires, so I can simply extrapolate that t
I have been on and on about the failings of Hornby's bogies/pony trucks for as long as I've had locos. Somehow Bachmann escaped, but for how much longer?
Anyway, there follow some pictures showing Hornby's bogie as supplied and a temporarily assembled whitemetal replacement.
There are clearly some jobs that Honrby's bogie has to do that I will not be needing, such as holding a front coupling, and I may well find why the side lumpy sticky out bits (I should know their name and function,
Okay, the LED oil lamps light up as expected, but it turns out that in the dark, there is lots of bleeding light from the actual body. I think that next time, and before I fit them fast for sure, I will repaint the lamps. It would help with the delicate bits of trying to make it look like there is an iron on them as well. The single 1.5mm hole worked well, as opposed to the two .8mm holes suggested in the article.
And a question. Nigel Burkin's book refers to shuffling CV values to get t
Princess Alice now has a numberplate and nameplates on. She also has lighting up oil lamps on the front.
Photographs of various stages follow.
This one is my bench in the conservatory. It's brand new, hence the lack of sun protection at this young stage. For a change, I've actually got some prototype photographs for a project. Only two, but they helped in that I now know that there is some sort of pipe at the front of the frame which can be taken as being represented by the wires f
So far I have spent several hours, as has my son, rubbing the numbers off my City of Manchester, so I can change her to Princess Alice.
The numbers on the Hornby model are larger than those on my photos, and need to be taken off, as therefore for the same reasons do the tender letters.
The problem is that on the right side, I have taken off enough to reveal the plastic underneath, but still I can see the shadow of the numbers , so I may have to go to Town on the weathering after. We’ll se
This afternoon, I've started the inlaid track around where the goods shed is going. Originally I had planned to hack the kit to have a twin/staggered goods shed, but then I realised I'd be shunting into and out of it. Is that allowed? I can't find my rule book, so I can't check... I know I ought to have planned what was going where and all that, but this is the first time I've actually got as far as I have in terms of scenery and a cohesive whole. Anyway, it's an exercise in using what I've
Only two pictures this time, but they show what I've been up to.
I'm behaving and doing things properly. I cleaned my rails before I painted them, and I've left things that I've glued (four layers of cardboard glued with woodglue for my raised areas) to dry overnight before I carry on. And, surprise surprise, it's all working better than in my impatient days of rushing ahead to get things done. And my son has been helping to paint the rails, which means I've got to let him play when it's
I've wired the layout now, and I'm quite proud of the result. It looks neat and tidy underneath, and there's a feed to all areas.
I've run my Bachmann 03 very slowly along all the routes, so that's good. I'll do a video in the daylight to show just how slowly it goes, and also show off my wiring and plug/socket.
I'm going to bed now, to dream of more things to do.
The Doctor has told me to make my model for medical purposes!
So I'll have to finish it now. I'm making the exchange sidings at the moment - the box from my pressure cleaner is coming in very handy. This is far more fun than putting boxes in skips!
The first picture is my initial idea for an island exchange platform, but I decided it was too sharp, even allowing for that section being worked by muscle power.
The second picture shows my second plan which is going to be permanent. The e
I've got running trains already! Space for four short vans/wagons, and a place for them to come from and go to. All I need now is to arrange the narrow gauge bit and I'll be ready to start ballast and inlaid bits.
Photographs show the final (for now) track plan. Any weaknesses or improvements people can think of would be kindest now rather than when I've started the scenic bits. I'm hoping to be able to add to each end if need be, but for now I'll be having like a boxed in yard with buil
I think I stand a good chance of doing something with my next project. I've got an old wardrobe door and stripped it of hinges and stuff, put a frame round the bottom, and stuck a layer of cork/cardboard from an old notice board on top.
The plan is to make something small enough to keep and work on upstairs and, I hope, to finish. Inspired partly by the latest Model Rail I'm going for a small shunting industry type set up, and inspired by a recent Model Rail, I'm going to have narrow-gauge
I got City of Manchester, in black with the semi-streamlined smokebox.
I also have a photograph of Princess Alice in the same condition (more or less, to my untutored eye), and a plan to rename/number my new one to go with my own Princess Alice. I won't post the photo of the steam Princess Alice, because I don't know who took it etc.
However, I will put up a photo of my renamed loco when I've done it. I'll see about hacking the bogie as well to make it look better. I might even weathe
I've got a Fleischmann 0-4-0 electric loco which I'm never going to use unless I modify it in someway.
So I'm planning on fitting a chip (I can't quite see how to go about it, but I'll keep at it and publish my results if I manage it), fitting lights, amending the couplings from the continental ones it's got, adding larger sprung industrial type buffers, carving off the cast handrails and fitting wire ones with knobs, fitting proper grills instead of the cast plastic ones and repainting eith
Please may I be excused not making any more progress and not updating the blog recently? I've had to do that nasty work thing they make me do in good modelling time. On the plus side, I've only got 8 hours tomorrow, then I'm off until Friday at 5pm, and my brother's coming to see me tomorrow for a couple of days, and then I've got to entertain some children during half term, so I think a bout of Ben playing on my trains while I tidy the basement and lay more track and solder stuff together and
In case anyone cares (and I know it's not to do with the layout, but the layout is laid out under the books - does that count?).
The collection there is my older collection. I daren't re-read Asimov, as last time I tried, instead of being awestruck at the ideas, I was terribly disappointed by the clunky writing style, and I don't want to spoil it.
I also have newer books, by the likes of Peter F Hamilton, Richard Morgan and Alistair Reynolds. And Iain M Banks.
These pictures show most of my interests. The bookshelves hold most of my science fiction collection, mainly Asimov, Clarke and E.E. "Doc" Smith, much of my texts from my classics degree and some of my railway books. And a couple of buses parked on the front.
Anyway, the first picture is the other end before being cleared:
Then the board cleared ready for track laying to begin:
Then three of work in progress getting towards the end result. This is not the end result
Right. I've found the problem. They were too big! I'll just do this one, of one end of the new board before I cleared it for work, then I'll get to the rest of them once I've seen whether this works okay!
Back soon, with luck.
The plan was to upload some pictures - I don't have enough words to paint one let alone several!
However, something has gone wrong within the Bomputer, so I can't upload pictures to here or to Flickr on Firefox or Interweb Explorer. Rest assured I'm taking them as I go on, but they'll all have to come as one big lump when I manage to make it all work.
For now, then, I have moved the various buildings around, as I realised that I couldn't see the engine shed which I've put between the br
