In my last blog entry - was it really two weeks ago - I mentioned I had started to give some thought to the roof girders which support the two inner pitches of the roundhouse roof.
The three pitched roundhouse roof has four supports - the outer walls form two - the other two are 4' high latticed girders each supported by four cast iron octagonal columns, situated under the two troughs of the roof .
I obtained these columns from Colin Seymour - Alan Gibson - as left over stock from the EM Bat
For those of you who might be wondering about the lack of any post for the past couple of weeks the answer is I am on an enforced break from modelling due to the need to redecorate two rooms in the house
It's not all decorating as I have found some time to investigate how I am going to make replacements for the mdf roof trusses as supplied by York modelmaking, not that there is anything wrong with their laser cut items, it's just that I have decided the roof will need to be removable in ord
With the walkways now complete and painted - a coat of Halfords white primer with the planks given a wash of Humbrol 53+62 - the time has come to fix them, the steps and the firebuckets to the box.
I decided to fix the walkways to their support brackets using a thin coat of araldite so that removal for any repair at a future date is possible. Here are a selection of photos of the completed signal box - I hope you like the result - I certainly do.
Before getting on to the construction of the walkways here are a few photos of the 'stench pipe' fabricated from 1.5mm brass tube bent to a suitable shape with the connection to the loo added for good measure!!
After much thought I decided to make the walkways from nickel silver strip and wire in order to give it a degree of strength and to minimise any accidental damage.
Looking at the set of drawings of the 20ft box in Midland Record No 2 there is a good drawing of the handrail cla
Here are a few pics of the drain downpipes before painting. They are fabricated from 1mm brass tube with split pins soldered at appropriate points to represent the joints and fixings.
Photos of the stench pipe to follow.
I have revisited my copy of Midland Record No2 and have now found a way of representing the handrail clamps on the walkway so my next task is to make up the signal box walkways from nickel silver strip, brass pins and 0.3mm wire.
The PCB board inserted into the roof is courtesy of my S4 Glevum Group colleague Dave the groups electronics guru - thanks Dave.
As mentioned in a previous post I ran out of LEDs and sent for a pack of 3mm Protowhite [Golden Light] from Bromsgove Models. I also decided to try out one of their DCC Concepts LED/Lamp Control boards.
Two of the new LEDs have been fitted to Dave's circuit board without the 'flourescent tube' and a further LED has been fashioned into the exterior gas lamp at the
Following my recent posting I received two constructive comments from RMwebbers.
I forgot the box stands on a concrete plinth and that there should be steel RSJ's to support the 2 central pillars above the lead out slot. This has now been rectified by adding a layer of 60thou plasticard around the base with the top edge champered. I have just made the pair of transverse 'I' beams to go under central pillars - not fixed yet so not in the attached photos. Thanks for your comments Keith.
An
The box furniture has now been added and includes the booking-in desk, cupboard, stools, chair, clock and finally the two stoves.
The latter have been modified to act as electrical pick-ups for the lighting, Each stove has a sprung pick up added to the top of the stove pipe which makes electrical contact with copper tape attached to the underside of the roof.
This needs to be tidied up - one of the LEDs in the tube does not work and I have now obtained fresh supplies from Bromsgrov
Having finished the lever frame and instrument shelf I decided to start the assembly of the box side panels. So far I have glued the rear and two ends to each other and to the mdf sub base and left the front off in order to fix the interior detailing.
Apparently the floor covering in most Midland signal boxes is linoleum so I cut a piece of 5 thou plasticard and painted it 'lino colour' before fixing the instrument shelf and lever frame in position at the rear of the box.
The two stoves [unfi
The lever frame is now painted and is ready to go into the box as is the Instrument Shelf complete with the Block Instruments and Bells.
Painting the levers was relatively straight forward although I must admit the chevrons on levers 14 & 15 - the Down Main and Up Main Detonators - took a steady hand with the black chevrons added using a 0.25 rotring pen. Levers 19,29 and 22 are also all Facing point locks and consequently are painted black [bottom] and blue [top].
Adding the r
The lever frame is now satin black and the signal levers red - what a difference a spot of paint makes
The remaining levers will be painted over the next few days after the paint dries thoroughly.
Just finished scratch building the Block Instruments, Bells, Telephones, Repeaters etc and fixed them to the shelf along with the Signal Diagram display panel - the latter will have a photoshopped diagram added after painting. I now have a Springside kit of whitemetal parts to sell after deciding they were not suitable.
In all a very fiddly job but the results are very satisfying.
The Block Instruments are made from 2.5mm square brass section with square section plasticard inserted into
All 47 levers are now in position so here are a few photos:-
This one shows the frame in position inside the box - trial fit only at this stage.
The instrument shelf has been fabricated from nickel silver strip. the shelf is laminated from pieces of 3/4 & 5mm x 0.3mm strip whilst the supports are made up in a jig from 1mm x 0.3mm strip. The round part is formed from modified High Level 2mm CSB etches... the only thing of appropriate size I could find in my metal stock.
The additional Masokits etches arrived in the post this morning so work on the Metro tank ceased temporarily - I need some extra information on it anyway....
I have now made up the remaining 17 lever slots for the frame and now have the complete 47 positions for the levers which will, hopefully, be added tomorrow.
Here are a few photos of todays work.
I am still waiting for the two Masokits etches so I've made a start on an EM GWR Metro tank kit I promised to build for a client a while ago....... feeling a bit guilty about the delay.
In the meantime here are a few photos, as promised, of some of my locos taken around the shed yard.
All the locos on view, apart from 75004, are Bachmann and Hornby origin which have been rewheeled to P4. I have another 40 odd RTR and kits in the stock cupboard
I have had a quiet week on the modelling front due to son number 2 going for a job interview and the mother in law going into hospital..................................
However on the positive side I now have a copy of George Pryers book 'Signal Box Diagrams of the LMS - Bristol Area' which gives details of Lawrence Hill Junction Signal Box for 1950. The book confirms that the frame is at the back of the box and that a M R tappet frame with 6" centres was installed in 1938. It also shows the
I set up the full layout in preparation for a visit by the Glevum Group earlier this week and took the opportunity to position the box on the layout - I have since decided it is not in the correct positon - to take some photos.
In the photos the roof now has all but the final couple of layers of tiles, but these have since been added. The finials are from MSE and the two chimney stove pipes are from brass tube. Following a discussion at the meeting about the ridge of the roof and a subsequ
The kit of parts from York Modelmaking included a set of their self adhesive tiles of the type I used on the shed sand dryer and office complex. I could have used them again on the box but using at the available photos to measure the size of the prototype tiles I found they were 9 or 10in wide, whereas the self adhesive version are a scale 12in.
I decided to use my tried and tested method using 5thou plasticard and set about making a plasticard jig to assist cutting individual tiles to a cons
Some pre-formed guttering arrived from Eileen's Emporium yesterday so I decided to sort out the the roof. This guttering is very good and having filed down tube for the loco shed on my Sheep Pasture layout I don't mind taking short cuts this time.
Having initally fixed the fascia board using 2.5mm x 1mm plasticard I decided it was oversize and removed it, replacing it with 2mm x 2mm brass L angle strip. This is more acceptable and nearer to scale. The top edge of each of the 4 pieces of fascia
I have spent most of the day painting the second coat on the four elevations of the signal box - a bit fiddly in places as there are three main colours and rather a lot of 'colour joints' which required a lot of tidying to achieve a reasonable finish. I have also painted the floor a linoleum colour and the interior white. On reflection I think the lower wood panels of the interior should be a dark brown - can anyone confirm this?
The box nameplates are particularly pleasing being laser etche
Further progress has been made with the signal box over the past few days with the steps now completed and painted. I had to do a few modifications to the handrails and the platform as my drawing did not match the latest prototype photos.
The roof shell has been fitted with it's Rowmark plastic to form the surface onto which the tiles will be added. I am toying with the idea of using individual tiles cut from 5thou plasticard. I have used this method on the stationary winding house of
As mentioned in my earlier blog I now have a Bachmann 7F 53809 to add to the locos available for the shed. Of course it will now take it's place in the queue for conversion to P4 but for now here are some photos taken on shed the other night.
I wonder if Ultrascale will do a wheel conversion set.
I should have removed the Bachmann couplings - sorry.
Since compiling the set of drawings for the box guess what - yes I have found a better photo of the front of the box and yes there are a few differences.
First the lower windows are higher up and second the toilet is bigger - must have had large signalmen Thanks to Paul for pointing this out as it's better to know before rather than after.
The new toilet is scratch built using the internal formers provided by York Modelmaking.
A few hours work and the modifications are now complete with
After a call out this morning to sort out my son's car, I managed to do some more on the box this afternoon.
Both ends are now assembled and have been test fitted against the front elevation. The corners interlock very well with the front elevation and are a stepped design to form an overlap with the four laminated layers of each piece.
Next the rear elevation......
This afternoon, at long last, I made a start on the model of Lawrence Hill Junction Signal Box. The basis of the model is another stunning kit of parts commissioned from York Modelmaking which arrived last week.
The kit consists of a shell formed from interlocked peices of 2mm mdf onto which will be fixed the walls of the box made from laminations of Rowmark plastic. Each of the four walls consists of four layers of the plastic onto which is fixed a further layer on rustic cladding. So far
