One of my many! backofanenvelope plans surfaced the other day whilst going through a old hard drive and thought that this would do for my first venture into 2FS layout building. It will be a test bed for many things and is going to be around four foot long-ish. Based on a NER fictional location named after a place I lived in many years ago it will have a simple track plan apart from a 3 way point at the eastern end of the yard. I am going to have a go at Temploting this later tonight if I get th
Having gone through the 50 million shots that are no good I dug out a few of my day out at TINGS in Warwickshire. Bit of a trek back due to fender bender(s) but saw some really nice layouts and got some useful tips and info. Many pics have been taken on some of the layouts before and my skills behind the camera vary from ground shaking blurriness to bleached out flash infested snaps, some times I wish I know what I was doing and could get a half decent pic.. anyway here are my selections..
1
Ok so dug a few more out for people to have a look at.. Hope there not too much of the same. I always go with the best intentions of trying to take interesting pics but end up taking 30 of the same scene to get what I think is right!
Batty Moor
Hedges Hill Cutting
Parnhams
Rosneath
Having a quiet moment at work lunch break, I set about mocking up the scene for Oakworth. I need to work on the scenery and buildings to make sure it fits in with the track plan. I have removed the station and moved the track towards the front of the layout to make more space for the terrace at the back but also to allow for the potential expansion to the east where the station building(s) would sit. I am raining in the urge to plan for that too
In the meantime I have started to look at Sca
Well its been a bit of a busy week what with having to find somewhere to live, meeting up with AG homies and dashing North for Railex NE. Ok so I went a little mad at the Dapol stand as you can see and I am not sure wait I am going to use the GC HST on but it looks great and the 86 also but the 67 is what I really wanted. It's a lovely model and now going to have to put in for a bulk load of drop-in wheels-sets and source some decent decoders for them.
What a great show Railex NE is and this
As I am away from home and not able to get hands on tools and wood thought I would do a bit of a virtual mock up and rough one at that. This is the western end board and the larger of the two. I am going to do a card mockup too as I am not sure where I will cut the ply to make the contours for the road under the bridge and the coal yard below the station. Much cheaper to make a mess on card and given my clumsiness probably for the best.
Having done research I am going to have a short bay pla
After a jolly day out at Wycrail yesterday, highly recommended, I set about making some Easitrac for Oakworth. Now either I am doing it wrong or I am extremely slow both of which are probably true, it took me best part of the day to do 7 pieces. I had pondered laying cork underlay but failed to get some from the show so kind of kicking myself today I also need to find some pins for when I start putting down the rails. But things are now starting to move forward. I have a shopping list ready for
After a couple of days of plans not going to plan, I managed to get the soldering iron out and start building the points for Oakworth. I have found enough sleepers now to complete all three on the main board. I need to work out the tie bar issue and where they sit between bracing bars on the underside. I have made sure there is plenty of space for point monitors.
The first one is pretty easy as it is straight however always slow to get the brain cells working about the process Might get it
Well he knocked once really this morning, but he had 2 packages for me from the kindly elves at shop1@2mmfs association. One with the rail, jigs and PCB's and the other with a huge box of Easitrac plastic sleepers. The excitement was too much to contain and with childish zimto opened this all up at the breakfast table. I must say that everything was really well packaged and was very quick in arriving too, only sent the order off last week on Thursday,
So then I set about printing out my te
Ok, so all the points are done now (the last one nearest, another Y) and I need to start looking at laying it down on the board road bed. I need supplies so may not progress until after Warley at weekend.
However can be getting on with building design and since I no longer have access to Adobe Illustrator I managed to find a very acceptable alternative in iDraw for my Mac which is a 10th of the cost of AI and very much as good, obviously not as feature rich but excellent for my needs. So off
Well this is my first post on here an a bit of a test really. I was going to bring some stuff over from the old forum, but decided against it due to complete lack of activity. I am hope that this spurs me on to 'get things done' But being a serial scale hopper I am trying to tie myself down to 1 or maybe 2 at most so I can have some output.
Whilst digging around files sections I came across this plan which I drew some time ago. I still rather like it and think it would make a nice 2mmFS layo
So after a pretty difficult year and a bit, life starts to move on and I can get back to some real modelling rather that virtual and non! Yesterday I headed out of t'Dales to the NEAG meeting. The object was to make a 2mmFS Mineral Wagon Kit in a day and given my rustiness I wasn't confident that I would achieve this target. The first thing that was apparent was that I was only needing minuscule amounts of solder to stick things together. Although I think I am pretty neat with my track building
Ok so not huge leaps forward given that I had an unexpected guest and a going to see Skyfall tonight I have got pretty much nothing done, did however get one of the ends on which will provide the support. Anyway its late but just wanted to show there is progress of sorts. although not that exciting. Hopefully more tomorrow.
With 20mins to go to work you just have to fire up the soldering iron. So last night I started the 3rd and final point although I knew I was tired I just wanted to keep the momentum going. With only the stock rail added I realised that the end furthest from the heal (not sure of terminology) was out of line by about 2mm. Thinking that I would rectify this the following evening I left it to go to bed. However on getting up the urge to fix got too much and fired up the iron
All is well with t
Well there's a shocker its almost a year since my last post here and there wasn't much to report then. Life moves slowly, very slowly on but move it does. After a break I have come back to tinkering in the workshop well I say workshop more like a space with bench that I managed to build out of pallet wood scavenged from a skip but ceiling is a bit restrictive, however better than nowt. Over the last year I have accumulated some tools that have helped but its not really until the weather started
Well with over a month since my past ramblings I though it was about time to "do something" Now having settled into new flat finally only 6 weeks after moving in I cleared off the workbench commonly know as the kitchen table and got down to some modelling. For those of you reading my ramblings I have a confession to make, I have wandered from the path slightly but this is only in an effort to get modelling mojo back after a particularly busy patch at work. SO before you is the evidence of two sl
Not had much time this weekend for modelling due to family visits and being struck down with a particularly harsh cold. However I did manage to nearly knock up the second point for Oakworth, this is a #8 and on a very slight negative curve. All in all I am happy with this effort although I still need to gap and check continuity. Anyway its late and more to follow tomorrow.
Although there has been no progress since my last entry there has been progress of sorts. Having thought that my previous order for parts to start my Fencehouse J72 were lost in the post or order never arrived at shop3 headquarters arriving back at parents yesterday I was very pleasantly suprised to be handed 2 little packets one of which was the said parts! Hurrah!! Now there is no excuse to get started on my loco kit. However being on hols in the Dales far from kit and tools makes it a bit dif
So today's effort was put into constructing point 4. I spent a little over one hour 40 minutes building and now as I know what I need and the order in which it goes I am speeding up a bit but still taking time to get things wrong I feel a lot more comfortable building things up now.
After a trip to BnQ today with a friend who has a car I got an off cut of thick MDF which I thought would make an excellent surface for point building but didnt reckon on the pritt stick gluing the template so t
Ok so I couldn't resist having a go at the plan and having in the archive a suggestion from someone elsewhere I thought about the space issues and liked the idea of having a roundy roundy as trains could rumble through as shunting is carried out in the yard and then wagons could be added or taken away from the passing trains.. the more I think about this the more I like it as the space take would be around the same but be able to be made to fit in with the room rather than having to get the 'tra
Ok so decided not to allow current events to stop me I set about building point 2. Decided to tidy up a bit and found a bit of hardboard to protect the desk and also to be able to see bit n bobs more easily.
This time I started with a number 6 as I thought this is what I will be using So first I soldered up the frog after filing down the rails, I really need to get a better file for this and with York coming up another item to add to my shopping list. Then I set out the sleepers that I hav
Ok so after some Templotting at the weekend I tested out the size of the plan and am quite suprised how bit it is and thats without the 3way so I am going to have to go some giggling to get this into a more managable size as there needs to be space for the fiddleyards/cassettes! but I think it is a workable plan and like the flowing curves allowed by hand built track. And finally a side on view of a Tank loco and 2 (ahem) Southern coaches!
Having spent the day doing stuff, I managed to do 'bits' on Oakworth now caught on image, really need to light my pictures properly.. Sort of finished the basic board but need to brace the underneath and also work out thin ply for facing of the external bits. I have extended it over the original plan as I felt it was just too cramped and needed a bit more space to make it look more believable. The idea is to be looking down into the station with retaining walls all round and grimy terraces. Well
So this morning before rushing off to work checked the gluedness of the baseboard for the first section. I have found if I do it in steps it seems to be easier. I also have run out of glue sticks! Should have the basic structure sorted tonight. I have yet to think how I am going to incorporate the fiddle yard, but I think it might involve magnets and copper..
An finally the layout will now be formally know as Oakworth
So after some manic days at work feeling to tired to do anything I finally got to play a bit with Templot and have firstly done the non 3 way version but feel this is not as elegant as the 3 way one that I roughly tried out, so some more playing with is needed to make this fit the area unless I go for the 3way challenge. It all needs tidying up and the timbers shoving etc, but the starting point has been made. Comments on any possible improvements greatfully accepted.
I have which will be a
