I got back to building more pointwork today, the first for some time. One job I always feel a bit wary about is getting the joggle in the stock rail where the end of the switchblade fits. One of the recommended ways to do this is to bend the rail twice with a pair of pliers. I've always found this a bit hard, because you need to get the two bends accurate or else you end up with the rail bent in the vertical plane and then nothing will ever run over the point correct ever.
What we are after
An hour on the lasercutter this morning allowed me to mark the trackwork for the fourth baseboard onto 6mm cork. The marking out was pretty much perfect but I over-cooked it on the cutting power. Cork cuts really quite badly and you need a lot of power to go any distance into the material with the corresponding charring.
Marking out the cork this way does allow you to make sure you correctly get the flow of the track.
My Claud (D16/3) waits patiently for some more track before
A good few hours in TurboCAD, followed by some time on the laser cutter produced parts for the fourth baseboard for my Stour Valley project. This board was a bit more complex than the previous three because it needed to accommodate the small stream which I think was originally part of the moat of the castle. I only had to recut one piece where I screwed up the drawing which is pretty good going!
The ply was stuck together with Gorilla glue, which got me thinking, do they make it from Gorill
Over the last couple of weeks I managed to get the remaining line in the platform laid and wire up the remainder of the track. The result means that I can now play at shunting trains in and out of the goods yard.I tried with a mix bag of stock in terms of springing/compensation/solid axles and my fussiest locomotive - an unsprung Hornby class 31 (must order new sprung chassis from Mr Rumney soon). I filmed the result.
We had a few days away last week and stayed in a beautifully renova
Having got the Marks Tey bound platform road laid together with the remainder of the track on the second baseboard I thought I'd celebrate with a bit of stock and some photographs. Having 4 coaches pass the 'Wheeeeeeeee' test along the main line was most satisfying! I've got enough rail to finish the Cambridge platform but will need to get some more from Scaleforum.
A J15 sits with the pickup goods in the yard. This siding was also used as a lay-by. For some reason Clare castle has been repl
I've managed to get a fair bit of modeling in over the last week working on a variety of projects.
The major project was getting the Stour Valley P4 layout back up on its own new legs. It was previously on the legs used for Fen End Pit so I had to dismantle it every time I went out to a show. Getting the 3rd baseboard up then encouraged me into some track laying, this went well but threading Exactoscale chairs onto rail is even harder than normal when your finger tips are tingling from chemo
I consider myself to be very lucky to live in a town which still has a shop with a worthwhile model department. Ely is lucky to have City Cycle Centre as it holds a very respectable range of paints, raw materials and tools as well as the usual RTR/RTP models. Also relatively locally a day of shopping with the family usually involves going to Bury St Edmunds (no one in their right mind attempts shopping in Cambridge, no parking, too many tourists and no model shop!). Model Junction in Bury is the
Yesterday was spent with Fen End Pit in the loco shed at Page's Park. The conditions were far from ideal as the temperatures were in the 30s and the shed environment was pretty filthy, not a combination designed to allow model railway layouts to function flawlessly. The 009 and O16.5 guys were in the cleanliness of the station building but the larger scales were in the shed. Temperatures and dirty made several things fail, I had to jury rig the power to the conveyor and revolving screen at one p
Exhibiting a layout can be a hard work and great care has to be taken to avoid damaging the layout. Stock and 'removable' scenic feature are also liable to damage in transport so packing can be very important. Having an 'everything in its place and a place for everything', approach limits both the potential to forget to take things and the potential for damage.
So this week I've been making boxes to help transport bits of Fen End Pit.
First up is are the boxes that fit the new large engi
This afternoon I spent a few hours on the CAD and laser cutter. I started off making the last diagonal bracing and sticking that in. I cheated a bit this time around and purchased a length of 45 degree timber molding. This meant I could put in the diagonals without the pain of having to sand the ends of the brace to 45 degrees. The resulting baseboard has virtually no 'wiggle' despite only having 50mm deep framing.
I also spent a few minutes removing the cork underlay where the platform
A wander around Clare country park on Saturday (boy it was hot!) spurred me on to cutting the plywood for the next baseboard of my Stour valley project. Last time we went a few years back the station building was all boarded up and in a pretty sorry state. Fortunately it is now opened up again as a Tea room and it did a very decent bacon bap and cheese toastie. The booking hall is available for eating and features some nice photographs and map of the station.
Construction is all fr
Progress on the Slaters Simplex took a step back , a combination of 'Chemo lethargy' and 'cock up'. I was dismantling the loco prior to getting it ready to prime the body work and decided to try and test run the chassis having slightly increased the back-to-back to make it run through my points correctly. Unfortunately disaster struck and the DCC sound chip let the magic smoke out. A repair/replacement is on its way I hope thanks to Digitrains.
I also decided to revisit my decision to abando
The Ely Show was great, it was good to meet up and chat with several rmwebbers as well as various current and ex-colleagues. The layout operated well all day with faults limited to a broken rail joint on one point, a missing or failed dropped to one switch blade and a missing uncoupling magnet, not too bad for the first outing of a completely rebuilt layout. We had more troubles getting everything in the car than I would have liked but I think we just to learn how to back it better. The public r
Thanks to the crew working overtime, and lots of helpful stewards from the Ely club, Fen End Pit got set up in the gym ready for tomorrow.
Hope to see plenty of rmwebber's there, please come and say 'hi'
David
With the Ely show rapidly approaching a couple of afternoon's help from my friends managed to complete the lighting rig. This is formed of a box girder made from 3mm ply, three rows of 'warm white' LEDs and two rows of colour changing LEDs. I also had to make a 'gallows bracket' for the centre of the layout. The whole lot got a coat of blue to match the facia and the result looks pretty professional, even though I say it myself.
The LEDs seem to work well, and being able to adjust the c
On Saturday 21st Hastings Diesels tours arranged a tour from Hastings, via London and Cambridge to Ely and King's Lynn. Billed as 'The West Norfolk Wanderer' it was intended that folk would travel to Ely and King's Lynn for a fine day out and included a quick run out and back on the Middleton Towers freight line. My enterprising brother (he has his uses and a blog http://www.northernvicar.co.uk/) spotted this via the Cambridge university railway club's news and contacted the organizers regarding
This is not one of those blog entries about 'lost modeling mojo' or real life getting in the way but rather, hopefully, some useful ideas on layout support.
Many years ago a company called IKEA introduced Britain to the delights of IVAR shelving. This simple system used pine uprights and pine shelves, and to keep everything upright steel cross-braces needed to be purchased. The first usage I can remember for layouts was on Middlepeak wharf and several other people copied the idea! To complic
We had a busy week on Fen End Pit, the Easter break meant additional assistance was available from my Son so we managed to complete the cutting and fixing of backscenes and the revisions to the layout legs to better support the boards.
Friday evening meant another night out and a chance to work on the Slater's Simplex. It is convenient to have a project which can be 'carried out' away from the workbench. The buffer plates, couplings got stuck on to the ends.
Also the axleboxes and t
I managed to get some more work done on Fen End Pit's washing plant over the last couple of days. The 3D printed steps got installed and the power up to the washer motor got routed into a conduit. Overall I'm pleased with the result.
Now 'An announcement'
Fen End Pit was booked to appear at the Ely MRC's show on 19th May 2018. http://www.elymrc.org.uk/exhibition.html .When I received my news back in January I felt I had no choice but to withdraw the layout as I did not expect
As I mentioned in my previous blog posting I was concerned about the design of the fan and fan grill for the Slater's Simplex. As the kit doesn't provide for the fan to be driven the grill around the radiator would prevent the fan and the belt driving it from being removed ever being replaced.
I decided to see if, rather than just gluing the radiator grill in place, I could make it removable by using 16BA bolts. I bend up the grill which is provided as a etch and strengthened the corners wit
An enjoyable night out yesterday gave a chance to stick more beautiful castings on the Simplex. Getting the bearing for the fan into the radiator meant I could try out the drive for the radiator fan. Very satisfyingly the motor drive works, I had to reduce the 'dimming' on the accessory output (to increase the power to the fan motor) which had the benefit of reducing the 'whine' caused by the pulse width modulation effect on the coreless motor.
Putting these castings on is a real pleasure, t
So I thought I'd better explain briefly why I'm having various changes of plan and different projects going on. Bottom line is that I had a rather unpleasant diagnosis in February and 'the future' is now more uncertain than I might have hoped. I'm not intending to turn this blog into some kind of medical record, but I'm currently into my second cycle of Chemo.
My approach to dealing with this is to take each day as it comes and try to keep positive, if I can continue enjoying building model
The Zimo decoder and the stay-alive capacitors fitted well into the chassis, with both parts fitting within the brass frame. I have fitted a molex plug and socket to the speaker so that it can be disconnected and threaded through the main chassis casting.
I've now attached the fan motor cradle with epoxy to the main motor. The key thing in all of this is that so far everything can be dismantled.
The sound is rather fun, the Simplex engine sounds superb and somehow playing the '
Progress on the Simplex continues, the parts supplied with the kit fitted together superbly and getting the bearings and axles, motor, wheels, gears and delrin chain was very straight-forward.
The supplied sprung pick-ups have been inserted into the frames with the wires just lose pending wiring to the DCC chip.
The quality of the molded parts is excellent and the instructions have the look of a Hayne's manual. When the parts list includes 'Spark plugs' and 'Magneto' you know you are on
I made a start on the etched chassis for the Slater's simplex. The etch is quite thick material so a little filing needed to remove tabs and cusp. Very pleased with how well the parts fitted. A fair amount of heat was needed to get the solder to flow but the resulting chassis is strong and square.
The horn guides are cleverly made from the etched parts and form a slot which allows the horn block to move vertically. Again the fit the very good just requiring a few strokes with a file to
