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About this blog

An O Gauge BR Branch Line Terminus Model Railway set around 1980 in or about Somerset. Ish.

 

The lock-down diorama kind of got out of control.

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Entries in this blog

Banner Repeater KIt Build - 4

It's been a couple of days mostly waiting for tiny bits of paint to dry... and some musicing. Finally everything is coming together. The case, or whatever you call it, is finally in place as is the ladder. I added a small washer before the signal arm so it sits 'in the middle' of the case nicely. When all folded up (for the umpteenth time) the arm turns nicely, just tight enough not to wobble but free enough for a servo to drive it.      There's no base with the kit so I've

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Miserable in SIgnals

Banner Repeater KIt Build - 3 (Going On A Bit ISn't It)

A good deal of time on the information super highway has confirmed these signal were not available in mechanical flavour, so plastering it with cranks to make it work is no longer a plan. Neither is the rod going up the post, since with three ninety degree bends there would be way to much flexing going on.     So the plan is now to turn the drive through ninety degrees with a crank or similar. Having soldered the bearing tube to the pivot support and doing a trial assembly i

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Miserable in SIgnals

Banner Repeater KIt Build - 2

When the paint had dried on the arm and 'opaque glass' it was time for a trial assembly. The first of these I built I didn't make work, because it's sat about 40mm from a tunnel mouth and 70mm from the wall and there seemed little point so I just did the lamp conversion.  This is new territory now. It all went together nicely, except that the arm was jammed in between the 'glasses'.   At this point I remembered commenting in a way earlier post the strip seemed a bit thin and I'd try a

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Miserable in SIgnals

Banner Repeater KIt Build

As I mentioned earlier now seems a good chance to build this kit, or rather the second one of the two in the kit. The instructions are essentially a nice sketch of how it goes together together with some drawings of various possible formats. I can't remember if there was another sheet with this giving dimensions, but I do remember having to to a lot of research as to height and such. From there I'm essentially guessing by extrapolating the drawings for things like how high the platform sits on t

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Miserable in SIgnals

Ballast And Clay.

With no tree stuff yet, I've made a bit of an effort on the ballasting and claying front. Neither are overly spectator orientated activities, the ballasting progresses which is a Good Thing, but I've also clayed up what I'm calling the 'parcels' siding. It's called that because the end is going to be a parcels platform - because I want to have a couple of BRUTE trollies I found a kit for. It's also a general siding of many years standing and the ash ballasting has basically converted to rather s

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Miserable in Ballasting

Ballast 2 - The sequel.

So it seems having cork under the track causes problems with my 'mix wall paper paste with the ballast' approach. Basically the paste flakes won't stick to the cork, and rather than soaking into the baseboard (always chipboard back in the day) it just sits there and expands if the ballast is re-wetted, say for tinting with a wash. . So for everything else (so far, anyway) I've reverted to placing the ballast dry and then misting on a 20% PVA solution with a sprayer - from a safe distance so the

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Back To Concrete

This is the concrete sleepered section after going round concreting over the grime brush slips. As few bits of painted ballast to remove and all will be good.   View the full article  

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As Thoughts Look South

With the end in sight, though still quite a distance off, thoughts are turning to the other end of the layout and what to put where and why. I have a plan, but I suspect it will evolve somewhat as things roll south just like the north did (i.e nothing like the plan at all). For now it's a bit of a stuff park.

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And...Ballast!

Ah yes, ballast. Now there's a topic that can run and run. I guess everyone has their favourite, and favourite way of laying it. I spent a few years wondering around on the dammed stuff and a lot of layouts use a much too big a size. I guess it depends on taste really, and as with the long point timber saga earlier not everything scales. My choice was essentially based on the observation that you can hold a lump of ballast in your closed hand pretty much. While searching I stumbled on a spec she

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And The Signal Box Interior

The signal box it going to be lit, ergo and interior is required. After looking at several options I went for the Severn Models one. This is what you get. It's beautifully etched and the detail is amazing. The etch itself was so shiny it didn't need cleaning before soldering. It's brass by the way, the lighting makes it look nickle-silver. There's a very helpful sheet containing instructions and advice on building. The maker is pretty pro-glue, but with my involvement with glue involv

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All Moved.

So that's everything moved across. Just need to figure out how to get pics into the blog post listing rather than the default snazzy designs.    Back on the layout, more ballasting has been done, all but the RBO trees are made and placed, though not fixed yet. The signal wire posts are fitted and the point rodding chairs painted, the remaining cranks fitted. Ballast has been quarried for the point rodding to pass under the rails. Quite a lot of fencing to do, but that'll have to be wor

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Adventures In Cork. And Clay.

Again it's been a while. Faced with some delays imposed by being the now ex, and brief, owner of a Vauxhall Zafira, things got a tad hectic. Peace and a certain amount harmony now reigns. I ran out of pullies rather quicker than expected so the remaining wires still await fitting, but the barrow crossings and path between are now complete. More ballasting and gluing is done too. More of the construction clutter has moved along making things look a lot more stationy.   The siding, forme

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Miserable in Scenery

Adding The Poles

As ever, having made the telegraph poles it was time to position them. First step - how far apart should they be? Well, to be scale, it would appear that 1.1m or so would be right, but mocking it up they just looked like they'd been planted randomly. Clearly telegraph poles, or at least the distance between them, don't scale at all well. So I just went full aesthetic  mode with them. I'm happy, so all is good.

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Actual Track Laying :-)

So the point motors arrived,along with some switches, cable, pins and PVA. Though not the cheapest motor, I've gone with Peco 'Twistloc' ones, mostly because installation is simple and doesn't involve quarrying a huge hole in pristine baseboards. More in a bit. The first operation was to position the double slip where it goes for real. Unfortunately Wine has decided it doesn't want to pay with Anyrail at the moment, there's two versions of a library in use by different packages at the same time,

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Actual Point Rodding

I've put it off as long as possible... it's a bit fiddly, but so far so good. The bent rod connecting the square runs to the cranks idea has proved rather more durable than I thought for just a plain soldered joint - that bit's been putting me off, I admit it! So, some Plastruct square rod has gone under the rails (to ensure no short circuits) and the rest dropped into it's respective stools. I still managed to miss one out... Basically I super-glued the end to the crank, let it go off and then

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A Banner Repeater

Whilst painting the inside of the tunnel I got to wondering about Starter signals. Plan A, not that one, the other one, was to put a Section signal at the tunnel entrance but even by model railway standards the Station Limits would be ridiculously short, especially when there's quite a lot of shunting moves that would require blocking back inside the home signal all the time (an even bigger pain in the bum on a single line with tokens going in and out all day). While perusing the Wizard/MSE site

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