Jump to content
 
  • entries
    63
  • comments
    72
  • views
    41,438

Motive power miscellany


legomanbiffo

564 views

blog-0997304001391205301.jpgA bit of a mixed bag in the blog this time.

Just before Christmas I got a text from Brian Porter at the Crewe Heritage Centre telling me he’d managed to get the traction motor blowers and a number of other things working on the APT. A mutually acceptable date was arranged and off I went, mic in hand. It turns out that the traction motor blowers sound quite different to those of the Class 91, the ones I’d previously used as a ‘best guess’ in lieu of the real thing. The percentage of genuine APT sounds in the project is around 80% now, not bad considering my original expectations a few years ago were for door slams and very little else. While I was there I took the opportunity to climb on the roof and take a full set of reference photos of every vehicle, for the common good. These have been uploaded to my Flickr page, just search for legomanbiffo.

By far the biggest disappointment of the day was the Closed sign on the door of Cheshire’s finest fish & chip shop, Goodwins on Nantwich Road, just a short walk from the station on the way to the Heritage Centre. I cannot recommend this place highly enough. It’s a ‘proper’ fish & chip shop with a counter to the front and a sit-down restaurant to the side. The fish is freshly cooked to order, the chips are great and for a very modest sum you get bread & butter and a cup of tea to finish off. Just what was needed after a hard day’s recording. But not this time, doah!

 

The latest set of sounds out of the foundry are for the Windhoff MPV. Yet another one rendered possible by a friendly modeller in a position to assist. Many thanks, you know who you are! In the model I used one of the modules as a speaker enclosure with a 20x40 speaker facing down. I had to cut part of the module’s plinth away to let the sound out but this can hardly be seen behind the side railings. I spent most of last Sunday getting the handbrake to work how I wanted it. The chip is ‘out now’.

A Deltic-mad pal of mine has let me loose with his roster of locos in an attempt to discover the best speaker arrangement for said loco. Four designs were tried, all in the underframe area with the main drive unit facing down, and each utilising as much of the underframe area as possible. First up was a simple infinite baffle which was very average. The second attempt was an extended bass reflex which was better, but not by much. Third was a transmission line design with with the tube folded backwards and forwards five times (to maximise the length) before venting to the air. Sadly the results in no way matched the effort involved. The fourth design gave the best Deltic sound I’ve ever achieved in 4mm; a large chamber excited by the drive unit from a bass reflex, and a reflex tube that runs the full length of the tanks down one side. This was made from some rectangular section plastic tube.

Also ‘out now’ (out for some time in fact) are my Class 40 sounds, recently tweaked to suit the retooled Bachmann model. The model itself has come close to meeting the lump hammer more than once. The new pickup arrangement is not fit for purpose and despite being a huge model there is nowhere to put a decent speaker. I resorted to a 23mm round speaker fitted in an airtight enclosure in the tanks, which is just about acceptable but not really bassy enough.

In a departure from the normal photographic fare, a treat for the kettle fans out there; a pair of black 5’s racing up the WCML near Atherstone on the Cathedrals Express just before Christmas. And no, I don’t do sound for them yet!

  • Like 2

0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...