Leaderboard

I have made good progress since my last posting and the second roof pitch is now finished and test fitted. In order to fit the roof pitch on the sidings side of the roundhouse the side wall required some modification to position and fit the 22 roof trusses. This meant hand cutting a new set of 22 slots for the new roof, filling the original 13 laser cut slots and the scribing the brickwork. The new slots were carefully cut using a fretsaw, scalpel and drill - an interesting exercise. I have just assembled the first of the 'sectioned' roof trusses for the third pitch and have made up a set of parts to complete the final 22 trusses - watch this space. The sharp eyed will notice a nce unit and pentroller on the top of the layout. This together with the array of locos was for a visit of friends from the Glevum and NAGNAG area groups of the Scalefour Society last Monday. The DOWN main line was DC and the UP DCC for the evening. A close look at the top edge of the side wall of the roundhouse will reveal a number of 'whiter' areas which are the filled laser cut slots. On the top of the lattice girders the adjacent roof trusses touch each other with the middle pitch forward of the side pitches.

The bench is all ready for me to start working on, I am still a bit short of something to sit on though. But I do not want to get to comfortable there as I still need to do small jos in there for my daughters visit in March. I have today started moving my modelling kit to the new workshop, or should I say some of it. I have decided to keep the wagons where we are, with the hope of building a few. I did have a pleasent suprise whilst going through the cupboard. It looks like I really need to do myself a layout. Looking at what I have for myself there is enough to stock a small layout. A lot of work but that is half the fun. I have 20 plus wagon kits one is assembled and needs painting, 2 brake vans. I have always thought I was light on coaches and NPCC's. But there in the cupboard was a Maunsel brake and composite from Westdale, and a composite from Classic, a S&DJR 6 wheel PBV from Blacksmith, and a siphon F from DJB. There are also the 2 gated coaches I am sort of scratch building. So I have enough for 2 short sets, which should be enough for a small layout. Plus if I get another BTK I can have a 3 car set or two 2 car sets. On the loco front I have The Beattie well thats half built, there is a lovely DJB M7, there is for the goods a superheated 700, and an A12 that needs some castings. I am also worried about how big the layout will be as I found enough parts to build 3 rail post signals and 1 lattice. I think I need to rethink what needs collecting. I also found a GE/Acorn kit for a 350HP shunter, one of the 13XXX series. To me it looks like an O8, but the instructions say different. I may put this on the bench next if I can get some wheels over to here. It looks interest, God knows why I bought it diesels arn't really my thing. There are another 3 or 4 loco kits to build to sell. So plenty for me to be doing. More bits and bobs are going over each day. I will bit the bullet soon and take some tools soon too.

A picture heavy blog post to ask a fairly simple question. If it is possible to have a poll on a blog post I can't work out how but it would be useful in this instance. I had previously consigned myself to the replacement of the unsatisfactory toggle switches, which had only been bought because they were available in 3PDT and 4PDT flavours, with banks of linked slide switches. With the TOUs coming out as well I figured I would change these too. Having played with the S4 Society lever frame previously on Jerry's Tucking Mill and seeing them again on the S4 stand at the Southampton show I could not resist them any longer. The slide switches went in a cupboard and 10 levers worth (2 kits) were ordered immediately on returning from the show. The signal box at Littlemore had 15 levers, reduced to 7 and was then demolished leaving an actual ground frame where the box had been reclassified as one earlier. I figured that 10 levers would suffice because the layout isn't big enough to model any of the distants that could have existed but I would need the odd extra one where a switch was operated manually.The discussion on how the layout might be signalled based on my needs for the model and to use 10 levers is in a separate topic here. The electrical work will be covered in a later blog post with the help of a bulk purchase of microswitches that arrived today. This brings me back to the question. When considering where to house or attach the levers on the baseboards, which are a bit minimalist, I thought that it might be fun to have them located behind the signal box. I like the idea of operating from the front and this location would be convenient because very few operating rods would have to cross the baseboard joint. One down side is that it could make it a pain to photograph the layout. This problem could be overcome by making the frames detachable but I will demonstrate later why I do not think this is much of an issue. What might be the biggest problem is that it spoils the overall impression of the layout when exhibited. I've trial fitted the frames where I'm thinking of putting them and taken some overall views of the layout as best I can in it's current location. So does it offend you? It should still be possible to get some good photograph opportunities without the levers in view, or with the possibility of them being cropped out without losing the subject or the composition of the image as demonstrated by the following viewpoints looking along the layout. I'd appreciate yes or no answers to the above question, along with any other comments. Eecially from any people who exhibition manage. It's not possible to have them any lower than in the pictures without moving them outside of the baseboard facings because of the internal structure of the boards.

Hi Pete - A suggestion re the platform surfaces... First (if you can) use a laser printer. I still have concernes about the longterm stability of inkjets... Second - print on A4 label paper (Staples, Avery etc do '1 label per sheet'). It sticks like the proverbial to a blanket on styrene or card, and doesn't reach 'warp factor' like solvents... If you don't have acces to that size of label (a box of 100 costs about

I think that Kris has got it just right, Rich. When Jas Millham has his S Scale 'Rookfield' out at shows he operates from the front and his lever frame is below the level of the boards. I seem to remember that he even has a sort of electronic token instrument built into it! Should add as well that Jas sits at the side and doesn't plonk himself directly in the middle of the layout. I don't think that Jas' woolly pullover with a steam train on it is compulsory for those wishing to operate lever frames at the front of the layout :-) David

Good evening, A bit of a quick entry this having arrived late from my evening's commute - when the train journey from Gatwick to Victoria takes longer than the 1hr 55 flight, then that really says it all Haven't posted for a month or so but work has been progressing on the cassettes during the week days as this can be done relatively low key in my rented digs...no need for soldering, painting or foul smelling adhesives More on the cassettes in another separate entry soon I hope. A few days back in BCN for a long weekend meant I could try and wrap up the work required on the PW so the scenics can commence...scenics mainly being ballasting and crud etc. Firstly, I had to re-do the ends of the trackwork I was not happy with, where I had used lost wax sleepers split in two to try and manage a neat wiring solution. This backfired as the sleepers started to twist at the ends if the baseboard joints so I had to strip them all out and replace with PCB ones. Not a huge task of course, but only having weekends on it now meant a fine tune of my time between the layout and my wife and children. So one week I stripped it all away, the following week I added back the PCB and this weekend I was able to replace and renew all the wires back to the underside and retest that it was all working still. Following this was to then splash a bit of grey primer around and then a splash of rail match sleeper grime to these areas ready to start ballasting. Whilst going backwards, I also decided to rip up the base card platforms as I will redo these in plasticard using scalescenes material sheets. I would quite like to try the method used by (Missy and Tony Simms I think) of applying Liquid Poly/Mek-pak onto the paper and soaking it until it bonds with the plasticard. I have also managed to figure out how to mount the PCB signal bases to the underside of the boards so the folded section doesn't interfere with it too much. A couple of crude pics attached - the track needs a clean up but will tackle this next week. So a bit of going backwards to go forwards, but I think it was for the best and I hope it will now start to gather some momentum both from works in BCN and LDN. 82 days to exhibiting...

Nice work Pete! Looking forward to seeing how your platforms turn out. Nice to see you posting again. Best regards, Jeremy

This shows the track plan that I'm working to, though some details will change a bit over the time of building.