Leaderboard

Well I'm pleased to say that the last signal has been installed on the layout. Once again I used one of Jurassic Models socket and servo mounts to install the signal onto the baseboard and a GF controls module to control the movement of the signal arms. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1131/entry-15869-signals-for-sherton-abbas-part-3-the-bouncing-arms/ There's a considerable amount of "gubbins" required underneath the baseboard to control the signal arms, but the use of the mount and control module does make things easier! Control module, servos and wiring The signal looked a bit too clean and stark, so I used my airbrush to apply a bit of weathering and represented some weeds growing through the ballast with some green dyed paint brush bristles. Twin miniature arm ground signal in position The rest of the trackwork also looked a bit too pristine, so once again the airbrush was used to tone down the colour and represent a bit of Edwardian grime:-) Some vegetation is beginning to appear on the layout, but this is very much a work in progress. I still need to treat myself / build a static grass applicator and find a U.K.distributor for Polak fibres http://www.polakmodel.com/en/text/main/About-us-1.html who's products look excellent in my opinion. Overall view with weathered track and ballast At the Wells show, I was delighted to discover that the range of parts designed by Ivan Smith of Southwark Models are now available from Roxey Mouldings http://www.roxeymouldings.co.uk/ The range includes some lovely platform seats, barrows, bicycles and point levers and I couldn't resist buying a selection of bits and pieces for the layout. Amongst these goodies was a little fret of etched brass components that built up into an early type GWR point lever. Southwark Models point lever fret Once assembled and painted the lever was installed onto the layout to control the yard point. The associated rodding and 90 degree crank were fabricated from 0.6mm brass wire and the etched brass crank supplied in the kit. Assembled point lever in position on the layout Well that's the latest progress on the layout, still loads more to do but at least the points and signals work and trains move without pushing them! Best wishes Dave

Scratch building for me so far has been hacking bits of plasticard and hoping for the best that the bits I've cut will fit together - its not been too successful, but its enough to convince me to go a stage further. I've now bought a big sheet of 3mm foamboard from a local art shop ready to model a barn on a back road near me that I've been looking at for years. All of this has come about thanks to my road laying activity of the past few days. How, you may ask have I got from road laying to barns? Well that's where the filler comes in. I make my roads via the simple technique of a very wet mix of pollyfiller and water, mixed in a small pot and then spread onto the baseboards. This is then left to go hard, sanded with a sanding block and then painted a tarmac colour using various shades of black and grey. The forecourt of Warrensleigh station is set to be a cobbled affair, so I am now about to embark on the laborious task of scribing many tiny cobbles into the hard filler. By my logic, if I can make a nicely shaped foamboard shell for a building, I should be able to spread this same filler mix onto the building and scribe it with a stone block pattern, in the same was used by Phil Parker on the BRM DVD of this month. If not, its back to the drawing board for me! Also attached is a pretty picture taken of the layout featuring a Castle and King on shed.

With a smidgen over2 weeks until we go public were using all the time we can to make sure everything's running well. Evenings and afternoons all add to getting the final bits done. This weeks been running in. A lot of stock hasn't run for a few years so getting locks smooth and putting coach rakes together all takes time...but it gives a brilliant chance to take photos. We've uploaded a few of our favourites so hope you enjoy

This coming weekend, 10th / 11th October 2015, Fisherton Sarum will be at the Great Electric Train Show organised by the Hornby Magazine at the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon Fisherton Sarum’s last outing at the excellent Worthing MRC annual exhibition two weeks ago proved that the relocation of the main control panel from the rear of the layout to the front left hand corner worked really well and it will be retained in this position for future shows. It certainly, as hoped, made interaction with the audience easier and more pleasant, whilst keeping things in the shed area moving. Unfortunately towards the very end of the weekend at Worthing the turntable operating mechanism failed, which upon further inspection was due to a fairly catastrophic failure of the plastic boss that connects to the operating shaft on the underside of the Peco deck itself. This has now been drilled out and replaced with a new turned steel boss and refitted. Limited time available has meant that it will have to be tested and the MERG indexing system reprogrammed for the first time tomorrow evening once set up at the GETS show, so fingers crossed it all works properly again! Hopefully on Sunday a guest engine will be making an appearance on Fisherton Sarum, in the form of the Bachmann N Class No.1848 that I repainted and numbered into post war SR black livery for friend and fellow post war period modeller Robin Sweet (Gwrrob) for use on his excellent, albeit GWR, layout ‘Brent’ based on South Brent in Devon. 1848 will in a way be coming home as she was in fact a Salisbury allocated locomotive during this period. This is the third year that Hornby Magazine have organised this show which already has a reputation for being a quality show with a great line up of layouts and traders, with the added bonus of visitors also being able to also wonder around the Heritage Motor Centre (Banbury Road, Gaydon, Warwickshire, CV35 0BJ). The show is open to the public between 9.30am and 5pm on the Saturday and 9.30am and 4pm on the Sunday. Once again I will be kindly and ably supported by fellow members of the High Wycombe and District MRS to operate the layout over the weekend and on the Sunday there will be four generations of my family involved (if you count the model of my Grandfather as a Ganger on the layout) as my Dad and teenage Nephew will also be helping!I hope some you are able to attend and I look forward to seeing you there. This is an extract from my blog at www.grahammuz.com

As you may have noticed by the lack of updates over the Summer, I have had precius little time to do any modelling and even less time to write about it. This, however, hasn't stopped me from thinking about it! One part of my thought has been to how I can use my limited time more effectively and how to manage to finish everything that I start. So here is the conclusion of my thinking and a bit of an exaxample of it being put into practise. At this point I expect you, dear readers, to split into two camps - those that say that is so damned obvious I should have been doing this already and those of you who thing ' that is so damned obvious I should be doing it'! So, this pearl of wisdom is; 'Make sure the thing works before you start on the pretty bits'! To explain and illustrait; Why has the Joffre project stalled? Answer - because I put the valve gear on before I was sure it ran. Why has the Baldwin Gas Mech stalled? Because I painted and finished it before I had got the pick ups working properly. Why has the Hudson stalled? Because I started on valve gear before the pickups and basic running was sorted. I know I am not alone in this but the rush to get a model finished often results in the basic objective being lost i.e. creating a model that works. So, from now on I have resolved to make sure that basic mechanisms work correctly (and smoothly!), before the pretty bits like valve gear and brakes are fitted. This may often mean that body work will need completeing so that trial runs can be made but only really needs to be to a basic level. Pretty simple really and I just don't know why I didn't realise this sooner. In an attempt to put this into practise I made sure with the armoured Simplex that I tested the chassis before I fitted it and reprogrammed the chip before fitting, Then I mounted the Black Beetle before fitting out the interiour and exteriour. All very simple but has meant that I know this admittedly pretty easy project will actually work and that I am not going to be undoing hard work taking it apart again after it has been 'finished'. So here we have a fully DCC sound fitted model which works! Just a bit of weathering and numbering to do and it is all ready for service. After this, I aim to get the Baldwin GM working properly, something that would have been far simpler if I hadn't got carried away with all the fiddly bits!