Harlequin

Please carry on as you are, Accurascale, for the majority of us. The curmudgeons can use "AI" such as ChatGPT or Copilot to translate "modern", "trendy" phrases into Archaic English. CoPilot suggests that, "Reach out to technical support", could become: “Seek aid from the technical sages.” “Entreat the assistance of the technical troubleshooters.” “Beseech the guidance of the technical artisans.” I don't see a flaw in that plan, do you? Oh, wait... 😉

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooke_and_Wheatstone_telegraph#One-needle_telegraph

When Bruno is in a manic mood he charges up trees at high speed. Here he is in my cherry tree: Up in one of my apple trees, he was biting off the flower buds, just for fun (or to annoy me, perhaps). Maybe I could train him to thin out the apples later in the year...?

I think you also need lots of extra cables and pipes all connecting back to a dyno car appropriate for the period. E.g. It would look really odd to have all the data collection equipment without any means to record it…

Yes.

It's only a snoozefest if you focus on the winner and ignore the rest of the field. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see someone other than Verstappen/Red Bull winning but it's still interesting to watch Sainz proving he has every right to a drive with any of the top-level teams, Ricciardo's survival struggles, Norris building his reputation and Alonso adding to his god-like status. The less said about Stroll, the better. If daddy didn't own the team he would have been a goner long ago!

I think it would be worthwhile if the speaker in the smokebox was also upgraded to something with a bigger sealed enclosure. BTW @Neal Ball, giving the sound a clear path out is as much about the sound quality as the volume. The little plastic box of the tender does something to the sound. What really lets my Manor upgrade down is the sound project. Instead of barking it wheezes... When the Accurascale project is pushed through a decent speaker, as Neal has done, it does sound better.

Accurascale are very aware of the sound volume/quality issue from the feedback they got when the Manor was first released so we can hope that they will make changes. (I think the people who are happy with the factory sound have probably never hear a good steam sound project before...) I did a similar upgrade but I removed the circuit board entirely so I have more room for a speaker. It's documented somewhere on here. Found it:

Hi Neal, I know I'm going to sound like a stuck record but you could get the sound even better if the speaker wasn't covered by the solid plastic coal load.

I think you've got your wires crossed somewhere. People talked about 9mm laser cut boards being quite heavy but 6mm being much more manageable. It has also been mentioned that 1200mm long boards might not fit in a car. That would be a reason to make them shorter but not thinner. See what @Nearholmer and @7mmin7foot said. A 1200*600mm board made of 6mm birch ply, including top surface and framing, should weigh about 4.5 to 6 kilos, depending on the type of birch ply used. That's really not heavy. It's about a half to 2/3rds the weight of a common-or-garden 9 litre watering can full of water! If you're only moving the boards through the house, not into a car, the length and the bulk shouldn't be a problem. Lighter boards are easier to manoeuvre. And you can still use your trick of bolting on extra, smaller scenic pieces - if you have the space where the layout is setup.

Hi Ken, The idea of bolt on scenic only parts is very good but I'm still not clear why you feel you have restricted width. Is it due to the weight of the boards or the space available to erect and operate the layout?

This is the current state of my Dean 8ft 6in bogie CAD based on the drawings in Russell: There are a few things that I know are not right.

Yes, I've been thinking about that kind of solution to bolection painting as well: Print the bolections as one piece with a support framework to give them strength and to hold their relative positions accurately. Paint them. Glue the whole painted print to the glazing plastic. Cut away the framework. Fit to coach.

Can you explain exactly what the space constraints are and why the boards have to be thin as a result? Someone may have already dealt with something similar and they could tell you how they solved the problem. A floor plan with dimensions would be great if you could manage it.

These plans look really odd! You've got to rotate the large turntable any time something needs to move from one end of the layout to the other or when you need a headshunt from one end or the other. Fundamentally, what you are struggling with (and have been struggling with in many previous posts about different designs) is that it's very difficult to do what you want to do in the space you have available in 7mm scale. So, making the layout even smaller seems like a very bad move to me - unless you change your expectations. (Have a look at what @7mmin7foot is doing.) I think a cassette based fiddle yard would be much simpler, easier to use and give you more storage capacity if you can be happy with using them.

Hi Ken, You're making repeated changes and compromises for practical reasons that are getting you further and further away from your initial vision! The plan is completely covered by track. There's no room for much scenery now, removable or not. There are no loading docks, no coal staithes, no goods shed, no wagon repair shed and because of the lack of room for any infrastructure there's no real reason to move a wagon to any particular position. So all you're left with is aimless shunting, which will quickly become very boring. I really suggest designing the layout based on what you really want from it, within some basic constraints, and do that holistically thinking about the whole scene, not just the track plan. Then worry about the baseboards and only make minor tweaks to your desired plan as far as possible. If the tweaks start to badly affect the plan then rethink from first principles. And don't get fixed on a particular baseboard supplier if they can't meet your spec for size and weight - look for alternatives.

I think I'm I right to say that smartphones have a relatively small focal length compared to the sensor size and that is why DOF at close distances is a particular problem in smartphones vs. other small sensor devices like compact cameras. Whatever the reasons, the empirical evidence is certainly that they have very limited DOF when photographing models with the aim of producing something similar to a real-world photograph. I.e. concentrating on elements of a scene rather than a landscape or helicopter shot.

If you wrote a simple little bit of Javascript you could run it on any browser on any device, either served from a server or from local storage. Start off with something simple and then improve the UI over time.

That's only true if you're using a proper camera where you can control the aperture in the way that Tony is demonstrating. It's very difficult to justify buying a dedicated camera with a decent lens or lenses if you already have a Smartphone - which most of us do these days. Unfortunately, while smartphones are fantastic devices that can take great pictures, they have fixed apertures and so depth of field is very poor when photographing models. Then focus stacking is a necessity.

The Setrack curved points have been known to cause derailments for many people. The run round loop is long enough to run round three coaches but they can't all stand at the platform face within the loop. That's because the turnout for the factory siding is inside the loop, limiting the platform length.

Yes, I like Dunster too, precisely because it's a quiet backwater. On a hot summer day, there's a bit of bustle when a train arrives but then after the chuffs have faded into the distance you just hear insects, birds, trees rustling and people murmuring to each other as if they're in church. If you've got the energy for a bit of walk then you can get to Dunster village, which is charming but a bit touristy, and then Dunster Castle, which has a great view of the railway in the landscape.

How to tell if your soil is warm enough for sowing seeds: I think that means, yes it is! The time-honoured country ways are always the best. 😄

For what it's worth, here's my updated essay: I didn't have time to do lots of nice drawn details so I've used labels instead. The turnouts are not sleepered properly but you get the idea. Loco release spur projects right into the top corner to maximise the use of the space in this cramped footprint. Engine shed, no problem, with decent room to fit in the associated gubbins. (Remove if you want.) Still room for a village. No level crossing or road access to the yard on scene - there's no need to be that literal. Realistic yard layout with a splay, a crane, room to gets lorries between the back siding and the shed, room for lorries to back up to the shed loading doors and turn, room to push two vans through the shed. Buildings along the back are flat to the backscene to make them easier to model in low relief. Platform is an odd shape on plan, I know, but I don't think it would look bad in real life and not all platforms were regular shapes, especially when existing buildings like the mill/creamery were nearby. Definitely room to run round three coaches. The main board is 15" wide to fit everything in. Too cramped? Maybe but it depends what your priorities are, operation or appearance?

Windows: Alt+0134 MacOS: ⌥ Option+T †

I have done the CAD but I haven't had the time or the mojo to go through it all to make it printable. 😞 Phil