Thoughts, ideas and a some memory jogger pics.

* Also solder a wire to each POINT SWITCH BLADE bottom for dropping through the baseboard.  Did think of leaving those off but with short base 04's running about I'll need all the electrical feed I can get.

* Solder to the side of stock rails when track is laid down finally.  Pre-tin all track and points when soldering on the bench for ease when laying down.

* Consider all connecting to be finalised at the edge of the baseboards. Don't want to be doubled up underneath the baseboard.

* Test the viability of using up the slotted lidded trunking at edge of baseboard?

* Decide manual or servo point operation. Best may be to first do manual then swap over to server control later.

* Do I want a control board?.  Not sure of any value in this for me with it being a single op use & no exhibiting intended.  Probably nice to have but not need to have.

*  Note that the Peco point wires are spot welded onto the rails.

DRAWING AMENDED as per Ray. V1, V2, V3,

EDIT 6th January '15  --  Text added @ Note

The inset track outside the warehouse has now been started, after a lot of procrastination.....I soldered up a press tool out of square brass tube, and embossed setts into Das clay. It's quite quick, and I think the effect will be pretty good when it's painted and weathered.

Here's a pic of the tool, and of some finished setts before painting. I'll add weathering powders and some ash from the fire to fill in where the setts are a little too deeply embossed for my liking. It's nice seeing a bit of rust forming on the check rails as well...very glad I went for steel rail. I'm seriously considering radio control, which will let me keep the rusty rails....If anyone has any experience of this, especially the DelTang system, I'd be really interested to hear about it.

It is a bit confusing, and it took me a while to get my head around it.

I used a Deltang TX20 transmitter which I built up from a kit (nice and neat, but instructions a bit woolly for a novice) I got some help here https://riksrailway.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/how-i-constructed-deltang-tx20.html where Rik has generously detailed his build...much better that the instructions, so thanks Rik. I used a Rx-60 receiver, which is tiny, and 2 x 3.7v LiPo batteries which I wired in series to give 7.4 volts. This is ample for my shunting layout: with the current gearing on the Ixion HC I can get a heady 15mph, and having recently driven a full size steam loco (thanks kids!) which I've been waiting to do for 50 years, I can confirm it's plenty fast enough! .

I also bought a GT-Power charger. I got all this from Micron Radio Control http://www.micronradiocontrol.co.uk/ and I found the proprietor Andy very helpful. Like anything it's simple when you know how, but I couldn't find an idiot's guide anywhere, and figured it out little by little. If I can help at all, do let me know. All I can say is it's head and shoulders above anything else I've seen or used. I'll never go back. Gaugemaster Combi for sale.

I wired the pickups directly to the batteries, which means the rails are live, but powered from the loco. Probably best to avoid any shorts! I installed a switch to isolate the control board (I put it in the speaker recess under the loco, and it can be switched without taking the loco off the track. So: flip the switch, attach the charger to the rails and off you go. 

Watching a careworn saddletank crawling over rusty rails is vindication enough!!

Hi Grahame...thanks.I used a 2 part polyurethane resin (SG2000). Excellent for this sort of thing, because it doesn't need any sort of vacuum to remove bubbles, it has a low viscosity before it cures so it picks up every detail and it cures fast....removal from the mould in 30 mins or so (it takes about 2 days to fully chemically cure, but you can work it straight away. I buy mine from a company in Ireland called Polycraft.

Useful and informative information Jeff.

Grandma and eggs but I haven't had any problems soldering the steel to the brass pivot tube after I used some wet and dry to give it a good clean first.  I did do mine with a mixture of my resistance soldering unit and a 25watt iron with the latter seemingly more than adequate.

I also used a variant of these couplings when they weren't available that just used a suitable glue to hold the pivot tube.  I'll post a paperclip hash up of it for info. 

My hand shunting of a mix of the 2 couplings worked well.

So it's the same idea minus the bracket using the hook wire through the pivot tube............ if you see what I mean.   saves all the soldering hassle anyway. 

The bends at each end of the tube keep it positioned and the plane of the HOOK movement is ever so slightly different due to the pivot change but they work.

Best

Not just a shameless bump!

After having done a couple of shows with my shunting puzzle,

I would like to add some more tips (from experience).

Firstly, the solution that has worked for me, re:- the strength of

the steel wire to brass tube joint, was to use the back of a blade

as a scraper to create flats on the steel wire (thrupence bit style!)

This stops the joint trying to rotate and come loose.

Secondly, I find that getting chemical blackening to give just the

right amount of 'black' without building up a layer, (which not only

can flake off, can also inhibit the smooth coupling action). So, I

use a permanent black marker, a few passes does the job.

Hope this helps, I've just got to sort out the axle slop to give me

100% reliability for my next 2 shows (in April).

Cheers, Jeff

7 hours ago, Edge said:

(albeit with the characteristic of T Gauge to go from 0 to a scale 50 almost instantaneously)

I'm still very new to T Gauge, and only have a class 67 so far, but I would say this is a bit of an exaggeration. Having tried a few PWM circuits as "controllers" (I didn't buy the 'official' controller), I managed to get reasonable slow running - I think the PWM frequency seems to make a big difference. Potentially experimenting with PWM frequency a bit more (using an Arduino?) might improve things further.

I haven't tried the DCC decoder route (am I right in assuming the decoder is mounted statically and feeds the track, rather than being in the loco?) - presumably the advantage is having a back-EMF function to better respond to the motor's load etc. 

7 hours ago, Edge said:

But, if you are looking to represent locomotive hauled trains with shunting, running around etc then the answer would be a firm ‘no’. T gauge just can’t do that yet and I doubt that the mechanics to do that will ever be in place to be honest

Agreed - now - but perhaps a bit pessimistic to say never. With the right materials and tooling, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to engineer a Kaydee / Micro-Trains style coupling in a similar size to the stock T knuckle coupler. In fact the magnetic wheels might actually help with that - shunting with Microtrains couplings in Z can suffer from the stock being too free-wheeling\light so running away rather than coupling. 

I imagine sooner or later DCC decoders (or radio control equivalents) will be shrunk/integrated to single chip solutions rather than today's relatively complex small PCBs (if only to save costs in larger scales) which might unlock a lot more possibilities in T - not least higher track voltage (and therefore fewer stalls on starting) and more potential for extra functions like couplers. 

e.g. check out the single chip motor driver chip, AT-tiny microcontroller (i.e. Arduino-alike) and IR receiver used in this 1:150 car conversion that is doing the rounds online at the moment!

I've ended up buying quite a few things during that lockdown that are a bit of a distraction from my main modelling projects! I ended up giving in to curiosity and buying a T Gauge loco and circuit of track to have a play around with.

One of the things I noticed was that T mechanisms run on 4.5V ... Which seemed ideal to power using a USB phone charger (5v), rather than buying one of the "official" battery/mains controllers. I got some of the dirt cheap PWM circuits from eBay, a DPDT switch, and stripped a USB cable. Result was pretty good, although the slightly larger circuit (with red knob) seemed to work much better at controlling the T Gauge mechanism at slower speeds - perhaps it has a different frequency for its PWM? 

The other thing I wanted to experiment with was 3D printing coaches and wagons. There is quite a good range of vinyl sides for generic clear plastic coach and multiple unit bodies out there, as well as a few Shapeways prints of bodies. But I wondered if I could do better using my Anycubic Photon UV resin printer, which seems to get more or less line-less prints since I fitted the Z axis upgrade.

My first design is a Mk2E coach, to see if modelling the shape a little more realistically helps - I think the answer is yes!

This is a test print where I did one side with some 0.1mm relief window frames, and the other side without. When I get the chance I'll laser print some full side waterslide decals and compare the results. Pretty pleased, considering the coach is only 4.5cm long!

TGauge.com sell both plastic wheels and generic coach bogies with metal wheels, which are quite short wheelbase (which seems characteristic for Japan?). So I also tried printing a B4 bogie to suit the plastic wheels. 

This will need a bit of tweaking to the design to improve running tolerances as the wheel faces rub, but it seems like a promising start 

Justin

15 hours ago, lezz01 said:

Now that cupola it a true work of art mate. Did you take stage by stage pics if so you could do a masterclass on that alone.

Regards Lez. 

I rather neglected the photography of the cupola but I made this sketch for a fellow modeller ... 

So this week...

Today I have started on the scenic box that forms the backdrop, sides and wings etc. This I made out of hardboard. Perhaps not the best material, but I have a lot of it and I think that it will be strong enough if correctly braced and doesn't suffer a heavy trauma.

Here is the box so far with some old Peco backscenes tacked on to test out the idea.

It has gone a little awry at the left hand end. The level crossing will need some fettling to fit. But the corner should be hidden by the gate and whatever I stick in the corner. Probably a hedge.

At the right hand end, after some fiddling around with yet more cardboard mock-ups, I have decided that a wall will mark the end of the layout. I am planning on having a road entrance between the front and middle sidings. ( to the right of the picture below)

In the corner between the wall and the dairy building, I am thinking of a small nondescript structure. 

This week also saw me finishing infilling of the track in front of the dairy.

I have always wanted infilled track.

As a child I used to look at the Triang Minitrix road system, where the railway line was embedded in the road. I had never seen anything like that in real life until a visit to the Navy day at Portsmouth. It was here that I saw for the first time rails in the road around the docks.

I was so enthralled that when I got home I started to make an inlaid trackway. This I did by pushing down hard a Triang fish van into the soft wood of the windowsill in my bedroom. 

Dad was not so impressed by my handiwork.

But inlaid track is, to my mind, pure industrial,. With the exception of  trams.

There are several methods of filling in the tracks. The most common is to infill with either plaster or DAS and push a wagon along it to clear the flangeways.

I have used both of these techniques in the past and found them unsatisfactory. First because of the weight of all that plaster. Secondly because any rough handling causes the plaster to crack. Third is that wear caused by passing rolling stock exposes the white plaster, that then needs retouching. 

So I was rather taken by an article by the late John Pryke in the Model Railroader of his layout Union Freight. This was a five part article in the four editions from September 2000. 

He later wrote a book called Building City Scenery for your model railroad, that I believe also describes the technique.

The method is simply to use poster board on the areas outside of the 4 foot and to use Plastikard (I used 0.030") between the tracks. This should be more reliable and avoid the problems that I mentioned.

The next task is to paint it. I have a pot of acrylic concrete by Mig. My local model shop advise that this is what the military modellers use.

I'll let you know how I get on with it. 

Hi All, 

A bit more on some prototype background around calcining now, and appropriate rolling stock. 

Calcining is the process whereby iron ore is burnt with coal slack to drive off moisture, this readies the ore for more efficient transport and further processing. By burning the iron ore with coal slack the iron in the ore is converted from the "ferrous" state to the "ferric" state. The burning drives off moisture and also releases an appreciable amount of carbon dioxide. Recently quarried iron ore is wet and relatively "sticky" material versus other aggregates. Dependent on the moisture content this adds a considerable weigh to the material, important if you are charged "by the ton" once the ore is on BR metals on the way to the steelworks!

Calcining was performed in Kilns, bays and clamps. The differences between these methods are covered more in-depth online if anyone wants to read further. The practice was phased out fairly rapidly owing to a continual rise in coal prices in the 1960's. 

The above is of significant interest to industrial railway operations as calcining was often done on the same quarry system and the quarries material, the wet ore being moved around by internal user wagons of varying types. 

Not shown below, but for interest - the calcined ore takes on a purple hue, the exact colour would depend on the local geology. 

Ship canal side tipping wagons 

Among the earliest standard industrial internal user wagons is the humble "ship canal" tipper. There were a variety of different designs with detail differences, though most were of the same general principles of an oak body with iron reinforcing straps/plates, with the wagon frames typically being made from elm. Bearings were plain and certainly the typical design featured no kind of springing. Lubrication of these wagons was a curious affair, the bearings periodically receiving a daub of animal fat, applied from a quarry worker from below. This was known as "fatting the wagons" - as noted by Eric Tonks in his series of superb books. 

A rake of ship canal wagons out of use at Pilton Quarries in Rutland in July 1956. By this time the wagons were out of use and stored in a loop. Also visible on the right hand side is the Ruston excavator which had previously been employed to load these wagons...

A clearer (but not much!) photograph rescued from the Ruston Bucyrus offices. This was Ruston and Hornsby 30 ton steam shovel works no.640 which was delivered new to Pilton in December 1920. It was cut up on site in 1960. 

The model

A sizable rake of these small wagons are required for the layout to operate in a prototypical way, coming across the junction and reversed up the line toward the off-scene calcine banks. This will require some locomotives fitted with dumb buffers, such as Hawthorn Leslie "JUPITER" as shown on a previous page of this thread. 

The models are from a mix of sources, thus giving a bit of prototypical variation and detail differences. There are four from the superb RT Models contractors wagon kits and four further which are a mix of scratch built parts and the discontinued Chilton Ironworks kits. The RT kits are a doddle. The Chilton kits used the same chassis as their colliery chauldron wagons, but these looked a bit too weedy to my eyes and so I've adapted them as shown below. 

The four "bitsa" ship canal wagons. A mix of scratch built frames and bodies to give a little more modelling interest.

The complete rake of 8 wagons. Couplings are Roxey 7mm hooks on chain, fitted to one end only. They couple by the hook latching over a piece of wire between the frames and the hook will happily couple to the standard drawhook of a loco. 

Enthusiasts may note these wagons are fairly similar to the 3 foot gauge examples used at Kettering Furnaces and Scaldwell, certainly they operated on the same principle. 

More soon.

Paul A. 

36 minutes ago, 03060 said:

Very neat Dave, can I ask what you use for the milling, please.

 

Regards,

Ian.

A very small Proxxon milling machine.