froobyone

Hi all, The first TT:120 building kit is now available and joins the Pratt Truss Bridge in the growing range. A British Railways signal box, scaled down from my OO version, but without the internal details as they were too fiddly to put together and didn't look scale. Added some photos but please note, the forklift is there for scale and isn't included. I am slowly re-creating as many of my OO kits in TT:120 as is practical, but some kits are going to be dependant on finding a good quality, but thinner, wood. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/156178392473 Best Dan

No mention of the chronograph movement in the watch. I wonder if it's an in-house movement, or maybe Valjoux 7750? Nah, more than likely a Chinese Neveright 270...

Hi all, Progress on the layout has been slow his week. I'm busy updating all of my kit instructions to CAD drawings and developing a new kit for TT. Possibly. It's the least interesting building I've done so far and as such, I'm not sure if they'll sell well. Having said that, I thought that about the truss bridge too and I sold one the moment I posted about it on FB. So we'll see. What I did manage to do was start the ballasting/painting of track. I'd remembered that I hated ballasting and therefore was really surprised to find that I hated even more than I remembered! Not only do I hate it but I don't even think it looks nice. It'll get a waft of airbrush when it's all done, sometime in 2068. I don't even want to post a pic of the ballasting, it shames me. I will though, because I've only got two other pics. Hopefully I'll have a more productive week. Oh and if you're wondering what the large syringe is for, I though heroin would help with the ballasting. It didn't, it just soaked into the ballast and starting singing Doors songs. Bye for now. Dan

Thank you. :) There's never enough space. I wanted to build Kings Cross. :D

Hi all, Just a quick post to say that the Pratt Truss Bridge I designed for my TT:120 layout is now available on eBay as a kit. It is sized for streamline track with a centre to centre dimension of 35mm. It also comes a track spacing tool. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/156161822455 I've posted the instructions so you can see how it goes together. Thank you Dan

Hi all, I am pleased to report, the track laying epoch has ended. The sidings are down, live and connected to the main lines. There will be feastings and ale to celebrate the end of this very long, dark period. As a practising atheist, miracles come few and far between to me, but today I'm pretty sure I witnessed one. On fitting the last fishplate on the last piece of track, I reached into the holy bag of fishplates to find a single one. I had, somehow, managed to buy exactly the right number of fishplates. Despite not having the faintest idea how many track pieces I was going to use. I did have one spare flexi track left, so no one's perfect. The left side will have a small shed for storing/maintaining the gronk. The right side has an extended siding to allow longer rakes through the works building. It's also where the TTA will be stored. Despite knowing that there is still a tremendous amount of work to do, I feel quite relieved that I've got this part out of the way. I'm forcibly pretending that I don't have the horror ballasting to do next. Let me enjoy the moment. "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." W Churchill. Now I'm going to roast an ox and drink mead. Actually it'll probably be a sausage roll and a sip of Singleton. Until next time. Dan

Hi all, Work continues on track laying and bridge building. I now have two powered running lines, plus three platform lines laid and wired. The first two counter rotating trains were run this afternoon. It was a nice feeling. Bridges have been painted, but not weathered yet. I still need to do the abutments, but I've been busy making the instructions for the bridge kit and I'm using CAD for the first time to do it. Took longer than anticipated. I've got a couple of curves to cork and lay and then move on to the sidings. That's all for now. Best Dan

Thanks Tim. :)

Final bridge iterations I promise. It's final because I wrote final in the filename. I'm sure that's how it works... I had to realign the centre holes for the ribs. I also used the last two prototypes to test two different primers and I've settled on the one I like best. Next job is the abutments. They might be challenging. I did also manage to connect the countryside section and the first train completed the circuit this afternoon. Well, eventually it did. I had to do a lot of vigorous rubbing with a track cleaner first. Obviously I immediately fell into the trap I was trying to avoid, by watching the Scotsman chuff around for twenty minutes. I should have been working, but I've built six bridges over three days and I could do with some down time. Fat chance. I'll spend the rest of the night creating CAD drawings of the bridge to make the instructions. No rest for the wicked. Best Dan

Similar story to me. On acceptance to the RAF and when asked what trade I wanted to go into, the officer almost spat his tea out when I said "Weapons Tech sir". He said "You're colour-blind! How are you going to fix the wiring in missiles?" Good point. I'd actually forgot I was colour-blind at that stage of my life. No one ever mentioned it in art. Either I was really lucky with colour choices or the teacher knew I'd never be an artist and thought they'd leave me to it. Jokes on them, I spent thirteen years as a CGI artist and worried every single day, about every single colour... Best Dan

Thanks Rob. :)

Hi Just a little progress so far this weekend. I energised 60% of the track and ran the first train today. Everything seemed to work fine with no derailments. I have yet to link up the countryside section, so as of time of writing, I haven't completed a full journey. I made the changes to the bridge design -actually, I did it twice and only got it right the third time... There is one more tweak needed before I'm 100% happy, but I'm happy with these two prototypes. They still needed painting and weathering and I also need to glue in the wooden blocks. Annoyingly, one of my riveted plates slipped before taking the below photograph. That'll teach me for using cheap rivets. That's all for now. Best Dan

Hi all, No layout progress today as I've been spending a little bit of time designing a Pratt truss bridge for the scenic section. There will be two of them with a pillar in the middle. Despite my best efforts to get the width right, I didn't get the width right... No drama. Easy enough to rectify. I was originally hoping to get all the parts on one sheet, but I'm not happy with the overall depth of the structure underneath. So I think it'll end up being one and a half boards and I'll have a much beefier underframe. With all that being said, I'm fairly pleased with how the first prototype came out and whilst it does increase the burn time considerably, I also think it was worth the extra to engrave the rivets and plates. Hopefully I'll get the redesign done tomorrow and have a second prototype for the weekend. That's all for now. Best Dan

Hi all, or at least the three people who read my build updates. o/ Work has continued. The last parts of the outer loop are now laid and connected. The southern tracks are a little sharper in the bends due to not wanting the tracks to look too symmetrical. All of the curve will be in a tunnel so I'm not too bothered about how it will look. The tunnel mouth will be where the track goes straight for a little bit. I don't know why I went to the trouble of canting it, considering it won't be visible... I haven't yet decided what will be used for the scenic break on this side of the layout. I'm leaning towards a bridge, but we'll see. My mini scroll saw arrived in a timely fashion and so I was able to cut the wood out for the embankment. I managed to bend three blades... It also created a great deal more dust than anticipated. I was wearing a mask throughout, but I was also vacuuming bits on the opposite side of the boards. The next board will be cut outside and that'll be dependant on weather. Despite there being no power to the track, it was still a breakthrough moment to "hand of god" a short rake around the whole thing. It runs to just under 1.2km at full scale. Still a fair amount of corking/track laying to do. The roads through the station and the siding etc for the BR workshop. I still have to commit to the track clearance with the platforms, as the 08 will not run through smoothly due to the rods sticking out. I suspect the A1 might have the same issue. I may temporarily add power to the front sections and run them both through a few times. That's all for now. Best Dan

I thought I'd chime in as I'm building a TT layout. I've eagerly been waiting for today and due to a Red Arrow using my house as an orbit point for about twenty minutes, I arrived at the announcement nice and early. *takes deep breath and gathers coherent thoughts* HST Train Set. +1 Should have started with this. Instead I had to start with an A1 and Pullmans. Maybe it would have sparked an interest in railways that the original Hornby HST did to me in 1979. Not sure how many young modellers know the difference between and A1 and an A3. Luckily, I do. It's the colour isn't it? :P J50 +1 Not for me, but it opens up lots of smaller builds. A great first step for a new modeller and still has a appeal to the more seasoned. Container wagons. +1 Something for the Sheds when they get here. I've personally got nothing against Sheds, apart from the fact that they've took all the fun out of it. You can stick your robust 98% availability for traffic. You'll never get stories of sitting behind a failed Class 40 in December 1982 and slowly freezing to death until a duff comes to rescue your partly frozen corpses. OK, I know sheds don't haul Hull Daily Mail sponsored Christmas trips to London, but it's my hill and I'll die on it! Kitchen Pullmans. FO. I've got enough Pullmans! More Oil Wagons. Hornby have been surreptitiously taken over by "big oil" and they are forcing a new narrative. Oil is good mkay? Signals. These look really really good -for a train set. I'd have literally sh*t a kitten if I'd have had these as a nine year old. However, I'm 54 and currently have no RTR way of signalling my layout. As others with a great deal more knowledge than I have pointed out, these signals only are good for two regions. Neither of which I'm modelling. I don't know why I'm bothered, it's not like Woodburn could ever expect to be even remotely prototypical, but there's things that you do that you don't know are wrong and things you do knowing that there are wrong. I'm not at the "knowing they are wrong" stage yet. Green Gronk. Worst colour ever invented by eyes. Stop it. Trains are blue. Thoughts concluded. Best Dan

Interesting to read of your issues. My own 8 pin TXS went nuclear for no readily apparent reason. As I was shoehorning it into a TT:120 gronk, I had put it down to a PICNIC issue (problem in chair, not in chip). Having seen this I'm now wondering if I'm not as terrible a human being as I'd previously thought. I'd originally thought, due to my colour blindness, I'd just got my wires crossed. It didn't help that I was also adding lights front and back... Not that I'd been able to claim on warranty anyway, I'd removed the chip plug. Hope you get yours sorted. Best Dan

Hi all, The Easter weekend afforded me some time to get some work done on Woodburn. I had been prevented from making progress due to a blocker. That blocker being the need to fit and wire my point motors before I started laying the rest of the track. It was a blocker because I've never fitted and wired point motors before and do so with much trepidation. However, rather than be held at a red, I figured if I make the sections with the points removeable, I can fit them when I'm brave enough and therefore, at least step up to a yellow. My goal for today was to complete the loop, but I only managed to make it as far as the bridge (too far). The cutting and gluing of the cork took longer than I'd bargain for. On top of that, due to using Peco flexi, I had to hand drill each hole for the track pins. Ironically, I never use track pins, the one time I do, the track is sans holes... One thing I've always wanted but never had, is canted track. I think it ads a lot of drama to otherwise boring bends. To that end, I've raised the outer rails by approximately 6", which is 1.27mm at TT scale. I'm pretty sure for 7th radius curves the cant would be a lot less, but sometimes you need to slightly exaggerate to see the effect you want. To help with track spacing and because I didn't want to buy something I could make myself, I developed a track spacing tool specifically for code 55 streamline, with a centre to centre distance of 35mm. It was a bit fiddly to put together, so I redesigned it to make assembly easier and I'll stick them on eBay with the rest of my kits. It worked really well for me and even worked on the curves, which exceeded my expectations. I've got a fair whack of scroll saw work to do on the boards each side of the bridge as the plan is to have the track on an embankment. I had planned on using my jigsaw, but I need something with a bit more finesse and a bit less jackhammer. Everything right of the tracks will be removed and on the left, it'll follow the curve of the track as it moves inwards. Under the bridge will either be a river or canal. I'm leaning towards canal as I've never modelled one of those before (Editor: You've never done a river either!) and I'm really interested in pouring some resin. My scroll saw won't arrive until next week, so I've plenty of time to get the southern curve laid and then onto the station and the BR wheel bearing maintenance facility. Until next time and happy Easter all. Dan

My single Mk3 so far obtained, also does not run as freely as I would have expected. Considering the Pullmans have additional drag due to the electrical contacts, they run so much cleaner and longer after a push. I did a side by side test and the Pullmans easily go half a coach further. Maybe the Mk3's need a little running in to free-up. I can't test this theory as I have no running track currently wired (pun half intended). After examining the wheels, only one out out of the four is free running, The other three are being restricted somehow. I'm wondering if a little tickle of PTFE or silicone lubricant might give it some help. I'll test it at some point. I hope this is solvable as HSTs are the only reason I'm going to TT. :-/ Best Dan

Hi all, It's been a while since I posted an update and that's because I've had a good dose of one step forward, two steps back. In the intervening time I've dismantled the whole baseboard and refitted all the legs with better screws. This was not only time consuming, but also morale consuming. It had taken weeks to put together first time around and to have to do it all again made me almost give up on the whole thing. However, seeing the TT:120 HSTs get released gave me my second wind and I promptly rebuilt the boards, added the raised sections, painted it and even got as far as laying the first bit of underlay and track. This first curve will be the key that everything else is built off, so it's an important moment. Building work then stopped as I worked on the island platforms that will form the main station. I had originally planed to laser cut and engrave the tops and walls, but engraving bricks at TT scale took so much time that I deemed it wasn't worth it. So I had to rethink things and decided to use the technique I used for some of my eBay kits, which is to create the graphics digitally and then cut them with the laser. I'm leaning towards producing these platforms as kits. Three platforms and the pre-cut prints. No idea when as I have to figure out how to post them safely. Once I've figured that out, I'll make three versions, some without yellow stripes, some like the ones below and some with the tactile paving strip. In the version seen below, this were cut with the printed media bonded to the wood. However, I', not happy with the little cut out bits for the wall tabs and prefer to cut the wood and paper separately, despite it taking more time to do it that way. Quality first though right? Final image is the platforms roughly laid out to get a sense of the scale of the station. It will comfortably fit a seven coach HST. Observant webbers may also notice the first Mk3 to grace the metals. It's actually the wrong colour for my first set, but the blue and greys aren't out at the time of writing. I plan to have a full rake of Swallow anyway, providing Hornby release a proper Executive set of power cars, not Swallow misreported as Executive... That's all for now. Thanks for reading. Dan

Hi all, Having had a busy couple of weeks making kits for customers, I've finally had chance to get some layout work done. I have decided on MDF for the raised trackbed etc. It's a bit heavier than the ply I was going to use, but I prefer the surface finish. I will be creating most of my road and path textures myself and then printing everything out. I think the MDF will give a better effect. The downside is that I have to cut all my wood outside and that requires compliant weather... We did have a nice sunny day this week though, so I made a start on the front/town sections. I've also been setting the risers in place that the MDF will sit on. I also bit the bullet and did a couple of outstanding jobs on the base boards. Finally crawling underneath and drilling all the bolt holes to fix the boards together and finishing off the latches that are on the outside As I turned 54 yesterday, I can tell you, this wasn't pleasant. -_- Along the front edge of the scenic section will be the station access road. It bothers me that everything is so aligned with the board edges though. My original plan was to have the whole thing shifted 30 degrees, but the fact that is has to be possible to dismantle it, made the track breaks a nightmare. :/ I still have to jigsaw out two large squares from the baseboard to allow access to the underside of the MDF as there will be lighting in the station, on the platforms and for the point motors. I've also raised the road section with some heavy polystyrene sheet. I didn't want the station building to be too high but also didn't want to compromise the height of the bridge in the countryside section. At the other end the road will go underneath the railway and slowly incline to MDF level towards the back section. I'm doing it as split bridge design similar to ones we had in my city. Four main tracks and then two goods tracks. I haven't got a solid plan on the town area yet. It will depend on how everything looks raised up and with the track in place. Feel free to point out all my clichés. :D Until next time Dan

Hi all, I've decided not to wait until April and I'm going to commit to TT:120 now. I'm not going to have anything era appropriate to run on mainlines for some time, but a model railway is about more than just trains right? Right? It might actually go in my favour, as I can't count the amount of hours I've wasted in the past watching trains instead of doing some work... Made a start laying/roughing the trackwork. Everything is flexi and Peco turnouts. I was worried about making the curves, as the Peco flexi is pretty stiff. A consequence of having the track buried in the plastic I guess. I had the idea to use OO curves as a template to push against and it worked perfectly. Because I have four tracks curving, I used a 2nd radius for the inner tracks plus a 3rd radius for the outer tracks. I used the inside and outside edges. Next job is to figure out the wood shapes to elevate the track bed to allow for bridges in each scenic section. I feel another trip to B&Q is in there air. Added pics of the roughing out. Until next time. Daniel

I think waiting is good advice and see what April brings. Thanks all Best Daniel

I did embark on an N project about twenty years ago, but even with twenty-year younger eyes, I struggled to see it properly. I appreciate the suggestion non the less. Since my above post, I have mocked up a OO double track. It'll fit a five coach HST set. Not terrible, but also less than desirable. I think I need to spend some time meditating to the sound of screaming Valentas. Best Daniel

Hi all. Long time no progress.. Well, once the baseboards were constructed, I hit a block. I'm really not sure or confident that TT:120 is the way to go for me. I chose the scale to allow some scale length trains to run, but the reality is, it'll be months, possible years until there's enough stock to be able to even put two rakes together. I'm also not confident that Hornby won't pull the plug at any given moment. This has been keeping me up at night and it's actually causing me stress. Model railways shouldn't cause you stress. I'm going to use the already built baseboards and lay out some OO track to see how cramped it looks and see if it can inspire me to come up with a reduced layout that still ticks some of my boxes. However, deep down I know it is going to look cramped and have no feasible way to run anything near a full rake of coaches. I do have a couple of EMUs and I've always had a penchant for Southern/NSE. Maybe I could build something for them, but that is a long way from my dream of running HSTs. First world problems right? I'll keep you posted when I know what I'm doing with my life... Best Daniel

FreeCAD gets my vote too. Although I mainly did my modelling in Foundry's Modo.