Steve Stubbs

So who can recommend a decent baseboard kit supplier? I am looking for quality not cheapness, and supply within a reasonable timescale. regards Steve Stubbs Somerset

I bought one of the very first ones, I think i was told it was no 13 off the production line. I had ordered a kit, but they decided that they were too complex for the average punter to assemble. I did get it at the pre-order price. In essence it is what I wanted, I have the middle length N Gauge one, each track will hold a diesel and 9 bogie coaches. Or a Heavy freight diesel and 24 4 wheel goods vehicles. I had a few problems with it. All were solved, but very frustrating at the time. I had bought it to use on a modular layout with the Weston N Gauge Modular group. I made some modules to take it, with a run around track going either side of the main span on both Up and Down, a scissors at each end so all to tracks could feed either direction running, and four cassette docks for use with DMUs, light locos, and very short trains without the need to occupy a full length track on the main device. To carry it around to meetings, I used a sack trolley, which meant carrying it at an angle. First problem, not mentioned in the literature, was the track spacing at each end is wider than the standard Peco, which in itself is too wide. To get track alignment from the incoming ends of the two scissors within the length of the triple module meant very tight reverse curves outwards, I ended chopping up Peco Setrack second radius curves to make it work. But this involved changing the large radius turnouts for the run around and docking station tracks for short radius to make the needed space. Next problem was the Peco code 55 trackage in the carrying trays was not fixed in position longditudinally so it moved when it was being transported at an angle on the sack trolley. Net result was rails torn out of the retained sleepering strip where they stuck in the entrys as the carriers moved up or down. There is only 2mm clearance at either end between fixed and moving tracks. I replaced about 7 full lengths of Peco 55 and used a small amount of UHU to retain the tracks from sliding in their trays. However this occured again at the other end, the meter length being fishplated to get the extra length. Yes I had forgotten to anticipate that. The fishplates didnt hold. I then had to cut and refit another set of tracks at the shorter end. The Nelevator people sent me some of the vertical retaining clips as I had to destroy the ones there to get the damaged track off. The third issue was simply in my view bad design. I started getting the track carriers stopping while being driven down, then falling free once tapped to free them and the indexing was lost.. I rang the Nelevator people who said remove the cover over the stepper motors, what was happening is that the drive from the stepper motors is transferred to a circular polished steel shaft through a meshed gear, the gear (Nylon) being retained by a small grub screw. There is no way a nylon gear with a tiny grub screw will be kept in position for long on a polished steel shaft with no 'flat' for the grubscrew to engage in. Under load, the gears were being driven laterally out of mesh by the torque. They were already aware of the problem, presumably someone else had already reported it. They explained they had changed their manufacturing procedure to bond the gears to the shafts. ( I had already anticipated this and had applied the locktite already). BUT they had not advised the owners of those elevators already out in the wide world of either the problem or the solution. The final thing was the need for a 'KILL' switch in the system, I did see a prototype mk 2 handset at a show at least a couple of years back which had one. If you are not that near and one of your clubmembers drives into an already loaded tray, the result is a cascade of rolling stock down onto the floor. All you can do is rush over and pull the power lead out, before attacking the relevant club member with any convenient hammer or wrench. And then all the carefull indexiing is out of the window and you have to reindex all the tracks before continuing. Yes I still have it, and still like it, and would I buy another? Maybe but the price is a lot higher now. It is probably as cheap now to build a fiddle yard the old way with ladders of sidings, but that uses a heck of a lot more space and effort. But I wont try transporting it about without extra care again. I cant see the use of them in OO other than if you only have very short trains. Steve in Somerset

For many years I have used Carrs Green Label Flux which came in bottles of approximately half a litre. Haviing finally exhausted my supply I find only piddles little 50 mil bottles are now sold by C&L, and the price seems to be very high, some £7.50 per bottle plus VAT on top. Can anyone point me at a source of an equivilent flux for brass which is sold in sensible size containers and doesn't need a mortgage to buy? Steve in Somerset

Having run up against the Law of Sod, I powered up Templot to see what could be done with the under floor clashes caused by moving to sub-board turnout operating units instead of wire in a tube on the surface.. Clearly moving a couple of turnouts either left or right a few inches would cure the immediate problem, so I did that and then printed up a full size version to check out the clearances etc. This was done by populating the stuck together full size sheets (13 in all) with rolling stock. A number of things became apparent. Firstly the siding space available for freight rolling stock still allows 65 four-wheelers to be on the layout, if all available siding space is used. This is down from the 70 on the previous version but not significantly so. What did surprise me was that I actually had 65 4-wheelers with 2mm wheels on them! Secondly the run around loop also had to be lengthened by an inch or so as previously I had used 57' and 50' passenger stock, now I wanted to be able to use 5 of the 63'6" Mk 1's in the main platform, without having to use the station pilot to release main line locos. This was achieved by moving the crossover slightly towards the buffers, but still allowing for 'Western' sized train locos to push back, uncouple and run-around. Fiddling around with stock on the revised entry to the goods shed showed a slightly smaller cut of wagons could be on that road / in-shed/ but still enough to overhang the shed on both sides. The revision to the run around loop means that the maximum arrival / departure length for freights will be 25 4-wheelers or the equivalent. Then an idle thought passed through (there being nothing between the ears to stop it). Previously having used road adjacent to the entry road turnout as the loco siding meant that space was always going to be tight for loco support facilities such as a coaling stage and diesel refuelling point (if I ever got around to adding the scenery to the layout). The revision to the goods shed entry direction and conversion of the kick-back road into an ordinary siding had freed up space there. Hmmmm. If I was to reassign that new siding as the loco holding road then that problem was solved, and the previous loco holding road could be better used. In fact it could make up the missing piece of the jigsaw, a carriage siding. That only needed to be long enough to hold a local passenger, say 4 suburbans or a three car DMU. That in turn meant the yard siding nearest the arrival road could be 's' - curved and allow room for a ramp down from the over bridge road that masks the cassette joining point, thereby allowing vehicle access into the goods yard, a weighbridge and associated huts. So back to Templot and another couple of hours shuffling track. The resultant amended (and final) trackplan is shown below. Photos 1 to 3 show the three boards, photo 4 shows the whole scenic layout bit (with cassettes on one end). The width will be circa 4 inches deeper as the bolt-on low relief townscape goes on the operating (signal box) side. The full three track boards are 2.8 metres by 28 cms. Now to complete the turnout timbering and start building....... Nurse! The Screens!.................

The first uncompleted version of Staplegrove Road used wire-in-tube for turnouts, the nylon / neoprene tube runs being glued into routed tracks on the top surface of the boards, and the slide switches operating them and the vee switching being set into the edge. But the edge mounting of the switches compromised the location of proposed low-relief buildings at the rear, as I needed to get my fat fingers in to operate the sliders. With the decision to use sub-surface mounted Blue Point units with rodding operation coming out of the rear face, I ran-up up a full size set of templot printouts to check position of the under board units and the additional magnetic uncouplers; and to confirm the location of track feeds and section breaks for the revised goods shed track turnout. Aaarggh! Sod's law immediately came into force with a number of the operating unit locations being compromised by either the end sections of the boards or the central supporting struts. Back to Templot, and the need to revise turnout switch positions. Having already cut most of the sleepering strip for the 12 turnouts, and soldered onto them a fair proportion of the Versaline chairplates, I have tried to sort this by sliding turnouts along either right or left a couple of inches, but without changing the basic structures of them. The main issue becomes a slight shortening of the end loading and cattle dock roads adjacent to the bay platform line, but this is compensated for by lengthening of two sidings in the main yard area. So no overall loss of siding space. After reprinting the lot again, it occurred to me that I could have achieved the same result without all this faffing about by using the Blue Point units to operate wire-in-tube where location was difficult. From experience you can put quite a tight 'S' curve into the tubing without seizing up the wire. Before any of the new turnouts are built into position, I will have to decide whether to revert at least one of the units to wire-in-tube operated by a Blue Point to regain the lost siding space........ Decisions - decisions. For the actual tie-bars, I will retain the system I used last time and have been salvaging the units from the older track as it gets binned. I have tried most systems over the years in 2mm, 4mm and 7mm scales; except the turnout units sold by the 2mm Association (now withdrawn) as they were just too fiddly, the PCB on edge with wire to blades as pushed by the 2mm Association beginners guide, and the bent pins inserted in tiebars as in the Normal Soloman video on trackwork in the Right Track series (well worth a view in my humble opinion for anyone contemplating track construction). Last time I made up tiebar 'sleepers' out of filed down glass fibre strip, and inserted into them turned 4mm coach door handles from Blacksmith? (They used to have a shop in Farnborough). These were fixed with a 14 BA washer soldered onto the spigot on the underside so they are free to pivot in the glass fibre sleepers and the tiny brass rectangular 'handles' provide an excellent flat-sided rectangle for soldering the foot of blades onto. No bending stresses on the solder joint as the handles pivot as the blades move, and as long as the tiebar sleepers are painted to match the sleeper colour, they are pretty much invisible. Last time I excavated too much of a depression under them, it would have been reasonably filled by ballast except that I also took the operating wire underneath to the middle of the tiebar, so needed clearance underneath. This time I will put thinner tiebars between the sleepers with the Blue Point operating wires will be inserted into the edge of the tiebar outside the running rails, so minimal clearance under the tiebar will be needed. The wire/tiebar interface will be camouflaged under point rodding cranks etc. The tiebars will be painted ballast colour so hopefully the actual operation of them between the sleepers will also be almost invisible, except to those watching very closely! Assuming I can get my camera to focus close enough I will add below a photo of one of the old design units still awaiting destruction, so you can see how unobtrusive they were as individual sleepers, hopefully the revised ones will be even better. Note also the overscale opening of the toe of the blade!

Came from Bromsgrove Models. You can get them singly or in 5's. regards Steve

Falcon Brass do a kit for the J88. Dumb Buffers and all. As a youngster I used to sit on the bank by Maryhill Central station iin Glasgow and watch a J88 shuntiing the yard there. All of 55 years ago! Steve in Somerset

Todays effort has been to print up a full size Templot run of the revised trackplan and UHU it all together. This is because I need to check that the under-board turnout operation units, which will replace the wire-in-tube of the original, will fit in the spaces available; also to plan where isolation breaks, electrical sectioning, track feeds and the additional three uncouplers to go with the orignal ten will go. Here you can see board three printout, and for perspective I have placed on it seven of Mr Farish's vehicles which arrived in a box today from Messrs Hattons. They are sitting (approximately) on the main platform road, well at least the five maroons ones are. The other two blue GUVs are sitting on the bay platform road. Those of you of a quick mind will realise the platform runs down between the two groups as far as the heavy black line, which is the board join onto the middle board. Next to the blue guvs, a brakevan sits on the end-load spur, which will also be the brake van storage road. The two vans are sitting on the cattle dock road. The brown one is a Parkside body on an Association chassis, the other a Peco van which had the chassis cut in half down the middle length-wise and narrowed to reduce the overwidth of the axleboxes (old technology here!) The brake lever has been replaced with an etched one. This wagon and the other 22 currently like it will eventually get fully etched chassis and then be happy little things. The board actually extends to the right past the end of the paper printouts by a whole two inches, every inch in 2mm FS being important. The station building is by the last of the maroon machines and the forecourt towards you. You are looking from the operating side here by the way. A set of low relief scenic lightweight boards will attach onto the nearer side of the layout, probably all of four inches deep. Turnout actuation will be by rods, hopefully decent ones from the radio-controllect aircraft world, or if I am broke at that point straightened out wire coathangers, operating Blue Point units by pull-push. These are like a mini mechanical tortoise or cobalt motor, with a springy steel wire to give positive locking, running up through a slider to control the amount of movement / force applied to the tiebars. They have an integral double-pole changeover switch which you can see at the base in the photo below. That gives vee switching plus LED route indication if wanted, or even operation of a relay to allow electrical interlocking of track and signals. I have some experience in that field, as in another life I am the electics gaffer for Bath Green Park ( OK it's OO and at Warley again this year - but don't miss it! ) and may not be able to resist doing it all again in 2mm. The layout will be fully signalled. Now I need to get back to turnout construction .................

Actually did a record number last month, he says modestly. Well a record for me in the year and a month I have had shop 1. But I have been modelling, under the white cover in the top photo is some of the boards for Pen Mill, being done in 4mm. See the Pen Mill blog for more details of that deviation!

About a dozen years ago I attended a meeting of the NE area group of the 2mm Association where someone had on display a tiny shunting layout built onto an IKEA two drawer unit. Whist lt was too small for my liking, I noticed it was bult on top of a 2-drawer IKEA unit, about 80 cms by 28 cms, and which seemed to be built of a high grade 7-ply birch plywood, and sounded cheap. It occurred to me that three locked in a line would make a baseboard area of 2.4 metres by 28 cms, big enough for a prqactrice build shelf layout and with the added advantage of six integral drawers for storing 'gloatbox' items. "Lets go to IKEA Dearest" said I. "You haven't been taking your medicine again", Dearest replied. But we went anyway and for a couple of years they sat there as a six drawer unit holding goodies and collecting dust. Then I finally got round to making track. Apart from a couple of test builds, this was my first attempt at 2mm finescale track building. Templot, over a few evenings, generated me a nice trackplan with lots of siding space in several areas, a platform with a main face and bay at the back, loco shed road and goods shed road, all fed from a cassette long enough for a five coach train with loco. So I built it, 13 turnouts (only one of which can be called a straight one) operated by wire in tube from slide switches set into the board edge which also changed vee polarity, wired for two controllers and with 10 uncoupling magnets liberally situated around to operate the DG couplings. Track was code 40 bullhead nickel-silver from a couple of ten metre coils, soldered directly to PCB sleepering from 2mm Shop 1. Having got it wired up and working, it was used for a while for theraputic shunting, then reverted to being a shelf layout, literally, with stuff piled on it. It never to be ballasted or sceniced. Why? I guess the standard of track-making, whilst acceptable and operationally ok, was not really good enough ( in my defence it was a first attempt) and coming along in the near future was both the Versaline and then Easitrac systems. I decided recently that rather than bin it that I would re-build it using Versaline turnouts and easitrac plain track. Also from shunting experience, I realised that the entry to the goods shed was from the wrong direction making that aspect of shunting difficult, so I took the opportunity to resite that and also reduce by one turnout as a kickback headshunt for it was no longer required. Below, assuming I can get the system to work, is a photo of the centre of the three boards as was, this was sprayed in undercoat/primer at one time as I was using it as a demo piece at a Wells show. Original middle board, showing the wire in tube switching. Don't look too closely! Anyway, track construction has started, with versaline chairplates being soldered onto pcb sleepering, still waiting to be gapped though. The actual construction will be in-situ as normal, once I have refaced the baseboards with new ply on top of the previous. But wire-in-tube has been discarded, more about that later. The bit of easitrac plain track is there simply because it is..... A side benefit I can enjoy is not having to wait for shop orders from shop 1, it's upstairs! + At the bottom of the last the new trackplan is visible, printed all ono one sheet to paper. You can just make out the board joint positioning. Cassette feeds into the bottom left, station at top right. But enough for now. Those still awake may take a nap.

One of the downsides of laying C&L track is that you need cash! With two of our group economically inactive, we are having to progress at the pace at which we can afford to buy track components. Coupled with a shortage of GWR 2-bolt chairs at C&L this hasn't helped. However all the sleepering (well almost all) has now been laid for the goods sorting loops opposite the down platform, and a start made on rail laying, starting from the fan of turnouts at the road overbridge end. Mark made up the spacing jigs for the sleepering for both 45 ft and 60 ft panels, he and Keith have been laying the sleepers on the templates and this spacing shows up clearly in the photos. The templot templates have been printed on 'Toughprint' waterproof paper, they are given a coating of Shellac after laying to be doubly sure. When we start 'wet' ballasting, the last thing we will need is water seeping through into the cork, causing it to swell. We are using Exactoscale fishplates, but these are a bit flimsy compared to the C&L ones. Their benefit is that they fit the bullhead rail web section! The C&L ones which we would have preferred are sized for code 100 track and we are using code 75 from the Scalefour Socity stores. Dave has been the main abs chair 'threader', producing most of the rail lengths with chairs threaded on. Keying practice for the sidings is alternate right and left hand keys as the loops are bi-directional running. The main up and down lines will be uni-directional. The rail comes in 500mm lengths for posting purposes. Two 45 or 60 ft panels can be made with short lengths of rail left over, these are being used on the turnouts for wing rails, closure rails and check-rails. Scalefour Society filing jigs for both vees and the switch blades have now been obtained, although the vees for the first three boards have been hand filed and checked with an exactoscale vee gauge. Being stainless silver, vees can be soldered up in the gauge, but the new filing jig also provides for soldering up and will be used in the future. I am modifying one of their superb wing rail spacer jigs to suit our flangeway spacing of 0.9mm If you are building 4mm track I can really recommend these Scalefour society products to make your life easier. But you still need to source (or as we did - make) track gauges to suit your track standards. Meanwhile I have been laying in some of the board joint pcb half-depth sleepering strips and Keith and I have been solderiing up the track power droppers to the underside of the rails as we go. The first turnout to be laid failed the quality control test - we could not get an 8-coupled loco round the curve without loosing all free play on one axle; so it has been relaid to ease the curvature into a smoother radius. Also the superglue used to hold the copper-clad reinforcing strips under the crossing failed under heat from the soldering itself, so we have reverted to using a 2 part high temperature epoxy called Bisonite for this. I had hoped a modern industrial superglue would take soldering temperatures, but no. Once the up and down main lines have been laid across the board joint between the first and second boards and the rail soldered across, all tracks will be cut through to allow the boards to be separated again and work on any two boards to be progressed, three together simultaneously makes movement round the conservatory a bit tight as there are still various plants, not to mention two lathes and a milling machine in there. . Here you can see some of the jointing strips with their half-depth milled sleepers already fixed in position over the board joint. The screws are temporary and will be replaced with much smaller countersunk ones which will disappear under the ballast. The PCB is stuck down so the screws are belt-and-braces. 2mm Association chairplates will be used to bridge the gap under the rails and solder the rail to the sleepers - the extra height of the chairs lifts the rail above the sleepers. Once tracklaying is complete a basic brown acrylic will be painted over the templates before we ballast. Various track gauges are in view with the two brass types being turned up in quantity on the lathe. The nearer one is the type also used for setting the flangeway gap (0.9mm) and the checkrail gap (1.1mm). The flat milled on one end allows it to sit over the 'vee' and the rebate between the rail 'grippers' allows it to go over closure rails. Plain rail with chairs threaded is waiting to be attached. The sleeper spacing for the 45 ft panels shows up well here. On plain track we only print the rail on the templot printouts, the sleeper spacing being set by the panel jigs. For turnouts full sleeper printing takes place. The alternate left and right hand keys on the chairs are visible on the nearest rail, and there is a fishplate just to the left of the right hand track gauge. Once the rails are painted to represent rust they will stand out more. Cosmetic fishplates will be glued on where the rail is not cut through, the rail head only being slit with a slitting saw in a dremel to make it look as if there is a real joint there. Back to the Butanone!

How?

Point under construction. Milling strips A milled Strip.

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Here's one of the uncouplers embedded in position. Progress recently has been the printing up of production templates, which are printed on 'Toughprint' waterproof inkjet paper, stuck down with 3M Spraymount, then given a coat of shellac. The various electrical connections are then marked on, dropper holes drilled and dropper wire strung down through the holes. This will be soldered onto the underside of the rails as they are laid. The turnout timbering is then cut to fit and glued on using UHU solvent, Photos here somewhere. The Vees for the turnouts have been made by Mark, who has done a great job with these, so for that he also gets the reward of filing up the point blades. One of our pet hates is watching 00 gauge rolling stock lurching through crossings so as previously mentioned we have gone for a flangeway gap of 0.9mm which current RP25 profile wheels will run through quite happily, and which 'carry' the wheels across to the point of the vee without wheel drop. A batch of half a dozen roller gauges for crossing and checkrail production has been turned up, and the trusty Sherline has also been used in milling mode to start milling the PCB board joint strips. These are half - depth sleepers, milled into a sheet of pcb the same depth as the standard thick C&L sleepering, then araldited across board joints, with a couple of countersunk screws for added security. The rails are soldered across and the board joint is then recut through. This will stop the mis-alignment of rails across board joints, both vertically and laterally, that spoil so many layouts one sees at exhibitions. Once ballasted, the web disappears completely. The 2mm Scale Association sells these (in 2mm form naturally) for their members, but only in straight plain sleeper sections. We are making them in whatever formation the tracks cross the board joints. 20-odd are needed for the first three boards alone! But to compensate for the additional height of the chairs on the track where is chaired onto the ASB sleepers, we are using 2mm association nickel-silver chairplates from their Versaline system to pack under the rails on the soldered connections. These are small enough to fit completely under the rail and allow cosmetic C&L half chairs to be glued onto the soldered sleeper/rail connections. Needless to say the milling machine failed at the start of the programme, but the versatile Sherline system allows the milling column to be refitted to the lathe bed and production was continued, albeit with a bit a bit more difficulty as the milling table is that much bigger, and on the lathe we are having to grip the pcbs in the milling vice instead. Finally plain track rail-only temples have been glued down same as the turnout ones, and hand marked into GRW 45 ft and 60 ft track panel sleeper spacing. These allow the sleepers to be freehand laid round curved track, straight track can be assembled in panels on the jigs you may just see in one of the photos. Now for the actual tracklaying!