Savoyard

Hi Rod, I've got my scenery modelling mojo back rather than playing with smoke units and magnetic couplings! I will bring the Deltic down with me next time I visit which may be sometime in April and we can give it a run. It needs a run as it was running erratically last time I ran it and so it may need some tweaking. Peter

The road bridge in nearing completion with just the final weathering of the stone to be done and today I added a stone wall at the back of the lift up section. The new wall on the lift up section. Both sides of the bridge. A view from the station. After I've completed the work on the bridge I want to work on the scenery at the end of the station. After discussion with Wayne Merridew, a friend who has been the sounding board for ideas for the layout, he suggested the I have a tunnel at the end of the station, which is now disused so it will be bricked up. This will the start of a hill at this end of the station. I made the tunnel mouth using the same method at the bridge using the bamboo sticks for the stone arch.

Hi Ray, As I mentioned in my reply to your question on the same subject last March, the door opens outward and the flap lifts up easily. Today I fitted with an additional door handle to make it easier to get in and out especially when the flap is down.

On my last post you can see the door with it's locks. In the initial plan the door was the scenic break to the fiddle yard but now I wanted to make it scenic and part of the layout. Yesterday I came up with the idea of having a backscene attached the door and hide the locks as much as I could, This was my first attempt yesterday with a mock up panoramic back scene from photos I've taken. When I looked the photos afterwards I wasn't happy with box in sections so I decided to day to completely redo it with some new plywood rather than off cuts. I boxed in the locks on the door completely leaving only the handles showing. Here is the new box in section on the door. The right hand side has little or no gap so is continuous, the left hand side box overlaps the door box section by about 10mm to hide the gap from the door. It seems to work well. The photo below the lift up section is down and shows how the gaps are hidden and will help to make the scenery continuous around the layout and transform the door area. I have a little more work to do on this area and I will show how what I am planning to do with the scenery on this section.

Hi James, I checked with Mike at Geoscenics and it is limestone and granite colours and I mix them 50/50. The pine strips with 3mm is about the right recommended platform height. For the platform edges I used some spare coffee stirrers which I had to cut to the right width, having done nearly all the platforms I found some OO gauge wooden sleeper strips and they were more or less perfect and required no cutting. I look forward to hearing about how you get on. Peter

I rebuilt the lift up section to full width which will give more scenery area and link the goods yard with the depot. I then modified the bridge to incorporate a smaller opening to allow vehicle access to the goods yard.

Ready for the next stage Let Ballast Commence!! I've made a start on ballasting starting with the main line through the station, which is now half done, but I will no doubt going over it till I think it's looks right. The ballast is from Geoscenics and mixture of a light and dark colour, It is excellent quality and goes down so easily and looks the part. The ballast is mixed in an old chewing gum carton which has a small opening which makes it easy to spread the ballast. I tried a ballast spreader but gave up on it. I then use the brush to spread it about a little more and then use the foam pads to tamp it down. The blue tool is a mobile opening device which fits in to the ridge on inside of the rail to clear out any excess ballast that might be stuck there. It's a learning curve but it so much easier and enjoyable to do in O gauge!

Part of the original plan for the layout was to have a road bridge at the end of the station to act as a scenic break to the fiddle yard. I still wanted to have one even though the fiddle yard will be a depot yard and part of the scenery. On the original shelf layout I was going to use Ten Commandments bridge and thought about using it on the new layout, having pondered over the last few months I thought of building my own and so yesterday I set about giving is a try and using a now redundant MDF shelf cut out the pieces. After gluing everything together it started to take shape I only had enough of the Slaters stone card to do one side so I worked on the opposite side first. I used some bamboo sticks to represent the stone frame around the bridge opening. I also had to hide the wires coming down at the side of light switch which i did by making a box around it which us painted sky blue on the two photos above. There is still a lot to do and redo, including the wall on the bridge, I will be covering those pine strips with a slightly different stone I used on the platform edging. I have also got to work out how I get passengers down from the road to the station platform with either steps or a ramp. Though that would be very steep but I've got a couple of ideas for that. When it is complete it looks like it could be quite a atmospheric view at track level judging by the following photo.

There has been little progress on the layout before Christmas. I've been working mainly on the magnetic couplings and adding smoke units to some locos, though I added platform ramps at the station building end in November. A couple of weeks ago I started work on the Barrow Crossings at the either end of the platforms. I used wooden coffee stirrers for the crossings. I started with the station end first and this took a few days as there was some trial and error as it is on an angle and I had to incorporate a signal which could be removed if necessary. The other end was done in a couple of hours as it was fairly straight forward. Yesterday I started work on weathering the track and today I completely redone the stone platform edging on the front of the island platform, the other side and the opposite are next. To be continued....

A surprise visitor to Heaton Lodge on Sunday afternoon. Heljan Class 73 on Heaton Lodge

Hi Howard, It wall looks great and it is giving me ideas for the station platforms I am currently building. What did you use to paint the walls? I hope Rod is feeling better. We are planning on visiting Sal's mum in Ottery within the next month or so, so hopefully I will be able to sneak off again and pay Ramchester another visit. Peter

Just in case people were worried and I'd left the dark side and returned to OO modelling I thought it is time for an update! Over the last couple of months or so I've done a lot of maintenance work on the track and the DCC feeds to improve running, and also put some extra batons under the middle of the baseboards. The station side work is complete and I've still some work to do on the depot side. I have been doing a lot of work on the station platforms, I finally got round to building the other platform. I have used AK Interactive Asphalt and Concrete Terrain Acrylics for the platforms, edged with the white acrylic pen. I shortened the original platform to the same length at the new one and then applied the AK Interactive acrylics as on the new platform. It is still a work in progress but the bulk of the work is done and shortly I will hopefully be able to ballast the station track and then I can start work on the goods yard. Here are some photos of the work so far.

Dave, I've tried all sorts of glues, with varying degrees of success even with the same glue. I even tried soldering and whilst this worked, the heat reduced the power of the magnets, perhaps I should have known this but it was worth a try. I then thought of using a plastic housing and the best way to do this I thought was using a 3D printer, so when I eventually got my printer last week it wasn't long before I started experimenting. I had tried the larger square magnet on a Heljan Deltic attached to six Darstead Mk 1's which were attached together using Kadees, it didn't work so last night I found some 5mm x 2mm round magnets and quickly drew and printed some larger links. I attached one to the loco and one to lead coach and it did pull the six coaches but once it hit the tightest curve on the layout it failed but it did manage the other three quarters OK, so perhaps some more tinkering.

I take a different approach to Hunt as the magnet is part of a link whereas they use a new style of coupling to hold the magnet. There are a number of companies producing couplings using a similar method for a number of years. Here are some examples. First4Magnets from 2013 GLR Bespoke Services MagClic (I think have been doing O Gauge couplings in the same way for a few years now) I would therefore be surprised they could patent it as I would have thought it would have to be a new and original idea, which going by these links it is not.

I did say that this it was an initial test with the wagons and I will be doing a full test once I have converted some more wagons. If the smaller magnets don't work then I have the stronger magnets as a backup. The second video shows the bigger magnets on three Ellis Clark Mk 1 suburban coaches, these are heavy coaches with brass sides and a metal chassis, and it pulls them no problem and they remained connected when the rear coach derailed, the engine did not uncouple. It went through various points with no problem and the maximum radius of 5' and mainly under, so below the recommended radius, and it worked fine with no buffer lock. If there is some problems I would look at adjusting the links to compensate. It is of course horses for courses, it won't work for every layout but for my 20' x 12' shed layout it looks like it work fine, even with an element of unevenness on the levels, part of a current work in progress! The main reason I wanted to develop an easy to use magnetic for shunting and not be restricted by having to have the wagons/coaches in the right direction to work. The layout goods yard has been designed so I can do the Inglenook Puzzle and I don't want to be messing with 3 link couplings when shunting. I just use a small stick or pointer, as long as it is not magnetic, it works fine. Failing that the hand of god as in the video! LOL! I will be doing more testing and I will post the results on here.

Though I have not posted for a couple of months, I have been quite busy doing a few different jobs on the layout and fitting sound to locos. The main work has been on relaying the track and ironing out running problems, especially on the 3 way point I built, getting it ready for ballasting. Last week I bought a Flashforge Dreamer 3D printer, whilst I have got lots of ideas for it, the initial job was printing some 3 link couplings to hold magnets, I have just updated my post on my experiments with magnetic coupling which can be found on the link below. I will be posting more about the work on the layout soon.

I have been working on and off on various versions of the magnetic couplings, but last week I got a 3D printer and decided to take a fresh approach. I've made two versions using a 3D printed link to hold the magnet so no need for glue. The small version holds a 3mm x 1mm round magnet suitable for small wagons. This is how they come off the printer. The initial tests were done using white PLA but a dark silver metallic PLA arrived today for the final versions. The magnet clips into the round hole and then attached to the hook as shown above, Originally I just had one metal link and the printed link, whilst it worked OK if the magnets were aligned correctly it looked clumsy if they weren't though they did connect. Therefore I've added a small link on the hook which allows the printed link to move more freely and connect whatever way the magnets have been fitted. When fitted it reasonably looks like a 3 link coupling. With the overlapping links it gives the impression of a three link coupling (if you don't look too closely! ) Here is a short video showing it working, this is only a first test run I will be doing a full test once I've converted more wagons, The second version uses a 3mm square by 1mm deep magnets for coaches and bigger wagons, Again the magnet just clips into the link. As they come off the printer, this time I remembered to use the second PLA for the printing raft. The raft gives a good surface for the small links to stick to, it was too hit and miss printing without it. Though uncoupled they don't look as prototypical. once coupled the overlapping links give the appearance (from a distance) of a full link. As with small version there is a small link on the hook. The connection to the loco. Once I have got some more nickel silver wire I will redo most of these links. This is a test run using a Dapol Jinty with three Ellis Clark Mk 1 suburban coaches, as you can see there is no problem pulling these coaches which are quite heavy, and as you can see it easily couples up on the curve. It is not on this clip but the rear coach derailed on a point and other coaches and loco did not uncouple and stayed attached! I very pleased with the results using the 3D printer but I will be doing more testing over the next few days. The 3D printer is a Flashforge Dreamer and I have been using the free version of SketchUp, more of this on another day.

Time flies by when your enjoying yourself, I've just noticed it's exactly a month since I last posted. There has been a lot going on in the background, there is some new stock which I will post more on later and I've been working on the station platforms. One side of the station is nearly complete and here are some shots so far. The lower end of the platform showing the ramp. The middle of the platform looking towards where the station building will be. The opposite direction giving the game away on one of the new locos! Experimenting with ballast and weathering. The white edging was achieved using this Acrylic marker and masking tape. The grey for the flags is a Dulux Slate Grey tester pot for about £1.80 complete with roller and the Tarmac is the Woodlands Scenics Tarmac paint. I also recently acquired this depot building which needs a little work but nicely finishes off the depot yard area of the layout.

Yes, I was lucky it had only been on the Ellis Clark website for two hours a couple of weeks ago. I will be fitting sound later this week.

After a weeks holiday back to the grind! Today I completed the track on the Goods Shed area of the layout and all wired up and runs nicely. And with the Goods Shed in place. The Goods Shed needs some work which is another job on the list. I used on of the Marcway 3 way points modified with my smaller tie bars and to raise the height the the same as the PECO track I stuck coffee sticks to each sleeper. And two new editions to the rolling stock.

I've just checked on the App Store and the current version is 1.8.4 which was updated 3 years ago.

I mocked up the platform edge with the weathered stone, this test stone strip is more glossy than the sheets I did this morning.

I intended today to continue work on the existing platform and make a start on the other platform. The best laid plans of mice and men comes to mind! I started by painting the Slaters stone sheets. Firstly with Dulux Mossy Stone. Then I started to weather them with the Muddy Brown wash. I have still to add some of the Moss Green. Here are the weathered sheets and I think the effect is very good. I applied it with a cotton bud as a brush was to even. I then rang a friend to discuss ideas about the Goods Yard and he suggested a 3" extension would help improve the area around the Goods Shed and solves the problem raised by 47606odin. So I added some 2"x2" batons. Then I added the three inch extension. I have now reworked the track layout to use the extra space and replaced the two left hand points with another Marcway 3 way point. The track is temporary laid at the moment to make sure it works and it seems to work fine. The station platform edges on the goods yard side are temporary as well.

I've been experimenting with the stone edging. The base colour is the Dulux Mossy Stone, which is easy to apply with the roller. Then I used the model mates washes, Moss Green and Mud Brown. The left is Moss Green with Mud Brown on top and the right vice versa, not too much difference, but I think the effect looks quite good. Top View. What do you think?

I have made a lot of progress today on the main station platform which is now complete except for some filling and sanding. A view from the bottom end of the station, to the right is the next stage and the other platform and goods yard. Towards what will be the main station area, again to the left is the work on the other platform. This will be the main part of the station with the main station building and a footbridge to the other platform. I have scored out the platform edges which will be painted grey with white edgings as in the previous post. Another view of the main station area. The stone edging has been painted using a Dulux Mossy Stone paint sampler, which for £1.79 with an inbuilt roller seems good value, with some weathering is should be OK.