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6029 King Stephen

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Everything posted by 6029 King Stephen

  1. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. A few weeks back I had built a whitemetal bus kit and after washing it in Cif to get it ready for painting, I used a hairdryer to dry it. I was shocked to discover that the heat of the hairdryer was sufficient to melt the solder. I have tried the hairdryer on the railcar but to no avail. I suspect that it has been soldered with ordinary solder as the solder is might brighter than low melt solder seems to be on other kits I have. Going forward, I think I will try to melt the solder in the oven by setting the oven at 100 degrees C and putting a waste piece of K's whitemetal in and then slowly raising the temperature until the bit melts. Then I will return to 100 degrees and raise the temperature slowly until the solder melts and the model falls apart. I will have to be careful with fumes as whoever built it has used some find of padding/filler in the cab roof areas. I wanted to dismantle the kit because it is a bit lopsided and tighter in the centre than at the ends. Whitemetal dummy bogie has been built using the same solder, so that hasn't come apart either. The motor bogie appears to be one of the old Triang ones with steamroller wheels to match. I won't be reusing either bogie. Regards, Steve
  2. I am trying to reduce a K's GWR railcar to its component parts and assumed that it had been assembled with 70 degree solder but after placing it in a pot of boiling water, this clearly is not the case. My next option is to use the oven but before I do, what is the melting point for white Metal, as I only want to melt the solder and not the castings? Regards, Steve
  3. Thanks for the link - looks like a viable alternative and allows the possibility of looking through the whole vehicle without having a motor bogie visible at one end. Once I get back home next week, I will take some measurements. Regards, Steve
  4. I bought a K's GWR railcar in built condition at the Faversham show last year. I have stripped the paintwork using Nitromors and because the body seems a bit lopsided, I am going to put it in a pot of boiling water to reduce it to its component parts and then rebuild it. It was built with what looked like a Triang motor bogie and had been fitted with Triang plastic wheels which I have discarded. Has anyone else built one of these and if you have, how did you power it? I was thinking that maybe I might use a Hornby or a Lima railcar chassis with the plastic interior unit as the K's kit does not include a floor or interior. However, I also have a Triang Blue Pullman that I intend to power with a power bogie that is available in kit form from an Australian company. Perhaps I could construct a floor from basswood or hardboard and build an interior and use a similar motor bogie to power the railcar? Grateful for any tips or ideas. Regards, Steve
  5. John, Sorry, I should have mentioned in my reply that I hadn't been able to see the plan posted by the OP (what plan number/book was it from?) and was just referring to other people's comments regarding CJF's layout plan books and the Plan of the Month that appeared in the Railway Modeller. I am currently concentrating efforts on a OO gauge dockside themed layout with small locos as I seem to have a lot of goods stock and will sell off my larger locos to fund this and my other N gauge layout based on Tavistock North SR. When we return to the UK, I am hoping to build a 20'x10' shed to accommodate both these layouts, my modelling activities, books and woodworking equipment as SWMBO has told me there is not enough room in the house for my stuff! I might even consider a camp bed and stove and then it will be home from home.... Regards, Steve
  6. With the price of the new Hornby Merchant Navy class loco being around £180 and a Pullman coach costing around £50, I don't suppose it will be long before the 12 coach Atlantic Coast Express will be represented by a 4 coach train on most layouts (assuming you already have the observation car). I like CJF's plans as they give food for thought and elements of his larger layouts could be incorporated into smaller schemes. I have recently returned to N gauge modelling and suddenly all those really large CJF layouts for the "desirable maximum" of 20' x 10' are achieveable in the smaller gauge. With regards to prototype layouts being adapted to model layouts, I had considered modelling Redruth station in Cornwall but had dismissed it as requiring too much space. I bought the Barry Norman book on planning a layout and was interested to see that he had drawn a plan to make it more suitable for modelling in a reasonable space. Regards, Steve
  7. I hope to get cracking on the rebuild of this layout over the Christmas break. I am so glad that I decided to rebuild it as I recently received my copy of the revised book on the Okehampton Line and there are loads of new photos of Tavistock station, in particular shots of the goods yard showing the goods shed and cattle pens. I was going to use the Ratio goods shed but after seeing the photos, I think I will scratchbuild something in card. There is also a plan of Tavistock station (only platform elevation) that was absent from the original book. I will still need to make some compromises to fit the station into the space available but that should still be OK. I was going to use the L-Girder system to get rid of the flat earth baseboard that I seemed to have the last time but I am thinking that it will be easier and quicker to use a traditional open top type baseboard with a dropped section for the curved viaduct. I will be retaining the use of 18mm ply throughout with pocket holes to keep it all together. The overall size of the layout will be 12 foot long by 30 inches wide. I will have a backscene divider running the length of the layout and each board will be 4 foot by 30 inches. I have received all the pointwork required and the peco point motors so I should be able to make quick progress. My only concern now is whether I will have enough plain lengths for the fiddle yard but I will tackle that problem when and if it arises. Regards, Steve
  8. Yesterday afternoon I planed the wood for one girder and decided that I will continue planing the rest and assembling the girders and cross members this weekend. I have everything I need to get on with building this layout, I just need the time. I am planning to use strips of 18mm ply to form the cross members attached using pocket hole screws which provides a strong and quick join when using ply. I will print off the trackplan in its entirety from Templot during this week so that I can mark out the track bases ready to be cut from the other sheet of 18mm ply. I have the foam so I can fix that to the track bases and then spread PVA where the track needs to go, lay the track and spread the ballast over it and then hoover up the excess after 10 minutes. Working on one track base at a time, it should be manageable. All dropper wires have already been soldered to the underside of the rail, so I will only need to drill the hole for the wire to pass through as I lay the track. I will try to upload some pictures as I progress to make this thread more interesting. Regards, Steve
  9. It is amazing how quickly a layout thread goes from an update to page 10 in Layout topics - that is probably the incentive to keep doing something and updating it! Well the old layout has now been dismantled and the 3mm foam I ordered has arrived. I have also received the four extra turnouts that I needed for the fiddle yard area and the point motors for these. On Saturday I bought the six lengths of 75x25x1200mm and six lengths of 50x15x1200mm that will form the L-Girder framing. I just need to plane them to make them smooth and then assemble them into the girder. I have two sheets of 18mm ply that I will cut one board into strips to provide the cross members and the other will be used for the trackbed. The pine lengths that I salvaged from the other boards will be used as uprights to support the trackbed. I need to print off the revised layout plan from Templot again which this time will include the fiddleyard. This should make it easier to mark out the 1:75 gradient at either end and to cut out the trackbed so that it is only the width that it needs to be, thereby getting rid of the flat earth look that beset the last attempt. I can picture the steps in my head but find it much more difficult to transfer that into a drawing. My plan is to fix a batten to the wall above my Sutton Harbour layout that will support the length of the Tavistock layout and have legs that will fix to the other side so that I can operate the N gauge layout and then take it down when I want to operate the Sutton Harbour layout. They will both occupy the same footprint essentially; Sutton Harbour 12' long x 2' going into an L by 8' and Tavistock is 12' x 2'6". To fit the viaduct, station, goods yard and gradients in 12', it will be necessary to have the viaduct on a curve at the left end, then the station on the straight with the goods yards behind the main line which will go up an incline and into a non-prototypical tunnel to go back into the fiddle yard. Before the viaduct, coming out of the fiddle yard will be a couple of overbridges, as per the prototype. There will be six roads of storage on each of the two mainlines in the fiddle yard. My current stock is a Merchant Navy, Britannia, GWR King and M7 as motive power with three Mk1s in green, a full brake in crimson and cream, four box vans, a bogie trolley wagon, some brick open bogie wagons and a Ford van wagon. I have recently ordered three move BR vans, an open wagon, a toad brake van, a Mk1 coach in green and a maroon Western loco. I have also ordered some Bachmann 6-pin decoders. I will be building this layout in tandem with my Sutton Harbour layout but I hope to get something running as soon as possible. At least with the L-Girder system I can lay the track and wire it all up and then attach it to the rest of the trackbed sections on the L-Girder frame. I will try to add some pictures as I go along. Regards, Steve
  10. I started laying the track on my Sutton Harbour layout yesterday and having laid a couple of turnouts and lengths of flexi-track I decided to run some kit-built wagons fitted with three-link or Dingham couplings through the trackwork to ensure it was smooth. When I pushed a couple of Coopercraft wagons through the pointwork, the lead vehicle derailed despite ensuring that I have pushed the tiebar as far over as possible. The wagons seemed very light, despite having the supplied weight fitted. I went and used the digital kitchen scales and found that one weighed 18g and the other 28g. I then weighed a couple of Airfix tank wagon kits that I know to be very heavy having had their tanks filled with plasticine and some fishing weights. These weighed 100g and 121g respectively. I then weight a couple of RTR Bachmann brake vans; a GWR toad and an SR Queen Mary - these weighed 48g and 150g respectively. I then weighed a Comet LMS brake third without interior fitted for a comparison and came in at 182g. I have the Right Track DVD on wagons by Iain Rice and I think he suggests 50g as a minimum and this would seem about right. Fortunately, I managed to get a bag of used car wheel balance weights and these come in 5g, 10g and 50g, so that I will use these, retrofitted to my kit built wagon fleet to bump up the weight. My question is what is the ideal weight for a OO gauge wagon and coach if the loco pulling them is to have any chance of hauling a prototypical train? In the case of the LMS coach already mentioned, this will form part of a 9-coach Coronation Scot train so the total weight will be around 1638g and the intended locos will be Hornby Princess Coronation class with loco drive. Will they be able to cope? I had thought of building the DJH Coronation loco but at £140 plus wheels, motor and gears it starts to get really expensive. The prototype loco set a record on the LMS of 114 mph but in daily service I would imagine that 60-80 mph might be more appropriate. For a goods train, most of the trains on my layout will be short goods not exceeding 10-12 wagons plus brake van with a J94, pannier of small prairie tank engine. Regards, Steve
  11. Two baseboards dismantled with track removed and one to go. Will be ordering two rolls of foam today which will give me two weeks to sort out the new L-Girder open top baseboards for the revamped version. As mention in last post, trains will come out of the fiddleyard from the Plymouth end, descend a 1:75 incline passing under an overbridge and onto the viaduct which will be on a 12" curve. Coming off the viaduct, the train will enter the station. After the station on the left hand side will be the goods yard and the main line will continue straight, ascending a 1:75 incline towards Lydford and into a tunnel (modeller's licence) and back into the fiddle yard. I received the turnouts and point motors for creating the six road fiddle yard in the post yesterday. I have re-used the 6mm ply that I used and this will be cut to foam the trackbed and will be elevated from the framework using risers and cleats. I will also be completing the boards for my Sutton Harbour inspired dockside layout. Regards, Steve
  12. Nothing happened on the Tavistock layout over the weekend. There are some aspects of the layout construction that I am not too happy with at the moment and I suspect it would be better to address these now and not just carry on so that it becomes a series of bodges. The main issue is that I have run out of 3mm foam and so the end of the layout where the viaduct will be, the track is not on foam but is at the same level as the track that is on foam that the goods yard is laid on. There should be a 1:75 incline at either end of the station area but I have kept it as level. When I first started to build this layout I had incorporated this incline at the Lydford end but then I didn't have enough space to curve the track round within the 30" of the layout's width. Some of the baseboard joins are not joining flush with the next but I had bodged it. This will create a problem futher down the line with I want to transport the layout. I wanted to try and build boards that were open top but instead I have ended up with another flat earth baseboard. I have just decided, after typing the above paragraph that I am going to rebuild the layout using the open top baseboard principle of using L-Girder construction. This would will allow me to have 1:75 inclines at both ends. From the left (Plymouth end) the tracks will come from the fiddle yard, down a 1:75 incline, across the viaduct (built on a curve) and into the station. The goods yard will then be on the left of the mainline as it ascends the 1:75 incline towards Lydford and go into a tunnel on the straight, curve round to the left and into the other end of the fiddle yard. Whilst I am dismantling the layout and rebuilding the boards into the L-Girder style, I will order some more 3mm foam, that will hopefully arrive here by the time that is completed (in about a fortnight's time). I will also work out how to upload some photos to show what I had started with and hopefully the better layout that I will be building. With regards to the dockside layout, I have so far built three 4'x2' baseboard tops. One board is ready with legs and I need to add legs to the other two. This layout will be 12' long x 6' wide in a U-shape. I have already printed off the Templot layout template plan and have built the 10 A5 turnouts ( 5 x LH and 5 x RH) using copperclad for the layout and have some lengths of SMP track. I have no idea where this layout will live but if push comes to shove, I will have to set it up on the terrace area and set it up and dismantle it every time I want to operate it. A bit of a pain but hey-ho! I will create a separate thread for it. Regards, Steve
  13. My recent order for turnouts for the fiddle yard is expected to arrive on Monday so I need to get cracking on this layout so that I can run something around the complete circuit. It is raining here at the moment so my plan to do some woodworking in the garden will have to be postponed till tomorrow. This will give me the ideal opportunity to sort out the trackwork and ballasting on the visible part of the layout. I had previously, sprayed the track with Revell 47 Mouse Grey and had soldered droppers to each piece of track. I had drilled holes in the trackbed to allow the wires to pass through but had not secured the track to the underlay, keeping it secure by using the wires. Across the baseboard joints, I had drilled holes and put in screws that I was planning to solder to the rail but to be honest, this looks awful. Whilst in the UK recently, I made my obligatory trip to C&L in Bristol and bought some PCB that is the same thickness as the sleepers on Peco Code 55. I am going to bite the bullet and lift all the track, solder PCB to the underside of track that goes across the board join and then apply Febond to the trackbed, push the track back down onto the trackbed, secure it with staples and spread the Woodland Scenics ballast over the whole, leave it for 10 minutes and then hoover the excess off. I also bought a Tracksetta 12" curve template to assist in laying the curves at each end of the layout. As mentioned earlier, the layout will be DCC so I need to wire in a bus wire and solder all dropper wires to this. I also need to buy some decoders as the only ones that I have at the moment are some Hornby R8249 and I suspect that these are too large to fit in an N gauge tender body. In the meantime, I have been able to run something by attaching crocodile clips to my Gaugemaster Walkaround controller but this can be a bit of a pain. I am also in the cutting wood and building baseboards for a OO dockside layout based on a plan in an old Railway Modeller. the original plan was intended for a space 4'x2' and suggested making curves tighter than 1st radius! I scanned the plan into Templot and when I printed out the plan, the layout had grown to 12'x5' but this allows a much gentler curve between to the two halves of the dockside area. The fiddle yard for this layout will most likely be cassettes. My Friary Green layout will be dismantled and I am thinking of using the boards from this to do Friary MPD instead. I already have the Templot templates printed off for this. So lots planned. I must try and get some photos of the layout uploaded to this thread to make it more interesting for others. Regards, Steve
  14. I can't believe that it has been three months since I last posted anything on this thread. Not much has happened since then because I had run out of metal joiners and needed to order some points for the fiddleyard. I returned to the UK for two weeks in September and part exchanged Lima coach and a Code 75 Peco large crossing and bought some wagons. I also bought plenty of packs of metal and plastic joiners and when the points arrive, I will continue with laying the track so that is done. I intend to use DCC but do not have any 6-pin decoders as yet, so whilst it will be wired for DCC, I will only be able to use one loco at a time to prevent them all moving when I apply power. Decoders will be next on my list. I visited C&L during my holiday and bought a 12" tracksetta gauge and some PCB that will fit under the rails of Code 55 track to make neat connections at baseboard joins - however these are not the same width as N gauge sleepers but I am going to functional and simplicity for this. I went to the Model Railway Exhibition in Faversham on 11 September but because I didn't read the brochure that was handed out, I didn't realise that there was a second hall with additional layouts and traders so I bought less than I was planning to and not necessarily the things that I wanted. I picked up a built but badly painted K's GWR railcar for a reasonable £12. In the longer term, I will remove the paint, tidy it up, fit a spud motor bogie and an interior. Also bought a Kibri HO kit for a heavy haulage vehicle. My best bargain found during our holiday was four whitemetal unstarted bus kits from Anbrico, Cotswold and Westward for a very reasonable £20! When I looked on eBay, they were priced at £35-45 each. I have already soldered one of the kits together, a Bedford OB coach but am awaiting my newly ordered Iwata airbrush before I paint it, add passengers, glazing and transfers. Regards, Steve
  15. In the Right Track 10 DVD, Norman Solomon demonstrates how he uses plasticard to build a quick jig for the 1:Whatever and then uses ample liquid flux and a quick in and out with a hot soldering iron to make the vee without melting his jig. I haven't tried this myself yet but have considered making some similar with some thin wood pieces. Regards, Steve
  16. Thanks for the tip on the long Peco pins - I will get some when back in UK. Re the filing jigs, I have two; one has 1:5, 1:6, 1:7 and 1:8 and the other has 1:9, 1:10, 1:11 and 1:12. These jigs are suitable for filing the rails that you use for the Vee and can also be used for forming the rails that lead the wheel from the point blade and through the Vee (I forget what these are actually called!). I don't have filing jigs for the point blades but just run them lengthways across the course and then smooth wheels on my bench top grinder until they are thinner at one end than the other and have the foot and top of the rail tapered. Regards, Steve
  17. On the cost comparison I made in my earlier post, I was referring to turnout construction rather than plain track. If a Peco large radius turnout costs about £12, then making handmade turnouts with copperclad and bullhead rail works out much cheaper than this if you make your own vees and using a bench grinder to make your own point blades. Initial extra costs include a soldering iron, solder, flux and some jigs to file the vees to the correct angles but as has been shown in a few photos before this reply, many jigs or aids can be homemade from scrap material. For the tiebar, I have recently been using a supply of P4 ply sleepers and rivets that I bought from the Model Railway shop in Stevenage a few years ago. I drill a second hole to match the OO gauge width that I am using and then insert a couple of rivets, punch them on a miniature anvil and then solder the point blades to these. I had wanted to use the small pin advocated by Norman Solomon - a pin is bent over to form an L, the pointed end is pushed through the tiebar and then rotated 90 degrees so that it fits flush to the point blade and is then snipped off for length before being soldered into the web of the rail - but I have not been able to source some soft iron pins suitable for this. I think I might pay a visit to Hobbycraft when back in the UK. Plastic individual components might be more expensive than the £12 Peco point but the end results will look much better and be 4mm track rather than 3.5mm track. Copperclad soldered trackwork, once painted can look like chairs from a normal viewing distance in my opinion. Regards, Steve
  18. I bought my Slater's 3 point gauge from Wizard Models for about £4, if I remember correctly. For your first attempts, I would suggest trying out a copperclad turnout as soldered construction is easier to fix if something goes wrong. Plastic components fixed with Butanone solvent can be difficult to put right without causing damage to sleepers and the chair. Once you have perfected the contruction technique, you will be ready to move on to plastic components which overall, will look more realistic than soldered pointwork. For ease and speed of construction, you cannot fault soldered pointwork. For joining lengths of code 75 bullhead, Norman Solomon suggests using Peco Z gauge rail joiners but I prefer to use the Exactoscale working four bolt plastic fishplate. If you use a dropper wire on each section of track, as recommended for DCC, then you don't need metal joiners. Regards, Steve
  19. You should also seek out the articles written by Norman Solomon in Model Railway Journal a few years ago with step-by-step guidance on how to build trackwork. There was also a Right Track DVD, No. 10 with Norman demonstrating the whole process of building your own track. He builds a junctions using C&L plastic components and ballasts it. There is also a demonstration of how to build a copperclad turnout. Norman uses ready milled switch blades available from C&L but I usually use a bench grinder to produce these and have some jigs that assist in producing Vees and check rails - the latter cost me around £46 a few years ago. I also have the Iain Rice book which concentrates on building copperclad pointwork to P4 standard but the principles remain the same. As already mentioned, you will need some roller gauges and Peco produce a track gauge that has the right gauges for OO, EM and P4 on it. I have also recently bought a Slater's triangular gauge which I hope will enable some gauge widening for curves and crossings because I have found that some of my points seem to narrow in gauge when I do crossovers which can make them a bit tight for all locos to use. Don't be put off if your first efforts don't meet your expectations - this is one area of the hobby that benefits from lots of practice and learning from your previous mistakes. Once mastered and your loco and other stock runs through smoothly without derailing, you will be eager to get on with making more adventurous pointwork. Overall, it will work out much cheaper than buying RTR track and will look much better because you can produce bespoke pointwork. Good luck.
  20. I decided not to stick the templot plan to the foam and then lay the track on this. Instead I slid the plan with the track on it to one side and then moved sections across on to the trackbed and marked where the point motor operating wire would come through. I then cut a square out of the foam and initially used an 8mm drill bit to drill a hole and then cut another square of foam and inserted this with a slot cut in the square for the operating wire to poke through and through the turnout switch. A few times I found the turnout switch had moved slightly and was no longer over the hole - I remedied this by using my router to drill a hole and then expanding with into a small rectangle. The square cut out from the foam and to replace it became slightly larger but it was easier to cut the slot in it. I had previously soldered wire droppers onto each bit of track and so by drilling small holes for these to pass through, effectively anchored the track to the trackbed. The whole of the goods area and neighbouring mainline have been laid now. The next tasks are to spray unpainted parts of the track with Revell 47 Mouse Grey paint, fit the separate sleepers that go under the rail at track joints and then spread ballast dry, spray the lot with water with some washing up liquid in it and then use an old plastic contact lens solution bottle filled with diluted PVA over the whole of the trackbed. I will be using grey ballast on the mainlines and cinder ballast in the goods yard with an extra layer of foam between the tracks so that the roadways are level with the rail tops. On the scenic side I have decided to retain a viaduct at the left end and move the station to the right. Below the viaduct will be the townscape (like it is at Tavistock) and after the viaduct the line will curve round 180 degrees to enter the fiddleyard, with a road overbridge and a tunnel to disguise the curve. There will have to be a tunnel at the right end too. Once I have ballasted the track and it is all secure to the board, I will be able to cut the track and foam at the baseboard joins and then flip the boards onto their sides to fit the bus wires and connect all the dropper wires. I will also then fit all point motors and fix them to the underside of the trackbed. It will then be ready for testing before I start on the scenery. In the meantime I will try to upload all the photos that I have taken since starting this project. One thing that I have noticed during the construction so far is how badly by eyes have deteriorated with regards to long vision. I have always been short sighted and have worn contact lens for over 30 years but was surprised a year ago to be told that I would need to wear reading glasses over my lenses in order to do modelling or reading books. Many times when connecting track I had to don my magnifying headband to see what I was trying to do. This will be my only foray into N gauge I think and I will stick to OO for any new layout builds. I bought a second hand Britannia off eBay so I can make a start on building the Langley MN kit and now have three SR Mk1 coaches. I also bought a couple of N Gauge Society wagon kits off eBay and these have been added to my pile. I bought a Lima SR Mk1 coach but realise now that it made to the continental N gauge scale of 1:160 and looks much smaller than the Grafar ones it forms a train with. I'll take that back to the UK when I next visit to see if I can part exchange it for something else or sell it on eBay. Regards, Steve
  21. I have worked out how the mistake with the single slip was made. On the Ordnance survey layout plan, a double slip is indicated whereas in the Okehampton Line book by Irwell Press, a single slip is annotated. With the OS plan scanned into Templot and the track sections plotted on it, I had not looked at it again to check which slip it was where on my plan it was now showing as a diamond crossing. Having looked through other layout plans and deciding that I wanted to continue with the Tavistock theme, I have had to make a few compromises to the original plan. Instead of the mainline curving and then going up a 1 in 75 incline with the goods yard also curving to sit on the left of the mainline (looking towards Lydford), I have straightened the mainline and to then curve round 180 degrees on a 12" curve to what will become the hidden fiddle yard. The goods yard curves slightly in order to fit all the pointwork and general layout in the inside of the curve. The station platforms will now be sited at the right hand side of the layout on the straight track section and the crossing that was on the viaduct will be moved so that it remains at the left hand side of the station. At the left side, after the pointwork for the goods yard entrance, there will be a viaduct and then the line will curve to the right 180 degrees to enter the fiddle yard. This will allow me to have the Tavistock North trackplan in the 12' space and the tight curves necessary to fit in the 30" width. The scenic aspect will have to change and this will need to be freelance but drawing on Tavistock and Dartmoor for inspiration. The town area will be in the centre with moorland to left and right. The lines will go into tunnels at either end. At the left hand side, the viaduct will remain but instead of going over the town, it will draw inspiration from Shillamill viaduct or Lake viaduct with fields and stream/river below before heading into the tunnel. Fortunately, I had not fixed any track down before so it was a simple process of removing the track sections, ripping up the foam and unscrewing the ply track bed. I then cut two pieces of 6mm ply in 4' x 30" sections and screwed these to the ply framing. I have used all the offcuts of 3mm foam that I had left to cover the station and goods yard entrance and part of the curve at the right hand end. I will order more of this from Hobby Holidays in Doncaster. I had previously soldered feed and return wires to all points and track sections but may have muddled things slightly by soldering wire to track sections after the frog when the fishplates had been soldered together. I am fearing the possibility of a short, so I shall unsolder any wires that are on a rail after the frog and before an insulated fishplate is fitted. I have received all my Peco point motors and fixing bases, so after the desoldering, I will mark where the holes have to be drilled for the operating pin and then remove that piece of foam, remove waste wood and replace the foam with an oblong of foam with a slit cut into it for the pin to come through. I will use a wooden clothes peg to hold pin through the track bed, foam and turnout and then fit the base underneath. I will also drill holes for the feed and return dropper wires to fit through. When working in OO with C&L or SMP trackwork, I have used PVA to glue the track to the foam and have then applied the ballast immediately, waited a few minutes and then hoovered it off, leaving nicely ballasted track. Previously, I have used the water spray and glue dropper method which is applied to dry ballast but I find this to be the more tedious process. I am not sure how the first method will come out with Peco N gauge track given the thicker sleeper depth but I will give it a go and if it results in a thinner ballast depth look to it, I will supplement it with more ballast and then a spray of water with washing up liquid, followed by a diluted solution of PVA. My ballast preference is Woodland Scenics ballast using a mix of colours. For the tracklaying, I have been toying with the idea of gluing down the templot plan on top of the foam and then laying the track on this. This provides the advantage of ensuring that the track follows the plan that I produced. By placing the track on the plan to form the plain track sections and then moving them to the foam when the glue has been applied can result in an error and these are not usually discovered until after the glue has dried - at least in my experience! Hopefully, by the time that I have laid the track in the area that I have prepared so far, I will have received more foam from the UK and have built the trackbed for the viaduct and left hand part of the fiddle yard. I still need to try to work out how to take a picture on my iPad that I can then upload to the website. I tried sending one to myself but it did not give any options for resizing them. Regards, Steve
  22. I had another look at the station track plan and you are right, the slip at Tavistock North is a double rather than a single! I don't know how I muddled that but should I buy a double slip for £35 or stick with my single slip? Being in Cameroon, makes it difficult to sell the single slip on eBay or elsewhere because we are not able to send parcels, only receive them plus I have painted the point with grey paint but not the switch area and I have cleaned the rail tops so it still works OK but I have thrown away the packaging. I think I will have to get a double as otherwise I will forever be frustrated when operating the layout and unable to switch directly from the up line to the goods yard without having to reverse onto the down line on the viaduct and then reverse down the down line and across into the goods yard. I'll have to sell the single slip when next back in the UK. I have printed off another 18" curved section in Templot to bring the line round within the 8' length of the station and goods yard and just need to cut some ply trackbed, glue on some foam and then lay the track, remembering to retain the 1:75 incline. Then I will build another 4' x 30" board to site the viaduct and 18" curve with 1:75 incline to come round to the other side of what will be the fiddleyard. I have ordered all the point motors and fixing plates so should be able to glue the track down, ballast and wire it all up to get something running soon. I will then try again at uploading some photos. Regards, Steve
  23. I spent some time last night poring over the trackplan for Tavistock and not finding a replacement, I have decided to continue with the build but to alter the track layout at the Lydford end so that it curves round rather than go straight so that I will have half of the station and all the goods yard within 8 feet and will use the other 4 feet for the rest of the station, the viaduct and curve. I am thinking of having straight fiddle yards with a loco turntable at each end but may also plump for an oval to allow the opportunity of just watching trains go by. With regards to the slip, according to the plan that I have, it is indicated as a single slip rather than a double so I went for that. The difference in price was only £4. The space I currently have is about 12' x 4.5' and is the third bedroom, sharing space with a treadmill and large bookcase - my wife refers to it as the "toy room" which suits me fine! I had considered Bridestowe as I have walked along the old line (now part of the Granite Way) each way up to Lake Viaduct towards Okehampton and Lydford the other way, taking several photos on the way. Sadly it is not easily possible to walk across Lydford viaduct but I did find a road that went under it. I would also like to find the short bridge/tunnel where the GWR Launceston branch went under the SR mainline just before the former arrived at Mary Tavy - welly boots and suitable clothing will be the order of the day..... Regards, Steve Steve
  24. I seem to have reached a stumbling block - not sure why I didn't foresee a problem when I started out with this project. I have built four boards now, giving an area of 12' x 30" and have realised that I don't have enough space in the room to accommodate the viaduct and then a reverse curve to create an oval nor an end to end layout! Rather annoying as I have purchased all the pointwork and 30 lengths of plain track for the Tavistock North trackplan. When I consider that I have the equivalent of 24' x 5' in OO, I am surprised by how much space has been taken up trying to create a simple through station and small good area. I have painted all the pointwork and soldered dropper wires to each piece of track and have ordered the point motors and fixing plates but I am growing dissatisfied with what might be a compromise too far to continue with the current layout format. To make it fit, I would have to create a station on a 180 degree curve and then have the viaduct before the fiddle yard to complete an oval. I have already started to look at prototype plans for an alternative - possibly doing Plymouth Friary in N Gauge, using Peco code 55 trackwork - in the space I have, I should be able to fit in the station and some of the good yard, the station throat and MPD and then have the mainline descend and curve under the layout where the fiddle yard would be. I also like the idea of St Germans with the viaduct but the goods yard is a bit limited in size and for operational interest. Anyway, I have the four GWR selected station trackplans books and the Southern volume to seek an alternative location - I prefer to use prototypical trackplans rather than something freelance although I have to admit to looking through the Cyril Freezer trackplan books for inspiration. My loco fleet at the moment consists of a Merchant Navy, King and M7 so perhaps something on the GWR mainline such as Brent or something on the Southern in North Cornwall might suffice (this will require some licence for the use of a King). I am now back at the research stage but eager to get going again and having something running soon. Regards, Steve
  25. OK, I have taken some photos. The first stage had been to add track to the track plan scanned into Templot and once this had been done, to then print it out and join it together. This allowed me to cut out the track bed onto some 5.5mm ply that I had. I had already decided that I would be using 8mm ply to build the open frame and this would be boards of 4' x 30", two initially. The sides would be 100mm high with cross members of 30" wide and 250mm high. The viaduct was 75' tall (150mm in N gauge + 100mm side height). Once the two boards had been built, the Templot plan was placed on the cut track bed and my limited stock was placed on it to get a flavour of things to come. I placed my order with Hattons for Peco code 55 flexible track (30 yards) and 13 items of pointwork including a single slip and large radius points. I also ordered fishplates and insulated rail joiners, Peco goods shed kit, re-railer, Peco double tunnel mouths and Peco stone walling sheets. Only when the items arrived in Cameroon a fortnight later did I realise that I had miscounted the turnouts and was short of one right handed. I will be ordering that plus Peco point motors and switches on my next order. Stage two was to glue 3mm foam (bought some time ago from Hobby Holidays) to the trackbed. I then placed the Templot plan on this and placed the turnouts in position and marked their toe ends and used a piece of plasticard as a template to remove a rectangle of foam and then drilled a 6mm hole in the centre of where the turnout would go. This turned out to be a mistake for two reasons. Firstly, because Peco N gauge turnouts do not have a hole in the centre of the tie bar (the point motor's pin goes through a hole at the ends of the tie bar) and secondly, because the plan had been drawn for B8 and other pointwork but I had decided to use Peco rather than code 40 rail and hand built pointwork or even tried moving into 2mm - I wanted a layout that would offer quick results to get something running quickly) and when laying the track the turnouts were no longer where the drilled holes were. Fortunately, I had produced foam rectangles to fit over the holes and so I fitted these in place. I also painted the whole of the track work with Revell acrylic 47 mouse grey. The next stage will be to dismantle sections of the track work to solder dropper wires to lengths of track which in turn will be soldered to bus wires under the boards, drill holes for those wires and then glue the track to the foam and spread ballast onto the wet PVA. This is left for a few minutes and is then hoovered off, leaving (hopefully) nicely ballasted track. It is the lightly stapled to hold it all in place until it dries. Prior to gluing and ballasting, new holes will be drilled for the point motor wire, which will be installed from below using the Peco fixing plates. Reading the instructions for wiring, it would appear that I do not need a polarity switch for the live frog providing all the turnout toes are towards the feed. I have problems uploading the pictures as they are deemed too big - any ideas? Regards, Steve
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