RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted October 31, 2019 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted October 31, 2019 (edited) The temperatures are going down - and - here they are. Unwanted visitors who like my layout. Had that mouse problem before, they were building a nest in the tunnel... But: be careful I will fight you.... Caught one so far. 20191031_084532 I was hoping for some help from my 4 legged guard, but she rather plays with a pair of socks... 20191031_084611 Edited October 31, 2019 by Vecchio 5 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted November 25, 2019 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted November 25, 2019 (edited) The closer to the MK show - the less time I have to work on the layout. First I had to go a full week to Milan for business reasons, and after that to Vienna for family reasons. I even had to extend my stay, missing Warley. And yes, I had a ticket, and yes, I had prepaid parking.... So sitting here, working from my laptop and looking after my mum who developed a heart problem I thought I have to compensate somehow. So far I visited 2 model shops and AMW, the Zimo-outlet (Arnold's Model Web, Ing. Arnold Huebsch is closely working together with ZIMO, he is partially behind the decoder instructions and has also developed several adapter boards) So I treated myself with a handful of decoders, 20191125_210351 a Krois laser cut telephone box (including internal light) 20191125_211603 And I found a second hand bargain, a Piko Siemens ES64 U2 (similar machine to the Austrian Taurus), for 54€. Absolutely new, this machine didn't run more then 5 minutes by the looks of it (looked also inside of course) Well, I have 6 Taurus so far, but you can never have enough... 20191125_132213 I buy the decoders without sound file, a lot of the Austrian loco sounds can be downloaded for free. By the way, there is also a class 66 sound file for free download in the ZIMO database (this was for the H0 version of the class 66, running in several European countries). There is a new 1016 / 1116 (Taurus) sound project which I used for my last bargain purchase (The white and blue one further up this thread) and I will use the same sound project for this new engine. Doing so the decoders are affordable at 85€ (Well you need an updating device which has the price of more than 2 sound decoders... but I have an MXULFA - so I have to use it for quick amortisation) I am planning to do exactly the same as with the last one, means servo for one of the pantographs, 2 electromagnetic couplings system Krois, stay alive. I am still 2 days in Vienna, will see what else I can find. Edited November 25, 2019 by Vecchio 4 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted November 26, 2019 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted November 26, 2019 well - it happened. Of course I had to look at my standard sources for used stuff in Vienna, one of them is Modellbahntraum (model railway dream), not very large but stocked with the right stuff and run by very competent Heidemarie. I looked at 3 different Roco 1020 (Arlberg locomotive), running all 3 several times, to see which one is best) as I spotted the brand new Roco 2095 (narrow gauge diesel, built at the beginn of the 60th). I checked (bad boy) quickly on the internet - and her price was equal to Lippe or other big players on the continent. Unfortunately the display loco didn't run very smooth, the second one she had on display wasn't my choice of colour (wrong epoch). Heidemarie was looking into her stock and came out with another one, ivory and blood orange with brown roof as I like it, but this was sound fitted... Well I had a test run, it ran sweet and as slow you want it to go (no wonder, I opened it later, it has a factory fitted stay alive capacitor) and somehow I thought I need a backup for my steam engine which runs passengers up to the mine at Donnersbachkogel. You should never go to a show without a backup loco... so I decided not to take the used 1020 but to go for the brand new 2095.... The lady made me a price lower than the internet, so I couldn't resist.. I had a look at the decoder, there is a ZIMO MX645 plux22 built in. Even the speaker is small the sound is good. There are 20 functions programmed, and of course I have already entered them into my Z21 app on the smartphone... So in the end my trip to the shop was more expensive than planned.... 20191126_140322(0) 6 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted December 4, 2019 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted December 4, 2019 Back after my expensive trip - I have of course to work, but as I am a part time man now I can snip off one or the other hour to proceed on my layout. As it is quite cold in my shed (yes, I have a gas heater, but I do not like it as it produces a lot of humidity in the shed which is not good for the layout and the tools in there) I decided to do some rolling stock work. And this I can do in my office. One of the locomotives mentioned earlier, type 1042, will pull some regional passenger train on the layout. The loco is quite new, from Roco with factory fitted sound. Normally I do not like to fiddle with those, as the price is rather on the high side. First problem was that the speaker was inside the loco, no aperture to get anything out, or in other words quite silent. As the Loco has kind of skirts between the boogies, hiding the battery and some other auxiliary equipment on the real loco, I decided using this area for the speaker. See here the loco from the side, the speaker is already in and practical invisible. 20191204_122122 And this is the view from below 20191204_120704 Now you can see where the speaker is located. Of course this gave a massive improvement in volume. The position where the speaker was located before allowed me now to add a decent stay alive, 2400uF. Having all apart I also added 2 electromagnetic couplings (Krois). All this required a bit of wiring and soldering on the decoder, but as it is a wire type this is no problem and could be done without optivisor. See here the loco with all equipment inside. 20191204_115624 I am quite happy with the modifications. 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted December 19, 2019 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted December 19, 2019 (edited) Any progress? yes, a little bit. As I learned from Paul the signal man there may be problems with the Z21 if the networks are busy I put in my old Lenz board which allows me connections to Lenz controllers and a Roco Lokmouse. I also renewed the connector for the mimic board as the wood broke. Now it is in an aluminium plate. Should last longer. 20191212_140406 Next thing is transport. I made a cage for module 4 (the mountain), it can also host module 1 (return on the right hand side) on top. 20191212_112504 Here you see module 1 on top of module 4. 20191212_111424 by Gerhard Novak, on Flickr Hope this fits into a VW caddy (my step sons business vehicle), if not I have to rent. I am currently working on a cages for module 2 and 3, will be ready tomorrow. Next thing is the light. I use in my garage and also in my workshop/summerhouse LED bars which are 1,4m long. They give a very natural light at low cost and do not weigh a lot. I think I will use the same bars for illumination of the layout. I will produce a light I shaped bar (was looking for some extruded aluminium bar but couldn't find the right thing so I go wood) which will hold the lights. For transport reasons this bar will be divided into 2 sections. More info when I have it. Edited January 13, 2020 by Vecchio length of light bars corrected 4 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted December 29, 2019 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted December 29, 2019 (edited) Christmas is over, several kilos found their way to me and the time of the exhibition is coming closer. I made all transport cages, so this is covered. The fabric to cover the sides I ordered 10 days ago is still not there. I made another rehearsal and the mistakes I found are quite frightening. Even after an improvement of the station platform the H0e loco doesn't pass it, it is too high in the middle (there is a gearbox standing out in the middle, it must go down as low as the rails). So refurbishing again... The new loco I bought for the train through the mine (as my Roco diesel gave up and as it looks the brushes are worn) is slightly bigger then the Roco one was, so I got contact with the entrance portals to the mine. Well after fiddling half a day with it and the use of some hot melt I could correct the portals and now it passes, no matter which direction or which side the loco goes (forward or reverse). I played also with the landscape, tried to cover up all parts without ballast (points - where the moving bits are) using acrylic paint. 20191229_184640 I populated the area with a few people walking and an orange guy coming out of one of the sheds. 20191229_185040 I also made the "coaches" for the tourists who are visiting the mine. They are modified Roco coal and mineral trucks. 20191229_185027 The lights in both stations are not working for some reason, I have to find the error. I made also a wiring error on the H0e in the station - so I have to cut track and put extra drop wires in. So work enough in front of me... Edited December 29, 2019 by Vecchio typo 8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PaulRhB Posted December 29, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 29, 2019 These things are sent to try us for the little Roco diesel Sven at Tramfabriek does a re-motor kit that a few on NGRM are well pleased with. https://tramfabriek.nl/products/drives.html 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted December 29, 2019 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted December 29, 2019 Thanks Paul, You are a lifesaver! Conversion kit ordered. Not that I need it desperately as the Liliput O&K loco runs nicely, but the devil never sleeps - so I prefer having a spare loco. As I could see the new motor is smaller - so I will squash a few capacitors into it to improve running quality... I leave the sound, even my H0e steam engine is quite loud, at a show you don't hear it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted January 1, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted January 1, 2020 Another year has passed - Happy New Year to all having the patience in reading my stuff... So - What to do on New Years day? As I was a good boy and didn't drink more than 2 glasses of prosecco yesterday I could start my day early. I found an interesting station bench in shapeways, called bench type F(double). The price is around 17$ for a pack of 6, but I wanted to do something myself. I looked at the design, it is not complicated, and can also be realised using plastruct or similar polystyrene strips. So into my workshop, hunting for materials. Found 0.8 and 1mm material, so on we go. I made a prototype to see how it looks and here we are: 20191231_144232 The double bench is 28mm long and looks right for a 1980-1990th layout. So into "mass" production. First I need the right strips. On we go on the cutting mat. 20200101_122659 Then I need to bend the legs. This is a bit tricky as the polystyrene which is probably highly filled with chalk or clay tends to break when you make a sharp bend. So we need thermal treatment. I warmed the strips up close to a soldering iron and the touched the soldering iron holder (a metal conical spiral) to finally warm it up. This allows me sharp bends without breaking the material. on the left the strip before bending, with the middle marked, and on the right ready bent. 20200101_124702 To glue the strips always at the same position I made myself a small jig from some scrap plastruct (cut offs from my 0 scale project Frimingham). With that every bench is looking as the others, and of course the misalignments of the jig are copied to all of them.... 20200101_131922 Finally I have to glue the whole thing together. A first check on the layout 20200101_173500 and into the paint job. I thought first to paint them by hand, making the seats in wood colour and the frame grey. This was too messy, I do not have the patience and the skill to achieve a reasonable result. So cleaned again and out with the Halfords primer rattle can. 20200101_183546 And finally the benches in position. 20200101_185728 20200101_185717 I quite enjoyed this little bank holiday task. 4 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted January 13, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted January 13, 2020 Layout lights setup will be tested today and the postman brought me another job. Fabric to cover the layout front. Fire retardant of course. 20200113_092850 Will be a bit of a sewing job. But: my mum was a tailor and my grandfather a sewing machine mechanic. So I have less fear about that... 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted January 13, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted January 13, 2020 (edited) OK. Layout lighting. Tried to ask the forum for the distance of the lights to the layout, and didn't get too much response. Anyway, it was good to know to have the lights close to the edge because of shadows. So I decided for a height of 1.9m (So it just fits under my garage door frame....) and I went about 20 cm back from the layout front. I know several lighting solutions which are all a bit flimsy, so I thought I could do better. First I thought of an aluminium profile, but I didn't find the right stuff for the right money. So - the reader may know that I like playing with wood - and I made my own lightweight I girder. Looks like this. 20200113_130019 This girder is strong and stiff enough to span over the complete layout without the need of any additional support. Od course at the ends I made something robust, which can be locked to the girder with a single screw. 20200113_125357 The whole thing looks like this 20200113_125252 The lightbars I am using connect from one to the next one without any cable. Just with a special connecting plug. 20200113_125339 and I am happy making photos with proper illumination. 20200113_125216 Edited January 13, 2020 by Vecchio missing photo 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Ian Morgan Posted January 13, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 13, 2020 I have heard of Harry Potter's flying car, but I did not know he had a bicycle too 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted January 13, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted January 13, 2020 If you want to put up your layout into the garage you have to accept some compromises. 2 bicycles next to each other plus a layout = no space to pass through. Means: one bicycle above the other.... I remember flying off my bicycle, but I do not remember flying around the Glenfinnan viaduct with it... Also what you see is my wife's, mine is below. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted January 14, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted January 14, 2020 The sewing job went ok without any special problems. 7m is quite a lot of fabric. 20200114_152930 Trial fit after I finished 20200114_155208 fits perfect. From the offcut I made a bag for my backscene - I have paid for the fabric so I want to make the most out of it.... 20200114_161752 4 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted January 15, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted January 15, 2020 To finish this curtain chapter - found some T-shirt transfer paper which I used for model aeroplanes in the past - so I printed out the layout name a few times. 20200115_115413 20200115_115514 For all who want to see Donnersbachkogel - not only on photos - look at MKMRS 2020 Milton Keynes Model Railway Exhibition SATURDAY 15th FEBRUARY 2020, 10.00am – 5.00pm SUNDAY 16th FEBRUARY 2020, 10.00am – 4.30pm Stantonbury Leisure Centre Stantonbury Milton Keynes MK14 6BN 7 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bergmann Posted January 15, 2020 Share Posted January 15, 2020 Thank you for showing it was very interesting for me to follow the construction. Unfortunately for just to look too far to come. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted February 9, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 9, 2020 (edited) Only one week to go before the exhibition, Of course I was busy trying to get all bugs out. Had loads of weird short circuits, do not know where they came from. And I got the fear that my fiddle yard is too small. Yes it is too small, this is a fact, but I cannot change it. But I could add on 2 sidings, not very long, but holding a small train each. On we go 20200207_184559 And here the view of the ready sidings. 20200208_211146 20200208_211205 A few small improvements were done as well, as the narrow gauge is a small branchline, the loco cannot go anywhere to get water and coal. So we need water and coal on site.... A quick fix: 20200207_184613 The locals were allowed to have some vegetables in their gardens and some flowers as well. 20200207_184649 20200207_184641 And the narrow gauge line needs buffer stops. Off into the workshop. Small rail built buffer stop. preparation of the materials 20200209_112004 soldering everything together - makes quite a rigid design. 20200209_113559 The result 20200209_121605 And finally in position with some rust powder on it. As it is an all metal design don't forget to cut one rail or you will get some sparks. 20200209_164135 Was a busy weekend... And please do not forget - next weekend - Donnersbachkogel is at the Milton Keynes model railway exhibition. Hope to see some of you there. 2020 Milton Keynes Model Railway Exhibition SATURDAY 15th FEBRUARY 2020, 10.00am – 5.00pm SUNDAY 16th FEBRUARY 2020, 10.00am – 4.30pm Stantonbury Leisure Centre Stantonbury Milton Keynes MK14 6BN Edited February 9, 2020 by Vecchio double photo removed 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PaulRhB Posted February 9, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 9, 2020 Good luck with the show! Unfortunately work will stop me getting there. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted February 13, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 13, 2020 Just to remind the readers: This weekend: 2020 Milton Keynes Model Railway Exhibition SATURDAY 15th FEBRUARY 2020, 10.00am – 5.00pm SUNDAY 16th FEBRUARY 2020, 10.00am – 4.30pm Stantonbury Leisure Centre Stantonbury Milton Keynes MK14 6BN I am ready to go..... 20200213_211026 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted February 14, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 14, 2020 All set up. Some hiccup with the point control, but we will manage with the mimic panel alone. 20200214_202839 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PaulRhB Posted February 15, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 15, 2020 Have a fun weekend and looking forward to some pictures 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold ASMO Posted February 15, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 15, 2020 The layout is looking great. Hope that you are enjoying the MKMRS show. Suffering with a chest infection at the moment so not able to get there. I read in Nick Wood’s post that the gremlins were about at the show this morning and there was a power cut lasting an hour. These things are sent to try us. Hope tomorrow is a better day. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted February 15, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 15, 2020 15 hours ago, PaulRhB said: Have a fun weekend and looking forward to some pictures Paul, was too busy running the thing - didn't find time to take any pictures... Will try better tomorrow... Layout cannot be that bad - Got 2 invitations already Gerhard 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted February 15, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 15, 2020 1 hour ago, ASMO said: The layout is looking great. Hope that you are enjoying the MKMRS show. Suffering with a chest infection at the moment so not able to get there. I read in Nick Wood’s post that the gremlins were about at the show this morning and there was a power cut lasting an hour. These things are sent to try us. Hope tomorrow is a better day. The gremlins - probably a cowboy trader blowing the fuse with a welder doing a repair job outside the building... Problem was that nobody found the key for the electric cabinet to get the switch back up.... So we had a static show for a while, kids had to find 2 wild boar, 3 red deer, a snake, a bird of prey and a mushroom collector on the layout.... 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Vecchio Posted February 17, 2020 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 17, 2020 Photos - well I was still to busy to take any, but - yesterday morning a club colleague made one... As so many people said this is Swiss or German I put the Austrian coats of arms into the middle of the layout and grabbed my Lederhosen out of the wardrobe... received_202187720900996 All in all it was a great weekend, I noticed some areas of improvement and for the moment my layout is stored in the shed. Don't want to see it for a few weeks.... 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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