Modelling in 014 - now and the future?

[Marly51]

After the Easter bunny nonsense in #45, scenic work resumed at Bunny Mine. A combination of dyed moss, scatter material, track ballast, powdered gypsum [which forms plaster on contact with dilute PVA, who knew?] and talcum powder added. The result is an impression of a working gypsum mine adit.

After track cleaning, the O&K and a couple of mine tubs potter about. Lots more detail to add but a sense of progress being made towards the 7mm NGA event in June!

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It is a challenge trying to get the landscape features accurate. A lot of scenic materials are quite brightly coloured and need toning down a lot - I like the effect you are managing to achieve and interested to read about your technique.

 

Marlyn

[Dava]

The eventual plan for Bunny Mine is to build an adjoining microlayout featuring a gypsum works scene with a continuous run and other ideas. But in the meantime it will be going to a few shows on its own, with a foamboard shunting stick.

 

To conceal this and give the layout a slightly more self-contained appearance, I built a boundary wall at one end, again from foamboard. I'm still using the stock which came back from Canada as picture packing material!

 

This has a gateway for trains to enter [or leave] and a pair of gates which look like they have not been closed for a long time. Some work still to do on this but it gives the group of buildings at this end a little more integrity.

 

Looking forward to Narrow Gauge South tomorrow, as a punter not exhibitor.

 

[Dava]

I have found a new low-cost material....listen up, Jim!

 

I had to replace one of the turnout controls on Bunny Mine, it's the one just outside the adit now used as a shunting neck. The switch and wire-in-tube no longer provides enough motion to move the switch rails across. The tube has a rather convoluted course under the tracked into the descending adit. Hopefully the others will be ok. This was discovered as part of the post-ballasting cleanup.

 

My default mode is to use lengths of dowel. This never fails and is fool [ie Dava] proof. I don't use point motors unless in a remote location. But 6mm dia dowel seemed a bit OTT for this location.

 

I had purchased a pack of 400mm bamboo rods, 3mm square, from craft/DIY store The Range, at least 15 for $1. Bargain. They are square, smooth, no trace of warping. The rod works well for point control from under the baseboard with a 1mm steel wire running vertically up, anchored in a shim brass square soldered round the rod and drilled through.

 

Lots of other uses for the rods, building footings, square fence posts, and more. The Range also sell a thin steel wire which takes solder. Also in the floristry section. Put them together for post & wire fencing!

 

Dava

[Dava]

I have been doing more work on the Bunny Mine microlayout [the original Bunny Mine, not to be confused with the cakebox challenge, fascinating though that is!].

 

One job I had put off was wiring up the miniature lights in the tunnel adits and buildings, together with a lit brazier and LED inside the mine cavity.

 

At the weekend I finally completed these, together with a hand-held controller.

 

So we have a couple of atmospheric 'night shift' photos below, showing the faithful O&K diesel lifting mine cars out of the adit, then shunting an empty wagon past the workshop.

 

 

 

With details to add and some scenic work to continue, the layout is getting closer to being ready for the Burton 7mm NGA show on 9 June - and meeting quite a collection of other, much more celebrated, 0-14 layouts.

 

 

[Marly51]

I have been doing more work on the Bunny Mine microlayout [the original Bunny Mine, not to be confused with the cakebox challenge, fascinating though that is!].

 

One job I had put off was wiring up the miniature lights in the tunnel adits and buildings, together with a lit brazier and LED inside the mine cavity.

 

At the weekend I finally completed these, together with a hand-held controller.

 

So we have a couple of atmospheric 'night shift' photos below, showing the faithful O&K diesel lifting mine cars out of the adit, then shunting an empty wagon past the workshop.

 

Bunny night 1.jpg

 

Bunny night 3.jpg

 

With details to add and some scenic work to continue, the layout is getting closer to being ready for the Burton 7mm NGA show on 9 June - and meeting quite a collection of other, much more celebrated, 0-14 layouts.

[Marly51]

Love the lighting effects you have achieved, Dava! And good luck getting everything ready for the show in June.

 

Marlyn

 

PS Do you have connections with the old Dava Station? My family hail from that part of the Highlands.

Edited May 1, 2018 by Marly51

[Dava]

Thanks for your kind comments, Marly.

 

Dava is indeed after the old HR direct line to Forres over Dava Moor. We have family connections and enjoyed great times in Speyside and around Elgin, Nairn and Findhorn. Also I have plans for a whisky distillery railway in gauge 0, like the Balmenach line. But they're still plans! I'm also interested in the Scottish light railways and would like to see what remains of the Wick & Lybster, Dornoch and Black Isle branches some day, not having been north of Inverness!

 

We also have [4] cats, 2 being off a farm in Fife.

 

Dava

[Marly51]

Thanks for your kind comments, Marly.

Dava is indeed after the old HR direct line to Forres over Dava Moor. We have family connections and enjoyed great times in Speyside and around Elgin, Nairn and Findhorn. Also I have plans for a whisky distillery railway in gauge 0, like the Balmenach line. But they're still plans! I'm also interested in the Scottish light railways and would like to see what remains of the Wick & Lybster, Dornoch and Black Isle branches some day, not having been north of Inverness!

We also have [4] cats, 2 being off a farm in Fife.

Dava

Ah, there are distillers in my family too - my great uncle was manager of Benromach Distillery in Forres in the 1940s/50s and two of his sons followed in his footsteps. Spent all my childhood summers with grandparents in Grantown on Spey, arriving at Grantown West from Waverley. We're hoping to spend a couple of days in Caithness this month, to see what traces there still are on the ground of the Wick & Lybster line.

 

Marlyn

Edited May 2, 2018 by Marly51

[Dava]

 

It is excellent to see that the details of all the layouts and traders for the 7mm NGA show at Burton on 9 June have now been posted:

 

 https://www.7mmnga.org.uk/AGM.php

 

These include three 014 layouts plus a demonstration, so I'm pleased these recognize the resurgence in interest in 014 modelling. This is, as always, a 'must-see' show for NG modellers.

 

Back on the original [cake-box free] Bunny Mine, I have been painting rabbits. The intention is to have an operational bunny on the layout!

 

Dava



[jc2001]

Well Dava you should take a lot of credit for this. I'm looking forward to seeing you there. My quarry board (one of 10 of the main layout) hardly qualifies as a layout, but I can trundle a couple of locos up and down (whilst I'm not nattering).

 

John

Edited June 1, 2018 by jc2001

[Dava]

Thank you John,

 

I am looking forward very much to seeing a collection of 014 layouts at Burton for the first time in a few years. Not least Dave Malton's Abbey Light Railway, which I've never seen but recall the prototype being built and rode on it. and your own and a few other contributions.

 

I can confirm that Bunny Hill will have a finescale working rabbit [even if nothing else works!] and a few other crazy things like a tiny toolbox with tools in it. All good fun!

 

Off to Doncaster for some serious Gauge 0 tomorrow....

[brack]

Does your working rabbit have a tiny Duracell?

(And please tell me it's not doing anything amorous! In spite of their reputation prototype observation suggests most rabbits just wander about eating grass)

[Dava]

All will be revealed on Saturday, the rabbit's movements are entirely natural....

 

Now to sort the gypsum wagon loading out.....

[Dava]

So Bunny Mine is just about ready for the Burton 7mm NGA show on Saturday:

 

- full complement of rabbits + other wildlife

- clutter & scrap

- workmen

- wagon loads [temporary as loading method 1 didn't work]

- fascia board in front of shunting stick

 

A very lo-fi iPad picture here, best of the bunch.

Call by on Saturday if you're passing, Must remember to pack the electric fan!

 

[NeilHB]

So Bunny Mine is just about ready for the Burton 7mm NGA show on Saturday:

 

- full complement of rabbits + other wildlife

- clutter & scrap

- workmen

- wagon loads [temporary as loading method 1 didn't work]

- fascia board in front of shunting stick

 

A very lo-fi iPad picture here, best of the bunch.

Call by on Saturday if you're passing, Must remember to pack the electric fan!

 

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Bunny Mine is coming on nicely Dava - I am looking forward to seeing it on Saturday, along with the other 0-14 layouts at Burton.

[finelines]

I have spent a lot of time looking at 014 with my manufacturer’s hat on. In my list of inspiration I include Roy’s Rugga skip. If I could make a kit as good I’d be a happy man. Problem is when I started doing plastic kits I was repeatedly asked to do a similar skip that runs on 16.5mm gauge. Sorry folks it doesn’t work! Apart from not wanting to go into competition with something I admire, I can’t see a way to do it without spoiling the proportions of the model.

 

The kit I wanted to do was the Hudson Ammunition wagon which can be reduced to a stretched Rugga Chassis with a different body on top. But, it has a bigger problem, the body framing has to interface with the chassis. An 016.5 model would have to be an out of proportion caricature.

 

I can hear you asking what about the conversion kit? I asked Roy some time back whether he had a picture of one and he thought he had, but it’s not my favourite bit of modelling.

 

Roger

[Dava]

Thanks Roger,

 

As KB Scale [successor to Roy Link] have been out of the market for a couple of years, a 014 moulded wagon kit would be very welcome. People also model on 09 & 012 so has wider potential sales. Maybe not very likely but thanks for the thought. Maybe an inside frame mine tub?

 

Dava

[finelines]

The problem is if you do a finescale model, unlike my freelance ones, you really need KB scale wheels. If you go to his website it says he’s developing a new a new site, so I’m hoping that it’s a sign of something to come.

 

When it appeared that he was out of the market some years ago I wrote and offered to buy the wagons because I think they would run on my machine.

 

This is my homage to Roy in 09.

 

 

Roger

Edited June 14, 2018 by finelines

[Dava]

Naturally we hope KBScale do return with a new website and their product range.

 

Regarding wheels, I use the 12mm gauge 8 & 9 mm dia wheels sold by Dundas Models, they push out to 14mm gauge and run nicely.

[finelines]

I’d forgotten them. They’re on 19 mm axles, aren’t they?

 

Roger

[finelines]

You got the old brain cells working.

 

Roger

[Dava]

I’d forgotten them. They’re on 19 mm axles, aren’t they?

Roger

Roger,

 

Yes they are 19mm axles. $30 for 10 axles but excellent quality and I prefer them to the KBScale wheels.

[finelines]

I already have some 8mm on 19mm that I bought to use as drivers in 009. I suspect that project has already arrived on the back burner!

 

Roger

[finelines]

Does anybody have any 14mm roller track gauges for sale?

 

Roger

[finelines]

The state of 014 reached the august pages of Roy’s mag. I recently decided the way to enable me to do what I want points me strongly towards 014. If you want to model Big 2ft you can get away with it in 016.5 but if you want to model Little 2ft it’s got to be 014. Until now you had to rely on KB Scale but there are new alternatives, possibly not as finescale as KB, but they are there. 7mm dia Markits, 8 & 9 mm Dundas, 10.5mm regular TT.

 

When I visit my local line, The West Lancs, I always notice the WDLR ammunition wagons and they pop up in pictures of other preserved railways. I have spent a lot of time trying to design an 016.5 kit for one, even with the KB Scale 23mm axles you have to mutilate the proportions. If I forget about 16.5 and just do 014 I’m home and dry. Probably a very useful underframe.

 

Roger

 

PS I’m only short of some 14mm track gauges.