The Yard - Small industrial layout in 7mm

[Greengiant]

We have been very busy developing The Yard for exhibition appearances at Uckfield 20-21 October, then the following weekend 27 October at EXPONG.

The gantry crane has had some weathering work done, it won't be to how I want it to finally look, but will someway in the right direction. It is a very fiddly model to weather, there are so many bits that aren't as easily accessible with a paintbrush as you would expect. I have not helped myself by working with a new weathering product to me, MiG Oilbrushers, although the more I use them, the more I like them.

The concrete side beams have started getting some dirt.

 

 

 

The crane control hut has started getting the first of many layers of colouring.

 

 

The yard stonework getting the base coat applied, looks horrific at this stage.

 

 

 

Once blending has taken place, things become a lot more subdued.

 

 

 

 

The point infills done in drab olive with gunmetal dry brushing which now needs to be polished where the lorry wheels will generally cross.

 

 

The rear wall railings, various doors and windows are now base painted.

 

 

In an attempt to add a bit of interest to the factory building complex, one of them now has a roof extension, cut out on the Emblaser 2 laser cutter from Hobarts 3mm laser ply. Had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this cutter, when the lid safety contact pads play ball it is fine, when they don't, as has been the case  a lot unless I put a very heavy weight on the lid. Have contacted Darkly Labs about the problem, who have been very helpful, since my machine was manufactured they have changed the design of the contact pads so they have shipped out new pads to me from Australia at no charge, they are due to arrive today according to the DHL tracker having left Darkly on 4 October.

 

 

I had to remove some roofing sheet to allow the extension to seat properly.

 

 

Now clad in various Slaters embossed sheets.

 

 

Never one to throw things away that may come in useful one day, these are tap spout filters, the water company gave us bags of these earlier in the year on a water saving visit.

 

 

So one of these came to be a vent outlet on the roof extension, will probably make some support bracketing for this when I have more time.

 

 

Now with some initial painting.

 

 

The main door for the tank building has been assembled from the four layers of laser cut Trotec.

 

 

The new design crates for the gantry crane have been laser cut from 1.5mm ply. These are formed for multiple layer laminations.

 

 

They are stuck onto the outer edges of our base lifting frame, which itself is wrapped with sheet lead to give some 'load' for the crane and minimise unwanted swing. Here you can also see the brass tubes the lifting wires slide in.

 

 

Then it is a case of building them up layer by layer, side by side.

 

 

I have become a big fan of this glue, goes off fairly quickly, but not so quick you don't have time for adjustments.

 

 

The long application tube is great for laying down thin beads in those awkward to reach areas.

 

 

Before long you end up with a batch of crates.

 

 

We had some little people arrive, these are Modelu 3D printed figures painted by the excellent Claudia Everett.

 

 

Martin

 

 

 

[suffolk009]

What a fabulous layout. Can't believe I've missed this up until now. Sadly I won't be at Expong again this year, so will have to keep up with it online.

 

I'm a really big fan of the way you have avoided putting it in an open sided box - I've never been very fond of those. The monochrome fiddle yard does the job perfectly. I completely agree about the "hole in the sky".

 

Great work, please keep posting.

[Greengiant]

What a fabulous layout. Can't believe I've missed this up until now. Sadly I won't be at Expong again this year, so will have to keep up with it online.

 

I'm a really big fan of the way you have avoided putting it in an open sided box - I've never been very fond of those. The monochrome fiddle yard does the job perfectly. I completely agree about the "hole in the sky".

 

Great work, please keep posting.

Thank you.

We will also be at Uckfield the weekend before EXPONG, then 26-27 January 2019 at the Longfield show and also SWING 18 May 2019.

 

Martin

[Greengiant]

Time is fast running out with the Uckfield show now less than a week away!

 

So best get cracking on with things.

 

A task I have been putting off is fixing the railings panels into the wall section that stands in front of the road that runs along the rear of the layout. To mount the panels 1mm wire is inserted into the wall pillars, one near the top, another near the bottom running behind the cross bars on the railings. The holes in the pillars had to be exactly right, so I made up a small drilling jig from some brass angle, one face for a left hand pillar, the other face for a right hand pillar.

 

 

The wires were inserted fully into one pillar and then backed across to the other pillar, that way the wire did not need bending to fit. These wires were fixed with super glue wicked in at the insertion point.

 

 

I had deliberately laser cut the fixing spigots on the railings slightly long, this enabled me with a few light strokes of a file to get an exact fit. Once in place, the panels were held in place with miniature clothes pegs and super glue wicked in along the wire which is now at the back.

 

 

The wall is made up of a small two panel section and one long 9.5 panel section which itself is 2'6" long as one piece, I was a nervous wreck once finished, but so thankful when completed, it was very fiddly and delicate, now I just need to get it finally fixed to the layout.

 

 

Next up was to finish repainting and weathering the crane, or at least as much as I have time for before the show. These are some before and after pictures, still lots to do, but that will have to be for another time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tried out the new hook and lifting system and pleased to say it works very well.

 

 

While the layout is in bits it was a good opportunity to take a photograph to show how the whole lot is arranged for display. We have a black lower banner, but when this photo was taken the support arms for it were away being welded with an adaption we came up with.

The support legs will double up as a trolley when traveling with the layout. We drop in a piece of ply to form a base in the central baseboard support beam, then all the back scene supports apart from the two upper uprights go in this beam, along with the rolled up backscenes (inside a cardboard tube). The upper supports are pulled apart at beam height, then they are dropped into clips welded to the sides of the lower uprights, then the RSJ lighting rig is put upside down on the beam and held on with bungee cords. The electrics are permanently mounted on a tray bolted at the rear of the legs. We just need to make up an axle and wheel set that will fix when required to one set of feet, then the other foot will be lifted as a trolley handle, well that's the theory.

 

 

Martin

[Greengiant]

On The Yard we run one standard gauge engine with a spare as back up both are steam and sound fitted, on the narrow gauge we run one steam and two diesel, all with sound and stay-a-lives fitted, or we are supposed to, but one of them had yet to be fitted out.

My little yellow bogie diesel needed to be fitted out, this is an ex Whiteoak loco and has factory fitted DCC without sound, at the time I built the loco this was fine so the bonnet upper halves are stuffed with lead because this loco had to pull a good load on Whiteoak and now also has to on Theobald's Yard. This meant there was not that much room left to get in a sound chip, stay-a-live and sugar cube speaker! I cannot remove the lead weights for fear of wrecking the body, plus it will need the weight for when performing duties on Theobald's Yard.

The first task was to remove the factory PCB, at this point I realised it was split chassis pick up, so I made a new mount from thick plasticard.

 

 

I matched all the original screw fixing holes, using two of them to take power to the chip, this I did by making little brass tags soldered to the chip wires, the screws pass through these tags and transfer the power from the chassis blocks. I was able to strap on the chip, stay-a-live and speaker to this new mount, only trouble was, the body would not fit, no matter how much I dare carve away inside.

 

 

No option but to raise the body, so 4.8mm Evergreen strip with an outer laminate of Slater's embossed rivet sheet was fixed to the lower edges of the body. Notches were filed out to leave access to the original bolt mounting holes I had put in the chassis plate.

 

 

The finished lift of the body which now needs to go into the paint and weathering shop to blend it all together. The plug hanging by the exhaust stack is the stay-a-live plug which came out through the door window on the otherside, this needs to be disconnected before programming up the CVs and will be plugged back in and tucked down on the cab floor.

 

 

The Yard is a very short layout, so we need the locos to run as smoothly as we can for what little track there is for them to run on, so good low speed running is essential. To achieve this we use JMRI to fine tune the CVs to get what we want, the main work is altering the start voltage and acceleration curves. We use a very long gradual curve for this and change the notching up values for the frequency of engine rev rise. Some of the sound function volumes are altered from factory spec and customised to our function key preference across all our locos. For this loco we have two sets of CVs saved in JMRI, one set for The Yard and a different set for when it runs on Theobald's Yard where a higher top end speed is required with a quicker acceleration curve because a complete circuit on Theobald's is about 70 feet.

 

Martin

 

[Greengiant]

Well, that's the Uckfield show been and gone, a good time was had by all with The Yard, we were made very welcome by Adrian and his team, well looked after, fed and watered, sometimes too much drink, but to have a waiter service to your layout was very welcome.

Operating the layout was intense and by the close of each day we were ready for a rest. We have a few ideas for things that may help with the operating, we will be trialing out some of these once the layout is back in the workshop.

 

 

 

Sunday afternoon was especially pleasing when it was announced our layout had been voted Best in Show by the exhibition visitors.

 

 

Martin

[muddy water]

Great to see all the hard work has been recognised by the public!

It can be a big risk when you try new ideas of building and operating a layout. Curtains and side back scenes may be come a thing of the past now!

[Greengiant]

With a few shows now under our belt with this layout we have a Snagging/Wish List to work through.

 

Some of the items on the list involve the gantry crane and it's operation over many hours across two days. Targeting the lifting hook into a 5mm x 10mm slot from a distance of 3' to 4' feet away, while vision can be compromised by the main crane frame itself consistently all day, needs a solution to improve the accuracy of this operation.

 

To this end we are making a custom control box which will be switchable for left and right handed operation and contain a screen that is fed images from a camera mounted above the hook and to one side. We have sourced some high quality joy sticks with first class centering, this is important so that no movement or winching can take place by accident when the controls are released. A screen and camera have also been sourced. The camera works off the same battery already installed in the crane, but does draw quite a lot of power transmitting the picture, so to keep this to a minimum we will be installing a momentary button in the control box to switch the camera on for a 5 second burst, we only need the camera for the very final positioning of the hook, so 5 seconds should be enough, if not we can alter it to whatever time we need.

 

From some rough testing it was determined the camera will need to be mounted at about 20 degrees from upright, so we 3D printed a camera mount and a drilling jig for the crane cab floor. Being 3D printed, if we need to tweak the angle of the camera it will just mean printing a new mount.

 

This is the drilling jig, camera mount and camera. The camera is a security camera disguised as a cross head screw, we have not found a way of removing the screw head without causing damage, but I doubt it will show unless the crane is viewed from a very low position.

 

 

To give an idea of size here is the camera and mount next to a scalpel blade.

 

 

Here is the drilling jig on the cab base, the letter 'C' was also printed on the jig to ensure I get this the correct way round before drilling and cutting the cab floor.

 

 

To enable testing of the crane while we do these changes, rather than having to go to the workshop and erect the layout to do this, I laser cut a desktop version of the main crane framing which exactly mimics the operating area of the layout version including the narrow and standard gauge track positions, the only thing different is it is slightly shorter because I was limited by the size my laser could cut. This was all cut from 2mm MDF, luckily this was also just the right size to form the rails for the crane bridge wheels to run on.

 

The component parts.

 

 

Now glued together with the bridge in place to test. I cut upturns at the rail ends so we cannot over run the crane, but I forgot about the cab has to be mounted on the bridge as well, so one end this will not work with the upturn stops, the cab will hit first if we over run!

 

 

Martin

[Greengiant]

Camera now mounted in the cab floor.

 

 

To house the camera transmitter and antenna we have drawn in CAD a case that will mount on the rear of the cab, there is also a cover that just clips in place giving us easy access if required, the hole at the top of the case is for the tube in which the antenna will be hidden. This will have some brass wire handles added and then be painted and weathered as a metal casing.

 

These are the CAD drawings.

The main part that will bolt to the cab rear wall.

 

 

The cover that will clip over.

 

 

The case with the transmitter installed and yet to have the plastic pipe added to cover the antenna.

 

 

Martin

[Greengiant]

First off, apologies to those that were hoping to see us at the Longfield show the end of this month, the organisers forgot they had invited us and unfortunately it is now too late now to fit us in the show. Therefore our next outing with the layout will be at the SWING show in Littlehampton, Saturday 18 May.

 

In the meantime, having now completed three exhibitions with The Yard, experience has shown although the original controller holders worked well for the purpose they were designed for, simply just to hold a controller while not in use, rather than just be left on a seat or shelf with the risk of accidental damaging by knocking on to the floor.

 

This is one of the original holders.

 

 

What did become apparent was it held the handset fine, but if for any reason you wanted to operate while in the holder it was not a good design. This style of operation want, only became apparent after many hours running the layout, the locos never really run more than about speed step four, we always use the '+' and '-' buttons rather than the control knob for speed setting, we find it gives much finer control. We sit down to operate so no real need for the controller handset to be mobile, with this in mind I designed units that would hold the controller securely at a 30 degree angle, can be operated fully without needing to hold the handset and be easily removed if required. I drew out the designs in Adobe Illustrator, imported into LightBurn and cut them on the Emblaser 2 laser cutter in 3mm ply.

 

This shows one holder and the single angled mount for the lefthand end controller. It will be fixed to the existing shelf using threaded and smooth captive 'T' nuts.

 

 

The complete unit test installed. I will probably lightly sand and radius the edges before priming and painting black. A second unit for the righthand end will be a double unit, that way we can leave two locos with individual controllers programed.

 

 

Martin

[Greengiant]

Work has been progressing on installing a camera into the gantry crane.

 

We have managed to cut down the antenna that transmits the camera picture back to the handset screen, this along with the transmitter is located in a cabinet on the rear of the crane cabin. Just need to add a short length of plastic pipe over the lower section of the antenna to the cabinet and thinking of just blackening the final top section.

 

 

Designed and 3D printed a mount for the screen at the front and the camera receiver at the rear, the mount just clips to the top of the transmitter. This set up is purely to test the concept and a custom controller box we be designed and built to house all the necessary hardware and electronics.

 

 

 

 

Initial testing is encouraging once you get used to the concept that when operating the crane in normal mode, you stay still and the crane moves, when using the camera the ground moves, felt odd at first, but after a while we soon became accustomed with switching from one mode to the other. We just need to change the camera/screen 'ON' time from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.

 

Martin

 

[Greengiant]

The righthand end controller holders have now been cut and partially assembled.

 

 

Martin

[Greengiant]

With the SWING show fast approaching on the 18 May, attention has turned to building a Bedford TK artic. We have been very fortunate in Giles kindly loaning us his lorry for a number of shows, but we really do need to produce our own one.

A Bedford was acquired and a start made on scratch building a flat bed trailer.

The bed and under tray was laser cut from 1.5mm ply, this will give us a pocket to house the battery, mounting system and wire runs.

 

 

Brass angle and channel was cut and taped to an assembly jig which was laser cut from 2mm MDF.

 

 

When soldered the framework was removed from the jig, quite a fragile structure so had to be handled with care for the time being.

 

 

The battery housing recess was laminated from two parts, they also encapsulate a chassis mounting bolt which was superglued in place, to stop the bolt breaking loose in the future a short section of wire was glued in a recess and groove in the bolt head.

 

 

A new rear light housing beam was made from brass channel and drilled to accept LEDs.

 

 

Then soldered to the rear of the trailer along with a lower protection bar, or whatever they are called.

 

 

Next I fitted the trailer socket, but stupidly had not allowed for the trailer swing when in use!

 

 

So rather than try and unsolder the beam and risk the whole front coming undone, a patch was made for the old hole and a new central hole was cut for the socket.

 

 

The trailer bed now located with the chassis, held in place by the captive bolt behind the back axle and a clamp and captive bolt near the front. The chassis was filed down on top of the rails to give the final amount of space for the battery.

 

 

Trailer framework has been painted dark green, the cab will be to when alterations have been competed and the bed itself has been painted and weathered.

 

 

The trailer was passed to Neale who did the battery install and wiring. Here you can see the battery sandwiched between bed and chassis, on top of the battery and between the chassis rails is a 3D printed tray which houses the charging socket and on/off switch, this has tabs that rest on the chassis rails, clamped in place by the battery and bed. Wiring for the LED lights is in place, the thicker shrink wrapped cable at the front goes through a groove near the fifth wheel swivel and to the central socket which is itself in it's own 3D printed mount which allows the socket to be slightly recessed into the front beam. This means the trailer contains the bulk of the electrics, easily separated from the tractor unit with one plug.

 

 

Now the tractor unit. We got hold of a batch of motor gearbox units with a simple diff unit with rear axle. This was fixed in place with Milliput, the piece of ply clamped to the chassis is holding the motor unit level until the top application of Milliput cures.

 

 

A view from underneath with the lower application of Milliput.

 

 

Unfortunately the knurling for the worm on the axle was not that good and eventually released losing drive, so the whole lot had to be stripped back to parts to get the motor and gearbox out so better fixing of the worm could be carried out. I increased the knurling quite crudely then fixed the worm back in place with the aid of some super glue.

 

 

Back to a pile of bits! Here can also be seen the 3D printed front axle unit and bearings Neale 3D printed after some development collaboration with Giles. Also in the wheels can be seen 3D printed bearing holders that clip into the rear recess of the wheels. On finally assembly the carriers will have a very small amount of cyano wicked in to hold them firmly.

 

 

The tractor unit also needs working lights on the rear mudguards, so the old lights needed to be removed, a hole created over which a small light mounting plate will be added. Here the righthand light pod has been cut out.

 

 

Small Nickel silver plates have been made to mount the LEDs, these have also now been chemically blackened. To give an idea of size the holes are 1.8mm diameter.

 

 

While the main tractor unit has gone off to Neale for wring and final RC install, I need to make new mudguard brackets that clear the motor gearbox unit, these will be fabricated from brass rod. Once the tractor comes back to me, final painting in corporate two tone green will take place along with some light weathering.

 

Martin

 

[Greengiant]

We also had a Morris Commercial spare that was ripe for conversion. So steering, motor, lighting and RC where rigged up for testing.

This worked well, so now all the bits had to be accommodated in the body and chassis.

 

 

We had a nice large battery for this one, to install while keeping the same bed height, the chassis and back of rear mudguards were filed away to make room. A plastic bearing block was glued in to stop the crown wheel moving along the axle. A new lighting beam was made and mounted onto the chassis with the original light boards removed from the cast bed moulding. This enables all wiring to be contained on the chassis and none on the bodywork. A pin system on the back of the cab locates the front of the bed, while the bed floor clamps it and the battery down with one of the original mounting screws at the rear.

 

 

The new lighting beam with the bed in place.

 

 

All fixed in place with the two battery leads ready to be routed to the front of the chassis.

 

 

Lorry now with Neale to do the electrics, install lights, on/off switch and charging socket. Then it will be back for the final painting, this will then give us three lorries for operating on The Yard.

 

Martin

[Greengiant]

An update on the artic, the tractor unit rear mudguards needed new brackets fabricated. The half round section above the light pod needs to be removed and flattened to the mudguard itself.

 

 

Some suitable size brass rod was tack soldered to brass bar, this ensures it can be held firm in a vice and ensure the ability to file a parallel level flat the width of the mudguard at each end.

 

 

One of the finished brackets.

 

 

Both brackets glued in place, next stop the paint shop.

 

 

Martin

[Greengiant]

In the meantime the electrics have now been completed on the Morris.

 

 

An underside view showing the 3D printed rocking steering mechanism, battery plug and charger socket unit, on/off switch and N20 motor power unit, above the motor and rear axle is the battery.

 

 

A short video of the lorry on the workbench.

 

Martin

[Greengiant]

The TK eventually got a new coat of paint and lines up with the other two lorries.

 

 

All was going fine until the worm on the rear axle broke free, it appears the knurling was not up to scratch, so no option but to hack out the Milliput to get the motor, gearbox and axle out! Some would say it ended up looking like a drugs bust.

 

 

I ended up soldering the worm gear, shouldn't slip now.

 

 

A short video of a test run.

 

 

Martin

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

That RC lorry really is great.

[Giles]

Very neat job repainting that...... not easy..... did you remove the glazing or mask it?

 

Land rover..... anything else.

[Greengiant]

5 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

That RC lorry really is great.

Thank you, we took our inspiration from the work done by Giles converting his vehicles. They certainly add a new dimension to operating the railway.

 

Martin

[Greengiant]

40 minutes ago, Giles said:

Very neat job repainting that...... not easy..... did you remove the glazing or mask it?

 

Land rover..... anything else.

 

Hi Giles, thank you. Yes I removed the glazing, drilled out the rivets, even then they needed a slight lever under the roof to get them to release, they are also a snug fit in the apertures, but it is doable. I completely stripped the paint, the factory paint on our one was quite thick and reduced some of the moulded detail of the body. I need to repaint it, in some places it has since flaked! I probably should have left the primer a few more days, next time will use an etch primer first, but not before SWING. Also on the list is to scratch build mirrors and wipers, somewhere along the line we have mislaid all but one wiper.

 

Will be good to see you at SWING, how about the J9, have not seen that in the flesh in action? Would also like to have a good look underneath of both.

 

Martin

[Michael Edge]

Where did you get the skew gears for the final drive in that lorry? I've been looking for some to fit to these gearboxes for some time.

[Greengiant]

19 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

Where did you get the skew gears for the final drive in that lorry? I've been looking for some to fit to these gearboxes for some time.

 

We got them from Hesketh Scale Models as complete motor/gearbox/axle units. From memory I don’t think they were listed on the site, just by contact. Worth a try they may just do the skew gear.

 

Martin

[Michael Edge]

Thanks, I've used plenty of these motors but the final drive is the difficult bit. I've mostly used the plastic bevel gears but they are a bit big in 00 locos.

[Greengiant]

This Saturday The Yard will be at the Chelmsford show along with a number of other narrow gauge layouts.

 

We have been working on solving a problem we were starting to have with the gantry crane hook twisting as it was lowered, this started to make loading a bit of a challenge and took the fun out of operating.

Several sizes of snake chain were tried but none would bend small enough to go around the hook pulley. I have quite a selection of small chains, collected over the years as and when I saw them at shows. By chance one of them worked very well and reduced the twisting to a very small amount, but still not spot on. Looking at the whole assembly it was thought the current loop of wire and acetate guides were doing the job, nearly, but were hit and miss on adjustment, so in an effort to improve this a new guide was designed which had a much more precise adjustment facility.

 

New upper and lower guides were 3D printed, these had radiused slots to guide the chain and four holes to enable mounting with lengths of 8BA threaded rod.

 

 

The new guides assembled and ready for mounting in the crane chassis.

 

 

To enable the small amount of adjustment we required the lower guide rod mounting holes were elongated on a radius so the plate can rotate around the centre. This is then clamped in position on the rod with nuts and washers.

 

 

This is the MK1 version when we did not have the elongated holes, we thought this would have worked, which it did, but not exactly enough so hence the adjustable bottom plate was then 3D printed.

 

 

When mounted in the crane it is barely noticeable.

 

 

 

In an effort to reduce the number of packages we need to take to exhibitions and the safety of the removable bits and pieces, we have fitted out some flight cases to hold these items.

The crane is now packed in it's own case along with the charger and lifting loads, as well as spare chains should one break!

 

 

Another case has three of the handsets, the third case has the the three lorries, the fourth controller and chargers.

 

 

If you go to the Chelmsford show, do pop by and say hello.

 

Martin