Life in a Northern Town

[figworthy]

4 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

I also suffer from a muscle-related lower back problem, Neil, so you have my sympathies.

 

I don't always know when I've done the damage and a couple of the worst instances have happened in my sleep(!), but my gut reaction is to have a hot bath, yet I am told that if the muscle is spasming, then it may well need a cold pack, not warmth!

 

All very confusing, I must try to remember to do the exercises that our brilliant local local osteopath gives me, which mostly seem to involve lying on my back on the floor and waving my legs in the air.

 

 

Another member of the muscle related bad back club reporting in.

 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that we all have slightly different problems, so what works for me might not work for someone else.  I was told by my chiropractor that hot baths are a Bad Thing, but hot showers aren't (the muscles don't absorb the heat in the same way with a shower).  Cold packs are a Good Thing (I keep a bag of peas in the top of the freezer for that purpose).  The cold helps to reduce the swelling in the damaged muscle.  Also keeping it moving (gently), so no taking to my bed for a week (which I was once told to do by a doctor).

 

@Neil, stick with it, it takes time, but you'll get there in the end (it sounds as though you've been down this road a few times, so you'll know that).

 

Adrian

[Re6/6]

15 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

...........................which mostly seem to involve lying on my back on the floor and waving my legs in the air.

 

 

It's going to be difficult to 'unsee' the imagined image now....!

[Captain Kernow]

1 hour ago, Re6/6 said:

 

It's going to be difficult to 'unsee' the imagined image now....!

Well, you did ask!

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, hang on, you didn't!

 

[Captain Kernow]

12 hours ago, figworthy said:

Cold packs are a Good Thing (I keep a bag of peas in the top of the freezer for that purpose)

My first experience of using a pack of frozen peas for that purpose happened back in the early years of the West Somerset Railway when, as a young fireman, I was in the process of uncoupling 6412 from it's rake of coaches at Minehead station. The large steel balance weight at the end of the screw coupling on the loco was not to be trifled with, yet my head thought it would have a go and thus I ended up with a bruise and swelling the size of a pack of frozen peas on my forehead, which necessitated the ladies from the buffet finding a larger size pack to cool it off with.

 

[mullie]

18 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

which mostly seem to involve lying on my back on the floor and waving my legs in the air.

Sounds like interpretive dance to me, does it involve a chair?

 

Martyn

[Oldddudders]

35 minutes ago, mullie said:

Sounds like interpretive dance to me, does it involve a chair?

 

Martyn

It also sounds like a child having a tantrum, so a million miles from CK's usual dignified progress through life. OTOH, I was shocked to see him in shorts at Railex, so maybe.....

[woodenhead]

Another member of the Bad Back Brigade (Threebies??).

 

I find avoiding the bad back in the first place most beneficial, so I:

1. Avoid getting stressed
2. Go to the gym and lift weights
3. Used to also run when I was twinging as it helped to relieve number 1 and relax my muscles avoiding a full on bad back.
4. Keep my weight down, more bad backs when I was fatter around the middle and my core was like jelly.

[Neil]

In the latest  episode of 'Dr Rushby's Casebook' Janet is questioned by the police about several vials of morphine which have gone 'missing', Dr Cameron helps an elderly patient avoid the rigours of a one way trip to Switzerland and Dr Finlay is caught in a compromising position with the district nurse in the scullery of Arden House.

 

Ah they don't make TV like that any more.

 

Meanwhile, now that the soporific effects of the painkillers have worn off, I'm happy to inform that while most work on the layout has paused, retail therapy is still all go. Over the last week I tracked down Hornby's version of Tornado, advertised as spares or repair on e-bay, with the option of making an offer for it. Thirty three pounds later it arrived. A further fifteen bought me a spare set of wheels (the gear on the original centre axle was lose beyond repair) and a tender underframe (one side of the loco's was missing). To date I've swapped over the centre wheelset, installed the new tender underframe and rebuilt the broken off and missing side of the front buffer beam. I also need to fabricate a set of front steps which presumably went when the buffer beam was snapped off. When that's done all the remedial work will be over.

 

 

 

 

The work to the mechanism has been a success, from a state of immobility it now has a fluid grace to its movement.  The next job will be to backdate from a 21st century pacific to a 20th century one. Most of the work will be in the tender body to alter the rear deck and coal space. Ideally the tender body should be a riveted one for my chosen loco, Silurian; but it's a layout loco not a glass case job, so I'll be comfortable overlooking this discrepancy. The layout itself has an awful lot of discrepancies; what's one more?

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Neil

[Re6/6]

3 hours ago, Neil said:

In the latest  episode of 'Dr Rushby's Casebook' Janet is questioned by the police about several vials of morphine which have gone 'missing', Dr Cameron helps an elderly patient avoid the rigours of a one way trip to Switzerland and Dr Finlay is caught in a compromising position with the district nurse in the scullery of Arden House.

 

Ah I remember Janet...."haloo Arden huse"!

[Oldddudders]

Then there was the hated rival Dr Snoddie....

[lmsforever]

Today i was going to relay my fiddleyard but my back went as it does every so often ,out came the ice pack and paresetamol  .Thank goodness its starting to work so tomorrow the fiddle yard is going to be attacked ,carefully!

[5BarVT]

Please may I join the back club too?  My recent tribulations are regaled in my thread.

Paul.

[lmsforever]

I think bad backs seem to be worse as age marches onwards careful is the way to go but I forget and bang I am in pain.

[figworthy]

4 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

I think bad backs seem to be worse as age marches onwards careful is the way to go but I forget and bang I am in pain.

I'd odd minor problems for years, but the first bad one (multiple spasms etc.) was when I was 42.  The chiropractor (then a young lady, who will know be in her mid 40s) informed me that I was about the right age for it.

 

Adrian

[Neil]

The A1 has now gone under the knife .... and drill, saw, file ....

 

First a picture of my buffer beam repair.

 

 

 

 

I then attacked the numbers and early crests with Astonish, a mix of the paste and liquid applied with cotton bud and coffee stirer.

 

 

 

 

Attention turned to the tender where the rear deck was carefully cut away to the rear of the coal space.

 

 

 

 

This allowed me to cut an over-height piece of plasticard to fit between the tender sides. This was offered up to the rear of the coal space and a line scribed to copy the arc of the existing bulkhead. The Hornby bulkhead was then trimmed back to the profile of the coal load (not yet photographed) and I was left with a new bulkhead which I can position correctly further towards the rear of the tender.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Neil

[Neil]

Tender reconstruction continues. Having destroyed Hornby's fixing of the tender rear by cutting away the deck I had to reinstate something that would both locate and hold the tender body in place. When I cut away the upright tube which the rear deck fixed to I was left with a hole just the right size to accommodate a 6BA screw head. The screw has to be recessed as the hole ends at the NEM socket for the tender coupling. To locate the screw I sleeved the top half of the hole with two short sections of plastic tube, one inside the other.

 

 

 

 

Inside the tender body I constructed a shelf, braced to the tender rear, which would sit on top of the tube. With the body in place I drilled a 6BA clearance hole through the shelf.

 

 

 

 

While the joint hardened I made a captive fixing for a 6BA nut in a block of 80 thou plasticard and a top plate of 40 thou. The top plate is yet to be trimmed to size in this image.

 

 

 

 

The tender chassis and body were reassembled with the screw, captive nut and top plate.; the captive nut and top plate being solvent welded to the shelf and tender rear. It's important that the replacement fixing is complete before moving onto the rebuilding of the tender body as access is at it's best now.

 

 

 

 

Finally I could reinstate a lower and shorter rear deck and fix in my replacement coal space bulkhead. The gap left was filled in with a section cut from a Parkside moulded wagon load. Though I'll be coaling up the tender later, it's better if the sub base is similar in texture so as not to leave a tell tale line where the join is.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Neil

[Neil]

The plastic pacific nears completion,  replacements for the missing front buffer and steps have been constructed ....

 

 

 

..... as has the rear section of the reversing rod ....

 

 

 

.... and the rear well of the tender now sports water filler and the upper section of the water scoop apparatus.

 

 

 

 

Work on the layout has seen the trackbed for the light railway cut out and temporarily blocked up just to see how it looks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Neil

[Neil]

A wet day yesterday gave me plenty of time at the workbench to apply transfers, smoke deflectors and a coat of Halford's satin lacquer. Today I took the loco to the layout for testing and some photos. Here it is leaving Bishophill Yard on a fitted freight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Neil

[Neil]

My latest batch of spare time has been spent out in the garage. I've fixed the previously cut MDF trackbed on top of timber spacers and then covered this with 4mm thick yoga mat material glued down with Evostick.

 

 

 

 

This afternoon I've made a start on the track laying on this section, starting with the run round loop for the light railway/industrial branch as its positioning is the most critical. I'll continue working up the slope to the exchange sidings when I next have a session in the garage.

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Neil

[Neil]

It's been a bit cold in the garage so I've switched to my indoor workbench. Complete apart from weathering is this Gresley full brake from a Kirk kit. I bottled with the bogies and substituted a pair of Bachmann one I picked up cheap.

 

 

 

I'm part way through a repaint of an A35 van. Here the body sits on its custom made painting stand, corrugated card stuck to a heavy wooden base so the body isn't blasted about by the spray from the rattle can I primed it with. It also came in useful when I brush painted the top coat, Humbrol gloss enamel I've had for about thirty years.

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Neil

[Neil]

Still indoors, I was becoming swamped by projects. As the perimeter filled up, materials, tools and the half started and half finished crept ever closer to the cutting mat. I decided I had to do something so spent half an hour cobbling together this organiser from a box file and some foam board strips. The strips were notched half way through to form a grid. As most of the projects passing across the bench are traditional wagons, that's how the spacing was determined. Here it's housing several variations on the LNER/BR standard brake van, tank wagon and a road vehicle.

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Neil

[Neil]

Out and about in Northern Town and it looks like Benedetto's is suffering some sort of infestation .....

 

 

 

 

..... however could the nasty niff come from the products of the chemical works just a short distance further along the line.

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Neil

[Mikkel]

Rushby Ltd. I like it 

 

Nice application of the Artitec warehouse too, it looks right at home. We were just discussing it on another thread.

[Neil]

Thank you; many people have said that I'm full of it, at least that's what I thought they said.

 

The lettering on both the tanker and van come from home made transfers. The tanker's graphics were created on Inkscape (a free vector graphics program) while those on the van are from images harvested from the internet.

[Captain Kernow]

How delightful to see the layout featured in the latest edition of Railway Modeller, great stuff!