Ayr Road

[jcarta]

Seeing as it is a nice night I thought a few shots of the tracks seeing as nothing was moving in the sidings

 

 

 

Then in the distance I could hear the whistler

 

 

[jcarta]

Its a scorcher out there today .....Lovely

 

Well today we have finalised the servos and refitted the frog juicers and given it a little check to see if all is operational ....

 

 

The frog juicers now live above the servos however we have fitted 20mm tubing to run the cables through to the front of the board eliminating the need to crawl under the board to look / solder wires etc.

 

 

And they all live within the signal box

 

 

The cabling as said earlier runs through the tubing to the front of the board and then into a weatherproof junction box that will house the servo boards etc and then the main wires from the garage will run through the tubing, keeping everything nice & neat.

 

 

  

 

 

Edited July 31, 2020 by jcarta

[Andrew P]

Far to professional looking for me mate, .

You do  know my middle name is BODGIT don't you.

[34006]

MD of the well known firm Hackett,Bodgit,& Scarper & Co ?

 

 

atb

 

Phil.

[jcarta]

3 hours ago, Andrew P said:

Far to professional looking for me mate, .

You do  know my middle name is BODGIT don't you.

 

DAD........

 

I have been looking for you for years !!!!!

 

Love

 

BODGIT JUNIOR

Edited July 31, 2020 by jcarta

[D6775]

Re-build is looking good, now if I could just borrow Ray for a few weeks there is a 30'x12' space in the garden..................................

[jcarta]

Sadly he is having a few days off and I am still waiting for his leave request form........

 

He is a good worker but make sure you have lots of tea and shortbread to hand

 

Jim

 

 

[Ray H]

Do I get a say in this?     

[Joner]

1 hour ago, Ray H said:

Do I get a say in this?     

Apparently not 

[jcarta]

The weather has been great for potting around in the garden but a little too hot to be laying track or running the locos so time has been spent either building structures for all Ray's gizmos that require housing or tarting up the Skytrex Class 31 that was purchased a few weeks ago. 

 

 

 

The station area is starting to take shape, the platform walls will get painted when it gets a little cooler as the paint tends to dry a bit too quick.

 

 

 

[jcarta]

The main board that operates the railway in the garage has been rebuilt and rewired over the past few days and screwed back on the wall and a sheet of perspex added to it to protect the boards from unwanted objects coming into contact with them.

 

 

A couple of weeks ago I found a chap that replicates signal box name boards so I thought it will be a nice touch to add some to the front boards of the layout 

 

 

[pwr]

Do you suffer from expansion issues in this extreme heat?

 

Paul R

[Ray H]

1 hour ago, pwr said:

Do you suffer from expansion issues in this extreme heat?

 

Paul R

 

What are we talking about now? 

 

And while I'm at the keyboard I have to put my hand up as being a thicko!

 

I made up an extension cable to link one of the servos to its decoder. I must have spent about an hour yesterday and nearly two this morning trying to work out why a single piece of cable that checked out electrically from end to end wouldn't operate the said servo when another cable made up of several short lengths (and laid across the top of the baseboard) allowed the servo to work without a problem.

 

I re-terminated both ends of the cable at least twice but still no joy. It wasn't until I was about to make the third re-termination at the servo end and touched the bare cable ends (from the decoder) on the relevant visible metal parts of the servo lead's socket that I twigged what was going on.

 

Servo plugs come in two/three parts. There's the metal pins, the socket the pins go into and the coupler (which shields the metal parts). Guess who had made an extension cable with sockets on both ends and we all know that there can't be any electrical connection when two sockets are pushed together - one has to be a plug (and have pins)!  Doh. 

 

I'm about to fit a decoder into a Class 37 for Jim. It could be expensive if I make a muck of that!

[spenc]

7 hours ago, pwr said:

Do you suffer from expansion issues in this extreme heat?

 

Paul R

 

7 hours ago, pwr said:

Do you suffer from expansion issues in this extreme heat?

 

Paul R

Is that Jim or Ray, or are you on about the track ?

Edited August 10, 2020 by spenc

[jcarta]

12 hours ago, spenc said:

 

Is that Jim or Ray, or are you on about the track ?

 

Funny you should mention it LOL........ Ray never expanded because he use to be under the boards in the shade.....

[jcarta]

19 hours ago, pwr said:

Do you suffer from expansion issues in this extreme heat?

 

Paul R

Paul

 

We did suffer with heat issues with the boards and track prior to the rebuild but fingers crossed as we have added expansion joints at each rail join and we are constantly monitoring it throughout the day. On the curves I have secured the track to the boards by placing extra nails on the outside sleeper and the rail ends are not evenly placed to try and eliminate any heat issues..... 

 

I will update over the next few months as soon we will be heading into the colder seasons.

[jcarta]

A bit of a mixed bag this week regarding the weather so we managed to get to do some work in the garage on the rainy days. We continued fitting the servo's and the frog juicers into the buildings as well as fitting the Merg boards into their external boxes. 

 

The station is coming along with a roadway fitted into place so the punters can board the relevant train.

 

 

We have also introduced a siding into this section of the railway which will hold the odd wagons, also I wanted a level crossing installed and I couldn't place it where I originally wanted it in fear of the local moggies probably destroying it.

 

 

Ayr Road's latest recruit, 37044 and thanks to Ray in wiring up the chip.

 

 

 

And finally Ray brought his very noisy jinty over to test all the frog juicers, all worked as they should do.

 

[Ray H]

We won't mention this mornings "fun" trying to get all three power districts working again, like they did before we took all the track up.

 

It felt like we were going backwards rather than even just standing still at times. However, it all seems to have come together (or at least it did when I left at lunchtime)!

 

I've told Jim that I won't answer the phone if he calls to say it's still not working properly!

[D6775]

Bit early for me but 37044 does look rather nice!

[Andrew P]

1 hour ago, D6775 said:

Bit early for me but 37044 does look rather nice!

But it would suit me, haha, or another 47 for that matter.

 

Layouts coming on well Jim and your Apprentice, young Ray. I do like a good Level Crossing in a Layout.

[jcarta]

Thanks Andy...... Your feedback and others is very welcome.

 

Jim

[jcarta]

Thanks Al..... She will definitely fit in & earn her keep on the layout....

[jcarta]

A productive few days over the weekend where we fitted the frog juicers to the area entering the garage and then wired up to the frame in the garage, everything went to plan this weekend, well sort of........ I will explain as we go on....

 

Points are now operational (without having to place a rail joiner in the points to keep them in position

 

 

Just need to paint the lever into the correct colour

 

 

Lastly we got the signal fitted and working so all was good until we gave the Class 26 a run.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jcarta]

The Class 26 was given a run and it didn't run smoothly, a quick clean of the wheels and sent back to the track and it still done the same. This resulted in stripping the bogies down to find the issue and you have probably guessed the issue....

The gears have split. 

 

This morning I contacted Gaugemaster, they don't stock them and apparently you'll be lucky to find any in the UK so on the dog & bone to Ultrascale who gave me some good advice and they are going to run me a complete batch off with the exception of the idle gears. If the Class 26 don't need everything replacing then the extra's will sit in the spares box.

 

As we progressed with the points over the weekend we needed to source some point cranks. I chatted to a mate of mine last week and look what he turned up with on Saturday...... All we need to do is make the cranks but we have a few ideas up our sleeves for these.

 

 

A few weeks ago I said that I had purchased a Skytrex Class 31, not everyone's cup of tea but for the asking price £125 it would have been rude not to snap it up. Well it arrived and was immediately stripped down to make it slightly more presentable. Ray soldered up the bogie and fitted a chip to it and it runs well, so today I continued updating the body and this is how far I have got with it.

 

 

Still a fair way to go.

 

Lastly, A mate of mine got me some galvanised steel so I decided to replicate some loco plates to place around the layout, so here is the first one, a great favourite of mine.

 

 

Jim

[pwr]

It still annoys me that Heljan despite now acknowledging that there was a problem with the gears, have singularly failed to provide any form of redress for those unlucky enough to suffer this and the news that Gaugemaster have no spares is concerning as the problem persists.

 

Paul R