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2mm Distillery: Dail-uaine


justin1985
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Quite a while back, before I took on Bill Blackburn's Long Melford layout, I was working on a small shunting plank based on Snape goods station in Suffolk. That layout got abandoned, mainly because I'd made too many compromises with the track, which was mainly built using the original non-pegged Easitrack, and it just didn't run well - my attempts to adjust the pointwork just ended up compounding the errors. I stripped off the track work ages ago, but kept the board. Recently I got it back out, and decided to build some pointwork as a test run for using the new simpler one-piece etched chainplates, before I work up the courage to finish off the track work on Long Melford.

 

In a bit of a departure, I decided to theme the shunting plank around something a bit different - one of my many side interests. I've always been fond of Scottish railways, and the idea of a rail served distillery has always appealed. I happened across a Flickr album of the particularly attractive Dailuaine distillery in Carron, Speyside, which seemed like ideal inspiration.

 

ibzbz Dailuaine No1 Dailuaine Distillery 23-06-67  (John BoyesARPT)  060

 

This is really an excuse for a simple Inglenook, rather than a scale model of the particular location, but I've been mocking up some buildings based closely on this distillery - including its very cute little engine shed (that has its own little Doig pagoda style ventilator). The track plan is literally just an inglenook, plus an engine shed spur which doubles to disguise what will be the exit to the fiddle (cassette) yard. The buildings are drawn up in AutoCAD and cut on a Silhouette cutter in 200gsm card for now - the final versions will, I think, be on Slaters embossed plasticard and laminations of 0.5mm plasticard. The windows are drawn to suit the size of Ratio and Brassmasters etches. 

 

IMG_20190519_165414.jpg.2cc58b43323bd9ba7ab1ecb5bea430e2.jpg

 

 

IMG_20190519_165406.jpg.b1ed0846c4833c4d7d43876f8f4c5b84.jpg

 

I'll try and follow up in the next few days with posts about the track work (hybrid Easitrack and etched chairs), and stock for the layout.

 

Justin

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One of the main things I want to achieve with this layout is testing out the new one piece etched chairs. To finish Long Melford, I need to build quite a lot of complex pointwork that will need to match with Bill Blackburn's track system. I tried using some of his etches, but they were so fiddly with two extra thin layers, it drove me nearly insane. The new ones seem to give almost the same look, and while still fiddly, they're certainly more manageable than Bills.

 

Quickly, when I started building the pointwork for the plank, I decided to save time and fiddleiness by using a hybrid of the etched and plastic chairs, which seems to work really nicely.

 

IMG_20190527_100301.jpg.fd7316e5d49b2e87a414572e9b654ea9.jpg

 

Inspired by a recent article in the 2mm Magazine, I 3D printed a jig to help with opening out the chairs. This works really nicely and should save time building the remaining point.

 

IMG_20190419_231742.jpg.1a5abc54413a5e5577fe623190293ff1.jpg

 

The other feature I want to experiment with here is inset paved track - on the siding closest to the distillery itself.

 

Here is a little test piece made with DAS clay and stamped with an offcut of squeezed and slightly hollowed out brass tube. This was quite therapeutic! 

 

IMG_20190527_100310.jpg.537386ae596ada5209d8943839594666.jpg

 

I'm really pleased with the result, although I'm slightly concerned about how I'll keep the track clean without damaging the cobbles. Perhaps a filed down checkrail inside the rails might help set a level that stays below the rail height? Any tips gratefully received!

 

Justin

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Those cobbles look very effective! A check rail is probably the best way of ensuring the DAS is slightly below rail height as well as getting a consistent appearance. Alternatively adding some black dye to the white clay to make it a grey colour could be an alternative so that if it were to be damaged it wouldn't be as obvious? 

 

Tom.  

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5 hours ago, justin1985 said:

I'm really pleased with the result, although I'm slightly concerned about how I'll keep the track clean without damaging the cobbles. Perhaps a filed down checkrail inside the rails might help set a level that stays below the rail height? Any tips gratefully received!

Like Tom, I think these cobbles look really good.  I will have some to do for Kirkallanmuir and I'll be borrowing that idea.

 

As far as cleaning the track goes, I made this little tool out of 30 thou brass and find it very effective.

1696048660_Railcleaningtool.JPG.370eb505a35e363b614a396aaeedbaf1.JPG

The idea was to be able to clean the top of the running rails without taking the 'rust' off the check and wing rails.  The little prongs fit in the gap, with the 'step' rubbing on the rails.  I'm not a fan of using abrasives to clean track, although I do use the very finest surface of a nail buffer on plain track from time to time.  This tool scrapes off any deposit and at the same time burnishes the surface to some extent.

 

As an aside, I feel that the most important area to keep clean is the top inside edge of the rail as that is where the cones wheel tread makes most of its contact.

 

Jim

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2 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Like Tom, I think these cobbles look really good.  I will have some to do for Kirkallanmuir and I'll be borrowing that idea.

 

As far as cleaning the track goes, I made this little tool out of 30 thou brass and find it very effective.

1696048660_Railcleaningtool.JPG.370eb505a35e363b614a396aaeedbaf1.JPG

The idea was to be able to clean the top of the running rails without taking the 'rust' off the check and wing rails.  The little prongs fit in the gap, with the 'step' rubbing on the rails.  I'm not a fan of using abrasives to clean track, although I do use the very finest surface of a nail buffer on plain track from time to time.  This tool scrapes off any deposit and at the same time burnishes the surface to some extent.

 

As an aside, I feel that the most important area to keep clean is the top inside edge of the rail as that is where the cones wheel tread makes most of its contact.

 

Jim

It would be nice if some clever clogs got this etched  and offered via the shop 

 

Nick

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On 27/05/2019 at 18:34, nick_bastable said:

It would be nice if some clever clogs got this etched  and offered via the shop 

 

Nick

As well as the 3D printed jig for pushing out the etched chairs :smile_mini2:

 

David

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On 27/05/2019 at 22:58, nick_bastable said:

possibly   well actually yes

I've no immediate plans for more etches at the moment, but I'll put it on the list for the next sheet.

 

Jim

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3 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

I've no immediate plans for more etches at the moment, but I'll put it on the list for the next sheet.

 

Jim

 

3 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

I've no immediate plans for more etches at the moment, but I'll put it on the list for the next sheet.

 

Jim

Jim

 

please put me down for one

 

thanks

 

Nick

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23 hours ago, DavidLong said:

As well as the 3D printed jig for pushing out the etched chairs :smile_mini2:

 

David

 

Hi David, 

 

I've got about half a dozen spare jigs (they're a good thing to print to fill up the print bed if printing something else small) but I don't think I'd want to produce them in enough numbers for the shop on my printer. There are too many variables with exposure with different batches of resin, even different ambient temperature etc, to be confident of getting accurate sizes. I'd be happy to share the files if anyone would like to arrange printing on a more reliable machine / via Shapeways or something.

 

For now though, I'd be happy to put one in the post to anyone who'd like one of the ones I've got spare! Send me a PM

 

Justin

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8 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

How did you handle the chairplates around the vee and on the check-rails?

 

I think under the nose of the vee itself, I used a plain bit of nickel silver offcut. For other bits with not enough clearance, I chopped one side of etched plates in half and slid them under. Slide chairs are all the etched slide chairs, with more partial bits of chairs slid in where the switch rails need chairs but clearance is limited.

 

J

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I am still making progress on this little layout. But work on the final turnout has been very slow. Even with the jig, using the etched chair plates is very tedious work, and I've been tending to just do one row of etch worth at a time, then turning to some other more fun job - which for me is almost always wagons!

 

I'm trying to speed things up a bit by using my hybrid format with Easitrack non pegged chairs and sleepers in the central section of the turnout. The vee is also recycled from an old botched turnout - hence the very short rails. 

 

IMG_20190616_220219.jpg.f3fc3ac2e854719116cae3b925af03f5.jpg

 

I have been finishing off more big four wagons, but I don't really have a particularly suitable steam loco yet.

 

A month or so back I was at the N Gauge Southeast exhibition, and saw a Dapol class 26 being sold at the side of a layout. By the time I'd finished looking at the show, I'd noticed the price had been knocked down further. It had lost some of its buffers, but was very nicely weathered already. So, I got it to serve as an interim loco for this layout. Gordon turned the wheels down, and I've just reassembled it. Really pleased with the look!

 

IMG_20190615_113903.jpg.03702819b52af1f21f5ee04e73a97d1c.jpg

 

I need to work out how best to attach DG couplings though. Bogie or bufferbeam? The latter actually seems very minimal, so perhaps leaning towards the bogies.

 

Of course, as I normally model pre-grouping and grouping eras in 2mm, I didn't really have anything in the way of freight stock to go with it ... So that's been the main distraction recently.

 

IMG_20190616_220150.jpg.07d28fadecac47021cab2eb31c303fe0.jpg

 

Back to front: 2x NGS(Parkwood) Vanwide vans running on heavily butchered PECO chassis with brake shoes from spare bits of etch; Farish BR standard van with replacement wheels only; Farish ex-LNER High Fit with Richard Benn's brake gear/bearing etch; 2 x BR 21T minerals from Association plastic bodies with Fencehouses chassis.

 

I've also been working on some Dapol BR grain hoppers, bought as unpainted, and made very rusty with the salt technique. I think I might need to make custom decals for them though. Weathering the steel wagons has been really fun! 

 

Justin

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Justin,

 

My diesels always have the DGs on the bufferbeam and I haven't experienced any problem with them. They manage alright with A6 points and the advantage is that you can fit all the pipework which isn't possible with bogie mounted couplers. It certainly improves the look of the front end. If you cut the mounting plate shorter and then bend it at ninety degrees the coupling can be glued to the the rear of the buffer beam. You will need to remove the coupling box from the front of the bogie.

There is a potential for problems when propelling stock such as tube wagons that have a greater amount of end swing due to the  greater distance between the axle centres and the buffer beam. I solved this by widening the buffing plate and fitting wider loops. I'm a 'loop one end , latch at the other' DG person but fitting the full couplings to both ends, if you prefer, wouldn't make any difference to these principles.

 

David

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Justin,

 

A couple of snaps of a Class 24 that show the principle that I described in the previous post:

 

006.JPG.5d7dc7c91283f73bda9749bd4a4761e9.JPG

 

007.JPG.f6cb9dce12538ed3f2300e6c3a9c55cd.JPG

 

I took these a while ago when Pete Matcham asked a similar question.

 

David

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I should, of course, add that when my split-box Class 40 rolls in it will have the coupling both on the buffer beam and on the bogie :rolleyes:

 

It will also mean that finally I will have to build a layout that accommodates something larger than a Type 2!

 

https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p766079789

 

Mechanical magnificence!

 

Sorry Justin, drifted off a bit there . . .

 

David

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22 hours ago, justin1985 said:

 

I've also been working on some Dapol BR grain hoppers, bought as unpainted, and made very rusty with the salt technique. I think I might need to make custom decals for them though. Weathering the steel wagons has been really fun! 

 

Justin

 

Justin,

 

Very nice work on the BR-era stock.

 

If it is of any interest/use, Cambridge Custom Transfers do some decals for the BR grain hoppers. Sheet BL133 is the one you need (but note that the unfitted wagon decals need the black background patches sourcing separately).

 

Andy

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Finished the turnout this evening. Testing with my "see through six wheeler" before fitting the check rails revealed a bit of a tight spot on the diverging route opposite the vee nose - I guess the hardest point to gauge. But a few tweaks with a soldering iron helped open this out enough to get smooth running - exactly why I was keen to use etched construction.

 

IMG_20190623_222630.jpg.64825fa6579a938ebd770a6b3bedfb1e.jpg

 

Next step will be to cut out a roadbed from thin ply, and work out how exactly I'm going to fit operating mechanisms. Current plan is to use the Association 3D printed TOUs with wire droppers, and Conrad switch machines to power them.

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  • 1 month later...

The summer hiatus in teaching and the rather cold and miserable August have conspired to encourage me to make some progress on this.

 

I've now got a 6mm ply road bed fitted on top of the remains of the board left over from Snape - after a first attempt with 3mm ply went banana shaped - and now most of the trackwork glued down. Easitrac glue is really great! I love the very quick "grip" that it has - much better than most wood glues (what actually is it?).

 

I've tried to be a lot more careful with alignment, and especially vertical alignment, this time. I'd stuck down a templot plan on 160gsm card (although I ended up diverging a bit from it as the track went down permanently and I decided to tweak clearances). However, I found that where I had to join sections of track with a butt joint - rather than being able to stagger joints across panels - because I hadn't left enough spare rail at the ends of vees etc - the sleepers were bonded to the top layer of the card only, and the rest became a bit spongy. This made it virtually impossible to fix the vertical alignment. So I ended up flooding the card with thin CA superglue, which did the trick. Another lesson learned - always leave enough rail to stagger joints - and perhaps revert to paper templates, and/or treat with shellac or even just CA before track laying? (I don't know how people who use cork as a roadbed manage this?!)

 

IMG_20190819_194029.jpg.b0ac32c9d7a5ee28028bccd4bbe54886.jpg

 

After all that care, only once I'd stuck down the plain PCB turnout (and after taking the above photo) did I notice that the Vee was too fat and poorly aligned. This turnout was recycled from an early attempt - I didn't think would matter as will be buried under cobbles. Inevitably this was something that hadn't shown up testing with short wheelbase wagons, but when I tested with my see through 6 wheel tender (whose idea was this that I stole?) it jumped up over the vee every time. One side of the vee was clearly too long and projected too far into the knuckle area. I managed to prise it out of the well stuck down turnout with the aid of a soldering iron with only one section of PCB delaminating, so managed to rebuild the vee and fix it back in place in the right alignment this time. Phew!

 

All of the switches are fitted with wire droppers more or less as per the illustration in the TRACK book - i.e. projecting out in an L shape under the stock rails. Rather than the recommended 0.25mm piano wire or phosphor bronze, I used 0.5mm nickel silver wire. Largely just because I had it and it felt rigid enough. I did then file the tops of the droppers down to ensure enough clearance for wheel flanges.

 

IMG-20190817-WA0004.jpeg.83a222f99c41167bafb7ff877ea57eb3.jpeg

 

I'm planning to use the 3D printed TOU bars with them. The first one is fitted and works well. After the debacle of my previous attempts to use manual rodding in conjunction with slide switches, this time I'm planning to actuate them using cheap and simple Conrad stall motors (as per my hand laid Z gauge thread).

 

In danger of getting something running soon! 

Edited by justin1985
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17 minutes ago, justin1985 said:

The summer hiatus in teaching and the rather cold and miserable August have conspired to encourage me to make some progress on this.

 

I've now got a 6mm ply road bed fitted on top of the remains of the board left over from Snape - after a first attempt with 3mm ply went banana shaped - and now most of the trackwork glued down. Easitrac glue is really great! I love the very quick "grip" that it has - much better than most wood glues (what actually is it?).

 

 

Alan Smith was asked about this some years ago (not long after the introduction of Easitrac IIRC), and replied with the following information;

 

"This material (ie. the adhesive) has a plasticizing agent which is designed for bonding plastic foils to various substrates

The properties of the adhesive work very well with the “waxy” types of plastic such as Acetyl, Nylon and PVC.  I understand it also contains a very small amount of solvent, which is required to assist in the bonding of plastics.

 

When Mick and I first made some sample Easitrac we ripped out the rail from the chairs before any sign of the glue letting go we did this to several samples so we were sure that the glue was good.

I know there are various grades of PVA some are “hard” and are used in the guitar making trade where a “soft” joint would be disastrous.

We are at the other end where the glue is softer when dry and remains a little tacky to the touch."

 

Hope that helps.

 

Andy

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The track is pretty much finished now - just waiting on a Shop 1 order for some NBR bufferstops before I stick down the final two sidings. Once again I'd tried to save time by using a section of PCB track that was "in stock" for the rear siding (will be buried in cobbles). Although it looked like bullhead rail, once I'd stuck it down, it became obvious it was a much thinner (but same height) section of rail - perhaps VERY old stock? I thought about living with it, but then realised that as I'd need to fit a check rail to this siding anyway (for the paving), this thinner rail would be ideal for this, so I just nudged it in to check rail gauge using the soldering iron and roller gauge - then added new rails to normal gauge outside of this using normal code 40 bullhead. Almost as if I'd planned it!

 

IMG_20190821_205120.jpg.0fd7c044888976b9584b79ac5d4dad8e.jpg

 

The cardboard mockups are still acting as placeholders, but definitely starting to give a sense of the layout now. I think I've decided to move the large square building (the malting barn, which will have a Doig ventilator roof! prototypically it does have a siding running into it, see photo at the top) to the back, and the pitched roof building forward, to become the one with the rail siding running into it. The long building with the four windows was actually an earlier attempt at the engine shed, but is standing in place for a similar building holding the still room. 

 

Obviously a still room on a distillery scene is going to need some nice visible stills! I'm planning on using quite large etched windows and fitting lights inside. Here is the design for the stills in Fusion360 - should be a nice simple 3D print!

 

Stills.png.f8ea5173a32e89256e87762267eb9585.png

 

One of the most attractive features of the particular distillery that inspired me is the engine shed with the mini Doig-style ventilator as its roof ventilator. I've just drawn this up ready to print too

 

ventilator.png.8c16fa547ae2a0444a5aa9f6143a3b75.png

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