Balmoral Road - Some Industrial Background Buildings

[brossard]

No trick Ray, I use 8.5" x 11" paper which is the standard here.  I simply blow up the PDF by 175% before printing and use "Take a snapshot".  It is a little involved since I have to gauge how much of the page will fit on my paper.  My printer is HP OfficeJet Pro which uses oil based ink.

 

John

[brossard]

Well, my idea about making a platform from scribed plastic card paving and individual card edging was a bust.  It just looked awful.

 

I have ordered some laser cut paving and edging from Intentio this morning.  Hope that is better.

 

In the meantime I will start something else.

 

John

Edited May 15, 2020 by brossard

[brossard]

Something I have wanted to do for some time is the Scalescenes Garage kit:

 

https://scalescenes.com/product/t017-garage/

 

My days efforts from yesterday are:

 

 

I'm always amazed at the cunning design for these models.  The brick rendering is superb.

 

The main walls are two layers of "Heavy" card.  In 7mm this is 3.5mm and cutting regular card of this thickness is exhausting.  Instead I'm using 3.5mm foamcore.

 

 

It takes quite a bit of time to cut the parts out.  Now that is done, progress should be quick.

 

 

I made up some of the interior components.  From left is a toolbox, Kiosk counter and workbench.  The car lift looks pretty good.

 

These reside inside so I think they will be fine.

 

John

[brossard]

The building is pretty much finished.  I thought I'd take a pic before putting the roof on:

 

 

John

[brossard]

Garage done:

 

 

Pumps are from Scalelink.

 

 

I'll have to think about detailing later.

 

John

[brossard]

After completing the Garage I decided to go back to the platform.  I got the base done this morning.  It was a bit of a faff trying to get the shape just right, chopping bits off and pushing the walls in by a few mm in one place.  The nice thing about foamcore is that surgery is not difficult.  I will be redoing the brick faces as they have gotten a bit knocked about.  Here are a few pics of progress:

 

 

I used a 61' B set coach to check clearances.

 

 

The end corner now with the station masters and garage.  The white foamcore will get faced with tarmac.

 

 

The platform top looks a bit of a mess but will receive laser cut paving stones and edging.

 

 

Looking down the layout.  If the gap between coach and platform looks large, it is.  There is 3mm of corbelling to add.

 

John

[brossard]

Things are all ahoo as I prepare to wire the layout.  Hooray!

 

 

 

Note the momentary push buttons.  These will activate the Tortoise/Wabbit thingys.

 

Some cosmetic work such as painting ends.  Undersides were painted white.  I should have done this before putting droppers down, ah well.

 

John

Edited July 24, 2022 by brossard

[37114]

Nice layout, I had never heard of Severn models before, there is some useful bits on their site. Look forward to seeing the build continue.

[brossard]

I think I have finished the first board:

 

 

 

Extensive use of choc blocs.  Buss is speaker wire (18 gauge I think), the rest of the wire is 20-22 gauge.

 

The tortoise in the middle is for the first turnout.  The other tortoise is for the trap point.  The second trap point is on the other board so I put the wiring in for that.  I'm using blue D connectors for the Tortoises.  I just installed some plastic strip to keep the connections aligned.

 

Wabbit is in the center.  It took a bit of grey cell usage to work it out.  I set it up off the board with a slave Tortoise and my NCE and got the ID done and CV71 = 1 for the use of momentary push buttons.  I hope it will drive 3 Tortoises.

 

The only thing left to do is to wire up a TrainTech/Dapol servo actuator when it arrives.

 

https://www.dcpexpress.com/Dapol-servo-semaphore-dual-signal-controller-p-821.html

 

Here is the Dapol LMS signal:

 

 

 

 

I have only given it a cursory look so far.  The black box is a servo.  It will require thought to make it demountable for layout transport.

 

John

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by brossard

[brossard]

I got all the wiring finished today:

 

 

 

Yikes!  I did have some trouble figuring out how to set up the Wabbits but then the required synapses clicked and I got it.

 

 

 

Those Tortoises are for the crossover turnouts so will work in tandem.

 

 

 

John

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by brossard

[brossard]

I've been doing a bit of testing.  Apart from stupid wiring errors which are easily remedied, I was struggling with my Tortoise motors not throwing the switch completely or weakly.  I used 0.032" steel wire.  Upon closer inspection, I noticed the wire was bending but didn't seem to have the required stiffness.

 

I have just implemented my solution which is to use 0.055" steel wire.  Now the turnouts make with no problem.

 

I just have to go around and change them all. 

 

John

[Andrew P]

Looking very good John, even the wiring looks so neat, and I love that Building work.

[brossard]

Ha ha, thanks Andy.  Remains to be seen if I can produce anything close to what you've been doing.

 

John

[brossard]

Today I completed changing the Tortoise operating wires to 0.055" steel wire from 0.032".  It makes a huge difference and the blades are nice and tight against the stock rails.

 

Continued ringing things out and most turnouts work well.  I broke a tie bar on my slip because the tab for the wire was really too small.  I added more robust tabs to the tiebars.  Good news, I have proven that tiebars can be repaired in situ.

 

One turnout has no power.  Probably an easy fix.

 

John

[brossard]

At last!  I got a loco running through all the turnouts from one end to the other.

 

This didn't happen without the ritual wailing and gnashing of teeth as I discovered several noob mistakes.  These were easily fixed.

 

The single slip was a nightmare though.  I built a single and double slip in 00 for the club layout and don't think there was this much drama.

 

Anyway, I did get it working using this plan:

 

http://www.stciers.me.uk/home/track_wiring/s_slip.htm

 

This did require some significant reworking of the heart of the slip:

 

 

The main things were connecting the lower wing rails to the crossing (the plan calls for doing the same for the upper wing rails but I couldn't see the point).  I used brass joiners for this.  This required cutting off a short section of the wing rail and insulating it.

 

The short pieces of wing rail and short curved rail were bonded to the stock rail.

 

The trick is to isolate the lower switch blades and bond them to the wing rails (I used an omega loop).  So, now polarity of the crossings AND switch blades is changed when the slip is thrown.

 

I did a small cosmetic mod by putting plastic card shims in the central gap and next to the vees to reduce wheel drop.

 

Operationally, I opted for simple and installed momentary push buttons adjacent to turnouts:

 

 

 

 

Turnouts can be operated from either side.  Not prototypical but convenient.  I haven't connected the fascia panels yet.  I have the NCE 5A system to set up as well.  Currently the Powercab is in use.

 

John

Edited July 24, 2022 by brossard

[brossard]

I have just gone through the rather modest loco fleet and confirmed that they all work.  I did have to ease the gauge of one turnout to suit the 6 wheeled J39 tender:

 

 

 

The two panniers belong to friend.  The fleet should be joined shortly by a 14XX.

 

John

Edited July 24, 2022 by brossard

[brossard]

I had the lads round yesterday for an operating/debug session.  They enjoyed themselves and we found one or two things that could be improved.

 

Here's a short and rough video:

 

https://www.facebook.com/BritishModelRailwayMontreal/videos/508460853702174/

 

Very satisfying to have things moving.

 

John

 

The link should work.  Pasting the link in Firefox didn't work but Edge has an option to "paste as plain text".  The original video was shot in HD but Facebook appears to have downgraded it to SD.

Edited July 24, 2022 by brossard

[Andrew P]

Superb Video and pics John, the slow running is so, so good.

[brossard]

Thanks Andy, that loco is Lionheart 74XX and is superb.  I modified it with a topfeed cover and piping to forward date it to 1955 ish.

 

I need to rethink my single slip since I spent the last 3 days trying to finagle it for one loco (J39).  I'm thinking the radius may be a tad tight.

 

Overall, very happy.

 

John

[brossard]

As I mentioned, I am thinking the single slip is somewhat tight for the J39.  The other locos, mostly 0-6-0 tanks seem fine with it.  The J39 wheelbase is longer than the others and it is clear that it is uncomfortable on the slip.

 

The other thing is that I overestimated the strength of the Tortoise motors and I am getting stall before the full throw.  The polarity still changes but there is blade gap.

 

So, a check to see where we are.  I printed off the Peco double slip template (there is no 0 gauge single slip which is why I blew up the 00 single slip template).

 

 

The difference is pretty obvious.  Using the arc and chord method I calculated the original SS has a radius of 5'.  The new one has a radius of 9'.

 

So, preparation.

 

First, I made templates for the crossings and jigs for the vees:

 

 

I glued down brass strip that will be used to secure the crossing.

 

Next the vees were made:

 

 

I used the Jeff Geary method from Trax2.  On the top vee the end of the top rail was bent up to match the jig angle and then filed flat. (OK I did use a Dremel with grinding wheel and filed to get the final shape).

 

The bottom rail has the end filed (ground) to a taper to fit the other rail.

 

When happy, these are inserted in the jig and soldered up.  Turn over and repeat.  Then solder was used to fill the gap.  File smooth.

 

Note the nose of the vee is rounded over to give the wheel a better transition.

 

The next thing I did was to cut the timbers (Intentio laser cut 3mm ply), stain and glue to the template:

 

 

(BTW it did cross my mind to buy a Peco slip.  A) they are back order and B) they cost near enough 100 pounds)

 

Now, I am stuck.  I don't have enough chairs so I will order more.  Lord knows how long that will take.

 

Still lots of other work to do.  Kits too.

 

John

[Ray H]

Can you not recover the chairs from the previous one?

[brossard]

I thought about that Ray, but they do get knocked about during assembly.  I prefer to use new.  Just made an order for more.

 

John

[Fastdax]

Engrossing build John. I've built turnouts but not a slip (yet!) so I'm watching with interest!

 

 

[brossard]

Thanks Duncan.  I quite like building them and it certainly saves a lot of money.  It took me quite a bit of practice to get my turnouts looking decent and working well - slip excepted .

 

Always good to have another go so annoying things on the first try can be corrected.

 

Just looking at your station building, brilliant stuff!

 

John

[brossard]

A few posts back I was bemoaning the lack of support for windows for Scalescenes kits.  Specifically Terraced Houses.  I find these to be very good and they scale up to 7mm well.

 

Phil from Intentio stuck his hand up and offered to make some for me.

 

We made the deal and I sent him the specs from the kit.

 

These arrived today:

 

 

 

Glazing is included.

 

Top left are small non sash windows, next are large sash windows.  Bottom left are medium non sash windows.  Middle are medium sash windows.  Finally, at the bottom are small sash windows.  Sash windows are in two layers.

 

I also ordered some doors:

 

 

 

These are in the standard range.

 

Another job I can get on with.

 

So, if you fancy doing a Scalescenes kit, no excuses now.

 

John

Edited July 24, 2022 by brossard