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Went - a restoration project


MARKF1985
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Some of you may have seen on here a few weeks ago  an advertisement for a layout that was free to a good home , should find few photos on there of layout before collection

I thought i would try keep everyone in the loop how the restoration is going on the layout to bring it up to modern standards and breath new live back into it. After sorting and arranging a pick up i managed to get layout back down to Southampton from Pontefract ,the advantages of having family estate car :-)

 

we managed to arrange a work day at our club so we could have the layout up all together and start listing a snag list of what needed sorting and in what priority they needed doing , after a couple of hours with brushes , hoovers and air brushes we managed to give the layout a good dusting and cleaning to find the state of the track and some of the mechanism

 

we then spent some time locating all of the loose parts that had been removed or fallen off the layout from buildings point of view to try see the layout in all its glory and see what was missing.luckily for us most if not all of teh parts are there for the buildings so only small amount needs replacing .  As you can see from the photos we were blown away by the level of modeling done by Jack , we were constantly finding little gems on the layout being it an animation or just the level of modeling skill involved . 

 

We did get  a loco to complete a rough circuit of the track using  controller and some crocodile clips juts see what the joins were like and what bits of track might need looking at . Luckily there are only 2 points that need a bit of attention form the 19 that is on the layout . one that needs complete replacement and one just needs the bar repaired.

 

We then tackled the stripping of all but a few of the electrics as these are most out of date and in need of replacing , only things left are a few droppers for track power  , all the yard lights had been damaged so all these were stripped an will be replaced with new Leds

 

repairs on some of the building has started , some will need a fair amount of attention but will be restored , only  a couple of things will not be returning on the layout  , also  a replacement peco point been purchased to replace the broken one that is located in the engine shed 

 

one thing that i have managed to do it home is seal the boards underneath as the boards are chipboard so were bit flakey in places , this is to be sanded down to remove rough edges before resealing with Pva

 

 

please find below photos after we gave her a good clean and stripped electrics and sealed the boards , also measuring up for the replacement point as we aren't sure what track has been used 

 

 

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Another work day in so more work was carried out on the layout , replacement point for the one in the engine shed was purchased then retro fitted , after lifting the old point we found the track was peco and not tillig as originally thought but luckily the medium radius point  fitted very snug , we had to cut a little of the track away so maybe the sizes of the points has change a little in that time but the angle of the point hasn't.

 

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next on the list was to start adding some droppers for the track power  luckily the track is in decent size lengths so not as many as first thought but aim was just to get the outer loop wired before tackling the central lines another time . with the droppers in place we then drilled out some more holes for the bus wires to go through as per photos below. 

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last little repair for the day was one of the points that had its point sleeper had gone so luckily we manage to replace it with a strip of copper clad which will be tidied up and weathers etc 

 

To top the day off we managed to test the wiring by running a loco on the loop , happy to say the loco and stock went through the replacement point no problem and only stutter on some dirty track which for 40 years old isn't too bad at all . please find link below of my friends baldwin testing the track , the first dcc and dcc sound loco to ever run on the layout.

 

 

hopefully more progress soon

 

regards

 

Mark

 

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Not much to report but whilst been on my lunch break at work have been prepping up the rest of the droppers for wiring the track up , got a few looks at work . spent 2 hours at home last night tinning them aswell 20201027_132601-min.jpg.08b89e6668def6e9371578095b5c8376.jpg

 

here is another photo of some of the repairs i have started for some of the buildings and stock 

 

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Edited by MARKF1985
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  • 3 weeks later...

Been a few weeks since last update so thought i would show what has happened to all those dropper wires i was preparing on my desk. 

well i managed to install the extra droppers i needed to install on the back fiddle yard , as you can see i got myself set up at home in the spare room so that progress wasn't halted after the closure of the local club and also with the bad weather wanted to be back inside rather then out in the shed20201108_212722-min.jpg.cd6b780de652fe23f0bc2e2a82ec2043.jpg 

 

i have now installed a central bus for the roads and sidings on board one and have droppers on all bits of track to improve the reliability of the signal , may look a bit of a rats nest in couple of these photos but has all been tidied up and will be covered wit electrical tape on all the solder joins once im happy the layout is in working order 

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It was then a case of moving onto board 2 and installing both sides of the outer bus , the one at the front will not be connecting up with board one but will be at the back to complete the outer bus across the 3 boards . Again similar to board one i installed the central bus that will be for sidings and Central running track . the aim of having 2 separate buses is so that if one does short that it won't stop operation  of the other part of the layout

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now just to just move onto board 3 which needs a bit more work doing to it before the droppers and bus wires are added , will explain in next post

 

 

 

 

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well board 3 is probably one with more to update on , basically when i acquired  the layout there was a  board about 16x26 in length which was technically board 4 but due to its size and of the damage it had received it seemed a better idea to permanently bolt it and attache to board 3 , of course would extend the length of that board but it would reduce amount of board joins and trying to look after an additional board which had more chance of being damaged and knocked about

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so plan one was to bolt board 4 and 3 together using the bolts layout came with and then gluing them together permanently , i cut down some of the boards that board 4 was made out of as seems to be retrofitted after the other boards so wasn't quite built to same spec . with the boards now glued and bolted i decided to add a triangle support that i hope will help keep thinks all together . Once new fascias and back scenes are made this will also help with stabilizing it all together so they won't be going anywhere . the fascias and back scenes will all be produced so that boards 1 and 2 have the same spec of fascia and back scene aswell.  

 

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with boards 3 and 4 now just board 3 it meant i could repair the track joins as over time they have taken a battering so were out of alignment and just little worse for wear so after some think decided to originally replay a short amount of track a couple of inces across the board join and have a single bit of track bridge it as per photos , 4 joins in total to mend . 

 

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After some deliberating and testing i found that the loop at the end wasn't playing ball and where it had been soldered in place a few times due to knocks etc it was unreliable in its gauge so loco was struggling to tackle the curve . it was then decided that i would rip up the entire loop on the end of board 3 and have that as one piece bridge both joins . on all these i slowly removed all the ballast and the old track but trying to leave the cork bed in place so it was kept level with rest of the track on the board . All replacement track was peco 009 with jaggered sleepers  on , when joins were made with rail joiners , the old sleepers that had been ripped up were put to use but replacing the missing ones on the track joins .

 

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please find video of the testing 

 

 

 

Edited by MARKF1985
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