Chuffnell Regis

[MrWolf]

I remember one of my junior school teachers playing that record and Michael row the boat ashore on his guitar and nauseum. 

To the point where there were eight year olds singing along with "If I had a hammer, I'd smash your effin' gee-tar..." 

 

[Graham T]

I put together the first ground lever this morning.  The lever itself is from Dart Castings, coffee stirrers used to represent the offcut sleepers, all mounted on a thin piece of plasticard.  Then the handrail (guardrail?) was bent up from .5mm brass wire and superglued in place.  I can see that I need to sand off the ends of the wood.  That wasn't apparent to my eyes, but the camera has seen it!  Now to allow the glue to cure, then some paint and it can be fixed in place.  And there are a few more to build, of course.

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Graham T

[Alister_G]

Nice job Graham, just a thought, have you run your longest, widest piece of stock past it yet? It does look like it's a bit close...

 

Al.

[Graham T]

Thanks Al, I was planning to do that!  If necessary I'll move this one somewhere else, and build another one without the handrail.

[Alister_G]

6 minutes ago, Graham T said:

Thanks Al, I was planning to do that!  If necessary I'll move this one somewhere else, and build another one without the handrail.

 

No worries mate. I speak from bitter experience, I thought I'd made such a nice job of placing my point levers on Ladmanlow, until I ran the first train past over them...

 

 

Al.

Edited August 1, 2021 by Alister_G

[MrWolf]

I suspect that all of us (Whether or not we want to admit it.) have managed to do that. I managed to do something similar with one of my early layouts, it's surprising how much damage an old Hornby Brittania can do!

[Graham T]

I haven't made that particular mistake with this layout (yet), but I have managed several others!

 

And since this is my first layout I have lots of scope to make many more

[Graham T]

It was indeed too close!  Not a problem though, as I can build one without a handrail for this particular point, and re-use this one in the goods yard.

[chuffinghell]

5 hours ago, Graham T said:

It was indeed too close!  Not a problem though, as I can build one without a handrail for this particular point, and re-use this one in the goods yard.

We’ve all done it!
 

My ground signal was too close too on the first attempt. I had to rip up the sleeper and add a longer one

 

 

Although a coach will never pass this way it could by accident, In this position it just clears but I intend to move it further out slightly

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by chuffinghell

[Graham T]

Yes, I'd move it out a little as well.

[Graham T]

Here's the first of the ground levers in place.  At the moment you'll see that it mostly looks like a black lump... 

 

Once the glue has set I'll paint the woodwork to match the sleepers, and give the lever itself a touch of dry-brushing, and then hopefully all will be revealed!

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Graham T

[Alister_G]

Just to annoy you, I would have painted most of the shaft white - although how you've done it is also correct. But it does make them more obvious:

 

 

Al.

[Graham T]

Consider me annoyed

 

I'll see how things look when the wood is painted, and reserve the right to change the colour of the lever!

[Graham T]

And here's the second one, with a guardrail.  Again, it needs painting yet.

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

I had a busy day with work today, so no time to do any modelling.  But I was able to get my new rolling road set up, and am now giving the Dean Goods a workout.  Hopefully that will improve the slow speed running.

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

Having spent the day ploughing through NATO doctrine, it was time for a few minutes break in the railway spare room.  I think this looks a lot better now it's been painted.  As per @Alister_G's suggestions, I'm going to paint washes over all the sleepers and ballast later, but I'll wait until all the ballasting is done first.  Which also means finishing the point rodding as well, of course ...

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

I've treated myself to a little bit of pottering time this morning, and added planking along the sides of the river overbridge.  I used scribed coffee stirrers; I think the catering sized pack I bought will prove to be quite useful!

 

I'm guessing that the track over the bridge would probably be set into steel work, rather than wooden sleepers, but I decided to apply Rule 1 here, as modifying the curved track all seemed far too difficult!  Now I have to try to be patient (never a strong point of mine), and let the glue set before I start splashing paint and ballast around the place.

 

The eagle-eyed might also notice that the other bridge - the one that I thought might carry the famous "disappearing branch line" - has now gone.  I might re-route the river now, I'm not sure.  Need to start considering what I will do with the scenery in that corner.

 

And I should really get on with some work...

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Graham T

[Stubby47]

So the disappearing branch line has disappeared...

[Graham T]

Completely Stu - it's now the Marie Celeste of branch lines.

[Stubby47]

2 minutes ago, Graham T said:

Completely Stu - it's now the Marie Celeste of branch lines.

 

Could be worse:

 

[Graham T]

I've now painted the wooden decking along the sides of the bridge.  Started with flat black and then added a couple of coats of progressively lighter grey over the top.  As with everything else, it will all be weathered at a later stage to tie everything together.

 

 

 

Once that was done I could get on with one of my favourite tasks - ballasting.  Still, it seems to be less painful if you do it a small section at a time, and I think the results look ok.  (Even though this photo shows up some of the deficiencies of the bridge...)

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Graham T
afterthoughts

[Graham T]

As I plod slowly on with the ballasting and point rodding, I was wondering if there might have been some drains in the area between the tracks alongside the platform?  Anyone have any ideas?  (I have some rather nice drain covers to use!)

[Graham T]

The next step, which I'm looking forward to enormously, is to run three point rods under a length of track, so I need to put a pair of 90 degree turns into the rodding run.  The first part is to assemble the cranks; I find it's much easier to do this if I glue them onto a base of thin plasticard.  Otherwise I end up chasing sundry parts around the workbench and rapidly going (more) insane...

 

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Graham T

[chuffinghell]

I’ve agreed to the use of a plasticard base not the going insane 

[Graham T]

You could agree to both Chris, that would be accurate!