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Eastwood Town - A tribute to Gordon's modelling.


gordon s
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First time Ive seen your thread Gordon, there is some very nice work going on there - stuff the Gresley Beat, this really does look the real deal. I shall be watching progress with great interest from now on.

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Never mind that, what about an open day blink.gif

 

 

I'm chuckling to myself Ian, as my wife is much younger than I and when we were chatting about wills and so on, I innocently asked what she would do with my railway. She thought for a minute or so and decided the best option was to invite the local MRC round as she would enjoy the company every week. I'm not sure what she was thinking but she had a smile on her face.....biggrin.gif biggrin.gif

 

.......and it's 00 gauge, Mr Brunel.

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The Serial Taker Downer strikes again....

 

Really wanted to get stuck into the shed complex, so set about taking the stairwell board apart to fit the new track bed incorporating the trailing crossover and the new junction. The jury's still out, but so far so good, it came apart without too much damage and all the track was lifted. The new stuff has been laid and fingers crossed, I hope to get it wired with droppers to each piece of track and spray painted today. Ballasting tomorrow and with any luck it should be back in place Monday/Tuesday...

 

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Hi Gordon

 

Amazing work indeed - I do like to see a work in progress thread, particularly one where the work does progress. Some of the tips and how I did it notes will prove very useful to me when I finally get to put some track down for my retirement opus.

 

Hope your recent injury doesn't put the project on hold for too long.

 

Regards

Stewart

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What a fantastic find. This is one layout i will be watching with great interest. I love the idea of joining sections with biscuits. They make the joint as good as one sheet of wood. The 7mm scale stonework looks just right, 4mm would look to small for that situation. Keep up the great work and i look forward to future posting.

 

 

Andy

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Careful, Gordon. Don't get a taste for it again. It's all been going so well this time. wink.gif

 

Cheers,

 

Geoff

 

 

No worries of that happening this time Geoff. It's all under control although a minor injury has stopped play. Tried unsuccessfully to juggle a very hot soldering iron. It won 1-0. Hopefully the bandages will come off next week and play will resume.

 

Totally bored not being able to do much so took a couple of pics to keep me going.

 

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No worries of that happening this time Geoff. It's all under control although a minor injury has stopped play. Tried unsuccessfully to juggle a very hot soldering iron. It won 1-0. Hopefully the bandages will come off next week and play will resume.

 

Totally bored not being able to do much so took a couple of pics to keep me going.

 

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Great loco's Gordon. Both DJH?

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Yes they are. I've never built a kit loco so don't know if I have the necessary skills, so these were built by Graham Varley from Ely in 2001. They run like silk and have pick up's on all wheels. At the time weathering was not in vogue, so as you can see, apart from the dust gathered in storage, they are both pristine condition. I suspect I will have them weathered once the layout has progressed, but I'm a little apprehensive about finding someone who could do them properly.

 

After all, there is weathering and weathering...icon_wink.gif

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Yes they are. I've never built a kit loco so don't know if I have the necessary skills, so these were built by Graham Varley from Ely in 2001. They run like silk and have pick up's on all wheels. At the time weathering was not in vogue, so as you can see, apart from the dust gathered in storage, they are both pristine condition. I suspect I will have them weathered once the layout has progressed, but I'm a little apprehensive about finding someone who could do them properly.

 

After all, there is weathering and weathering...icon_wink.gif

 

I use an airbrush to weather - sublty is key. I think those two look great with out. There's a different texture to plastic bodies that weathering improves, metal bodies don't seem to need this.

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I suspect if you tackle loco building the same way you have the layout it will be successful, your track soldering is good so if you give up juggling soldering irons it should be simple. Someone on here should be able to suggest a suitable prototype and kit for a beginner.

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Hi Gordon, I hope your hand heals up soon. I have fallen victim to my own soldering iron on numerous occasions, mainly whilst building electronic gadgets. The smell of burnt skin which accompanies the pain always acts as a deterrent to touching the wrong end of the iron.;) The layout is coming along very nicely - I like the ballasting in particular. It'll be a cracking layout once its fully up and running.:icon_thumbsup2:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have your hands healed up OK? it has been nearly 14 days and I am having withdrawal symptoms.

 

 

Thanks for asking Mick. As expected, it did take three weeks for my hand to return to normal. The bandages came off earlier in the week and although still a bit red it has really healed well. Crazy that such a small incident could be so much hassle.

 

It slowed me a little in terms of layout work, but I have managed to nearly complete the changes to one side of the tunnel board. The track is down, painted, wired and ballasted, although I have been tweaking some of the pointwork to ensure that all my loco's will run through without problem. I have a variety of RTR and kit built stock with a B2B of 14.4mm. I did find that I had let the gauge narrow in a couple of areas, which weren't noticeable with my test truck, but did show up with my 9F. Hopefully the testing is now complete and I just need to touch up the various rail/sleeper joints and a few check rails and this can be reassembled and work will progress.

 

The rest of the time has been spent at the kitchen table playing around with various bits of stock.

 

Right now I have an Ivatt 2-6-0 totally in bits on the desk as it really wasn't running 100%. Found a whole assortment of issues. A wire to the motor had an insulation cut giving a momentary short. The motor itself was not sitting right down in the mount as a can location tab was standing proud of the motor body and preventing the gears meshing correctly. I also found the quartering was out on one set of wheels. I will put it all back together this morning and hopefully the problems will be behind me.

 

I've also tweaked this 9F from TMC. It was slightly weathered as purchased, but having compared it to the 8F I bought the weathering was pretty naff. I've done a few things to change it. The tender gap was huge so I made up a new drawbar and cut off the front end tender buffers. This allowed the gap to close right up which is a huge improvement. I've drilled out the chimney and added some more lead to the loco and finally went over it with some weathering powders which has taken the slightly gloss finish down a tad. I will do some more to it once I get my airbrush up and running, but overall I'm happy with it.

 

Great to be up and running again...me, that is. small.gif

 

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As expected, it did take three weeks for my hand to return to normal. The bandages came off earlier in the week and although still a bit red it has really healed well. Crazy that such a small incident could be so much hassle.

Easy to forget that as we all get older it takes longer for the body to repair itself ;)

Glad to hear that you are now recovered.

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Thanks for that. There's still more weathering to add to the loco but I'm amazed how close coupling the tender has changed the appearance totally. I've done a similar thing with my Ivatt 4MT, so this will probably be the first area to attack on my other coupled RTR locos.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello Gordon,

 

Your method of baseboard construction is great, it's refreshing to see some new, original engineering! I'll be trying to copy it for my new layout as I have lots of 'behind the scenes' trackage which needs a long, thin baseboard. I'm hoping to support it on brackets off the wall though, rather than free-standing legs.

 

Please keep us updated with the latest progress, it's fascinating, and I hope your injury hasn't slowed things down too much.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

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