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Eastwood Town - A tribute to Gordon's modelling.


gordon s
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Gordon, you need to listen to

The right sort of music or..

Recordings of steam locomotives of your preference 

When ballasting...along with copiuos amounts of tea..it becomes more therapeutic..honest!

Keep up the good work!

Baz

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1 hour ago, gordon s said:

Evening all....Anyone bored yet?

 

Still not a train to be seen.

 

Dear Diary....

 

Monday. Played golf on a muddy field. My trolley ran out of power halfway down the 18th, so had to push the blooming' thing. Didn't win anything. Came home and did a bit of ballasting.

 

Tuesday. Did a bit of ballasting. Jeez, it's mind numbing...

 

Wednesday. Bin men came. Did a bit of ballasting and stuck some cork onto a piece of plywood.

 

I thought railway modelling was going to be exciting.....:D

 

Bed time soon. Golf tomorrow and then a bit of ballasting for a change....

 

Soon be round the bend, one way or another.

 

DSCF0149.jpg.ba10c58840e2995058e18f152674278a.jpg

 

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Looking good. Assuming you don't do another redesign. I get worried when I see you making great progress haha.

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1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Gordon, you need to listen to

The right sort of music or..

Recordings of steam locomotives of your preference 

When ballasting...along with copiuos amounts of tea..it becomes more therapeutic..honest!

Keep up the good work!

Baz

 

 

This.  x100.

 

I figured out some time ago that I can spend hours working on the layout, doing the most repetitive, tedious tasks, so long as I have a soundtrack. 

 

I had acquired an el cheapo powered speaker system somewhere along my travels, and it now sits under one end of the layout, and a cable with a 3.5mm plug attached lies atop.  I come in, plug my iPod in, and hit shuffle...

 

The catch is, when you are doing ballasting, that you get a song with a faster beat, and you tend to want to eye-dropper the PVA in time to it, and it gets too fast for you to do the cribs.

 

:blink:

 

Other than that, it works a treat.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

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15 minutes ago, jukebox said:

 

 

This.  x100.

 

I figured out some time ago that I can spend hours working on the layout, doing the most repetitive, tedious tasks, so long as I have a soundtrack. 

 

I had acquired an el cheapo powered speaker system somewhere along my travels, and it now sits under one end of the layout, and a cable with a 3.5mm plug attached lies atop.  I come in, plug my iPod in, and hit shuffle...

 

The catch is, when you are doing ballasting, that you get a song with a faster beat, and you tend to want to eye-dropper the PVA in time to it, and it gets too fast for you to do the cribs.

 

:blink:

 

Other than that, it works a treat.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

ABC Classic, or ABC Grandstand when there's a Test match on.

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On 28/12/2019 at 09:58, Rowsley17D said:

I find a light brush with graphite powder in the hole/bush helps enormously.

 

Didn't mention it at the time, but that has to be the line of the month......:D

 

I'll remember that thought should the situation present itself.....;)

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10 minutes ago, gordon s said:

 

Didn't mention it at the time, but that has to be the line of the month......:D

 

I'll remember that thought should the situation present itself.....;)

 

Happy to oblige with unintended innuendo.

 

Edited by Rowsley17D
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3 hours ago, gordon s said:

 

Didn't mention it at the time, but that has to be the line of the month......:D

 

I'll remember that thought should the situation present itself.....;)

I was amazed at the collective restraint when I read that coffee-across-the-computer statement.

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Friday night and all is well...

 

I'm happy to be on a roll right now with a virtual production line taking each board in turn. Added seven lengths of SMP to the pointwork and all the droppers are in place ready for the bus wiring.  

 

When did it change from 'buss' wiring to 'bus' wiring?  When I was in electro mech, we always talked about buss bars and a bus was something you got on to go down town. Funny thing, the English language.....;)

 

Once all was in place and tested out, I airbrushed a coat of primer and will add the brown track colour later tonight. Whooppee do....more ballasting over the next few days...

 

The more observant will see that I pre ballast the turnouts as I got fed up gumming up the works. A liberal coat of PVA first and then set the turnout into the glue. Immediately tip on the ballast and hoover up the excess. Job done and it all still works...

 

DSCF0158.jpg.19a6013b877d8941bfb09c597ce5cb66.jpg

 

In case you're wondering how I know where to lay the track, I've managed to come with with a system that works for me.

 

Print out Templot plan and tape to the ply sheet. Cut out the ply to the Templot track bed drawing.

 

DSCF0160.jpg.e7b9857c51356a07849dd413e0686a17.jpg

 

Take a small drill (1-2mm) and drill holes down one of the rails. I never used to bother with the pencil lines, but found the holes became difficult to see once a good spread of PVA was added to stick the cork down.

 

DSCF0162.jpg.e2b95b369b87567dac0ad58fd2fe8030.jpg

 

I slice down some cork roll to 17mm width and stick that in place along the pencil lines. The bevelled edge strips are then added and the final job is to stick down the track with one of the rails aligned to the dark bevelled edge where it joins the plain 17mm cork.

 

Double track is two lengths of 17mm cork plus a centre strip of 27.5mm to give me the correct spacing between the two tracks. Pretty simple really, but as always ever willing to hear if you have a better method.

 

DSCF0163.jpg.d0686289d4224e10911a3ff097611e93.jpg

 

Son in Law is dragging me out for a round of golf over the weekend and I have a Stableford Qualifier on Monday, so progress may be slower over the next few days. Fear not, I'm determined to get round to the other side, before it warms up again and work takes a few months break......

 

 

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That would have been the advent of communication with phones by using thumbs Gordon. Everything gets shorter it's the instant gratification generation mate.

Regards Lez. 

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1 hour ago, gordon s said:

When did it change from 'buss' wiring to 'bus' wiring?  When I was in electro mech, we always talked about buss bars and a bus was something you got on to go down town. Funny thing, the English language.....;)

 

Hi Gordon,

 

Buss was wrong. It should always have been bus bars, or correctly 'bus bars, or  strictly omnibus bars.

 

omnibus is Latin, meaning "for all".

 

It is the same meaning for common electrical connections, and for public transport to town, and for other things.

 

It is also sometimes used to mean several items combined into one, such as the omnibus edition of The Archers at weekends. (Does that still exist?)

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

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4 minutes ago, gordon s said:

Right or wrong, they were definitely bussbars when I was working in the 3 day week....

 

Tried to add an image link of bussbars but failed. I’ll be back....:D

 

Hi Gordon,

 

Call 'em what you like, but... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busbar

 

:)

 

Martin.

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There were a couple of chaps renewing the welding bay extraction vent, when one dropped a spanner across the busbars ans caused a pretty spectacular fireworks display, followed by a fire which caused the aluminium vent to melt and it had to be done again.

 

Sorry for the topic drift.

 

 

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