Brixington Town 2.0

[dale159]

I'm back!

 

Not that I've actually been anywhere or done anything to the layout unfortunately.

 

Having finally obtained enough points I have today started marking out where I am going to place the track.

 

Overview of the plan

 

Also as planned this point ends up in such a position over the board joint where it can be easily cut in half.

 

Unfortunately the tie bar of the first curve point ends up slap bang over the central support under the board so it looks like I will have to remove or cut this away in the affected area.

 

For the electric fiddle yard on the right of this board I am planning to cut away the 9mm mdf top surface and replace it with some 3mm ply, using the straight board joint as the transition between track and cassette.

 

I have also cut out the cork to go around the corner but having been on the rolled up for so long I have had to roll it up the over way in an attempt to flatten it.

 

Dale

Edited October 4, 2015 by dale159

[dale159]

Another weeks holiday so I have spent some time on the layout today,

 

First task was to make up the first cassette, using 6mm ply and 15x15mm aluminium angle 

 

And a Voyager to test the length, exactly 4 feet, sitting slightly proud from the board as had yet to cut the ends of the screws off, even using 12mm screws

 

Having built the cassette I can now work out how much space I will need for 2 cassettes to sit side by side and how much of the current 9mm MDF top surface I will need to cut away, Having originally estimated 6 inches I have now settled on 7 inches to be cut away and replaced with 3mm ply.

 

I also discovered that my cassettes are narrow enough for two to fit side by side within the 6ft way, however my intended method of connecting and powering them will probably need them to be pushed apart ever so slightly.

 

Hopefully tomorrow the Saw will in use to remove the surplus top surface.

 

Dale

[dale159]

Further to Mondays post.

 

Surgery was successful, just a little bit of work required to straighten the cut as I was swapping between the hand saw and jigsaw to avoid the cross members its a little bit wonky and there is some entrails of hardboard and PVA that I will need to chisel off before the ply can go down, but all in all happy with how it went.

 

Dale

[dale159]

Quick update

 

Today I have finished cutting and nailing down the ply for the cassettes.

 

Today I have purchased a 6ft long sheet of ply and 8 2m lengths of aluminium angle so hopefully tomorrow I will be able produce another few cassettes possibly even a full 5ft one and maybe a few shorter ones.

 

Also today marked the permanent closure of or local B&Q store which is where most of the wood and screws that has gone into this layout have come from, meaning the nearest one is now 11 miles away in Exeter.

 

Dale

 

[Ian Smeeton]

Also as planned this point ends up in such a position over the board joint where it can be easily cut in half.

 

308.jpg

Unfortunately the tie bar of the first curve point ends up slap bang over the central support under the board so it looks like I will have to remove or cut this away in the affected area.

 

 

Is it not possible to use a crank and/or wire-in-tube to move the motor away from the crossmember?

 

Regards

 

Ian

[dale159]

Is it not possible to use a crank and/or wire-in-tube to move the motor away from the crossmember?

 

Regards

 

Ian

Hi Ian,

 

Said cross member is no longer a problem as I removed it when I cut the top surface away, I actually cut through one of the outer ones unintentionally so used the middle in its place and used the short stub in the middle under the ply.

 

Dale

[class"66"]

Stil coming along great Dale..

[dale159]

A couple of days worth of work here.

 

First up three wooden blocks to separate the two cassettes as to ensure they wont short out on each other, since taking this picture I have turned the middle of the three blocks around and it now sits nicely in line with the cassette, initially I was worried that my cassette wasn't straight!

 

Then I set about making the first 5ft cassette, long enough for a class 442 when I or my friend Simon gets around to building one (he has already started one about 5 years ago and so I sent him this picture and advised him to get on with it!)

 

Aligned with the adjacent board, its actually a little bit lower than I was expecting so I may need to boost it up on somehow, I also forgot to allow for the thickness of the cork in my calculations.

 

And this morning I cut and glued the cork for this board, a lesson learned from the previous board where the glue got down into the board joint and stuck the two boards together so this time I have slackened the bolts and pulled the boards apart while the glue dries.

 

Back to work tomorrow so probably won't be able to do anything else until Sunday giving the glue at least 24 hours to go off.

 

Dale

Edited November 10, 2015 by dale159

[dale159]

Another quick job this afternoon - more gluing I'm afraid

 

First up I drilled a few holes for Point motors, frog wires and power feeds and temporarily laid the five, well 4 1/2, points to make sure I'd drilled them in the right places

 

Then on to the next board which will be much a repeat of the process from the previous one.

 

Dale

[dale159]

Another few pictures of things that have happened since the last post 2 months ago

 

Two tracks from the lift out piece to the station area have been put down, I have had to push the outer track out slightly wider to prevent 2 mk3s or similar length vehicles hitting each other

 

Overview looking towards the platforms, originally I was going to have another scissors at the end of the electric platforms but this has changed again thanks to some input from my friend Simon.

 

Then I started tinkering with track plans again using peco paper cut outs.

 

And a Double slip was procured

 

And so that was all before Christmas - Cut forwards to yesterday

 

I decided that despite having a clear out of a few surplus items I needed a bit more storage space so I filled in the gaps between my 2 sets of shelves, With the proud brickwork behind these shelves are only 8 inches wide so I may move the A4 box files down to here.

 

Today's job will be fixing down those lengths of SMP track - with double sided tape so no track pins, they will be glued down eventually when the whole lot gets ballasted.

 

Dale

[dale159]

And back to Layout Building for today's second post.

 

All the track used so far has been Peco Flexitrack with Small and Medium radius points

 

The scenic section will use SMP track and large raduis Peco points.

 

Also to avoid unsightly track pins in this area all the track will be held down by double sided carpet tape.

 

Overview of the job so far.

 

Some more SMP track is now required as I've used 4 of the 5 lengths I originally bought.

 

Dale

[Melly]

The scenic SMP track, have you cut some of the sleepers to allow the track to flex?  It looks like it needs a track-setter or something to give it some flow.  Sorry it just looks like a set of short straights poorly laid end to end.  Time spent now before ballasting will produce more satisfying results.  I use a long 1metre metal ruler as a guide for straight sections.

 

Best wishes M 

[dale159]

The scenic SMP track, have you cut some of the sleepers to allow the track to flex?  It looks like it needs a track-setter or something to give it some flow.  Sorry it just looks like a set of short straights poorly laid end to end.  Time spent now before ballasting will produce more satisfying results.  I use a long 1metre metal ruler as a guide for straight sections.

 

Best wishes M

 

I can see where you are coming from but the two tracks do have a very gentle reverse curve in them and I think it may well be a slight opical illusion with the short lengths of tape underneath and also I have to reduce the size of the pictures down to less than 1mb for posting on here with most pictures I take being around 4mb straight off my phone so they all get reduced down to about 25% of the original in MS paint!

 

Dale

[dale159]

More track laying this morning

 

First the point into the bay platform

 

Then the tricky bit.

But actually not as bad as was fearing it could be, the bits of sleeper that have been cut away will be saved and refitted before ballasting

 

And taped down.

 

And with that done I decided to test it out by shoving a coach down the outside track

(Sorry its landscape, didn't think about putting on YouTube for posting here at the time of filming)

 

Dale

Edited February 5, 2016 by dale159

[dale159]

Sorry I've been a bit quiet lately.

 

No pictures to show but I do now have 2 complete loops all the way around the layout.

 

But today I've been having a spot of bother - All the way around the layout wherever possible I have soldered the wire droppers to the bottom of the fishplates which has all been fine with the Peco fishplates but now I'm over on the other side of the layout I'm doing the same with SMP fishplates.

 

Now for some reason when trying to tin the SMP fishplates I just cannot get the solder to stay on them even using a heat controlled iron cranked right up to 500 degrees.

 

I have put them upside down onto a 6 inch long off cut of track to help steady them, I've tried filing the bottoms of the fishplates to give them a bit of a key as one would do when painting, I'm using good old fashioned lead solder but still I can't get them to solder.

 

Any body have any experience of this able to give any advise?

 

Dale

[class"66"]

More nice work here Dale...

 

 

cheers neil.

[dale159]

Long overdue Layout update.

 

Really not done all that much recently, mainly been lacking in time and modelling mojo.

 

I've sorted the issues I was having with soldering SMP fishplates by giving up and using Peco ones so I now do have 2 complete loops, don't think they're that noticeable

 

Purely by accident I found a convenient hidey-hole for my pair of expansion boards, there was even a hook in the timber ready and waiting, can't work out why I hadn't spotted that before!

 

Also I have started wiring Tortoise motors but I struggled to fit one on my own due to slightly awkward positioning and I'm reluctant to cut the track joints and separate the boards until I've laid all the track.

 

Hopefully some further progress to report later in the week.

 

Dale

Edited May 30, 2016 by dale159

[dale159]

Hello Again!

 

I'm still alive but I've lacking inspiration for the layout recently. In the last few weeks the layout and garage had become a bit of dumping ground while we were doing some decorating, so this weekend I set about clearing as much of it as possible.

 

One problem I have started experiencing was storing my rolling stock, I have two old chests of draws under the fiddle yards, featured on here before which I used to house some wagons and coaches.

 

The problem was the draws were about and inch too shallow to take a loco end on (yes that is a Yeoman livery you're seeing in a Bachmann box.

 

So the solution -

I have scrapped the top 3 draws in each chest and replaced them with 2 shelves, set at the right distance for specific types of box, the other chest is slightly different being set up to take 3 of the older type Bachmann boxes on the lower shelf and 2 on the top with the boxes standing upright on the shelves.

 

And so to the layout -

 

Having removed all the stuff that had accumulated on top I discovered there was still a layout under there.

 

A few weeks back I used a friends Ban-saw to cut some sheets of ply into 4 inch strips. the ply was quite bent so I left them on the floor with some paint pot on top in an effort to straighten them.

 

It was a big job having to take down the entire fiddle yard fitting the sides but it will be well worth it.

 

A cut out was required for the garage door to clear the corner.

 

I have also had to re-engineer the lifting section slightly.

The way it was stored on the 2 small brackets under the shelf meant it would be foul of the board below once I'd fitted the side to it. So it is now hung on a pair of hook and eyes the same as the control panel is hung under the other shelf and as such it now leans forwards and the bottom is clear of the board below with its side fitted. Edging curved due to the close proximity of the curved point on the right hand side.

 

 

 

Now I've recovered a little bit of modelling mojo hopefully attention will turn back to track laying on the other side.

 

Dale

[dale159]

Another long overdue layout update.

 

I've been working on Rolling stock recently which is something I suppose I could post on here to keep it fresh.

 

Access has been a bit limited this week as we are having a new kitchen which has involved filling in the old kitchen door and knocking a hole in the wall to the dining room so the garage has been filled up with stuff from there.

 

I got into the swing of track laying in the station throat for the electric platforms and worked out where everything needs to go whilst avoiding putting points on top of timbers underneath.

 

Tracks pinned up to the cassette ends, need to rummage round for a suitable piece of wood to pack them up to rail height, something I failed to consider when I made the cassettes so these will also be rebuilt with thicker, sturdier ply to bring them up to the right height.

 

Overview of the track laid today (2 pictures crudely stitched together in MS paint) - I have used the drawing pins as I ran out of double sided tape and it actually holds the track down better than the tape!

 

Overview from the operators possition, track connecting to the through platforms isn't pinned down or connected at the far end yet, was just placed down to see if one length of SMP was long enough, which it is with about an inch to spare. The loco spur originally planned to be between the carriage sidings and main lines will now be at the back on the unused end of the 3 way point.

 

Before I can do much else I need to find the fishplates I bought recently now the existing stock I had has now run out and I need to glue some cork down for the carriage siding roads.

 

Hopefully more updates soon now I've conquered the one thing that was causing me a headache!

 

Dale

[dale159]

I'm still pottering away at the layout when time permits.

 

I've been working on the cassette fiddle yard for the Electric platforms.

 

The interface between track and cassette are 1 inch pieces of the same Aluminium angle as used on the cassettes.

 

These have been screwed down using a some screws leftover from from our new Kitchen on top of a piece of 1/8th cork I found lying around, giving the perfect height from rail to angle.

 

I made a short video of the cassettes under test with a mk3 coach which is the longest vehicle likely to use them.

 

Today I found some washers from some spare switches, these have had wires soldered to them and will be the power supply for each cassette, I found that they are isolated from all 4 rails which will be very handy.

 

Overview of the latest work with track for the carriage sidings starting to go down.

 

I have found the fishplates I had previously lost but I have now run out of SMP track so I will have to get some more.

 

Dale

Edited October 28, 2016 by dale159

[blueovalcraig]

Just read this from the beginning. Excellent work!!

[NittenDormer]

Well, I've just discovered this thread and caught up from the beginning, intersting reading, informative and enjoyable. Fascinating to see adapations and plans changing as the build progresses. (Have to confess to skipping most of the electrics bit, way over my head.) I must also confess to a fascination with the background clutter as much as the views of the baseboards. Was that a box of tomatoes? Keep up the good work, you are well ahead of me in the build process. (I am still at the stage of mere thoughts and uncut plywood.)

[ess1uk]

Coming along nicely

[dale159]

Thank you for your kind comments.

 

There is a lot of junk in the garage unfortunately it's not mine to be disposing of, I do try to keep as much as possible out of pictures!

 

Cardboard boxes of various foodstuffs have probably come from our nearby Lidl store in lieu of buying carrier bags and they can be useful for storage.

 

Dale

Edited November 3, 2016 by dale159

[dale159]

Just a quick update from the last 10 days or so.

 

Track laying has continued and is nearly finished (more clutter!)

 

Unfortunately there has been yet another revision to the track plan, not through choice this time.

While testing with a rake of 5 mk3s substituting for an un-built 442 I found these coaches which are coupled with Kadee No.5s unable to negotiate the reverse curves from the platforms to the carriage sidings.

 

So the curve points had to go and have been replaced with a pair of medium radius points, doesn't look as good but it has stopped the derailment problem.

 

A new edition to the fiddle yard side is a pair of 2 way speaker connectors, one either side of the control panel.

 

And what do they do?

They will be hooked up to a 6v power supply to power my Dynamis handset which has had its warranty well and truly invalidated, as I was sick of it drinking batteries but I like the usability too much to get rid of it so hopefully this will be a good modification - it will still be capable of working on batteries away from my layout - details of how it was done here.

 

Dale

Edited November 15, 2016 by dale159