porkie Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 You can try absolute aspects for signals Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike Posted November 25, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 25, 2014 I would second the suggestion for Absolute Aspects - some really nice work that they do. Cheers, Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
87023Velocity Posted November 27, 2014 Author Share Posted November 27, 2014 Hi, Thanks for the comments regards the signals, looks like I have a few options to look into then. Whilst waiting for the arrival of more tag boards to allow progression of the wiring, I made a start on some of the backscenes. These have been made using hardboard strenghtened at the back with 18x28mm wood battens. The height of the backscene is 9" which will allow operators to reach the front for any derailments etc. Cheers Simon 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimleygrid Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 Nice woodwork Simon, looks good. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
87023Velocity Posted November 27, 2014 Author Share Posted November 27, 2014 (edited) Thanks Alex, a couple of packages arrived today containing various bits of brass wire and H section from Eileens Emporium along with some Sommerfeldt insulators from Blackwells. So tonight I had a try at making a MK3 Headspan for the overhead wires. A big thank you to Mike T for some very useful info. Here it is in position held with bluetak! My eyes are very tired after soldering all that together! Cheers Simon Edited November 27, 2014 by 87023Velocity 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doughnut Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 To a fellow OHLE scratch builder.........TOP STUFF!! Looking excellent. Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBE Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 (edited) Looking good Simon. I miss building OHLE sometimes! How will you fix them down? Also will you be modelling the actual wires, please say yes I have a real beef with portal/mast only OHLE! Edited November 27, 2014 by RBE Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornish trains jez Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 Superb Simon! I agree with Cav, it would be great if you include the wires to complete the atmosphere. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
87023Velocity Posted November 28, 2014 Author Share Posted November 28, 2014 Hi guys, Thanks guys for the comments regards the OHLE. Cav, I am going to look at soldering brass bolts to the base of the masts which will also have the concrete foundation glued to it. These will then be dropped into a brass mounting plate with a brass tube through the baseboard which will have a degree of adjustment before final fixing. This is the plan in my head at the minute if that makes sense! Also they will be removable to account for any damage which may will happen. I am planning on making a number of spare headspans to cover for this 4-5 maybe. To answer your questions about wires, sorry no wires will be going up just yet...... I have not written the idea off completely but at the present minute it is not going to be fitted. If I was building OHLE in 4mm, the wires would certainly be there as I believe I could make it robust enough. I have serious doubts at the moment that I could make a reliable robust full overhead installation and which looks to scale. Buffers broken, pantographs damaged, snapped couplings are all easily replaceable and relatively quickly at a show, 2-3ft of damaged overhead in n gauge would take a while to repair and put right, I want to make the headspans realitively simple to replace if required. That headspan in the picture is very fragile, It would not take much to kink the wire or break one of the soldered joints on that one structure alone. We had a 5ft uv tube drop out from its lighting rig on our 4mm layout Strathmuir at the Doncaster show over 10 years ago, it landed on one of the signals on the mainline and badly damaged it - no time to repair it(fortunately the tube did not break!) we had the signal disconnected and removed within 10mins, the hairspray and scatter was out and issue sorted till we got back after the weekend. Cheers Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBE Posted November 28, 2014 Share Posted November 28, 2014 Meh. You can make it incredibly robust in N. Personally I would do it exactly as I did mine on Outon Road using guitar string. Ok it would not be quite as scale as those wires were but certainly scale enough. Being anal I would of course have the pans running on them too but I do understand if you wouldnt in N (never an excuse in OO though). I understand your reasoning but the atmosphere is so much more real when the wires are there. It all suddenly looks very complicated and correct which having no wires can never portray! Just my thoughts. Still what you have done looks good. Out of interest how thick is the wire you used on that headspan for the spanning wires? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornish trains jez Posted November 28, 2014 Share Posted November 28, 2014 It may have already been mentioned, but what is the size of your H section that you have used for the masts? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBE Posted November 28, 2014 Share Posted November 28, 2014 2mm I believe Simon said Jez. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
87023Velocity Posted November 28, 2014 Author Share Posted November 28, 2014 (edited) Hi Cav, I have used 0.31mm brass wire, which distorts quite easily with soldering iron which I was finding last night, the arms are 0.45mm. The other consideration I have is that I would like my kids who are 8 at the moment to be involved aswell with operating in the future (thats if they are interested as they are twin girls!)and I would not want them to be really worried about going too near the layout incase the overhead gets badly damaged. Yes I agree about the atmosphere and if I do change my mind, as you say I would want pantographs in contact with the wire, which would probably require scratchbuilding replacement pantographs. I need to stop looking at Flickr 20030 & 20064 in 1990 https://www.flickr.com/photos/84777395@N08/10399905706/in/photolist-gR1eD5-jGWgFy-aaxpPr-e5fSdW-dte6kb-oQGuvY-pU9L3n-pvQ6kq-pMRafd-dz8GKz-ea17Bh-dMJcbZ-pwtJMU-pz9Uz1-puruEa-dsHwKU-pwH4o6-k6GfA4-dyTBgU-dxXS3H-pSkjdJ-pRq2aG-ptZZeg-pQ6BVv-ahP6K3-9LUxeD-dy4kFs-dxXSgB-dxXS9H-dxXSd2-dy4m5w-8QaWro-pxmFmL-dxGmcb-fiR5Vn-oVgtAR-8Q7QDx-fj3zZ9-fiNrpc-pxGvNh-pSRXJf-oNBBWv-pMCjNY-cPsJXW-fiWuY8-oS58qG-pwtJg3-pNXYrZ-daLzy8-8Gpjcs-8QaWE9 This is the other side of Folly Lane bridge at Dallam effectively 'off scene' on the layout. Cheers Simon Edited November 28, 2014 by 87023Velocity 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBE Posted November 28, 2014 Share Posted November 28, 2014 (edited) The wires I made on Outon were pretty much bang on scale for OO. The registration arms were 0.5mm tube and the wires were 0.2mm guitar string with droppers less than 0.1mm. The whole system was finer than what you have there Simon amd they were robust as hell and were tensioned to take the pan running on them. If you made them the same you would still have a finer system than what you have now. Brass wire sucks for making OH its to plyable. Guitar string works better as its very stiff and keeps its shape despite heavy knocks. Sounds nice when you accidently twang em too! Haha. Edited November 28, 2014 by RBE Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
87023Velocity Posted November 28, 2014 Author Share Posted November 28, 2014 The wires I made on Outon were pretty much bang on scale for OO. The registration arms were 0.5mm tube and the wires were 0.2mm guitar string with droppers less than 0.1mm. The whole system was finer than what you have there Simon amd they were robust as hell and were tensioned to take the pan running on them. If you made them the same you would still have a finer system than what you have now. Brass wire sucks for making OH its to plyable. Guitar string works better as its very stiff and keeps its shape despite heavy knocks. Sounds nice when you accidently twang em too! Haha. Hi Cav, To be honest I completely forgot about using guitar string, doh! Hmm, you have got me thinking now - long term mind you! Cheers Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
branchie Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 Hi Simon. Really enjoying watching the layout progress. It's going to be a beauty. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist starting on the OHLE .... The speed at which you're progressing is really starting to make me think about starting on my model of Winwick Junction. Maybe we could could join 'em up! Regards, Christian. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
87023Velocity Posted December 1, 2014 Author Share Posted December 1, 2014 Hi Christian, Thanks for kind comments. Yes could not resist having a go at the OHLE. Things have progressed well so far but think it may slow slightly over the next few weeks though as family life gets alot busier over the Christmas period. Winwick junction sounds cool, regards joining it up, I have already had thoughts of an extension to the north with the Royal Mail terminal (or head south towards Bank Quay)but think I should at least finish this first! I've also got an idea for a 4mm layout, I need to finish my 4mm crane, the class 56 needs finishing, need more days and hours in the week! Cheers Simon 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
87023Velocity Posted December 1, 2014 Author Share Posted December 1, 2014 Evening all, Whilst waiting for our tea tonight in the local chippy, I noticed they had some rather handy led strips around the counter as xmas decorations. I then realised that I had seen a similar product used on the 7mm layout Aberbeeg which seemed to give a good light coverage. I understand from a post on here that they have used LED strips from here http://www.ledhut.co.uk/led-strip-lights.html Think this is something I may look into for Dallam as I would like the lighting gantrys, pardon the pun, light as possible. Also it would be handy to have these done sooner rather than later so they can be used to provide additional lighting over the baseboards whilst doing the scenery. Cheers Simon PS the food from the chippy was quite nice btw. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimleygrid Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 Very nice work Simon, the gantry looks great. Lovely job! They look good on that engineers train. He has a great collection of photos on his Flickr site, well worth a browse.It is easy to get lost whilst looking at photos on Flickr….. Over the weekend I was watching a couple of DVDs which had pairs of 20s on MGRs around Warrington, right up your street! You may have already seen this but thought I would post just in case you hadn’t: Lots of clips of 20s around Warrington on YouTube. Chippy on a Monday?!!! Get involved! You are right, you do need to finish the crane as it is required at Boxenby and The Grid needs finishing as we would like to see it! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
87023Velocity Posted December 2, 2014 Author Share Posted December 2, 2014 Hi Alex, Here is some classic footage from Springs Branch around 1987/88. Includes a class 45 on shed which I don't think at the time were very common at Wigan but I could be wrong! http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sek8Tf-KeZA Those clips are great. Regards the 75 ton crane, I will need to make a smaller version for Dallam but that is way down on the list. Cheers Simon 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
87023Velocity Posted December 4, 2014 Author Share Posted December 4, 2014 (edited) Hi, Decided to review progress on the stock which I currently have. Here is the second 87 part way through detailing and finishing. This one will be 87027 Wolf of Badenoch. Still to do is pick out all detail, apply new numbers, nameplates, pantograph. The cab fronts have been air brushed warning panel yellow following the removal and adding detail. Also I have an EWS class 66, 66135. This is going to be detailed at one end and weathered. It also requires 2split gears replacing, doh! Regards split gears, think I better make sure I have spare gears if the layout goes out to any shows. Cheers Simon Edited December 4, 2014 by 87023Velocity 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Ref ohl contact wire, somewhere hiding in RMWeb I saw a product (from Americaland I think) that was essentially a very fine very stretchy thread. It could be stretched to 5+ times it's normal length before failure. Recommendation for ohl was to fix it stretched to twice it's length to keep the contact wire taught which still allowed plenty of extra stretch if anything caught it, making any damage far less likely. Really wish I could remember what it was! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Devil Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Ref ohl contact wire, somewhere hiding in RMWeb I saw a product (from Americaland I think) that was essentially a very fine very stretchy thread. It could be stretched to 5+ times it's normal length before failure. Recommendation for ohl was to fix it stretched to twice it's length to keep the contact wire taught which still allowed plenty of extra stretch if anything caught it, making any damage far less likely. Really wish I could remember what it was! This stuff I think.... http://www.berkshirejunction.com/ezline.html 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornish trains jez Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 Liking the rolling stock Simon. The 87 is looking good and it shows with a bit of work that these older Farish models can be made to look really good. Are you planning any more 87's or just settling for the 2? Best regards, Jeremy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
87023Velocity Posted December 5, 2014 Author Share Posted December 5, 2014 (edited) Liking the rolling stock Simon. The 87 is looking good and it shows with a bit of work that these older Farish models can be made to look really good. Are you planning any more 87's or just settling for the 2? Best regards, Jeremy Hi Jeremy, Thanks, Initially there will be the 2 87's and a class 90, not sure of number for the 90 yet. I am tempted to have a dummy class 87 to have dead behind a loco as it was quite common during this period, either due to failures or balancing moves from one depot to another. No date on this picture in this link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/55894856@N07/6832225031/in/photolist-bpJWti-9DiqkT-brS7ta-dT8i1o-bkrvhN-aUXaF2 Also a dummy 87 would allow a rake to be hauled by a thunderbird loco, currently thinking along the lines of a Fragonset 47/7 which were quite common on these duties too. Cheers Simon Edited December 5, 2014 by 87023Velocity Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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