O Gauge from a standing start

[Gareth001]

Here's a view of the sector plate in it's infancy, made from a cut down Airfix turntable, some plastruct girders and C&L rail and chairs. The Airfix mouldings were pretty poor, but the tooling must be ancient now....I should probably have started from scratch. Need to make a pivot and bearing on the lathe, and some carrier wheels.

[Gareth001]

The plan is to motorise the sector plate with the actuator below, set at the limit of travel by the two microswitches. Via a cheapo decoder if I decide to go DCC...still on the fence with splinters in the proverbial.

[Waveydavey]

 

Stage 1 complete....order a point kit from C&L tomorrow! Does anyone know the radius of an A4 point ( I can't bring myself to call them turnouts!)

I've been working on the railway for 27 years and I've never heard a professional railwayman refer to a set of points as a turnout. Only snooty railway modellers seem to use the term.

 

Cheers

 

David

[chaz]

I've been working on the railway for 27 years and I've never heard a professional railwayman refer to a set of points as a turnout. Only snooty railway modellers seem to use the term.

 

Cheers

 

David

 

I think the origin of the term might lie in the fact that in model form a set of points and a common crossing are usually combined into a single unit. Of course we are also saddled with the term "frog" for the common crossing - changed presumably to avoid confusion with diamond crossings. Snooty or not it doesn't really matter does it?

[hayfield]

I've been working on the railway for 27 years and I've never heard a professional railwayman refer to a set of points as a turnout. Only snooty railway modellers seem to use the term.

 

Cheers

 

David

 

 

David

 

Does it matter what we call them, providing we are understood. I have met plenty of normal ordinary modellers refer to turnouts as turnouts and plenty of snooty modellers refer to turnouts as points. I am far from snooty and will call turnouts turnouts, but will not look down on those who want to call them points and if that is how they want do describe them then that's fine with me.

[RedgateModels]

Of course at work all we are interested in are switches and crossings  

[Gareth001]

I came across a very interesting site yesterday which I thought others might be interested in. www.dioramadebris.co.uk is well worth a look..I reckon we can learn a lot from the military modelling side: some of their stuff is stunning. I was particularly interested in the silicon moulds they produce, and ordered the manhole covers and drains mould yesterday at about 3pm. It arrived this morning, and not being the sort to read instructions or buy special materials, I mixed up some epoxy resin that I'd bough in a pound shop ages ago, slapped it in and went for a sandwich. The result is below....there are a couple of air bubbles but the whole thing is only 20mm square, so hard to spot with the naked eye. If I'd been a bit more careful with the mixing I'm sure I could have avoided this, and I have the means to produce an unlimited number of drains, manhole covers, etc. The pattern contains 6 different moulds...great value at about a fiver.

[Barnaby]

Nice find Gareth, being 1/48 scale they will be a little smaller than 1/43 for UK 0 gauge but with some selective choosing they will be good.

 

 

Regards 

[Gareth001]

Yes, I thought that, but the manhole scales out at almost exactly 2 feet, which isn't unreasonable, and drain cover come in different sizes, so I'm happy with that. I'll try the tiny drain cover and surround today...but the Hudswell Clarke was delivered yesterday, so a lot of time will be sent idly shunting it back and forth...it's an exquisite runner: Thanks Chris!

 

I've made the mistake of having the embryonic layout in my office....must remember to do a bit of work from time to time!

[Barnaby]

I have a friend who works from home and he has a roundy roundy P4 layout doing the rounds while he _works complete with lots of scenic detail which appeared through the working week?   We would meet up there once a week for a chat and indulge in all thing railway and find more details had been added.

 

Yes Gareth I'm sure with selective choosing, like the grids, some great detail pieces will be found. 

 

Regards.

[Donw]

Comming on nicely and the Ixion HC is a good choice. Funny about terminology different people use different terms. A railtrack document on track standards refers to turnouts so the term is proper to use. However once installed the working bit (in terms of moving) is the switch blades so railwaymen would refer to 'moving the points' so the term became synonymous with the whole thing. I tend to refer to a turnout which has a switch and a crossing plus bits in between and slips which also have switches and crossing. But an assembly of turnouts and slips I would call pointwork. Illogical probably but people usually understand.

 

The manhole cover looks nice. Most of those I have dealt do not have an area around the actual lid. I have lifted round ones which have a round frame or square ones with a square frame. But having come across a lot of different ones anything is possible. Some telephone ones had a square frame  with two trangular lids light enough for a one man lift. So they were bolted together to make sure you used a lifter!

Don

Edited November 21, 2014 by Donw

[raymw]

I guess you know why manhole covers should be round.

[Andy Reichert]

I've been working on the railway for 27 years and I've never heard a professional railwayman refer to a set of points as a turnout. Only snooty railway modellers seem to use the term.

 

Cheers

 

David

 

 

And the railway engineering departments. In the USA at least. And the name frog is official here too.

[ROSSPOP]

I make that game set and match to Andy.................

[Gareth001]

Some progress made recently.....track all painted and the check rails laid on the siding which is going to be laid with setts. I'm going to use Das clay for this, but haven't yet decided whether to scribe it when dry (which seems like a sanity threatening exercise) or to make a press and do it while the clay is wet. If anyone has any thoughts on this, do let me know.

 

The big step forward recently has been the purchase of a silhouette CNC cutter. (see JCL's thread). This very impressive piece of kit will cut 10 thou styrene with remarkable precision, and score 20 thou. I reckon it will pay for itself in windows alone. JCL generously posted a link to the drawings for a small shed, which I thought would be a good starting point. I made a few minor changes, and the results are below. The first thing I noticed was that although the walls are only 20 thou, hardly any bracing was needed. However good you are with a scalpel, getting things perfectly square all the time is a challenge....half a millimetre is nearly an inch, even in 7mm scale. a cnc cutter gets every component square, every time. Paintwork needs touching up, and door needs a knob.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Gareth001

[Gareth001]

The thing that always put me off making buildings was the repetitive stuff, especially the roofing. Getting the slates thin enough to look right in the smaller scales means thin card cut into strips, and then laying them really carefully.....any tiny error stands out like a sore thumb. I've seen lots of nice buildings spoilt like this, and I'd been a bit worried about doing any sort of quantity, especially on the big warehouse which is going to hide the traverser. However, by setting the cutter to score 10 thou styrene (just under half a scale inch, which is still a little thick but I can live with it) its a doddle to cut out unlimited amounts. And every slate is perfectly square. It's also easy to put register marks on each strip to help keep everything square when sticking the strips down.

 

I know this is only a tiny shed roof, which probably wouldn't warrant ridge tiles, let alone guttering, but I wanted to test it all out. Bigger roofs should be just as easy, I reckon.

 

[Gareth001]

So...another enforced break cause by real life getting in the way, but made a start on the lovely little GW 2 ton crane truck from Gladiator Models which I picked up at the trade show in Reading. The castings were very crisp and a thoroughly enjoyed build, but the instructions were a bit minimal and I found lots of the whitemetal bits appeared out of square...lots of persuasion needed. I think I finally came out on top....just. pics in primer below, which show up the trackwork a bit: still some fettling needed.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Gareth001

[Gareth001]

A bit of an update...(I said this would be slow!)....the carcass of the big warehouse is now complete, made from 6mm MDF and clad with embossed styrene stuck on with contact adhesive. Compared to anything I ever built in 4mm scale, this is BIG! The building is wedge shaped to partially cover the traverser as well as hide it from the front, with a cutout in the rear wall to allow the traverser to pass beneath.

 

I've already cut all the windows and vents with the Silhouette cutter, to be fitted after painting, and I'm still debating whether to paint it brick colour and work the grouting in by hand (I've tried some small pieces like this, and it looks good, but when using white acrylic leaves a whitish smear over the whole thing....I'm going to have a go with white matt emulsion later) or to paint it grout colour and dry brush on the brick colour. I've tried this too, and it also looks good, but it takes ages and there's a lot to do. Any advice?

 

[Gareth001]

The check rails for the inset track by the factory are also done...

[Gareth001]

And the board of directors have invested in one more piece of rolling stock (need to tone down that "G"), and the crane is painted.

[BG John]

I've started off my wagon collection with a few completed kits I bought on eBay. Prices can get a bit high for my liking, and I avoid those, but so far I've been paying slightly less than half the price of an unmade kit. None of them are perfect, but they'll do for now, and maybe permanently. I could resell them later if I want, and get most of my money back. A Coopercraft kit arrived today that cost £8 including postage. By the time I've bought wheels I'll still have saved quite a bit over a new kit. I'll use it to practice on, before moving on to more kit building, or ideally scratchbuilding. By the time a loco arrives, I'll have a reasonable amount of stock for little effort and relatively low cost.

[Gareth001]

Latest attempt at painting brickwork below. This is a basecoat of Halfords red oxide primer, followed by Homebase Toffee Cream matt emulsion (which just so happened to be the colour of our living room) worked in with a finger, then wiped clean with a damp cloth diagonally across the brickwork. As the base coat is spirit based, the water base emulsion doesn't affect it, and it's pretty quick to do.

[Gareth001]

So....while the method above looks good on a small area, the sheen of pale colour over the brickwork looks all wrong on a larger area....so back to plan A. Wall sprayed grey and dry brushed, and when it's all finished I'll weather with powders and give it a coat of matt varnish.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Gareth001

[Barnaby]

That's coming along nicely Gareth, and some very good tips shown too.

[Gareth001]

More slow progress, consisting of lots of dry brushing (takes ages!) and the ventilators and one of the windows installed. Found myself in the slightly bizarre situation this morning of a quietish morning at work, so started painting some brickwork....then realised that as we're having some decorating done at home, I'm spending my time painting one building whist simultaneously paying someone else to paint another one 43 times bigger. I suspect they will be a lot quicker too.