Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

Have you got one of those cans of compressed air cleaners, for getting dust out of electronic pcbs, etc ?  That might help if you can heat all the solder up on the coupling.

No, I haven't Stu. Too late now anyway. In getting the coupling apart, using heat and brute force, the hook and buffing plate broke off so that was the end of that. Not a big issue really.

[Barry O]

I grind the solder off with a slitting disk, redrill the pivot hole and add some grease to get theloop in place. The grease stops it all soldrring up solid. Then a good wash of mekpak and bob, as they say, is your uncle!

Baz

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

I grind the solder off with a slitting disk, redrill the pivot hole and add some grease to get theloop in place. The grease stops it all soldrring up solid. Then a good wash of mekpak and bob, as they say, is your uncle!

Baz

The rogue solder was between the main body and the latch, where the tabs are splayed out to retain it. Never had that problem before! I use Metal Black before assembly so solder usually stays where it's meant to. In this case I might have scraped the back of the latch tabs when splaying and bending them enough for the solder to take. Anyway, as I said above it's too late now and not worth worrying about in any case.

[Stubby47]

For want of a coupling, a wagon was lost.

For want of a wagon, a train was lost.

For want of a train, a schedule was lost.

For want of a schedule, a beer was had instead.

[St Enodoc]

52 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

For want of a coupling, a wagon was lost.

For want of a wagon, a train was lost.

For want of a train, a schedule was lost.

For want of a schedule, a beer was had instead.

For want of a beer, all was lost...

[St Enodoc]

After a misty and damp morning, it turned out nice again so I gave the E147 a quick spray of grey primer then a coat of Holts DSF 43 Hermitage Red, which I use for BR Crimson. The finish is not perfect, as you can still see traces of the original livery underneath. This, and the two previous coach jobs, have convinced me that, despite the apparent attractions of buying a ready-made kit coach secondhand, the hassle of tidying it up, repairing broken bits and repainting it is often more trouble than it's worth. Unless a real oddity like the M15 comes up, that will be the end of such adventures and from now on I'll concentrate on the (lots of) kits that are in the cupboard waiting to be built. These include a whitemetal 2021 pannier, a couple of dozen coaches and vans and several dozen wagon kits of various types. There's also a certain Airfix aircraft kit but we don't mention that in polite company.

 

While all that was going on and the paint drying, I ballasted 13B points and the single slip 13A/19B, plus the odd lengths of plain track connecting them to the rest of the layout. Slow but steady progress, made easier with ABC Classic in the background. Once I've done 18 and 31 points it will be plain track (and viaduct guard rails) for the next few sessions before getting stuck (pun intended) into the Porthmellyn Road Down end pointwork.

 

Tonight I'll clean up the 93.75% of a fret's worth of DG couplings ready for them to be fitted to more RTR wagons.

[Barry O]

Ballasting and ABC Classic..a good combination. Due to the time differences we listen to a lot of "night music" via the internet. 

And you have just reminded me ..I need to do a few couplings myself.

Baz

[Clive Mortimore]

Or a solder sucker

 

The most used tool when I was an inspector at Marconi. 

 

[5BarVT]

3 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Or a solder sucker

 

The most used tool when I was an inspector at Marconi. 

 

That’s a modern ‘safe’ one.  Early ones didn’t have the extended case - rather easy to get an eyeful of rapidly moving plunger. 

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

13 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

That’s a modern ‘safe’ one.  Early ones didn’t have the extended case - rather easy to get an eyeful of rapidly moving plunger. 

Paul.

Presumably followed closely by an eyeful of rapidly moving solder.

[Clive Mortimore]

14 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Presumably followed closely by an eyeful of rapidly moving solder.

No cos that is contained in the body of the sucker.

 

Inside the body is a spring loaded piston. You push the plunger down and it locks into place. Heat the offending joint until the solder flows, place the tip of the sucker at the joint and click the trigger, the spring then returns the plunger and piston to the top of the body sucking up the air surrounding the joint and the flowing solder.  It is like a reverse action bicycle pump.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

... I ballasted 13B points and the single slip

 

I misread that as 138 points and the single slip...

 

I should be ballasting and assembling Wills walls, but I'm actually lying on the floor of my shed suffering the aftermath of an unexpectedly vigorous prostate exam yesterday.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Even worse, i can see my wiring from down here.  

[Ashley Bridge]

Weren’t they supposed to put it all back in after examining it?

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

No cos that is contained in the body of the sucker.

OF course. As distinct from going into the eye of the sucker...

[St Enodoc]

I rounded off the weekend with another ballasting session. First I finished the pointwork at Porthmellyn Road Up end:

 

 

LMRS members will be pleased to see that I've reverted to white paint (Tippex actually) for uncoupler markers.

 

I then moved on to Tremewan Tunnel mouth and Nancegwithey Viaduct.

 

I'd already tried the glue-first method here but before I learned Gordon's trick of sucking up the surplus ballast as soon as it was laid, so as you can see at the bottom left the ballast has ended up too thick and too deep. I'm not too worried about this though, as most of this section of track will be inside the tunnel mouth.

 

I started on the Down line and ballasted about 6 to 8 inches at a go. After I'd done four cycles, which took about 45 minutes, I'd reached the halfway point but by then I'd had enough so the rest will wait for next time. The yellow masking tape is to stop the surplus ballast overflowing and giving anyone down in the valley a nasty shock.

Edited July 17, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Concerned that my approach to ballasting really isn’t up to much and not much fun either I did an RMweb search and ended up here (first time I’ve seen the epic / thread, sorry).  It’s reassuring to know that the problems I’m running into aren’t unique (thank you).  I’ve given myself two additional problems on my small GW BLT:

1.  Deciding on a scenic fiddle yard doubles the work.

2.  I’m using up old Setrack at the moment, so the 6’ way is very wide.

As I’m also using up a supply of old, oversized ballast (I gave the bag a good hammering before I used it, but some chunks still survived), I’m trying to steer well clear of the point blades - but diluted PVA does have a rather good capillary action it seems!
 

Question though: is there a detailed track plan somewhere in the 135 pages I can turn to for interest - I’ve found the bock diagram near the start of the thread (also showing in the photos just above).  Just curious.  Thanks, Keith.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Keith Addenbrooke

[St Enodoc]

On 15/06/2020 at 03:23, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Concerned that my approach to ballasting really isn’t up to much and not much fun either I did an RMweb search and ended up here (first time I’ve seen the epic / thread, sorry).  It’s reassuring to know that the problems I’m running into aren’t unique (thank you).  I’ve given myself two additional problems on my small GW BLT:

1.  Deciding on a scenic fiddle yard doubles the work.

2.  I’m using up old Setrack at the moment, so the 6’ way is very wide.

As I’m also using up a supply of old, oversized ballast (I gave the bag a good hammering before I used it, but some chunks still survived), I’m trying to steer well clear of the point blades - but diluted PVA does have a rather good capillary action it seems!
 

Question though: is there a detailed track plan somewhere in the 135 pages I can turn to for interest - I’ve found the bock diagram near the start of the thread (also showing in the photos just above).  Just curious.  Thanks, Keith.

Thanks Keith and welcome aboard.

 

Regarding ballasting, with Setrack and its thick sleepers ballast-first is almost certainly the easiest way to go.

 

Track plans - no, there isn't a complete and comprehensive one yet. You've found the block plan which shows the overall concept. There's a rough plan of the whole layout here:

 

and from time to time I put up a neater version showing actual progress to date. The most recent of those is here:

 

This really needs updating slightly for the extended Chapel Sidings but otherwise it reflects the current state of play plus the projected line of the branch (which will change slightly before it's built).

 

For Porthmellyn Road itself, the signal box diagram is probably the best source of detailed information at the moment:

 

Hope this helps!

Edited July 17, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[Keith Addenbrooke]

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Regarding ballasting, with Setrack and its thick sleepers ballast-first is almost certainly the easiest way to go.

 

Thank you for the comprehensive reply - much appreciated.  
 

As for ballasting, looks like I accidentally got that bit right: I’d heard of PVA first, but thought it’d be wise to give myself the chance to smooth my oversize rocks before adding the PVA.  It’s now been left to set for a week - I’ll just be checking the point blades aren’t stuck.

 

I had cut away the webbing that runs under the rails and widened the sleeper spacing (one advantage with my very small layout is that it wasn’t too impossible a task).  This also meant I had more space for ballast and could push it under the rails - as you say, my sleepers are taller (2mm - scale 6”).  I’ll be buying N scale ballast next time.

[St Enodoc]

As Lennon and McCartney almost wrote "Do you still need me, will you still feed me, now I'm sixty-four?".

 

My brother and sister-in-law came up trumps again with this birthday card featuring a one-off special edition of a new magazine:

 

Very nicely done, even down to the barcode at the bottom left.

Edited July 18, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[john dew]

Happy Birthday John...... have a great day........or perhaps it should be I hope you had a great day......I think its still yesterday here

[Oldddudders]

Happy Birthday!

[St Enodoc]

51 minutes ago, john dew said:

Happy Birthday John...... have a great day........or perhaps it should be I hope you had a great day......I think its still yesterday here

Thanks John. It's still today here - tomorrow never comes...

[acg5324]

Happy birthday John...have a great day...whatever time it is in Oz.

[5BarVT]

Happy Birthday from me too.

Nice card!  Enjoy your evening.

Paul.