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Modbury


Ian Smith
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I had to remove about 2 tons of asphalt off a two story extension flat roof it was a dirty brown colour probably from the stuff used to mix with the coal tar. You would have to mix it with something as it is a viscous liquid and I wouldn't recommend washing in the pure stuff.

Coal tar is now defined as a hazardous waste carcinogenic.

 

Don 

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Heatwaves being topical, I noted that there was one in the Summer of 1906 when for four days the temperature was over 32 degrees.  Not too comfortable for the steam engine crew!

 

For my own time frame (1912) August 1912 was and still does hold the record for the wettest, coldest and darkest with rain I think on 27 days.  Pity those poor holiday makers who travelled to the Devon and Cornwall resorts by train.

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Just love the point levers . But the Duke just superb.  Just a detail but wouldn't the cut out in the middle extend forward of the coupled wheels a little to allow access to oil the conrods and valve gear. 

 

Don

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9 hours ago, Donw said:

Just love the point levers . But the Duke just superb.  Just a detail but wouldn't the cut out in the middle extend forward of the coupled wheels a little to allow access to oil the conrods and valve gear. 

 

Don

Don,

Thank you. You are quite correct, there should be a big hole in the footplate down the middle in front of the leading drivers.  However, I needed a forward fixing point for the chassis, I have soldered a little pocket to the underside of the footplate into which the front chassis spacer extends and hooks into, the rear of chassis will be retained by a fixing bolt which will double as the fixing for the draw bar. I am hoping that the lack of a gap in the footplate will be hidden by the large sandboxes and the frame extensions the slope back from the rear of the smokebox.

4EB46D08-10A0-441E-A418-5C1CCC7D6763.jpeg.30fc3b75783b15aa5bf59e8d937aa087.jpeg
 

Ian

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Hi Ian , 

 

One wee trick I have done in the past is to scale down a photo of some inside motion, print it out and stick it between the frame extensions post painting. A bit fiddly in 4mm, very fiddly in 2mm   but it does fool the eye a bit. 

 

Might be difficult getting paper thin enough that will print on for 2mm though. 

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Excellent again Ian, and all your own work.

 

The trackwork in particular keeps catching my eye. I was about to say that Brunel would have approved - but of course he wouldn't!  😀

 

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8 hours ago, Ian Smith said:

 

 

Finally, some images of the latest motive power addition to the Modbury roster - the Steam Railmotor.  This attracted a lot of interest over the weekend, probably helped by Jerry Clifford (who was immediately across the room from us) encouraging visitors to "have a look at the steam railcar" 😂

 

 

 

Guilty as charged m'lud!!

 

Jerry

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1 hour ago, queensquare said:

 

 

Guilty as charged m'lud!!

Jerry

No need to feel at all guilty, Jerry. Looking at the photos it was clearly an excellent bit of advice and I am only sorry that I am never likely to see the rail motor for real. Oddly, my earliest endearing memory of a 2mm scale model is of a C14 and LSWR lattice-door carriage (effectively an honorary rail motor) running on the Losschester layout (in a mocked-up bedroom) at the MRC's 1956 Easter Central Hall show, the loco one of several similar built by Whall and the loco-carriage ensemble owned, I believe, by Gilbert Szlumper, the Southern Railway's penultimate General Manager.

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On 21/08/2022 at 21:59, Ian Smith said:

Last weekend Modbury made it's first physical appearance at an exhibition this year at RailWells.  I think it's fair to say that myself and fellow operators John and Steve enjoyed our weekend but is was flipping hot!!  

 

Modbury performed reasonably well despite the heat, over the course of the weekend 2 of the signals failed, both with the same fault - the guitar wire actuators became unsoldered from their respective levers (I use servos for the signals which have a drive rod from the rotating servo horn to a simple pivoted lever to convert the rotary motion into a linear one.  The lever having a piece of springy guitar string to compensate for any excess throw).

 

The 6 wheeled brake van decided to regularly throw itself off the track on one of the points by about lunchtime each day (it seemed fine in the cooler morning!!).  Once home I was able to test thoroughly (and closely) and as assumed there was just a little binding as the van went through the offending point.  Therefore I applied the soldering iron to the affected area to provide a little gauge widening through the area.

 

The rake of 6 wheeled coaches were also temperamental on occasion coming off the Plymouth end train table.  They were prone to derail every now and then or uncouple themselves.  I think that in setting up the layout we (I) had introduced a bit of a hump across the two boards.  The learning here is to make sure I include a 6" rule in my box so that I can check that the track work across the board joints is level.

 

The final problems were at the board joint of the other fiddle yard board.  There was a step of about 6-8 thou across one rail which caused the odd derailment.  We decided to live with the problem over the weekend as once we knew what the problem was we were able to shepherd the stock across the joint.  The resolution once home was to lift the offending rail and solder a slip of nickel silver shim beneath the offending rail.  The other issue at this board joint related to the mouse hole and the Steam Railmotor - when coming off the outermost (tightest curved) train table road the rail motor just rubbed the side of the mouse hole.  The weekend fix was not to use the outermost  the railmotor on tighter outer roads of the train table, the permanent fix was to carve a little off the side of the mouse hole once home.

 

Now some photos from the weekend :

 

Some of the additions to the layout prior to the exhibition - firstly I have added a little more colour to the layout with the introduction of some white and yellow flowers at the font of the layout.  The rose bay willow herb, nettles and thistles have been there for a while.  To achieve this, some small pieces of Woodland Scenics Polyfibre were pinched off the main wad to give me little pieces about 3-4mm in size, the tops of which were brushed over with matt varnish and some Woodland Scenics "flowers" were sprinkled onto the wet varnish.  Once dry the resultant flowery clumps were set onto a little more matt varnish within the existing scenery.  Hopefully, this gives the impression of the flowers floating above the surrounding grasses and weeds in a natural way.  I have to thank Steve Martin for this method of adding colour to a 2mm scale landscape.

1.JPG.1f0310e73521ead32bbe985ef98ac034.JPG

 

2.JPG.ae269edf3f1095d2509d91a3db6811d1.JPG

 

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Finally, some images of the latest motive power addition to the Modbury roster - the Steam Railmotor.  This attracted a lot of interest over the weekend, probably helped by Jerry Clifford (who was immediately across the room from us) encouraging visitors to "have a look at the steam railcar" 😂

 

Anyway here she is :

 

 

7.JPG.8025b48d4493838bec8b1c397247c88e.JPG

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Ian

 

A lovely sequence of photos Ian, the flowers look great and the variety of colours and texture in the scene adds life. I particularly like the side-on shot of the steam rail motor with the passengers silhouetted in the windows. The addition of passengers really brings the model and scene to life and you get a sense of people heading off somewhere (maybe to town to do the shopping) and the importance of the railway for connecting rural people. I would be happy to see a wisp of steam photoshopped into the photo to complete the scene - very nice!!  - Steve

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14 minutes ago, Ian Smith said:

 The bearing block is secured to the frame spacer between the drinking wheels with a pair of 14BA bolts :

Hope they haven't been drinking too much alcohol or you may have problems! 😀

 

Seriously, though, superb work as always, Ian.

 

Jim

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1 hour ago, Argos said:

Hi Ian, you've done a very nice job of forming the firebox sides there. Is there anything special in your technique or is it just down innate skill? 

Pure luck 🤣

Seriously though, I just took it carefully using mainly parallel jawed pliers and thumbs. Part way through the process I did wonder if I should have annealed the brass first though.

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Modbury is now all packed up and ready for loading into the car tomorrow.  This weekend's outing is to the Farnham & District Model Railway Exhibition in Aldershot https://farnhammrc.org.uk/?page_id=158

 

Looking forward to the weekend.  I've just about managed to get the 45xx ready for the weekend - it runs.  I haven't got any photos of it at the moment, as I've been too busy getting it into a running state to actually take any snaps.  Suffice to say that all did not go to plan - the major fly in the ointment was that two of the white metal centred driving wheels decided to part company with their respective stub axles (all my own doing, in that I had glued them into the wrong muff (with a worm gear wheel on rather than a spur gear), and trying to break the bond managed to effectively destroy the wheel set!!)  A quick order to shop 3 furnished me with a bright shiny new set of Mk5 wheels but they didn't arrive until Tuesday.

 

Getting the chassis running as an 0-6-0 was a doddle, but the two pony trucks have proved a little troublesome.  In the end I've employed small amounts of lead where ever I could put it and some springy wire to get them to stay on the track.  The wire springs-cum-pickup wires were tricky little blighters to adjust as too strong and the drivers were lifted slightly off the rails so it barely moved, and of course too soft and the pony trucks would derail on almost anything but plain track.

 

Hopefully for the weekend it will provide an extra item of motive power, but I may well borrow John Russell's 2251 again just in case 😂

 

Thanks for looking, and if you're anywhere near Aldershot this weekend pop along to the show.  I haven't looked to see what else is on offer layout-wise, but I do know that Dave Stone will be there with Sherton Abbas (another GWR Edwardian layout but in 7mm scale) - but do bring your platform shoes as Dave displays his layout at about (my) eye level, although for him it's probably about waist level 🤣

 

Ian

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