Cheapside Yard - RIP (Ripped into pieces!)

[sir douglas]

is that the hunslet built by Mozzer

Edited October 28, 2015 by sir douglas

[BG John]

is that the hunslet built by Mozzer

Yup. The coaches were his as well.

[BG John]

It's finally working, after a few hours (and lots of bad language!) with a soldering iron.

 

I've just sent off an order for Dingham Couplings, and hope they arrive before the last of my sanity goes, as 3-links are a pain. The layout wasn't designed for them, so I can't put the bridge across the scenic break in place as I need to couple wagons under it! I need to wear glasses to see what I'm doing, but then when I stand back to watch the action, everything is blurred!

 

I need to do a bit of tweaking, but I can shunt standard gauge wagons around, and interrupt shunting by running a narrow gauge passenger train, although the narrow gauge track isn't all laid, and there's no platform, yet!

 

So I can now play trains for the first time in around 20 years!

[BG John]

This is what makes it work. It's controlled from a Gaugemaster Combi, connected to the fiddle yard board by a 9-pin D connector on the front of the board. I've also got a Gaugemaster panel controller that I'll probably put in a box sometime, and I'll use one or other of them to control any of my various part built and planned layouts, so will standardise the connections. The extra pins allow a few extras to be added to the remote controllers if I want to:

 

I've fitted wood blocks as stops at either end of the traverser, and the intermediate tracks are lined up by eye. When it's right back, it's lined up with the narrow gauge, and the microswitches switch power from the standard gauge to the narrow gauge. By default all the standard gauge is live, which isn't ideal as it's possible to drive a loco off the end of an unaligned track, but I'll do something about that if it's necessary. The second microswitch is needed to switch the crossing where the two gauges diverge. The scruffy wiring on the main board will all be hidden by cobbles:

 

The baseboards are connected with a 5-pin DIN connector. There are just four wires, track common, feeds for each gauge, and one for the crossing mentioned above:

 

The wiring under the main board. My reels of "layout wire" looked a bit thin for O gauge, and although I plan to only run locos that are low powered and will run off a 4mm scale controller, I doubled it up just in case. The wires are twisted together, and fixed to the board with self-adhesive cable tie mounts:

 

Amazingly, it all worked first time, although there were a few errors, and lots of bad language, while I was actually doing the wiring!

[BG John]

I achieved my aim of playing trains on my birthday. I've been playing cards too!

 

I made up a credit card sized card for each wagon out of a Bonio box (the hairy one has her uses!). I do a quick shuffle, shut my eyes and deal them:

 

Then I line them up to represent the three sidings as they have fallen:

 

Then I shunt:

 

And soon they are in the right order (I must stick the chimney back on the loco; it was loose when I bought it!):

 

Then I run a passenger train to celebrate!:

 

Each shunting session is very short at the moment, as I only have four working wagons, and five are needed for a 3-2-2 inglenook. The fifth wagon just needs the buffers and couplings fitted, that were missing when I bought it, but it's not worth fitting 3-links when I hope the Dinghams will be here in a few days.

[peter220950]

I achieved my aim of playing trains on my birthday. I've been playing cards too!

 

 

Happy Birthday!

 

Peter

[BG John]

I'm very impressed with Dingham couplings so far. I sent a Paypal payment on Sunday, and they arrived this morning. Very well presented in a specially printed envelope with what appear to be very good instructions, and nicely packed etchings and wire. Now I've just got to assemble and fit some, and hope the end result is as good as the service and presentation!

 

[puddlejumper]

I found the quality of the etches to be excellent and not bad to assemble if a little fiddly. To be fair that was due to the size of the etches v the size of my overlarge digits.................

[BG John]

I found the quality of the etches to be excellent and not bad to assemble if a little fiddly. To be fair that was due to the size of the etches v the size of my overlarge digits.................

That's what concerns me, especially as I'm considering using them in 4mm too if I'm happy with them!

[CME and Bottlewasher]

I achieved my aim of playing trains on my birthday. I've been playing cards too!

 

I made up a credit card sized card for each wagon out of a Bonio box (the hairy one has her uses!). I do a quick shuffle, shut my eyes and deal them:

DSCF7729.JPG

 

Then I line them up to represent the three sidings as they have fallen:

DSCF7730.JPG

 

Then I shunt:

DSCF7731.JPG

 

And soon they are in the right order (I must stick the chimney back on the loco; it was loose when I bought it!):

DSCF7733.JPG

 

Then I run a passenger train to celebrate!:

DSCF7734.JPG

 

Each shunting session is very short at the moment, as I only have four working wagons, and five are needed for a 3-2-2 inglenook. The fifth wagon just needs the buffers and couplings fitted, that were missing when I bought it, but it's not worth fitting 3-links when I hope the Dinghams will be here in a few days.

Happy birthday!

 

I like the idea of using cards or a very basic timetable as it adds the, so to speak, icing on top of the cake, in terms of enjoyment of ones models....

 

I found the quality of the etches to be excellent and not bad to assemble if a little fiddly. To be fair that was due to the size of the etches v the size of my overlarge digits.................

They are a good product, just like the Winterleys, a little fiddly to set up but pretty reliable in use.

 

ATVB

 

CME

[BG John]

 

I like the idea of using cards or a very basic timetable as it adds the, so to speak, icing on top of the cake, in terms of enjoyment of ones models....

I've been having a short shunting session a few times a day, but it doesn't take long enough to shunt four wagons, and quite often half of them start off in the right place already! It should be much better with five wagons, so it's an incentive to get the Dinghams fitted.

[BG John]

One of the reasons for the slow progress on Cheapside Yard is that I'm having a big sort out and tidy up of all my stuff, not just the railway bits. The layout has a new home in the corner of what seems to be turning into the railway room. It's not quite finished, but I've been knocking the cupboard underneath about, and it will be used for storing modelling stuff in the drawers, and railway magazines in the cupboard. My version of Medieval wall hangings is to hide the crumbling lime plaster on the wall behind, that has a habit of crumbling all over anything placed near it. I do live on a painfully slowly evolving building site after all! I really must stick the chimney back on the Hudswell Clarke!

[hartleymartin]

Small drop of Zap-A-Gap should fix that. Mine had the same problem. Just remember to check the orientation as there is a locating lug.

[BG John]

I haven't come across Zap-A-Gap before. I've just got cheap supermarket superglue, so I'll try a drop of that first. I'd noticed the locating lug.

[BG John]

Cheapside Yard has almost enough locos for a loco shunting puzzle! They're destined for other layouts too though. Sorry about the odd chimney reflections caused by the flash. I haven't got proper layout lighting sorted yet.

[hartleymartin]

After using Zap-A-Gap Medium CA glue, I've not bothered with cheap supermarket superglues. 

 

Just a tip - the stuff sets in an anerobic environment, and doesn't have the immediate "grab" like most superglues. This does mean that you have a brief opportunity to ensure that things line up properly before it gets stuck. It also means that you should drill a small hold in the cap with a micro-drill - otherwise the whole lot will set in the bottle.

 

I had one bottle of the stuff left uncapped last for about 6 months, I had built a dozen model kits with the stuff. It became rather thicker after about 3 months, but was still quite usable.

 

The best part is that it was developed to work with wood. The stuff glues basswood and balsawood beautifully, although it does sock rather heavily into end-grain. If glueing end-grain, I usually put a coat or two of the stuff down and let it set. This soaks into the end-grain and then the next layer glues the wood together. You can also run it into a seam and it will glue via capillary action, in a similar manner to how solvent welds styrene. It seems to glue almost anything to anything else - except for certain "greasy" types of plastic. Particularly useful in Australia where most kits of local prototypes are made from urethane castings with some styrene, brass and whitemetal/pewter parts.

 

I love the stuff. 

[robertc]

You are more likely to find the zap range of glues in model aircraft stores as that is their main market.

 

regards

 Bob

[BG John]

Nothing has happened for a while, as I've been working on other projects, but this might be the start of the sector plate.

 

 

Wills 4mm Vari-Girder, some OO track with the ends cut off the sleepers, a strip of Wills 4mm planking, plus a piece of wood and a bit removed from an old electric shower unit, may well turn into something fairly usable and presentable!

Edited December 31, 2015 by BG John

[BG John]

I'm getting a bit carried away with buildings at the moment. I've been making them for my OO layout (that hasn't got a topic yet, although some can be seen in my blog), and now I've had some practice with 4mm Scalescenes kits built at the intended scale, I'm having a go at one scaled up to 7mm. This is the freebie Weighbridge/Coal Office, that's easy to print on A4 at 175%, but the the others will be more interesting without an A3 printer! I've recently discovered that Adobe Reader has a "Take an Snapshot" feature, that allows part of a page to be selected and printed, so I can break each page of the Scalescenes file into small sections that will print on one page when scaled up. I was quite pleased with the quality of the mockups I made when planning the layout, and this one is looking quite good so far. It's actually brown brick, but when I was building the mockups I discovered that my HP Color Laserjet's Toner Saving option prints the brickwork much lighter, and the bricks come out in a variety of colours, giving the impression that the buildings were constructed with cheap bricks.

 

I saw the new year in sticking the prints to card, and cutting out the overlays. I was out of alcohol, so managed to cut straight! Then left them overnight for the Pritt to dry under part of my library:

 

Tonight I started assembly:

[EKR]

Excellent literary taste!

[BG John]

Excellent literary taste!

The bottom one is Great Western Wagons Appendix, although it's out because I'm building a visiting GWR wagon for the planned K&ESR layout!

[BG John]

More work on the scaled up Scalescenes office tonight. It's rather big compared with the size it's intended to be, but it shows the quality of the Scalescenes products if they enlarge this well. The interior looks pretty good too, although not much will be seen with the roof on.

 

There are a couple of errors with this kit. The door knob on the inside is on the right side of the door, but should be on the left. I've added one in pencil, although I doubt if anyone will notice, or that they'll see that the other one is still there! There is no brickwork on the inside of this wall either. I've used the same thickness card as advised for the 4mm model, so added another layer on the inside of the wall, with the doorway cut out, and a print of the opposite wall added. This wall sticks out of the sides, and forms the downpipes, so I think it needed thickening anyway.

 

 

 

 

[BG John]

Slower progress tonight. There were various things about the roof I wasn't happy with. The first picture shows the ceiling, with gutters sticking out of the sides. The gutters are flat, that I wasn't that impressed with in 4mm, even though I left them like it, but in 7mm it wasn't so good. The rear gutter doesn't run behind the chimney, so the short bit to the left of the chimney has no downpipe to drain into. Although scaled up to 175%, I used the thicknesses of card recommended for 4mm scale, then added an extra 1mm thickness at the door end, so was expecting some difference in the proportions, and it shows up in the roof. The second picture shows that the overhang on one end is much bigger than the other, and there is no overhang on the sides.

 

 

So I reprinted the ceiling and roof, and started again.

 

First I cut the new ceiling to fit inside the ends and round the chimney better. Then I removed the gutters to make the front and back flush with the walls. I stuck just the ceiling part of the printed overlay on the bottom, and glued it in place, with a bit of strengthening on the left side, where it's not supported underneath.

 

Next I took the gutter I'd cut off the ceiling, folded it back on itself along the marked fold line, and stuck them back to back. With a lot of trial and error, I bent the shape of the gutter by wrapping it round a steel ruler, and put a right angled bend at the back. By the time it was done, I'd rubbed much of the printing off!

 

I blackened the outside of the gutter with a felt tipped pen, but left the inside for now. Then I cut a piece of 1mm card to bring the ceiling up to the level of the wall ends, to support the roof, stuck the gutter to the ceiling, and stuck the card on top. There are no ends on the gutter, so I'll have to think about that.

 

This photo shows how I've cut the roof differently. There was a big gap behind the chimney (that didn't fit that well in 4mm either). I've cut the length to the same as that of the gutter, which meant leaving more on the right end to give an equal overhang. I've also cut the front edge a little outside the marked line, but haven't done the back yet.

 

The roof held in place to show that it will fit much better now. I need to do the back gutter before fitting it.

Edited January 5, 2016 by BG John

[BG John]

The rear gutter was a lot quicker than the front one, now I know what I'm doing (well sort of anyway!). I've made it in two parts to fit round the chimney, and will cobble something up to make the bend look a bit more convincing, although it will face the back of the layout and won't be seen from normal viewing angles. Once all the glue is set, I'll do some adjustments to all the guttering. I've also tiled the roof, and fitted it.

 

 

I'll add the ridge tiles, bargeboards and chimney top in the next session, and then it will be almost done.

 

The next Scalesecenes kit will be more challenging to scale up, so I'll probably redo the buildings at the left end of the layout first, as they will be fairly straightforward scratchbuilds using Scalescenes brick paper.

[BG John]

I seem to be slowing down a bit, but I am working on other things too. To go with the rather rough and varying size gutters, I'm adding ends to a similar standard! I'm colouring small bits of printer paper with a black felt tip, and sticking them to the ends of the gutting with tacky glue. Once dry, I'm cutting off the excess with a small pair of scissors. I stuck one last night and trimmed it tonight, and it seems reasonable, so have now stuck paper to the rest of them. These are really cruel enlargements, but the one I've done looks acceptable in real life.

 

I've also added the bargeboards and ridge tiles.

 

 

Edited January 14, 2016 by BG John