Offerston Quay - 7mm Inglenook Plus

[Fastdax]

New Loco for OQ

 

I picked up a refurbished-as-new Little Loco Class 15. Why? Because I like the look of it. Rule 1!

 

 

It's in as-built all-green livery (for my 1962 timescale).

 

It needs a DCC sound decoder and an identity. The transfers and plates are in the LLC box so I just need some research to find a suitable number.

 

Can't wait to actually run it!

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[bcnPete]

Only just stumbled upon this, had a quick nose through so will go back and read from the start.

 

Looking great so far

[Fastdax]

3 hours ago, bcnPete said:

Only just stumbled upon this, had a quick nose through so will go back and read from the start.

 

Looking great so far

 

Thanks Pete!

 

[DanielB]

Awesome layout. The trackwork is superb, exactly how I remember track looking in stations from when I was a nipper in the 80's, before concrete sleepers started popping up everywhere.

[37114]

Just read the thread from the start and am very impressed by this layout,  impressive use of the space and a few useful tips for my new layout.  The LCUT arches look great and are on my shopping list for the Bristol Ogauge show 

[Fastdax]

On 19/12/2019 at 06:56, 37114 said:

Just read the thread from the start and am very impressed by this layout,  impressive use of the space and a few useful tips for my new layout.  The LCUT arches look great and are on my shopping list for the Bristol Ogauge show 

 

Many thanks 37114!

 

I'll get back to OQ when I've finished the current workbench coach build (documented here).

 

[Fastdax]

I need to up-end Offerston Quay in order to separate the halves and do some minor woodwork to the left-hand half.

 

One issue is that I don't have anywhere to safely store my locos and rolling stock, so I made a display case to hold some of the items.

 

The top, bottom and sides are 12mm white oak. The oak has several coats of polyurethane varnish for knock resistance.

 

The back is 3mm white hardboard, glued and pinned, and the slide-in front is 2mm acrylic sheet.

 

The 5 shelves are edge-ground, 6mm tempered glass with one frosted face. They are 477mm wide by 77mm deep and are held in 6mm rebates in the sides. This gives enough width for 3 x 17 foot wagons or a single 57 foot coach.

 

 

It's mounted on the side of a rolling drawer-pack with a bracket underneath and screws in the top corners.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

DIsplay Case

 

I found some interesting twisty quarter-sawn grain for the top of the display case, which is the bit you normally see (until it becomes yet another horizontal surface to collect railway-related junk).

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Trimming the baseboard

 

The minor woodwork I alluded to a couple of posts back was to trim the length of the layout to make it a better fit in its room.

 

When I measured the room, I took the length of the wall that OQ would sit back to, without making sure that the two side walls were at 90 degrees to the back wall, which they turned out not to be.

 

The layout was built to fit the back wall and is therefore a tight push-fit between the side walls and this makes it difficult to tip the layout up to access the underside as it tends to jam. So I decided to trim a bit off the left-hand end to make this easier.

 

Luckily only the back half of the baseboard overlaps the left side wall. The front half is across a window aperture and doesn't need trimming.

 

So I split the layout and carried the left hand half down to the garage. Here's the end that will be trimmed:

 

 

Here's the underside, showing the ply beam construction:

 

 

The red line here shows what will be removed. It's only 1/2 inch but it will make the world of difference:

 

 

I cut away the marked wood with a sharp Japanese pull-saw:

 

 

The removed bit isn't very thick:

 

 

 

This bit was reattached inside the end beam, to keep the baseboard's structural integrity. You can never have too many clamps!:

 

 

While I was at it, I removed the bit of track at the end of the high level as it had got caught on something and broken away from the baseboard. I cleaned up the board, re-soldered the fishplates and glued the bit of track back down:

 

 

I don't often get to see OQ's trackwork from this angle:

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[5BarVT]

9 minutes ago, Fastdax said:

without making sure that the two side walls were at 90 degrees to the back wall, which they turned out not to be.

I know just how that feels!

Paul.

[Barnaby]

Busy boy, looking good.

 

Best

 

[Fastdax]

11 hours ago, Barnaby said:

Busy boy, looking good.

 

Best

 

 

It's not like I can go to work! On the upside, Oscar the Spaniel is getting more daytime walks than ever 

[Fastdax]

Sky Paper

 

While the layout was out of its usual position (and here you can see the wall brackets it sits on plus the amazing amount of cr@p that has accumulated below):

 

 

... I removed the old, white paper backdrop and stuck up some sky-blue paper that I've had in stock for a while now:

 

 

It's not the final backdrop, which may involve hardboard or thin MDF and a photographic scene.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

The layout is back in place but "naked" without all of the arches, buildings etc. This iPhone panorama makes the front of the layout look convex whereas it's concave in reality:

 

 

The half inch I removed does make a lot of difference to the ease of assembling and moving OQ.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

With the buildings back in place and a bit of rolling stock:

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Barnaby]

Offerston Quay is ALIVE.

 

Looking very good Duncan.

 

Best

[Fastdax]

1 hour ago, Barnaby said:

Offerston Quay is ALIVE.

 

Looking very good Duncan.

 

Best

 

Thanks Barnaby!

[Fastdax]

Building Lights

 

With all of this moving of the buildings, I remembered that I wanted to add internal lights to the warehouse, first-floor walkway and the office building at the left-hand end of the layout.

 

Here's the area without buildings:

 

 

And here's the internal walls and rooms of the warehouse (left) and office building (right). The warehouse wall is separate to the facade but the office internal structure slides into its building from below:

 

 

I tapped off the 9V power feed installed here and created some plug-in points for the three building facades and two warehouse internal boxes. I like to use servo cables to make the buildings easily removable. The white wires are unused and clipped off short:

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Barnaby]

duff info deleted:

I thought I'd used some pre-made twin wire ones ie minus the white wire but the only ones I can see in my store cupboard are 3-wire blk-red-wht and blk-red-green the latter most useful when wiring up points and using the green for frog switching.

 

I'll go and check my order listings, how sad is that, as I'm still sure I did have some 2-wire ones for use when I was playing with my MegaPoint stuff.  https://megapointscontrollers.co.uk

 

Best

Edited April 2, 2020 by Barnaby

[Fastdax]

What is a bit confusing in these photos is that I used twin red/black cable to connect the PSU to the choc blocks, then 3-wire servo extender cables from the choc block, through the male/female connectors, to the LEDs.

 

Servo cables always have 3 wires (5V, 0V and signal). 2-wire equivalents with plugs and sockets would be most useful for jobs like wiring up lights but would not be sold as servo cables.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Fastdax
Trypos

[raymw]

if your lights are LED's, then 3 pin connectors are better, -if you use, say centre as +, and the outer pins as -, then you can't reverse polarity. You can cut one of the outer wires from the lead, use for other wiring (or leave it in to reduce the voltage drop XD

[Fastdax]

I tend to leave the unused wire in place in case I want to add a 5V feed as well as the 9V. I also do this, which makes it hard to reverse the polarity (and also the plugs only really fit into the sockets one way round):

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Building Lights

 

I finished adding LEDs to the buildings' internal structure.

 

These were a mixture of LEDs that I found in my box 'o lights - some "12V" mini LEDs (with resistor pre-wired), some self-adhesive 12V strips of 3 LEDs and some standard flat-end 5mm 3V LEDs, all in warm white. The 12V LEDs are quite bright enough on 9V. Some even needed a pre-set potentiometer in series to adjust the brightness down a bit.

 

Here are the new lights without the building fronts on:

 

 

 

And here's the finished effect. Not all windows get a light. Necessarily low-light photo so sorry about the poor quality:

 

 

OQ isn't a big layout but I counted 40 separate lighting LEDs on there now. More to come, I'm sure.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

I particularly like the way the light from the warehouse office fanlight hits the wall beside it. This seems to lend a tiny bit of atmosphere to the scene:

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Calidore]

That looks fantastic Duncan. The entire row of facades looks very effective together but you're right about the fanlight, very authentic.

 

Adam