Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

Thanks, Chaps.  Answers below in red

 

If nothing is getting warm at all, and the fuse hasn’t blown, suspect an open-circuit. Nothing is warm.

If no obvious sign of open-circuit, such as a damaged lead (the conductor may sometimes fray-through, inside the insulation and sheathing, therefore invisibly), then the heating element has probably burned out. Another possibility is death of the internal temperature regulator, if one is fitted. No visible damage

Depending upon the make/quality of iron, one either throws it away and gets another, or buys and fits a new element. "Parkside"

If the element gets hot, but not the tip, the problem lies in the way the tip is fitted, or has heavily oxidised, there being insufficient conduction of heat from element to tip. No, the element does not get hot.  Nothing gets hot.

Why do elements burn out? It can be no more than a case of bad luck, but if you don’t have a proper iron-stand, which dissipates excess heat from the iron when not in use, and/or an iron with dodgy internal temperature regulation, they can simply get too hot. Always used in its proper stand.

American chap here has made a video that shows how very simple a soldering-Iron is

There are several othe4 videos on you tube showing various faults/repairs.

K

 

I am guessing from this it's toast.

 

B*gger.

 

I assume you have a meter of some kind (to  check for shorts on the trackwork it is useful)  so the  first step is to check whether there is a circuit through the iron it will also check whether fuses have blown . If it is indeed open circuit. Unless you can find a wire come loose I would suggest you need a replacement. 

 

No, no meter of any kind.

 

No idea how to go about wiring the layout.  No idea how the diagram translates into physical reality.  Thought I could at  least solder some wire to the track, though.

 

B*gger.

 

 

 

[robmcg]

I too have built model railways without a meter of any kind, you are not alone.

 

They ran well, too.  I'd buy a new soldering iron, all that about internal bits and heat dissipation and fuses is another language.... 

[Edwardian]

I too have built model railways without a meter of any kind, you are not alone.

 

They ran well, too.  I'd buy a new soldering iron, all that about internal bits and heat dissipation and fuses is another language.... 

 

Oh dear, I suspect you're right.  And I am not in funds at the moment [sigh].

 

While anything to do with electricity is another language to me, I think I can spot "knackered" when I see it.

 

French, they tell me, is also another language.  Ingenious fellow,  Johnny Foreigner, when you come to think of it.  What? 

[robmcg]

Not that I had compared Ahern's model with the prototype, but I had assumed that he had re-gauged, or re-sized, one of the Isle of Man Beyer Peacocks.  Note to self: Could you fit a 16.5mm gauge motorised chassis under an Oxford Diecast IoM BP?

 

But I had no idea about the NZ D Class.  I had no idea that there was such a similar design from another builder. Thanks to Wiki, we can picture both:

 

Thanks, in most cases our D class didn't have an awful American spark-arrester chimney, but a proper lipped Victorian one, or a tapered stovepipe one if the latter is correct terminology.   They could scamper along at up to 40-or-so mph with a couple of hundred tons on the level. 

[robmcg]

Oh dear, I suspect you're right.  And I am not in funds at the moment [sigh].

 

While anything to do with electricity is another language to me, I think I can spot "knackered" when I see it.

 

French, they tell me, is also another language.  Ingenious fellow,  Johnny Foreigner, when you come to think of it.  What? 

 

French Resistance     Ohms....   Joules,    whatever....         I actually just wind bare wire ends around/into rail joints. Works for me  

[Edwardian]

French Resistance     Ohms....   Joules,    whatever....          I actually just wind bare wire ends around/into rail joints. Works for me  

 

Yes, well I won't be using metal rail joiners, so I need to wire across the gaps, and need isolated sections, and need to wire the turnouts. I have a diagram kindly supplied by DonW, but my profound ignorance and phobic ineptitude where all things electrical are concerned really cannot be over-estimated.  So, while the diagram now makes sense as a diagram (thanks to DonW carefully explaining it as if to a obtuse infant), I still have no idea how to reproduce it in physical form.

 

I just don't have the time or mental resilience for this endless f-king about to no avail. Soldering iron deciding not to work was the straw that broke this camel's back today.  Really am minded to sack it this time.

 

I'm broke, for goodness sake.  I should be doing something about that not b*ggering about with trains.

[Donw]

Thanks, Chaps.  Answers below in red

 

A simple tester could be made using an Led and a battery would a least prove whether there was a circuit or not.

 

Don

[wagonman]

I assume you have a meter of some kind (to  check for shorts on the trackwork it is useful)  so the  first step is to check whether there is a circuit through the iron it will also check whether fuses have blown . If it is indeed open circuit. Unless you can find a wire come loose I would suggest you need a replacement. 

 

On other matters I am not sure whether it is based on a real one but to me it is near enough to a Hunslet   http://www.djbengineering.co.uk/kit-cf-saddle.shtml

 

The real tragedy is that I cannot spend that much on another loco for the proposed garden line ( I have three plus kits or parts for two more so justifying a third would be hard).

 

Still I do have this one. Running on a friend's layout

 

 

Don

 

 

 

The DJB kit looks more like a Bagnall to me...

[Edwardian]

Sorry for throwing my teddy out of the pram last night, but I can't fight the demons with a busted soldering iron.

 

Let's leave it at that.

[corneliuslundie]

One commodity which did begin to move around the country in large quantities in the 19th century was slates. Once the North Wales industry got going slates seem to have become ubiquitous for new building. So you might get the off Cambrian, GWR or LNWR open turning up, and then returning empty.

Those two vans mentioned are interesting because, as already said vans were at that time only a small proportion of most companies' stock. Must have been something valuable or very prone to damage - too prone to be safe under a tarpaulin, which was how most things seem to have travelled. Was there some raw material used by local industry which was imported or only available in those territories from which he vans emanated? We shall probably never know.

Which reminds me that we became importers of various types of food at quite an early date - not today's level, but certainly significant. After all you don't grow bananas in England.

Later thought: meat in those vans?

Jonathan

[drmditch]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but have you cleaned the bit?

If my bits get very black (no d.e. intended) then no heat transfer takes place.

 

Periodically I take a rough file to mine, and then re-tin.

It is then a great relief when everything works again.

 

PS - I am by no means any kind of soldering expert.

[uax6]

Although there are lots of slated buildings here in Norfolk, there are lots more that have Norfolk pantiles. It seems to be quite indiscriminate, for in my village my cottage (built circa 1850, and the second or third building built along the street) had Norfolk Pans, (next door was the first built, also with pans, but about a third of the size of mine (which isn't that big!)), but the pair of semi's opposite (about 1870) are noticeably posher and have a slated roof. Out of the rest of the older buildings about 70% wear pans, the rest being slated, presumably the wealth being shown through the roof...

 

I do have to say that unfortunately a lot of the older buildings have fallen to the scourge of roofing, that of concrete tiles, which of course the roof is not designed to take the weight of. Mine had been done in the early '80's (although the shop part (which is now the kitchen) was left alone, and wears buff pans, whereas I know the main house had red pans) and the roof developed a big sag. About 5 years ago I had enough money to be able to afford to re-roof, and I searched for a red pan that would look right. Sadly I couldn't afford Norfolk Pans again, but found some lovely interlocking Dutch pans (secondhand) which look just the same, but interlock in a way that stops them lifting (which Norfolk Pans do). In doing this I took over half a ton of each pitch... Not that you can see them now under the solar panels!

 

So what level of slate traffic you would have would be interesting, is there a building boom in CA?

 

Andy G

[Northroader]

If soldering and electricity are p*ss*ng you off, why not give it a rest for a bit, and tell us how you’re doing with the other line what you recently got? Can you do anything with that without getting involved with thingy?

[Edwardian]

Although there are lots of slated buildings here in Norfolk, there are lots more that have Norfolk pantiles. It seems to be quite indiscriminate, for in my village my cottage (built circa 1850, and the second or third building built along the street) had Norfolk Pans, (next door was the first built, also with pans, but about a third of the size of mine (which isn't that big!)), but the pair of semi's opposite (about 1870) are noticeably posher and have a slated roof. Out of the rest of the older buildings about 70% wear pans, the rest being slated, presumably the wealth being shown through the roof...

 

I do have to say that unfortunately a lot of the older buildings have fallen to the scourge of roofing, that of concrete tiles, which of course the roof is not designed to take the weight of. Mine had been done in the early '80's (although the shop part (which is now the kitchen) was left alone, and wears buff pans, whereas I know the main house had red pans) and the roof developed a big sag. About 5 years ago I had enough money to be able to afford to re-roof, and I searched for a red pan that would look right. Sadly I couldn't afford Norfolk Pans again, but found some lovely interlocking Dutch pans (secondhand) which look just the same, but interlock in a way that stops them lifting (which Norfolk Pans do). In doing this I took over half a ton of each pitch... Not that you can see them now under the solar panels!

 

So what level of slate traffic you would have would be interesting, is there a building boom in CA?

 

Andy G

 

It strikes me that, by 1905, we are comfortably within the range of standardised styles and materials for industrial and civic buildings. While the vernacular style will predominate, anyone building a town hall, or a school, or a railway station, etc, will likely be importing bricks, stones and, particularly, slates for roofing.

 

So, positing some new buildings in the district from time to time, a lone Cambrian Rys wagon with a slate load could legitimately turn up every so often.  Or thus have I reasoned.

 

 

Sorry if this is a silly question, but have you cleaned the bit?

If my bits get very black (no d.e. intended) then no heat transfer takes place.

 

Periodically I take a rough file to mine, and then re-tin.

It is then a great relief when everything works again.

 

PS - I am by no means any kind of soldering expert.

 

I have, I think with success, tried to keep the tip clean.  There is no heat in the whole length of the iron.

 

 

If soldering and electricity are p*ss*ng you off, why not give it a rest for a bit, and tell us how you’re doing with the other line what you recently got? Can you do anything with that without getting involved with thingy?

 

Let us say that Life is p*ssing me off, and frustrations and fears associated with creating a working layout are not helping!

 

This weekend is written off, now, so far as modelling is concerned, as we have to go out for the rest of the day shortly. 

 

I know normal people will be unable to understand this, but I fundamentally do not understanding wiring.

 

If I read DonW's patient explanations I can understand them, but only for so long as I am actually reading them, it seems.  Much like any book or guide I've ever read on wiring layouts, though these tend to lose me completely a few pages or paragraphs in.  The bits I thought I followed just float out of my brain to be replaced by a blurred version that I cannot understand.

 

Now, I have a wiring diagram, so I know what the wiring needs to be in schematic form.  But what does than mean?  It has wires joining, going to switches and, somehow, beyond these must be wires to a controller. 

 

I don't understand how any of this is achieved physically.  What goes where and how?

 

I don't have a meter.  I'm afraid I don't understand the suggestion for making one (you might as well tell me I could split the atom on my kitchen table with a mallet and a knitting needle and then expect me to do so).

 

On the plus side:

 

- I do have some suitable wires, in two colours, black and red (though I begin to doubt I have enough length), and;

 

- I have acquired the switches that I am kindly told I need. 

 

- I just tested my childhood H&M 'Duette' and it works perfectly.  I'm afraid there will be no fancy modern replacement for the foreseeable, and certainly not until sometime after I have the track laid and rendered it operational (assuming that I ever do).

 

- I have just ordered another iron, which might get here by next weekend.   

 

What, I find, I haven't got is a F-king Clue!

 

Just thinking about it is making me twitch again.  Perhaps I will find some other modelling to do first.  Perhaps I will resume once I have the new iron.

 

When I do come to it, there will be cries for help!

Edited February 18, 2018 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

Have a break from the bit that hacks you off, and return for a while to the bit that is your forte.

 

If wiring really is a mountain to climb, I’m sure we can guide you through it at a better moment.

[uax6]

Have a break from the bit that hacks you off, and return for a while to the bit that is your forte.

 

If wiring really is a mountain to climb, I’m sure we can guide you through it at a better moment.

Agreed.

 

Keeping is simple with your Duette has lots going for it if you are not good with electrics, and they are nice solid units....

 

When it comes time, we can hold your hand...

 

Andy G

[Adams442T]

With wiring l have always followed the axiom, keep it simple, stupid!  After all there's actually little to go wrong that can't be fixed with simple switching of wires about, complicated wiring is beyond me I'm afraid!!

 

There used to be a Railway Modeller pamphlet, which l think l still have, about wiring the layout.  If you want l can either scan it and post it to you, or alternatively, just send it.

[wagonman]

Although there are lots of slated buildings here in Norfolk, there are lots more that have Norfolk pantiles. It seems to be quite indiscriminate, for in my village my cottage (built circa 1850, and the second or third building built along the street) had Norfolk Pans, (next door was the first built, also with pans, but about a third of the size of mine (which isn't that big!)), but the pair of semi's opposite (about 1870) are noticeably posher and have a slated roof. Out of the rest of the older buildings about 70% wear pans, the rest being slated, presumably the wealth being shown through the roof...

 

I do have to say that unfortunately a lot of the older buildings have fallen to the scourge of roofing, that of concrete tiles, which of course the roof is not designed to take the weight of. Mine had been done in the early '80's (although the shop part (which is now the kitchen) was left alone, and wears buff pans, whereas I know the main house had red pans) and the roof developed a big sag. About 5 years ago I had enough money to be able to afford to re-roof, and I searched for a red pan that would look right. Sadly I couldn't afford Norfolk Pans again, but found some lovely interlocking Dutch pans (secondhand) which look just the same, but interlock in a way that stops them lifting (which Norfolk Pans do). In doing this I took over half a ton of each pitch... Not that you can see them now under the solar panels!

 

So what level of slate traffic you would have would be interesting, is there a building boom in CA?

 

Andy G

 

 

Interestingly in my part of Norfolk there isn't a  single building with a slate roof that I can think of. The most prominent late Victorian building, the old Town Hall, has a tiled roof that makes it look like a refugee from Sussex. Pretty much everything else has pantiles. That the marshes nearby are covered in reeds is a recent phenomenon though there is evidence some older properties were once thatched. The village was once a thriving port trading in particular with Rotterdam, exporting grain and importing inter alia dutch bricks and pantiles – in lieu of ballast. Hence their ubiquity.

 

Interestingly there was a 'chapel' out on the marsh (probably an anchorite's cell attached to the local friary) which by the C16 had become a warrener's hovel. A recent archaeological dig at this site has shown that it was originally fitted with a slate roof, high status for the C13 or whenever it was built.

[Donw]

With wiring l have always followed the axiom, keep it simple, stupid!  After all there's actually little to go wrong that can't be fixed with simple switching of wires about, complicated wiring is beyond me I'm afraid!!

 

There used to be a Railway Modeller pamphlet, which l think l still have, about wiring the layout.  If you want l can either scan it and post it to you, or alternatively, just send it.

 

I quite agree with keeping it simple but it needs to be simple to operate. The diagram I produced is fairly simple but includes isolating sections to enable things like a loco backing on to a train which arrived to either depart with the coaches or just draw them off to release a loco too large for the turntable.

Don

[corneliuslundie]

Fashions in building materials are interesting. I don't know about Norfolk but in some parts of the country you can have buildings with stone fronts and brick backs alongside buildings with brick fronts and stone backs, depending what was fashionable at the time they were built. And of course lots of older buildings are timber frame behind a "modern" (often 18th century) front.

Another outpost of Dutch building materials is Topsham in Devon once a favoured place for ship's captains, again trading with the Low Countries. And not just the materials but Dutch style gables.

So might there be a small outward traffic in building materials from Holland at CA?

Jonathan

PS For Montgomery we are considering radio control and manual operation of points (the signals don't need to work to be prototypical!), so possibly no wires, though converting the Terrier to radio control may be interesting.

[Adams442T]

Didn't know you'd produced a wiring diagram.  When l said l didn't do 'complicated' l meant slips, etc.  Yes, l would agree that isolating sections, and points, are included in my abilities!

[Les le Breton]

Fashions in building materials are interesting. I don't know about Norfolk but in some parts of the country you can have buildings with stone fronts and brick backs alongside buildings with brick fronts and stone backs, depending what was fashionable at the time they were built. And of course lots of older buildings are timber frame behind a "modern" (often 18th century) front.

Another outpost of Dutch building materials is Topsham in Devon once a favoured place for ship's captains, again trading with the Low Countries. And not just the materials but Dutch style gables.

So might there be a small outward traffic in building materials from Holland at CA?

Jonathan

PS For Montgomery we are considering radio control and manual operation of points (the signals don't need to work to be prototypical!), so possibly no wires, though converting the Terrier to radio control may be interesting.

When I lived in Alfrick, Worcestershire, I noticed that there were a number of Victorian houses scattered along the nearby lanes, with similar styles, with identical types of lintels, bricks and so on. When seeking the reason I discovered that the contractor building railway stations on the line, from Worcester to  Leominster, had embarked on building the ones which intrigued me.

 

An elderly neighbour told me, his grandfather was sure that the builder was using railway materials for the " domestic houses!"

 

I don't think  the Victorian era clerks of works  would have missed the loss of so much material. IMHO it was more likely that the contractor managed a deal for the railway company to deliver the various materials, it made sense to source them from the same suppliers; unless the clerk of works was a scallywag!

 

 

       “They turned to look at the engine, which had come to a stop in a kind of human way, not all at once, but settling down like an old lady making herself comfortable in a favourite armchair, except that at that moment Iron Girder, the locomotive, blew out a hissing stream of shining water vapour, which does not normally happen with old ladies, at least not in public.”

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Edited February 18, 2018 by Les le Breton

[runs as required]

It strikes me that, by 1905, we are comfortably within the range of standardised styles and materials for industrial and civic buildings. While the vernacular style will predominate, anyone building a town hall, or a school, or a railway station, etc, will likely be importing bricks, stones and, particularly, slates for roofing.

 

So, positing some new buildings in the district from time to time, a lone Cambrian Rys wagon with a slate load could legitimately turn up every so often.  Or thus have I reasoned.

 

 

 

I have, I think with success, tried to keep the tip clean.  There is no heat in the whole length of the iron.

 

Let us say that Life is p*ssing me off, and frustrations and fears associated with creating a working layout are not helping!

 

This weekend is written off, now, so far as modelling is concerned, as we have to go out for the rest of the day shortly. 

 

I know normal people will be unable to understand this, but I fundamentally do not understanding wiring.

 

If I read DonW's patient explanations I can understand them, but only for so long as I am actually reading them, it seems.  Much like any book or guide I've ever read on wiring layouts, though these tend to lose me completely a few pages or paragraphs in.  The bits I thought I followed just float out of my brain to be replaced by a blurred version that I cannot understand.

 

Now, I have a wiring diagram, so I know what the wiring needs to be in schematic form.  But what does than mean?  It has wires joining, going to switches and, somehow, beyond these must be wires to a controller. 

 

I don't understand how any of this is achieved physically.  What goes where and how?

 

I don't have a meter.  I'm afraid I don't understand the suggestion for making one (you might as well tell me I could split the atom on my kitchen table with a mallet and a knitting needle and then expect me to do so).

 

On the plus side:

 

- I do have some suitable wires, in two colours, black and red (though I begin to doubt I have enough length), and;

 

- I have acquired the switches that I am kindly told I need. 

 

- I just tested my childhood H&M 'Duette' and it works perfectly.  I'm afraid there will be no fancy modern replacement for the foreseeable, and certainly not until sometime after I have the track laid and rendered it operational (assuming that I ever do).

 

- I have just ordered another iron, which might get here by next weekend.   

 

What, I find, I haven't got is a F-king Clue!

 

Just thinking about it is making me twitch again.  Perhaps I will find some other modelling to do first.  Perhaps I will resume once I have the new iron.

 

When I do come to it, there will be cries for help!

Sounds like an excuse to fire up the Mondeo and motor over the moors down from Addison to your Rokeby estate paradise in Teesdale now it is nearly spring (and the Curlews might have returned). I'll bring my soldering station and my meter and we will 'do continuity' stuff with red and black wire thru those posh hand made points

Life hasn't been brilliant here either; I shall be 80 by the time I arrive (and attended by not a few new irritating peripheral dilapidations). 

 

I was well into my thirties before I got taken in hand by a bunch of West Coast Peace Corps aid workers - during 5 years of non stop West African 'paying for sex parties' (I wish)

"You Brits all sound so intelligent until we discover you can't fix a single funking thing" They brought me 'How to keep your Beetle alive for the compleat Idiot' and how to mend sewing machines, washing machines and all sorts of stuff just using araldyte. I've never looked back. 

dd

[Andy Hayter]

It strikes me that, by 1905, we are comfortably within the range of standardised styles and materials for industrial and civic buildings. While the vernacular style will predominate, anyone building a town hall, or a school, or a railway station, etc, will likely be importing bricks, stones and, particularly, slates for roofing.

 

So, positing some new buildings in the district from time to time, a lone Cambrian Rys wagon with a slate load could legitimately turn up every so often.  Or thus have I reasoned.

 

 

 

I have, I think with success, tried to keep the tip clean.  There is no heat in the whole length of the iron.

 

 

 

Let us say that Life is p*ssing me off, and frustrations and fears associated with creating a working layout are not helping!

 

This weekend is written off, now, so far as modelling is concerned, as we have to go out for the rest of the day shortly. 

 

I know normal people will be unable to understand this, but I fundamentally do not understanding wiring.

 

If I read DonW's patient explanations I can understand them, but only for so long as I am actually reading them, it seems.  Much like any book or guide I've ever read on wiring layouts, though these tend to lose me completely a few pages or paragraphs in.  The bits I thought I followed just float out of my brain to be replaced by a blurred version that I cannot understand.

 

Now, I have a wiring diagram, so I know what the wiring needs to be in schematic form.  But what does than mean?  It has wires joining, going to switches and, somehow, beyond these must be wires to a controller. 

 

I don't understand how any of this is achieved physically.  What goes where and how?

 

I don't have a meter.  I'm afraid I don't understand the suggestion for making one (you might as well tell me I could split the atom on my kitchen table with a mallet and a knitting needle and then expect me to do so).

 

On the plus side:

 

- I do have some suitable wires, in two colours, black and red (though I begin to doubt I have enough length), and;

 

- I have acquired the switches that I am kindly told I need. 

 

- I just tested my childhood H&M 'Duette' and it works perfectly.  I'm afraid there will be no fancy modern replacement for the foreseeable, and certainly not until sometime after I have the track laid and rendered it operational (assuming that I ever do).

 

- I have just ordered another iron, which might get here by next weekend.   

 

What, I find, I haven't got is a F-king Clue!

 

Just thinking about it is making me twitch again.  Perhaps I will find some other modelling to do first.  Perhaps I will resume once I have the new iron.

 

When I do come to it, there will be cries for help!

 

I have had two attempts at answering how to wire the layout and both have been binned.

 

I seem to have relatively little difficulty in following the basics and yet had a talented friend who had no idea whatsoever.   Fortunately his co-modeller had it all in hand for their layouts.

 

The fact that two attempts at showing how simple it is have failed totally shows that it really isn't as easy as some of us find.

 

the best advice I can now give, is that electricity needs to be fed to a motor (loco or point switch) and then taken away.  If that does not happen - by accident or because you deliberately put in a switch - no power will (should) flow.   It really is as simple as that - feed in, return out.  Switches to stop feed in when you don't need it are the way to control the layout.

 

Your controller will supply a power in, and a power out for controlling locos.  It may well do the same for point motors.  All you need is switches between the controller and the tracks to determine what gets controlled and when.

[Clearwater]

Edwardian

 

You may find it helpful when next at a model show to ask exhibitors to see the underside of their layouts. I'm sure some will oblige and help explain. I've wired my little 6 by 4 train set twice now (for DCC). I've followed Brian Lambert's book/website and kept it simple.

 

My first version, whilst it worked, was very untidy. My second is far neater - as with everything it's practice. I found tips like using an old wagon labelled so as you cant get it the wrong way round with red tape on one side and black the other very helpful in making sure I got the right coloured wire to the right rail. Whether you're DC or DCC, you can't connect different coloured wire to the same bit of track. If you stick to that, check frequently, you should get there.

 

Perhaps try drawing the wiring plan onto the base board? It'll get covered eventually but might help translate a diagramme into reality.

 

Good luck!

 

David