Inspired by Brent June 1947

[The Fatadder]

It has been a long while since I last worked on Brent, the combination of a lack of time and my Cameo Challenge layout taking priority has rather got in the way.    However its about time I got on with Brent so I have been making some plans for the weekend.

 

The key task which needs attention first of all is to install It has been a long while since I last worked on Brent, the combination of a lack of time and my Cameo Challenge layout taking priority has rather got in the way.    However its about time I got on with Brent so I have been making some plans for the weekend.

 

The key task which needs attention first of all is to install the river bridge, in order to do which I need to terraform the river bed.  I  have been looking at doing this with a mix of expanded foam and plaster, I just keep failing to get round to it! 

 

I really want to pour the river on Wheal Imogen on Sunday/Monday, and  want to do the river on Brent at the same time.  So there is no choice but to get on with it tonight!

 

 

Moving on to other topics, I have started to look some more at the signalling, for which I am now getting very close to placing an order for a bunch of Dapol signals.  Eventually they are likely to be replaced with more detailed models, however in the mean time I think they should be a pretty good place holder (all be it less so in the case of the wooden posts).  Naturally the gantry signals will still need building from scratch.

 

 

The final change to Brent is another addition to the coaching fleet, I have seen mention of two through workings from the LNER, a BCK running from Sheffield and another working (on which I have no details) from Newcastle.  I have always liked the look of the Hornby teak coaches (even allowing for their dodgy tumblehome) and after seeing one available on Ebay for £30 I snapped it up.  I now need to get a couple of GWR Hawksworths (I think a CK and a BCK) on ebay in order to finance it).

[81C]

There's a PM for you Rich. 

[The Fatadder]

Well the weekend didn't really go to plan, its been far too hot to work on much of anything in the evening (so there goes the only time I have to work on the layout). While what work I have managed has not gone to plan. First Wheal Imogen's newly painted backscene is far too pink and will now need to be fully repainted (once I finally find a suitable colour.)

 

Then there was this evenings efforts on Brent, first up a lot of time wasted trying (and failing) to resolve an annoying issue with a ZTC 511 controller. Then I got to work on the Avon bridge. The wooden baseboard top here was not level, so that has now been screwed to an additional baton to give extra support. Next the bridge was glued into positon with a hot glue gun. The intention was to then start building up the basic profile of the banks/ embankment, however I ran out of glue and then spent the next hour searching for the glue sticks (which have been moved and I still cannot find!) Without the glue sticks I cannot glue the foam together, and cannot make progress!

 

So I will end with the test runs to check that the refuages on the bridge provide sufficient clearance to coaches, first with down Paddington - Penzance(which has picked up a through coach to Penzance from Shefield at Swindon, then with a GWT mk3 sleeper to check maximum clearances (given it has a bit more of an over hang than a 70fter.)

 

 

I have now found one more stick, so at least tomorrow I have a chance of getting some more done...

Edited June 24, 2018 by The Fatadder

[Bluemonkey presents....]

Funny, that sounds like a normal day for me when it goes wrong the wheels really fall off. I will start my layout one of these days.

[Mulgabill]

Funny, that sounds like a normal day for me when it goes wrong the wheels really fall off. I will start my layout one of these days.

Sounds to me you really DON'T want to start on one of THOSE days.

[The Fatadder]

I am thinking that given the heat it is unlikley that I will get a huge amount of useful work done. Instead I am thinking about doing a spot of painting, to that end my plan is to wash and prime my Centenary rake along with the pair of GW buffets.  This will mean that I can spend an evening later in the week spraying them into chocolate and cream.

 

As I was leaving the garage last night I also managed to spot a single glue stick, which hopefully will be enough that I can stick down the bulk of the polystyrene and start to see the basic outlines of the terrain in that area.  It will be a fantastic step forward to start seeing Brent transition from plywood to the South Devon hills...

 

 

Ideally I want to get as many messy jobs complete as possible, I am going in for lasek eye surgery in early August and will have a week off work recovering.  My hope is that the recovery goes quickly and I can spend a good part of it working on the layout (with the first couple of days currently earmarked for tidying up the workshop and the layout room)

Edited June 25, 2018 by The Fatadder

[St Enodoc]

I am thinking that given the heat it is unlikley that I will get a huge amount of useful work done. Instead I am thinking about doing a spot of painting, to that end my plan is to wash and prime my Centenary rake along with the pair of GW buffets.  This will mean that I can spend an evening later in the week spraying them into chocolate and cream.

 

As I was leaving the garage last night I also managed to spot a single glue stick, which hopefully will be enough that I can stick down the bulk of the polystyrene and start to see the basic outlines of the terrain in that area.  It will be a fantastic step forward to start seeing Brent transition from plywood to the South Devon hills...

 

 

Ideally I want to get as many messy jobs complete as possible, I am going in for lasek eye surgery in early August and will have a week off work recovering.  My hope is that the recovery goes quickly and I can spend a good part of it working on the layout (with the first couple of days currently earmarked for tidying up the workshop and the layout room)

So no need to go 0 gauge yet then Rich?

 

Good luck.

[The Fatadder]

So no need to go 0 gauge yet then Rich?

 

Good luck.

Id like to think I still have a fair few years before it comes to that, hopefully that will give enough time to own a large enough out building in which I could actually model in O... 

[The Fatadder]

Once again I didn't make it out to the garage until approaching 10pm, so not a great chance to make progress on the layout. Given I still haven't found the glue I don't want to start gluing foam until I am ready to do the whole lot in one go. As such I have been slowly cutting bits of foam into approximate sizes, which is starting to get the intended effect. It all now needs to be glued into place, before a covering of plaster. A lot more work is needed in order to blend in the top section, which has only roughly been cut to size

This needs to be extended to the right in order to blend in with the lower section, and also to blend into the ramp down to the yard. The area to the left will have a house, along with the track down to the bridge, again this all needs to be blended into the right profile.

Edited June 25, 2018 by The Fatadder

[The Fatadder]

After H1 close at work this past week, I have finally managed to finish at a reasonable hour and get out into the garage to do a little modelling.

 

 

As before the focus was on the area around the river bridge, I started off gluing the various pieces of foam into a rough position as shown previously. Unfortunately this used up the last of the glue gun sticks (including a nasty burn on my finger).

 

The next job was to cover the joints with masking tape (including blending various bits together), then the whole thing was covered in plaster. I have tried to blend it all into the river as well as blending in the bridge. The right hand bank still needs a lot more work, as it will need to be blended into the upper half of the hill.

 

 

With the lower section done, attention moved onto the upper half of the hill. The rough components have now been chopped out, starting with the road and then adding in parts to blend it into the hill. It now needs to be glued together before adding the masking tape and plaster...

Edited July 6, 2018 by The Fatadder

[The Fatadder]

As a short aside from the layout work, I have just received an order from Hattons. After spotting some part built GW kits listed on Hattons in the bargain hunters thread, I snapped up a Slaters Toplight part built in P4 for 17£

 

It has been built to a good standard (with replacement etched bogies I think from Blacksmith. Better still the original Slaters OO wheels are included (and just need mounting on 26mm pinpoint axles). The black beetle wheels currently fitted will rewheel two CDAs for wheel Imogen (there’s half the cost of the coach back!)

 

It just needs the underframe trussing adding, corridor connectors building and a coat of paint!

 

I’m now wishing I’d bought he Finney Kits that we’re listed at the same time!

 

While I was at it I also bought a pair of Oxford Rail toads (one of each) which will now enter the queue for detailing, repainting and commissioning onto the layout. The 4 wheel will be finished as the Kingsbridge van.

Edited July 7, 2018 by The Fatadder

[St Enodoc]

As a short aside from the layout work, I have just received an order from Hattons. After spotting some part built GW kits listed on Hattons in the bargain hunters thread, I snapped up a Slaters Toplight part built in P4 for 17£

 

It has been built to a good standard (with replacement etched bogies I think from Blacksmith. Better still the original Slaters OO wheels are included (and just need mounting on 26mm pinpoint axles). The black beetle wheels currently fitted will rewheel two CDAs for wheel Imogen (there’s half the cost of the coach back!)

 

It just needs the underframe trussing adding, corridor connectors building and a coat of paint!

 

I’m now wishing I’d bought he Finney Kits that we’re listed at the same time!

 

While I was at it I also bought a pair of Oxford Rail toads (one of each) which will now enter the queue for detailing, repainting and commissioning onto the layout. The 4 wheel will be finished as the Kingsbridge van.

Wow, that was a good find Rich. I didn't see that on the Hattons pre-owned page - perhaps it came and went between my daily visits.

 

Edit: yes, you seem to have snapped it up between my Wednesday and Thursday visits. Well done.

Edited July 7, 2018 by St Enodoc

[gwrrob]

. The 4 wheel will be finished as the Kingsbridge van.

 

Is it a straight branding only job Rich ?

[The Fatadder]

Is it a straight branding only job Rich ?

It will get the end window corrected, but other than that it should be a straight renumber / name (once I order the new transfers from Railtec)  

 

Wow, that was a good find Rich. I didn't see that on the Hattons pre-owned page - perhaps it came and went between my daily visits.

 

Edit: yes, you seem to have snapped it up between my Wednesday and Thursday visits. Well done.

The bargain hunters thread is one of the few that I still get email notifications for rather than just getting notifications in the top right bar of the forum. It popped up in there (followed by a few posts of doom and gloom about how it would probably be half complete). I think I paid more for the body parts I bought off Coopercraft at Wells the other year.

 

Once it calls down finishing the coach will be at the top of the list for finishing, it will be nice to finally have a toplight on the layout! Building this one ought to help in a big way with resolving the issues I have with the chassis on the other coach as well. I need to do something about the sides bowing inwards (the bane of plastic coach kit construction), and work out a way of fitting the roof. The one bit of the design I really don't like is the sides attaching to the floor, I much prefer a fixed unit of the side/roof...

[The Fatadder]

Having dealt with the hangover from last nights summer ball, I have taken advantage of the lack of children in the house to get out to the garage before it gets too hot.

 

Once again the focus was on forming the hills and terrain at the rear of the layout, and having finally managed to find the packet of glue sticks for the glue gun I was able to make a lot of progress.

 

 

The first thing I would say is that other than the bridge, this area has minimal accuracy when compared with the prototype. The changes to the track in order to get the tightness of curves into place have so many knock on impacts upon everything else. So what I am going for is something which looks Brent ish, and more importantly adds a good backdrop for photos.

 

Once again the foam was glued into position, then covered with masking tape in order to blend it all together and then a thick layer of plaster.

 

The next job will be to add the same onto the rear corner (an area in which I havent decided exactly what I am going to build), Once that is in place I can actually start thinking about doing some real scenic modelling and finally get that river in place!

Edited July 8, 2018 by The Fatadder

[The Fatadder]

One more hour baking in the garage and I have the core finished for the rear corner, it will probably end up as a farmers field full of cows (though more research into 1940s farming is needed.)

 

Construction is a bit different, the front cutting is formed from the usual pink foam. This batch is from some offcuts received from another rmweb member back when I was building Blackcombe.

These were roughly profiled for the cutting and road before gluing in place.

 

Next the polystyrene packaging from a TV was chopped up to raise the height of the hill, tipping off with some 1 inch card hex (again waste packaging). Onto this i glued a sheet of laminate floor underlay that has been kicking around my garage for a long time. This was tacked in place to the pink foam while the glue dried.

 

It now needs the masking tape treatment to blend it all together (espically at the front) before it gets a coating of plaster.

 

The right hand side of the bridge cannot progress now until I have the platform built (given it need s to blend into the bank behind the platform.

[The Fatadder]

And it’s now covered in plaster

 

The cutting is a little steeper than I planed , so a little exposed rock is going to be needed I think. I have had a first attempt at roughing up the texture to simulate rock (glad it was covered in the Pendon course). I will try some painting and see how it looks.

 

Does anyone know what the max angle is for grass on a cutting slope?

 

Tomorrow should be time to do some painting, if Chippenham’s Sainsburys stocks children’s paints...

For now it’s time to cool down with an ice cold beer before I completely melt

 

I am now having thoughts about the next step, clearly the top job is to paint the ground surface and add the river, but after that I am in two minds.

 

I could paint and ballast the track in the section that has been worked on, it all runs well and is good to go on that front, but I can’t afford to do the point rodding for a while and I’m unsure about ballasting pre rodding.

The grass can’t go down until it’s ballasted...

 

The other option is to do the same hill construction work at the Exeter end of the layout, this covers the slope down to the yard, the hill with the station masters house and the tunne (after some serious compression.)

I like the idea of the latter purely because it will really add height to the layout and make it feel more of. Layout than a glorified test track.

 

I can’t really progress on the actual station until I have built and painted platforms, and I can’t do that until the slip is fixed. That won’t happen until the autumn once it’s cool enough to solder (but not too cold I don’t go outside)

 

That said I may just do some spraying instead!

Edited July 9, 2018 by The Fatadder

[Siberian Snooper]

I would add the bases that the point rodding stools sits on and then ballast it and add the rodding later, it will be easier that way.

[The Fatadder]

I would add the bases that the point rodding stools sits on and then ballast it and add the rodding later, it will be easier that way.

 

 

I like that logic, I will add that onto the list.  Does anyone have the approximate size? I assume its just a standard square of concrete or sleeper? 

Getting this into place would also mean that I can install the platforms...

 

One thing that has worked well on Wheal Imogen is putting together a rough project plan listing all of the tasks currently outstanding, along with their inter-dependencies and an approximation as to when I aim to complete them.   At times (especially with Brent) when you look at the layout there are so many tasks that need working on, it is difficult to know where to start!

[KNP]

Don't know if you have seen this but if not have a look at this website, this is what I used to get some ideas.

 

http://www.finescale.org.uk/index.php?route=gallery/gallery&album_id=7

 

Lots of other usual stuff as well.

[The Fatadder]

Don't know if you have seen this but if not have a look at this website, this is what I used to get some ideas.

 

http://www.finescale.org.uk/index.php?route=gallery/gallery&album_id=7

 

Lots of other usual stuff as well.

Interesting stuff,

Looking at that I think I will use some spare wooden sleepers painted a concrete colour (along with various offcuts of plastic sleepers left from point building)

[KNP]

Interesting stuff,

Looking at that I think I will use some spare wooden sleepers painted a concrete colour (along with various offcuts of plastic sleepers left from point building)

 

I used some microstrip both for the cranks and the stools.

 

[The Stationmaster]

I would add the bases that the point rodding stools sits on and then ballast it and add the rodding later, it will be easier that way.

 

The 'bases' are actually point rodding stools - the Western went over to using pre-cast concrete stools from a relatively early date, definitely before they switched to channel rodding.  The things that sit on them are the roller assemblies through which the rodding passes.

 

All point rodding cranks(except those in the four foot), including compensators on Western rodding are fixed to steel bedplates which in turn are bolted to pre-cast concrete beds. Similar beds are used to mount later pattern independent ground signals (see below).  Incidentally on Western rodding any rod which crosses under a rail or track, or succession of tracks always used round rodding with special lower profile roller assemblies -some can be seen at the right on the picture below -

 

 

Western pattern rodding stools with the top half well visible - the bottom is exactly the same and they could be used either way up with one end creating a foot and the other an area to which the roller assemblies were bolted.  The design provides plenty of stability and came in numerous sizes.  This is a preservation installation but actually replicates pretty accurately standard Western usage with Reading pattern roller assemblies.

 

 

 

Crank and detector mounted on bedplates (they were normally used for detectors as well)

 

 

Ground disc mounted on a smaller size of pre-cast concrete bed

 

 

As seen on that C&L website standard WR practice was to mount signal wire larger diameter pulleys and cranks on concrete beds as well.  Some photos on the C& L site show oddities which were definitely not Western practice and are either post WR after line transfers or on a preserved line.

Edited July 10, 2018 by The Stationmaster

[ullypug]

I like that logic, I will add that onto the list.  Does anyone have the approximate size? I assume its just a standard square of concrete or sleeper? 

Getting this into place would also mean that I can install the platforms...

 

One thing that has worked well on Wheal Imogen is putting together a rough project plan listing all of the tasks currently outstanding, along with their inter-dependencies and an approximation as to when I aim to complete them.   At times (especially with Brent) when you look at the layout there are so many tasks that need working on, it is difficult to know where to start!

 

Alan at Modelu does 3d printed stool and ground signal bases.

https://www.modelu3d.co.uk/product-category/detailing-components/infrastructure-detailing/point-rodding/

I've just ordered a load of rodding stools for Cheddar but decided I'd use plastic card or Evergreen I section for the bases if needed. I think a simple plasticard base will suffice in most cases. 

[The Fatadder]

Alan at Modelu does 3d printed stool and ground signal bases.

https://www.modelu3d.co.uk/product-category/detailing-components/infrastructure-detailing/point-rodding/

I've just ordered a load of rodding stools for Cheddar but decided I'd use plastic card or Evergreen I section for the bases if needed. I think a simple plasticard base will suffice in most cases. 

I had looked at the Model U bases, however in the end I decided that the small increase in accuracy wasn’t worth the extra cost given the other compromises  (mostly the rails being too close together.)

 

I will cobble the bases together from whatever is to hand, I tend to keep a lot of scrap plastic precisely for this sort of application.   

 

I do have one question if anyone has some to hand, could anyone confirm the length/ width of the Model U stalls please?  Ideally need the width of a 6 stall