Deffors O gauge 60cm x 244cm (2' x 8')

[Kris]

I like that design. It would require lots of hand building of track. If I had some space to spare I could be tempted. 

[sir douglas]

Had to make a slight change. 2 of the points are halfway over the board join but its okay as long as it isnt too close to the end of the blades, giving enough room for the blades to flex. 1 of these was too close, moving it over means moving 3 other points to make space.

 

A: is the same plan as my previous post.

B: is the modified version. point No5 had to moved right a bit as you can see its almost at the end of the blades in plan A. points 1,2 & 4 also had to be moved to do this

[sir douglas]

the above plan didnt work out after a change of mind about the fiddleyard, now i need it in the middle with equal throw both ways instead of re-using the old one since i would like to be able to operate it from both sides, from the front at home (so the sector plate cant go over the back edge) or from behind at exhibitions (a view blocking board will go across the front), much messing about with various plans has finally come with something i like. I dont want to commit to scrapping the current layout until i have a good new plan.

 

This has all the things i want without it looking cluttered

- curves

- crossover

- 3 way point

- loco shed (upper left on plan)

- 3 sidings

 

 

earlier scrapped plan which as good play-ability but the tracks are too straight like the BR zig-zag logo, ther is also a bit too much track covering the board, not leaving much room for scenic and buildings

 

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

many iterations later, i think i'm nearly there. just when i come up with a plan i like, i cant see the setting like the purpose of the railway and where to squeeze the buildings in. But as usual after months of tinkering, the best one yet just happens appear out of a pencil scribble

 

the first few at the bottom, ive already shown, my favourite one yet (G) came to me today

 

 

G shown closer. for a while ive been trying a sliding fiddle yard plate instead of rotating, the limit of travel is kept within the board edge as hsown by the green arrows, the plan has 3 sidings and a loco shed, the first one is a private/industrial which could either be behind a fence with a gate or inside a building, the next has a goods shed big enough for 2 wagons and the third is just a plain yard track with a hand crane and probably some coal piles/staithes. The pointwork is a plain right-hand, a single slip and a 3-way. The loco water tower and the aforementioned crane will be the same as i already have re-used. Even though its mostly straight track, i still like it

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

some more tinkering needed as ive just realised that a frog is over he board join

[sir douglas]

finally commited to the rebuild

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by sir douglas

[sb67]

Good luck with the rebuild sir douglas, look forward to seeing how it progresses 

[sir douglas]

The new fiddleyard which will be sliding instead of rotating, The drawer sliders as shown were from the NG layout

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

The frame gutted out, and some cut away at the back and end. One of the frame stretchers was re-used in a new position shown here on the right with an infill patch on top. 

 

The board was in a bit of a mess lately since some of he frame was removed, and today was replaced. There were some reasons such as having so many holes in it and would be easier and stronger to replace rather than filling them in. The main reason though were the holes needed in the inner frame piece for the sliders, i tried to cut them in position bu made mess fo he ply and the joining blocks so it all came out

 

(Below) new framing which is now fitted shown by the 2 pieces of play along the bottom of the photo and at each end of the inner are holes with channels in the new blocks

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

most of the woodwork is done and the fiddleyard is in, it still needs the fold out section making. The front and end has been filled ready for painting

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

With the fiddleyard fitted, the boards came downa nad got a coat of white just to protect the bare wood and on top to see my new pencil lines a lot easier. My experience with Eyemouth has led me to also paint all the underside of the boards so wiring will be much easier. The boards have now been put up the other way around to work on the backscene and light posts. Since i now want the backscene to be removable, the posts are on the same hooks as before but on new mountings with a gap behind for the backscene to slot into.

 

diagram of new mountings, the posts slot between the parts shown in orange, the backscene boards will have rectangle cut outs to slot around the spacing part shown in red

 

new mountings shown on the layout with post and mounting "A", ont the right post B is fitted. Off to the right of shot, post C has had to be moved to avoid the fiddle yard

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

There was a bit of a stall on the backscene work while i had run out of PVA. After a while i decided that the old MDF backscenese werent worth repairing and re-using so they've been replaced by 5mm ply, which now dont go the full lentgh of the layout for because of the fiddleyard

 

I also decided to off-set the join between the 2 halves to not line up with the board join; shown below, the join is to the left of the middle post hook while the board join is to the right of it

 

 

While not needed yet, i wanted to work on somthing structural to plonk on later, this 2 arch bridge will be the scenic break and is inspired by the Haigh Park Road bridge under the Midland at stourton but without the later addition of the girder which has now been removed

https://flic.kr/p/SLEYC7

https://flic.kr/p/6gcgz7
https://flic.kr/p/SLEYWy

 

I have now got Copperclad strip on its way from Wizard, Point motors from Ebay and This morning ive got the Templot printed out at my local library

Edited September 30, 2022 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

a few days ago, the point motors and copperclad arrived, since ordering them, i was researching the wiring and found i need something called a CDU and that arrived sooner even though it was ordered 2 days later.

 

I got all the copperclad laid with only 3 little bits of unusable offcut.

 

The rails on the 1st point arent soldered in yet but are attached to the end pieces re-used form the previous Deffors. The bottom set of rails have had spare sleepers slipped on before sticking it down

 

While track laying i thought it would be more convenient and accurate to mark and drill the point motor screw holes from above instead of below so this styrene stencil was made and all the holes in the board have now been pilot drilled, yesterday I made up a pair of gauges from 2mm brass.

 

For some reason just as i was getting out of bed this morning, the idea of how to wire the crossover came to me. The 2 frogs that need their polarity changing can be set by the 2 points.

 

point 1 with frog B feeds to crossover frog C while point 2 with frog A feeds crossover frog D.

fig1- both points set straight so doesnt matter that both C&D are red

fig2- point 1 is set branch so frog B makes C blue while point 2 is set straight which makes D red

fig3- opposite of above

fig4- both points set bracnh so both C and D are blue but this doesnt matter since this isnt going to happen in operation

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

A days work, Point 1 is mostly done apart from tie bar, it was much quicker since i didnt have to file the blades, these are re-used from the old points. Apologies for the mess and muck, this is my first time building copperclad track and ignore that there isnt any isolating gaps in the rails and sleepers, i'll go back over after all the soldering is done

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

Making a brief start on the slip Yesterday, i thought i was being clever with the sleeper spacing to save on copperclad but came back to bite me while doing the blades. The blades had less length to flex and were quite stiff so new sleepers closer to the centre were glued in.

 

Here was the first attempt

 

 

The sleepers were changed and they flex better. Today ive got all the rails on the crossover including the shed road and cut out the flange gaps

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

And moving onto the 3-way

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

I was making one of the frogs but kept having to take of the wing rail and eventually ripped the copper on 2 of the sleepers

 

so the middle of these had to be cut out and replaced, Under the wieghts on the right are the board join MDF strip and copperclad stuck down and ont he left i had to add a sleepe due to not having enough sleepers to secure a blade and have a gap for the frog

 

 

Like many i'm sure we dream of having a working lever frame on our layouts, some simple and some more exquisite than others, well the other day i was wondering that since I'm now using point motors that i could find or make one and just that day this little 5 lever was on Ebay, its about 90mm long and 85mm tall to the top of the levers

(seller's photo which i saved incase i got it)

 

Thick brass castings for the ends, steel levers, formed steel segments for the top, 3 steel rods with threaded end to hold it togetehr with thick brass tubes as spacers between the levers

 

Now stripped and repainted, ive done 2 modifacations so far; 1 added a spring to the end of the pivot road to hold the levers into the slots on the frame, when moved sideways to throw, the twist pushes the brass tubes apart and against the spring, the other purely aesthetic was rounding the lever handles. It will eventually have mircro switches mounted underneath for the points and the frame will be painted black

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

All the pointwork rails are on and all the gaps cut

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

Something interesting came up on another forum, member over there asked a friend of his who used to work for Ordnance Survey about the name Deffors

 

This is the friend's response-

 

It looks like Deffors was a village at some time as the style of name is as used on early 25 inch maps for villages. The most likely explanation is that it was a mediaeval settlement which had crumbled and was still known in the early 19th century as a district but with no habitation left. It is clearly enclosed by a parish boundary indicating that this isolated piece of land had some significance. There are several boundary stones but the southern boundary is noted as 'und' which means that the boundary was not 'mered' (fixed) to any feature such as a hedge or as in the case of the northern boundary C of O,. C meaning centre of old course (of the river). By the end of the 19th century even the name has disappeared.

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

The layout is occupied by painting at the moment but i got all the track laid and dropper wires soldered on a few days ago, so while the paint dries i'm doing the half-relief bridge

 

Unfortunately the layout is the only space i have to do the painting so i cant move on with the wiring in the meantime, ive got the old backscenes out to cover the track, the posts wer gloss but are being repainted into Matt, above that are the new backscenes in the same matt black, the areas around the slots are masked off to leave bare so afterward will be coated in bees wax to slot in easier

 

The whole layout laid apart form the fiddleyard

 

The ply base for the bridge was scrapped and started again in styrene

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

Once the paint dried, the boards came down and all the wiring was done with the point motors fitted. This being done a lot easier since the holes were marked and drilled accurately from above before hand. The only wiring left now is the panel.

 

boards back up with backscene and posts on, i spent some time just staring at it like "it actually look like a decent layout now"

 

Once back up i noticed from sat at my bench that there were some ridges in the rails, some of the MDF packing was cut into to drop some of the rail ends and another place away from the join that a second layer had to be added to pack up a dip. On the crossover, there was a big dip at a rail join on a sleeper which had to be taken out and replaced with a long single piece to bridge the dip

 

All the rail sorted to an acceptable level now and the copperclad screwed down at the board join

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

continuing with the bridge  while i dont have some of the necessary material to do the tiebars

 

Things currently working on; bridge, painting fiddleyard board and making the panel box. Top half shown in white undercoat while the bottom is being glued on with the clamps

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

I'm working on the panel box now but kept forgetting to take photos and i cant be bothered posting without them.

 

A few days ago the box was made up from a 9.5mm thick plank for the sides and ends with ply for the top and bottom, all the plugs and fittings wre attached and now removed for painting the box, we'll have a look at the insides when they go back in. On Monday i had a chat with a member of our club much more experienced with electrics about my lever and those microswitches i was thinking of putting on but since they are a constant contact but ive got plans in my head to copy how the Hornby levers work with some Copperclad and phospher strip

 

Top and bottom half of the box now in their second coat of black with the box of bits on the right

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

the box with all the stuff attached

 

A look inside just after i stated the wiring

 

Fiddleyard plate painted, refitted and now with track

Edited February 19, 2023 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

A strange thing happened last night, i plugged everything together to run a loco on all the track but 2 problems came up; the track doesnt work and secondly the strange parts is that all the point motors went over the same way on their own as soon as i plugged the layout and panel together. This should be impossible since the switching mechanism and the associated wiring in the panel doesnt even exist yet, there isnt any circuits to fire the motors. I havent got around to finding the fault yet, i suppose it could be a short but there just isnt enough other wires for ALL of the motors to be affected