Grindleford Station Hope Valley Line 1960s BR - Station Café build

[Fastdax]

Lol Yep, please don't do a code review

 

Al.

 

No fear of that, my friend. I come to this parish to get away from code reviews.

 

Duncan

[Alister_G]

Well in the course of this afternoon I managed to finish my coding, and also do a bit more to the terraces.

 

The photo I showed you above was the start of making the chimneys:

 

 

So for each chimney stack (there are three in total) I cut out of 20thou plasticard a side and an end joined together, two per chimney:

 

 

I scored and folded up the end, and stuck in a piece of rectangular styrene tube as a strengthener:

 

 

Then joined the sides together:

 

 

 

They sit on the roof like this:

 

 

Then I cut out a strip of the SEF stone sheet which was sufficient to wrap round the whole chimney, and cut away the roof shapes:

 

 

These were all stuck together and then tried on the roof:

 

 

I looked at these for a time, and became increasingly unhappy with them.

 

I decided they were too thick.

 

So, I dismantled the chimney stacks:

 

 

and cut them down a bit:

 

 

 

 

With them reassembled and tried back on the roof, I was much happier with them, so carried on adding the detailing and chimney pots, made from round styrene tube:

 

 

 

Much better!

 

More in a minute,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

This evening, I got the paintbox out...

 

First, I painted the roof of the waiting room which I tiled this morning:

 

 

 

Then, I painted the chimney stacks:

 

 

 

 

And when they dried, I painted the pots:

 

 

 

You can see I've started laying the slates on the terraces roof.

 

Also this evening I've started laying out the doors and windows which were cut by the Silhouette yesterday.

 

You can see that the first two on the left are probably the original pattern doors, but some tenants have replaced their doors at some point with other designs:

 

 

The largest pattern of window is designed to be a sash type, and I've created both a closed version, and one with the top sash lowered:

 

 

That's all for now, thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Marcus 37]

An absolute inspiration as always Al. The cottages look absolutely fabulous. Picture 4 of the outside views shows just how well you've captured the colouring compared with the prototype. Brilliant.

Cheers

Marcus

[Sasquatch]

First class! Am really enjoying this build Al mate.

I've nothing much on this afternoon so might have a crack at some huts for Queensbury after being so inspired.

 

Regards Shaun

[Andrew P]

Really inspirational mate, superb colourings as always, you do have an eye for detail, that's for sure.

[freebs]

brilliant work - and fast too!

[JCL]

That's fantastic Al.

 

How are you finding the Silhouette now you've had it a while?

[Alister_G]

Thanks guys, I'm really pleased how they've turned out so far, I think that SE Finecast sheet is just right and makes the model.

 

Al

[Alister_G]

How are you finding the Silhouette now you've had it a while?

 

It's BRILLIANT!

 

 

I've been able to do things I would never have attempted before, and it makes cutting intricate or repetitive shapes an absolute doddle.

 

I'm so grateful that you drew my attention to it - and the attention of many other modellers on here as well!

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

A few things to show you this evening.

 

First, to keep Marcus37 happy, I bought two more locos this week:

 

A Lima Class 20:

 

 

and a Bachmann Class 20:

 

 

I dealt with the Bachmann one first. It's the earlier Branchline model, with an 8-pin DCC socket, but actually fitting the decoder was a struggle, it won't go on top of the motor housing, and it ended up being strapped to the front behind the nose:

 

 

Whilst I'd got it in bits, I painted a driver for it:

 

 

Sadly, he became legless:

 

 

But he looks good in the cab:

 

 

 

 

Right then, moving on to the Lima one!

 

I should explain that prototype Class 20s are rarely seen out on their own, they have to go everywhere in pairs, as they are frightened of the big engines...

 

So the idea is the Lima and Bachmann will run as a pair coupled together. Now the reason I bought one Bachmann and one Lima, is because I'd read that the Lima one is easy to turn into a motorless dummy (in fact they used to sell them as a powered / unpowered pair at one stage). The one I have is powered, but not for much longer!

 

With the body off, I cut away the electrical connections to the motor:

 

 

This is simply so that it can run on a DCC layout without interfering electrically.

 

Then I turned the loco over, and removed the baseplate from the motor-bogie.

 

To turn this into a freewheeling dummy, all you have to do is lift out each wheelset, turn it through 180 degrees, and put it back in. When you do this, the cog which is on the axle, which connects to the gearbox, is now on the wrong side of the bogie, and so is no longer in mesh with the gears, and is free to rotate:

 

 

 

Put the baseplate back on, and there it is, a freewheeling dummy Class 20.

 

I just need to work out how to join the two locos together - the Bachmann has NEM pockets, the Lima had a big old-fashioned tension-lock coupling, which I've cut off.

 

I'm probably going to draw up and cut a bar type coupling on the silhouette to join them together.

 

 

Next victim was the Class 108 DMU.

 

 

I fitted a sound chip to this last week, but I wasn't happy with the speaker mounting. You can see why:

 

 

 

Just to get the sound chip to fit, I'd had to cut a hole in the perspex sheet that covers the lights in the roof:

 

 

Happily, Simon (bescotbeast) had shown us a different speaker earlier on this thread, and so I took his advice.

 

Here it is:

 

 

The speaker out of an iPhone 6.

 

This is very small and flat, and the sound comes out of a slot on the end:

 

 

but despite that, the sound reproduction is very impressive. For less than £2.00 on Ebay, I've ordered a number of them.

 

So, where to fit it?

 

It would actually be possible to stick this under the floor without it fouling the track, but to run the wires to it would mean drilling a hole through the seat base, and the chassis, and there is a PCB running the full length of the floor which I was dubious about drilling holes in, so I opted to fit it in the roof instead.

 

I cut away the top of the mid carriage bulkheads:

 

 

and stuck the speaker there:

 

 

With it all back together, you can see it impinges very little into the visible seating area:

 

 

 

Whilst I had the vehicle in bits, I took the opportunity to add a driver, too:

 

 

 

That's all for now.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

And just to prove how good the iPhone speaker is, here's a bit of video:

 

 

 

Thanks for watching,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Well I can't sleep, so I've been putting the time to good use.

 

I finished tiling the roof of the terraced cottages:

 

 

 

 

Thn I masked off the top of the wall, to paint the fascia boards before I fit the guttering.

 

 

It is obvious that the various tenants have their own ideas about what colour things should be:

 

 

 

We will no doubt discover that the rain goods and waste water pipes will reflect the colour choices as well...

 

Once that was done, I painted the roof:

 

 

 

 

It's still wet in these photos, so we'll see what it looks like in the morning.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[JCL]

That speaker sounds amazing. There's a lot of good base on there.

[vulcan product fan]

nice work Al the 20 look really good and the sound on the unit is very good ive just ordered one my self to try in my 47 project .

Ace work on the roof pal.

[georgeT]

Looks and sounds like you are having a load of fun Al, that's what its all about, great modelling on the terrace...

[Jason T]

Would it not have been better to glue the gutters on before painting the fascia boards (says the man speaking from experience of having to scrape paint off to glue forgotten items on)

[Alister_G]

Would it not have been better to glue the gutters on before painting the fascia boards (says the man speaking from experience of having to scrape paint off to glue forgotten items on)

 

Hi mate, Yes, it would...

 

In my defence, the guttering might not be the same colour as the fascia board, and I'm not a neat enough painter to manage to paint the fascia after the gutters are on.

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

Edited December 17, 2016 by acg_mr

[Marcus 37]

Morning Al

Great video mate. Love your choppers   Can I say that? 

Cottages are coming on nicely as well. Like the amazing technicolor gutters.

Cheers

Marcus

[Alister_G]

nice work Al the 20 look really good and the sound on the unit is very good ive just ordered one my self to try in my 47 project .

Ace work on the roof pal.

 

Hi Andy,

 

The SWD sound that I got for the 47 is really great, which one have you gone for?

 

Al

[Alister_G]

A few shots of the terraces in the sunlight this morning:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Al

[Jaggzuk]

Wow great progress on many fronts! The terraces are lookout very good especially out in real sunlight. I like the idea of a dummy class 20. I now have 2 new Bachmann versions so pairing these up with old lima versions might be good way forward to getting two sets. Will have to look out for some at the post Christmas toy fair we go to each year.

 

Where did you get the figures from that you used for the driver?

 

On the sound front, where did you get the 108 decoder from? I am so tempted but struggle to justify something that costs so much more than the loco/unit itself!

[vulcan product fan]

Hi Andy,

 

The SWD sound that I got for the 47 is really great, which one have you gone for?

 

Al

its just hornbys TTS sound i wanted to see what there like but the speaker is poor and your supposed to fix it to the body of hornbys 47 to make the sound chamber so ive ordered a i phone speaker(buzzer) unit and a 8ohm base reflex speaker to see if the sound is any better .Will post result in a video when done mate 

[Alister_G]

Wow great progress on many fronts! The terraces are lookout very good especially out in real sunlight. I like the idea of a dummy class 20. I now have 2 new Bachmann versions so pairing these up with old lima versions might be good way forward to getting two sets. Will have to look out for some at the post Christmas toy fair we go to each year.

 

Where did you get the figures from that you used for the driver?

 

On the sound front, where did you get the 108 decoder from? I am so tempted but struggle to justify something that costs so much more than the loco/unit itself!

 

Cheers mate.

 

The figures are Dapol Track workers set, they are pretty good, much better mouldings than the old Airfix figures.

 

The 108 decoder is an ESU LokSound chip with South Western Digital sound files. I bought it from Digitrains for £105.

 

Al.

[bescotbeast]

A few things to show you this evening.

 

First, to keep Marcus37 happy, I bought two more locos this week:

 

A Lima Class 20:

 

grindleford-trains001.jpg

 

and a Bachmann Class 20:

 

grindleford-trains002.jpg

 

I dealt with the Bachmann one first. It's the earlier Branchline model, with an 8-pin DCC socket, but actually fitting the decoder was a struggle, it won't go on top of the motor housing, and it ended up being strapped to the front behind the nose:

 

grindleford-trains003.jpg

 

Whilst I'd got it in bits, I painted a driver for it:

 

grindleford-trains004.jpg

 

Sadly, he became legless:

 

grindleford-trains005.jpg

 

But he looks good in the cab:

 

grindleford-trains006.jpg

 

grindleford-trains007.jpg

 

 

Right then, moving on to the Lima one!

 

I should explain that prototype Class 20s are rarely seen out on their own, they have to go everywhere in pairs, as they are frightened of the big engines...

 

So the idea is the Lima and Bachmann will run as a pair coupled together. Now the reason I bought one Bachmann and one Lima, is because I'd read that the Lima one is easy to turn into a motorless dummy (in fact they used to sell them as a powered / unpowered pair at one stage). The one I have is powered, but not for much longer!

 

With the body off, I cut away the electrical connections to the motor:

 

grindleford-trains008.jpg

 

This is simply so that it can run on a DCC layout without interfering electrically.

 

Then I turned the loco over, and removed the baseplate from the motor-bogie.

 

To turn this into a freewheeling dummy, all you have to do is lift out each wheelset, turn it through 180 degrees, and put it back in. When you do this, the cog which is on the axle, which connects to the gearbox, is now on the wrong side of the bogie, and so is no longer in mesh with the gears, and is free to rotate:

 

grindleford-trains009.jpg

 

grindleford-trains010.jpg

 

Put the baseplate back on, and there it is, a freewheeling dummy Class 20.

 

I just need to work out how to join the two locos together - the Bachmann has NEM pockets, the Lima had a big old-fashioned tension-lock coupling, which I've cut off.

 

I'm probably going to draw up and cut a bar type coupling on the silhouette to join them together.

 

 

Next victim was the Class 108 DMU.

 

grindleford-trains011.jpg

 

I fitted a sound chip to this last week, but I wasn't happy with the speaker mounting. You can see why:

 

grindleford-trains012.jpg

 

grindleford-trains013.jpg

 

Just to get the sound chip to fit, I'd had to cut a hole in the perspex sheet that covers the lights in the roof:

 

grindleford-trains014.jpg

 

Happily, Simon (bescotbeast) had shown us a different speaker earlier on this thread, and so I took his advice.

 

Here it is:

 

grindleford-trains015.jpg

 

The speaker out of an iPhone 6.

 

This is very small and flat, and the sound comes out of a slot on the end:

 

grindleford-trains016.jpg

 

but despite that, the sound reproduction is very impressive. For less than £2.00 on Ebay, I've ordered a number of them.

 

So, where to fit it?

 

It would actually be possible to stick this under the floor without it fouling the track, but to run the wires to it would mean drilling a hole through the seat base, and the chassis, and there is a PCB running the full length of the floor which I was dubious about drilling holes in, so I opted to fit it in the roof instead.

 

I cut away the top of the mid carriage bulkheads:

 

grindleford-trains017.jpg

 

and stuck the speaker there:

 

grindleford-trains018.jpg

 

With it all back together, you can see it impinges very little into the visible seating area:

 

grindleford-trains019.jpg

 

grindleford-trains020.jpg

 

Whilst I had the vehicle in bits, I took the opportunity to add a driver, too:

 

grindleford-trains021.jpg

 

grindleford-trains022.jpg

 

That's all for now.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

I'll be honest I started reading this post and spotted the "orange box" speaker and thought to myself "Al why didn't you try an iphone speaker", I then scrolled further down and spotted you had taken the leap, the results speak for themselves and as you've found they really are a godsend, cheap and slim they are spot on for model railway use.

 

P.S Great work on the cottages above, you manipulate plasticard like an artist.