Grim-up-North; Goathland, Queensbury & Bradford.

[Sasquatch]

2 hours ago, manna said:

G'Day Folks

 

Have unlimited internet coverage at the moment. First, please take it easy for at least a few more days, there's no real rush. Second, your N1 looks wonderful, I look forward to seeing it trundling around your layout.

 

manna

Hi Manna.

Nice to have you back mate. Believe me I've sat around for too long already. We're probably dehydrated more than anything!

I'm excited about the N1 but have put it away until the mojo has fully returned, I don't want to bu99er it up, it's a rare thing!!

 

Regards Shaun

   

[Sasquatch]

Had a day out on the West Somerset Railway today.

 

Southern Q1 class was in charge of our train.

 

A nice comfy seat in 1st class too.

 

We snapped a few photogenic scenes on the ride.

 

 

 

 

I spotted an unusual item of rolling stock, a D tank.

 

Dunster station was very tranquil. 

 

Did you know that the goods shed is supposedly haunted. 

 

They had a old RAF tanker parked up there. I do like wartime lorries.

 

After visiting the signalman at Minehead...

 

...we went down the pub for a pint.

 

Hope you're all well.

Squatch. (Knackered after the journey home).

 

[westerhamstation]

Hi Shaun, a great set set of photos from your day out, full of atmosphere. All the best Adrian.

[Graham T]

Smashing set of photos!

[Sasquatch]

Having spent every evening this week on the floor in the garage correcting wiring mistakes and finishing the hook-ups to the castle junction I'm happy to report that I somewhat successfully drove a train from Goathland to Bradford via Queensbury and back for the first time last night.

There's still a few minor loose wires and misplaced isolator fishplates to attend to but things should come along in leaps and bounds for quite a while, that's if I can muster the energy and avoid over doing things.

It's also the first time that both of my layouts have been operational for as long as I can remember. I'd call that progress even if I've not got any images to prove it.

 

Squatch   

[jcredfer]

Good to see you active again and train driving, too.

 

 

[Sasquatch]

8 hours ago, jcredfer said:

Good to see you active again and train driving, too.

 

 

Hi Julian

Besides the staggering amount of yardwork and gardening we've done; I built a 24' long woodshed to stack all the firewood in (which also takes a lot of energy). At the end of the day, we're both quite sore and... well... just hurt all over really. So, to crawl about under the layout fault finding and soldering overhead really finishes you off kind of thing.   

 

I want to get everything fixed and in working order before I fire up the hot glue gun and dig out my rasps.

 

Hope that you're well mate.

Regards Shaun

 

[jcredfer]

Good thanks, although Mrs R is in a similar condition to yourselves, as we went on a bike ride yesterday - her first time on a bike for over 25 years and the last ones, then, were motor-cycles!  Thirty minutes and she was somewhat puffed, but enjoyed it, as there are some fine places to go around Salisbury.

 

A 24 ft shed is lots of wood, but you do get rather cool, extended, winters over there.  Do you have enough woodland to gather for the winter, or do you have to buy some in?  Either way it's better than having to get Gas, Oil, or Solid fuels, like here.

 

I just made a small purchase "to see" if they might be useful - ProTrack Rail Aligner kit, which arrives as 4 x pairs.  They are supposed to be for joining lengths of track, over Baseboard joints, where they can get taken apart.  They certainly look a lot easier to put in place than sliding Fish-plates at both ends.

 

 

The idea is to remove three end sleepers from each track end and solder these in place, under the exposed rail ends.  They seem to fit very well - horizontally - and it should be easy enough to make some subtle vertical alignment tabs on the new sleepers, so no real worries there.  Aligning the tracks in place for soldering shouldn't be too much of a problem, with some mini bulldog clips and they suggest running Solder Paste under the rails, then a hot Soldering iron.  I have never heard of Solder Paste, let alone used any.  Have you ever seen any in use?

 

I'm much inclined to put a very thin tinning on the parts and go from there??

 

I don't envy the overhead soldering jobs, one little bit, it's tricky enough when you can get at it on a bench.  Mindful of too many jobs on cars, as a younger, "broke, so have to do-it yourself", stuff - good learning curve, 'though.  I had decided that whatever else, the baseboards would be separable, so repairs and modifications would at least be available, with me upright.

 

All the very best to you all.

J

 

[Sasquatch]

20 hours ago, jcredfer said:

Good thanks, although Mrs R is in a similar condition to yourselves, as we went on a bike ride yesterday - her first time on a bike for over 25 years and the last ones, then, were motor-cycles!  Thirty minutes and she was somewhat puffed, but enjoyed it, as there are some fine places to go around Salisbury.

 

A 24 ft shed is lots of wood, but you do get rather cool, extended, winters over there.  Do you have enough woodland to gather for the winter, or do you have to buy some in?  Either way it's better than having to get Gas, Oil, or Solid fuels, like here.

 

I just made a small purchase "to see" if they might be useful - ProTrack Rail Aligner kit, which arrives as 4 x pairs.  They are supposed to be for joining lengths of track, over Baseboard joints, where they can get taken apart.  They certainly look a lot easier to put in place than sliding Fish-plates at both ends.

 

 

The idea is to remove three end sleepers from each track end and solder these in place, under the exposed rail ends.  They seem to fit very well - horizontally - and it should be easy enough to make some subtle vertical alignment tabs on the new sleepers, so no real worries there.  Aligning the tracks in place for soldering shouldn't be too much of a problem, with some mini bulldog clips and they suggest running Solder Paste under the rails, then a hot Soldering iron.  I have never heard of Solder Paste, let alone used any.  Have you ever seen any in use?

 

I'm much inclined to put a very thin tinning on the parts and go from there??

 

I don't envy the overhead soldering jobs, one little bit, it's tricky enough when you can get at it on a bench.  Mindful of too many jobs on cars, as a younger, "broke, so have to do-it yourself", stuff - good learning curve, 'though.  I had decided that whatever else, the baseboards would be separable, so repairs and modifications would at least be available, with me upright.

 

All the very best to you all.

J

 

Hi Julian.

Don't let Mrs. R. over do things on that bike. Breaking it in easy is the way to go. As I recall Salisbury isn't too hilly unlike around here.

I used to do quite a bit of biking myself, riding to work over the cliff tops to Newhaven (one morning there was a nasty Easterly blowing and I arrived at work frozen over half an hour late). There's two mountain bikes sitting in the barn collecting cobwebs, alas I've not done much riding since we moved to this location. However, when we lived the other side of Ashland I worked myself up to getting to the top of Syskiou summit. I was a lot fitter ten years ago!!

 

The woodshed was hashed up from old pine that had been sitting covered for about 20 years, a gift from Mrs. S's. Mom and step dad who are moving away. They have a 22achre wooded  property where there are lots of dead firs and madrone trees. We spend quite a lot of time over there turning it into firewood. Yesterday we ran the log splitter for 3 hours and stacked all that we split. Hard work, we're both a bit cream-crackered today! We also have three dead firs, one of which is so big that if I could "drop it" I'd never need to buy another piece of lumber.

 

That Pro-Track Aligner kit looks the business. I seriously could have used a couple of those last week. Tha castle board has a removable rib which enables me to crawl under and squeeze up between remaining ribs and carefully align no less than twelve fish plates!

Solder paste should be readily available at a good hardware store, Carrs flux should do the same job. (Are Carrs still in business I wonder).

 

Regards Shaun  

[jcredfer]

That large tree sounds like it might be worth getting a Pro Lumberjack in, unless you fancy a go at it.  A big estate, Rev Lord some-one or other, was having their large wooded hill cleaned out, so I spent many days of a school holiday watching the guy working.  It was fascinating, just like watching a magician at work.  He was on his own, so was often using guide ropes to be sure of the fall direction, but they never had any strain put on them, as his cuts were quite sufficient.  They had to be right, so he could drag them straight out to the 8 wheel truck, to be taken away, to the saw-mill, some very large old ones there, too.  Clever stuff and I learned quite  a bit of the basics, but I'm in no doubt, that there was so much more to learn and I would miss so much that he just factored in.

 

I've seen Carrs Flux, I'm sure father used an ancient version, just after the War and I am also pretty certain it's what I used for odd jobs and then r/c planes, which had a good few soldering jobs.  The Solder Paste appears to be more than flux and has Tin + Lead in it, so it's complete to lay down and run an iron on it.  I haven't ever seen anything that does that, but just looking it up, it seems to be for electronic stuff, in small precise bits.  The Model Tech manual is here  https://bae8ca78-54b1-45f9-998d-b32cddd9a653.usrfiles.com/ugd/bae8ca_29e1272113ff41a584b70785ba2b1dc5.pdf .  where they run the paste in place, then heat it to make the joint.  My inner Grey Cells are fighting against it, but I might get some and have a play, before letting the inner prejudice get to me.  😇

 

I shall have a care to make sure that Mrs R doesn't let enthusiasm get before her capabilities, as she has occasionally been known to do.  There  are some good valley rides about but crossing between them can involve a few steepish climbs, although limited to around 250 feet height gains, so not much more than a 5-6 minute grind.  Most are the same height gains, but spread over a couple of miles so there's time to vary the attack loads on the way up.  At 75 Yrs, I do keep an eye on the pulse rate meter on a small handlebar computer / recorder.  I don't mind the occasional excess Pulse rate, but very much have a care to keep the time of them limited.  I have no particular wish to achieve in minutes the Blue Lights result that I've spent hours trying to prevent.  A bit less rain might be good, too.  🤣

 

Hope you are enjoying the improved weather, best wishes

J

 

[teaky]

5 hours ago, Sasquatch said:

(Are Carrs still in business I wonder).

See: https://www.phoenix-paints.co.uk/products/search/flux

[Sasquatch]

On 24/05/2022 at 12:04, jcredfer said:

That large tree sounds like it might be worth getting a Pro Lumberjack in, unless you fancy a go at it.  A big estate, Rev Lord some-one or other, was having their large wooded hill cleaned out, so I spent many days of a school holiday watching the guy working.  It was fascinating, just like watching a magician at work.  He was on his own, so was often using guide ropes to be sure of the fall direction, but they never had any strain put on them, as his cuts were quite sufficient.  They had to be right, so he could drag them straight out to the 8 wheel truck, to be taken away, to the saw-mill, some very large old ones there, too.  Clever stuff and I learned quite  a bit of the basics, but I'm in no doubt, that there was so much more to learn and I would miss so much that he just factored in.

 

I've seen Carrs Flux, I'm sure father used an ancient version, just after the War and I am also pretty certain it's what I used for odd jobs and then r/c planes, which had a good few soldering jobs.  The Solder Paste appears to be more than flux and has Tin + Lead in it, so it's complete to lay down and run an iron on it.  I haven't ever seen anything that does that, but just looking it up, it seems to be for electronic stuff, in small precise bits.  The Model Tech manual is here  https://bae8ca78-54b1-45f9-998d-b32cddd9a653.usrfiles.com/ugd/bae8ca_29e1272113ff41a584b70785ba2b1dc5.pdf .  where they run the paste in place, then heat it to make the joint.  My inner Grey Cells are fighting against it, but I might get some and have a play, before letting the inner prejudice get to me.  😇

 

I shall have a care to make sure that Mrs R doesn't let enthusiasm get before her capabilities, as she has occasionally been known to do.  There  are some good valley rides about but crossing between them can involve a few steepish climbs, although limited to around 250 feet height gains, so not much more than a 5-6 minute grind.  Most are the same height gains, but spread over a couple of miles so there's time to vary the attack loads on the way up.  At 75 Yrs, I do keep an eye on the pulse rate meter on a small handlebar computer / recorder.  I don't mind the occasional excess Pulse rate, but very much have a care to keep the time of them limited.  I have no particular wish to achieve in minutes the Blue Lights result that I've spent hours trying to prevent.  A bit less rain might be good, too.  🤣

 

Hope you are enjoying the improved weather, best wishes

J

 

Hi Julian.

We have discussed taking the tree down. Trouble is it's down in the creek and would need firstly permission, secondly a pro like you suggest and then we'd have to drag the huge logs up a 30' bank through the trees. When we have had trees taken down before, the clean up job took me months! We showed it to our tree guy and even he looked a bit apprehensive! The tallest tree I've dropped was an 90" dead fir.

 

I was using some solder paste yesterday in an attempt to join 10 gauge copper wires for our irrigation pump, without success. I think I need a 60w iron because the heat dissipation was too great. Thanks for the link, very useful.

 

Be careful on those bikes, are there many cycle paths in Southern Wiltshire, I bet it's a great county to ride in. I certainly use to enjoy traversing Wiltshire on my Vespas on route to Wales back in the day.

 

Regards Shaun.. 

Edited May 26, 2022 by Sasquatch

[Sasquatch]

Having reassembled the layout and run a few test trains, I felt it time to put all the buildings back in place and as if the divine approved, the sun came out, so I took a couple of snaps. It's been a while since any images of Queensbury appeared on here that anyone would be forgiven for thinking the project had been dropped.

 

 

Tomorrow I'm setting the whole day aside for working on it.

 

This picture shows how the new board is maneuvered into place. On it's end! The legs are slotted into place and the board (if you can call it that) lowered down.

 

Hope that everyone's well,

Squatch.

[jcredfer]

Lovely shots there, Shaun.  You must be blessed with the Sun coming to visit so conveniently.

 

Have a good layout day tomorrow, you deserve some time for that, as well as the work and domestic detail, which you tackle with equal gusto.

 

All the best, enjoy your layout day.

 

J

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

Happy to see Queensbury being reassembled, I thought the logging Company had claimed it ??????

 

Currently, parked up in Sapphire Qld.

 

manna

Edited June 4, 2022 by manna
Added content.

[Sasquatch]

1 hour ago, jcredfer said:

Lovely shots there, Shaun.  You must be blessed with the Sun coming to visit so conveniently.

 

Have a good layout day tomorrow, you deserve some time for that, as well as the work and domestic detail, which you tackle with equal gusto.

 

All the best, enjoy your layout day.

 

J

Wrestling the new cabinets under Goathland this afternoon. Pics in the morning! We also brought glass and hardware for the new doors, I've set aside some funds for turnouts etc. and acquired all the wood to finish all the baseboards.

 

Typically, I fixed our in-ground watering system  and then it rains! Just my luck!!!

 

Regards Shaun 

[jcredfer]

52 minutes ago, Sasquatch said:

 

Typically, I fixed our in-ground watering system  and then it rains! Just my luck!!!

 

Regards Shaun 

...  That's the way...  threaten nature that you'll take control and it gets on and does what it's meant'a.

 

🤣

[Sasquatch]

Hasn't taken too long at all this. 

Here's what it looked like this morning...

 

Mom-in-laws old kitchen had ash doors with thick fielded panels. The panels were made too wide, so when I stored the doors in my barn they fell apart! The panels swelled up and forced the styles off of the rails. I ripped the panels in half and planed them down so that they came flush with the frames. I glued them all back together with a couple of biscuits for good measure and sanded them. They were also narrowed to avoid further failures before I reassembled the doors.

 

I used mostly the original ply cabinet parts and whatever I had knocking about in the workshop to make boxes that could slide under Goathland between it's legs. 

 

 

Front frames were made from pine utilizing pocket screw joints. Styles are 1" shorter than door width. Rails vary in width so as to close any gaps making it all look like one long cabinet. The two narrowest openings just have frames screwed to the legs because they aren't wide enough for cabinets.

 

Hanging the doors was too easy and completes the picture...I'll paint it as soon as time allows.   

 

 

 

Squatch. 

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

Man, that's looking Good, Starting to go 'Green' with envy of course.

 

manna

Edited June 5, 2022 by manna

[stevel]

that's looking very tidy, I was thinking along the same lines when I finally get to build something.

I hear lumbers going down!

[aardvark]

Fantastic to have you back, Shaun.

 

[Sasquatch]

On 04/06/2022 at 14:49, manna said:

G'Day Folks

 

Happy to see Queensbury being reassembled, I thought the logging Company had claimed it ??????

 

Currently, parked up in Sapphire Qld.

 

manna

Hi Manna 

Yeah. The logging company claim everything they can get around here!

 

I'll check out Sapphire on Google earth when I get a minute.

23 hours ago, manna said:

G'Day Folks

 

Man, that's looking Good, Starting to go 'Green' with envy of course.

 

manna

It's not exactly great cabinet work but will do for storing all my modeling junk (well some of it at least).

 

Hope you're doing OK mate

Regards Shaun 

[Sasquatch]

On 04/06/2022 at 15:47, jcredfer said:

...  That's the way...  threaten nature that you'll take control and it gets on and does what it's meant'a.

 

🤣

Doesn't feel like June at all here. We had quite a lot of rain over the past 48 hours which gave way to high winds. No doubt I'll need to go and clear up all the fallen debris. Again!

 

Regards Shaun 

[Sasquatch]

23 hours ago, stevel said:

that's looking very tidy, I was thinking along the same lines when I finally get to build something.

I hear lumbers going down!

Lumber is definitely coming down, but I doubt that's got anything to do with the price Steve! 

I'm not boasting even if it sounds like it. We have been gifted quite a lot of lumber, some freshly milled and some reclaimed. Everyone is moving away from fear of fire danger and so who else would they give their excess materials to!

 

My shop has been buzzing this year!

 

regards Shaun   

[Sasquatch]

20 hours ago, aardvark said:

Fantastic to have you back, Shaun.

 

Thanks. Didn't really leave, just busy as a beaver. I should find some time to make a short video to prove that!

Now that trains can work from one layout to the other and vice-a-versa, I'm getting serious about making more boards this summer to bring the whole Grim-Up-North idea up to a fully running situation.

 

The last piece of the puzzle is that lift up section behind the door. Last night I had a brain wave regarding it and when I've proved to myself it will work. I'll do a post! Something completely out of the box thinking wise!!!  

 

Regards Shaun