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Cramdin Yard


eldavo

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As per normal I've had a serious lack of mojo following the last exhibition, at least as far as Cramdin goes. I'm never satisfied with the way my layouts perform and so when they get back home they tend to be pushed into a corner of the workshop and ignored for a while, sometimes for months! In this case its only been a few weeks as Cramdin is out this weekend at Eurotrack in Eastleigh, a local show. I was just going to be really lazy and just load it into the van without touching it but....

Somehow I just can't manage that. It had to be cleaned and checked which meant I ended up painting all the facias today to smarten things up. Can't leave the house with dirty shoes and all that. I blame my parents!

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I had a couple of loco casualties at Canterbury, my EWS 08 and 47 both died. The loksound chip on the 47 is fried and provides a continuous short so that will need replacing at some point. I did a reset of the Digitrax chip in the 08 and that seems to have funlly recovered thankfully. This is not the first loksound chip to have died on me so I have looked at the track voltage from my Roco Multimaus and, as others have found, it's a bit high. I've switched to using an old 16v laptop power brick which brings down the voltage so we shall see if this prevents further casualties.

I've also weathered up a Dapol bogey ballast Wagon, one of three I picked up at Canterbury, to add to the fleet. Doesn't look to bad.

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Anybody coming down to Eastleigh feel free to stop by for a chat.

Cheers
Dave

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  • 2 months later...
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A while back I acquired a Hornby class 56 from the estate of a deceased modeller. The price was right but it was in a bit of a state having been repainted and renumbered a little clumsily. I didn't have a need for a sector livery 56 but quite fancied one in Colas livery so it was time to get out the airbrush and paints.

 

I acquired the necessary paints while at Ally Pally and already had the transfers in hand. On close examination the state of the existing model was found to be somewhat worse than I thought with thick paint and varnish and some distinctly iffy repairs. I ended up stripping the whole thing down and stripping off all paint. Repainting required 2 or 3 coats of white primer with odd bits of filling and much rubbing down.

 

Finally I was able to mask up and spray the new colours Colas yellow, warning panel yellow, Colas orange and finally black. The whole model was then given a coat of Johnsons Klear before adding transfers followed by another coat of Klear. When I started to apply some light weathering disaster struck. The acrylic raw umber I was using reacted badly with the Klear and went a nasty chalky colour. Arghhhhh!

 

I washed off as much of the paint as I could while still soft but even then had to use a track rubber and fibreglass scratchy pen to abrade some off. It aint perfect but after some further weathering it'll probably (have to) do.

 

Cramdin has no more bookings this year but, unusually, as I had a modeller over who wanted to take a look at the layout, it's up and assembled rather than packed up in the corner of the workshop. Seemed rude not to take a couple of piccies...

 

56113 in clean condition before disasters...

 

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Thankfully after a bit of tinkering most of the nasties have been removed and she's just about presentable...

 

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Cheers

Dave

 

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Looking good mate....sound chip fitted?

Gonna have to have a Cramdin fix soon.

Yup, loksound v4 with a base reflex speaker mounted facing downwards underneath the fans. The project is from Legomanbiffo and can be made to thrash and scream if required. I had to turn down the volume as it was too loud!

 

Cheers

Dave

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  • 3 months later...
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More picture! What's your name Oliver? ;)

 

Not much has been happening on Cramdin in recent months. The layout is all set up in the workshop and has been used for testing the odd little project and as a photographic back scene for a few things but other than that it's getting largely ignored.

 

I have taken a couple of pics in recent weeks as part of a project I'm working on with a fellow club member. I have created some lengths of cable duct using a 3D printer and so a bit was installed on Cramdin as a bit of a cameo.

 

 

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Not much detail visible there but with a couple of ready to plonk figures in close-up you can just about see the open sections and their lids have been modelled. Not sure about the colour!

 

 

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These were printed on a cheap fused filament printer as a very simple example of what can be done. Would have been quicker to knock up out of plasticard!

 

Cheers

Dave

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I've missed this layout over on the other forum, but it's good to catch up with it here. 

 

I think you've seen the limiting factor with 3D printing at the moment, it's hardly a quick process and depending on the material used and the printer type, some finishing will usually be required. That can only improve in the future though and I do believe 3D printing has a future in our hobby along with more traditional methods.

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Fully agree. We are only scratching the surface when it comes to 2D and 3D technologies. The technology is improving by the day and the latest generation of CAD software is far less intimidating. Much more to come...

 

Cheers

Dave

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  • 9 months later...
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Is this layout still around?

Cramdin currently sits gathering dust in my workshop. I don't currently have any exhibition bookings for it as it has been to a lot of the shows around this neck of the woods. I have been toying with the idea of extending it but then again I have 25 other projects in my head or in various states scattered about the workshop!

 

Cheers

Dave

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  • 11 months later...
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Cramdin hasn't been out on the road for several years then all of a sudden I have two relatively late bookings for outings to Christchurch and Andover this autumn. The layout will need some TLC to repair/improve bits that have taken a bit of a battering during transport and due to the fact that the layout has been used as a dumping ground in my workshop.

 

First for attention is the vacant office building at the front of the layout. It was always a bit of a bodged together job but it's taken a few knocks and is looking the worse for wear.

 

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Several joints have come adrift and a selection of window frame bits have gone walkabout. The windows were pretty poor anyway and when I started work on repairs even more bits went west. I reglued the main joints but didn't fancy redoing the windows as they were. I had the 3D printer working on another little project so decided to draw up replacement window frames in my CAD program and try printing them. Test prints didn't look too bad...

 

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Of course an organised person would have loaded the printer with white plastic first! Then again I had to reprint things as of course not all the windows were the same size. After all it was built by me!

 

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A bit of fiddling and fettling and lo and behold we have new replacement plastic windows duly fitted with glue an glaze which hasn't yet set in the picture.

 

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Needs a bit of work on the paintwork but it's a start.

 

Cheers

Dave

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  • 4 months later...
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Cramdin has been sat gathering dust for the best part of two and a half years but is out at the Andover Exhibition this weekend. Nobody has rented the office block despite having replacement windows...

 

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Prep for the show included removing a wrongly positioned ground position light with a red aspect and installing a new GPL with a yellow aspect. I've only known this was wrong for 8 years so haven't exactly rushed to do the job! Unfortunately that meant figuring out what this lot does...

 

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Of course there is the wiring diagram NOT!  So if you see a bunch of S&T workers doing their stuff over the weekend you know what they are trying to fix...

 

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At least they've posted a lookout.

 

Cheers

Dave

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Dave, Cramdin seemed to perform well over the weekend but noticeably better when you weren't behind it.....

 

You can go off people you know!

 

We had a few problems and not just the operators. I had to resolder a tiebar that had come adrift which was not entirely successful and a couple of things derailed because of it. Also another switch blade was coming loose on Sunday but hung in till the end of the show. Looks like I have to do some serious permanent way repairs/rebuilds before the next outing. If I had known what I was doing when I built the layout things would be somewhat different but as it is things are getting a bit worn and tired (not just Phil).

 

Good fun weekend none the less. Thanks for the invite.

 

Cheers

Dave

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