Cramdin Yard

[eldavo]

12th December 2008

Too cold to do major works out in the garage so it's down to tinkering with little bits. Looks like the workers have just wheeled out and dumped a scaffolding access platform. Looks a bit rough in this shot!



Probably OK when the 3ft rule is applied.



Cheers
Dave

[eldavo]

24th December 2008

It's Christmas eve and no work. Christmas day preparations are well in hand (it pays to have good staff) and so that means there's space for some layout time. I've added some strengthening to the re-jigged No.1 fiddleyard over the last few days so it was time today to sort out fitting it to the main board. Steel trestle assembled, holes drilled, brass locators epoxied in, securing latches fitted and it's almost ready to go.

Oh dear, I seem to have acquired some more scenic real estate with nothing on it! :?





Cheers
Dave

[eldavo]

11th January 2009

Finally the temperature has risen enough to make working in the garage bearable (almost!) so I ventured out to do some more traverser experiments. For those of an engineering bent who appreciate precision and neatness this is the time to abandon this thread. If you appreciate the the work of Heath Robinson, you'll feel right at home! :shock:

I'm trying to build a wagon traverser for the area of board in front of No.1 fiddleyard. It will have one approach track and 3 or 4 exit roads into another works building. Current ideas are based on using a screw thread and captive nut as the drive mechanism. After rummaging around I came up with an old Triang 0-4-0 chassis, a fence wire tensioner, a couple of brackets and some MDF. From this, with judicious use of the hot glue gun, I was able to mock up something to test the idea.

Here's the first experiment.



It 'aint pretty but the motor turns the threaded shaft OK and with a bit of running (this motor hasn't turned for 35 years!) and some lubrication it will run quite slowly. The motor is coupled to the shaft by engaging the coupling rod securing screw in the loco wheel with a slot in a nut on the end of the shaft. The nut is the wrong thread so I simply tightened it onto the thread till it jammed! High tech or what? You can see how the suggestion of a slot in the shaft and an electric screwdriver was the inspiration.



Given that this seems to work I disassembled it all and got out the epoxy to make the assembly rather more permanent. I also broke out the plasticard to build an actuator slider to hold the nut captive. Onto this was epoxied a length of old rail to act as the actuator rod to drive the traverser bridge itself.



This mess was then built into a sub-assembly with the floor of the traverser pit and side walls which is then bolted to the baseboard. It needs to be removable as it is bound to break down! Here's a view of the thing fitted to the underside of the baseboard.



Finally a view from the top (unfortunately out of focus) that shows how the actuator rod (over long at present) emerges into the pit. The traverser bridge itself will sit parallel with the actuator and hide it.



Rather a lot still to do before I can see whether the thing will actually work well enough to be usable but I'm having fun.

Cheers
Dave

[eldavo]

8th February 2009

Been far too cold to venture out into the garage and do any serious engineering on the traverser so have been doing odd bits and pieces and generally titivating the scenics. Knocked up a few point levers of varying types and installed them...





Also been playing with some static grass and other things of which I haven't taken pictures. Doesn't seem to be any rush to re-fuel 37114 judging by the lack of activity in this shot.



Cheers
Dave

[eldavo]

22nd February 2009

Ok, well maybe not action but definitely lights and there is a camera involved. Over the last week I have just about completed the last of the heavy engineering required to make Cramdin exhibitable. A few licks of paint required here and there and some adjustments to how the control panel attachs are still required but otherwise pretty much done.

So this week I have added hinged transport covers to the fiddle yard to match the main board and these and the main board covers have had an initial coat of matt black. They don't look too bad so with the odd bit of filler and another splash of paint they may well do the trick. Also I've added a lighting pelmet to give an even level of lighting across the board. I've seen one or two layouts really suffer when they've been exiled to a hall with poor lighting, or sometimes worse, odd coloured lighting. The pelmet has a couple of B&Q lightweight flourescent fixtures that are actually hanging forward of the baseboard front.



The pelmet is now in pieces and has been give a coat of primer as a start. Before taking everything apart I took a couple of shots of the layout using just its own lighting. Here's a shot of my favourite 37 positioned pretty much right at the front of the board. Not too much shadow at all.



These two buildings are literally on the front edge of the board and are really an extreme test for the pelmet lighting. They are only just about illuminated adequately.



Finally a shot across the board. No shadows on the backscene so I think we are in business.



Now to look in the cupbaord and see what paint colours I have for the pelmet. On the other hand I could just slop some black on it like everything else. Very Goth!

Cheers
Dave

[eldavo]

1st March 2009

A lick of paint here and there, well actually several and things are looking a little more shipshape. I'm just about done with sorting out staging, transport and lights so I'm on to messing around cleaning up a few messy bits and sorting some stock out for a photoshoot. Here's the layout as it looks after this weeks efforts.



Cheers
Dave

[eldavo]

25th April 2009

No I'm not, just packing the layout into to the car for its first time away from home. The layout is having a little excursion to the SWAG day in Taunton tomorrow which will be a good test of whether it's actually up to being exhibited.



It all fits in the car although there seems an awful lot for a small layout. Now will it work when it's all unpacked at the other end? :?



Cheers
Dave

[eldavo]

23rd August 2009

After something of an extended break doing nothing on Cramdin I finally got my act together today and did some work on it. The traverser has been the centre of attention. The approach track was laid some weeks ago but hadn't been wired up...



I've added pickups to the wheels...



A deck has been laid on the bridge made of best quality coffee stirrers and track has been laid.



This was then wired to the pickups and it was time to test it...



The traverser mechanism works as well! Unfortunately not very well so I will be looking at improvements/replacement.

Cheers
Dave

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Hi Dave,

 

I've just read through the whole of your thread over the course of the afternoon and had to tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it's inspirational. I began a layout of a similar size and concept (wagon repair works/re-fueling point in about 6ft x 15 inches) a couple of years ago that was shelved due to an impending house move. Only in the last couple of weeks have I blown the dust of and progressed the wiring to a state that I can actually run things on it, and seeing your pictures has given me lots of ideas about what to do next.

 

Thanks very much

[Guest 009matt]

HI Dave, looking good - was good to see you at Wickham!

 

Matt

[Bruce Depot]

Really impressed with the way this has grown, and you keep adding extra bits on! Not sure on the make of track

but it has a far more pleasing to the eye look than the Peco I used on my layout. Has a more real feel for some

reason. Also the grass overgrowing the sidings looks great, what or how was this done?

I have only used scatter stuff and it does not really look good...

 

My only comment would be, you cannot really have the yard exit signal (GPL) in advance of the power operated

points controlling the move, although looking at the layout I could see some interesting special instructions for the

operations anyway.

Its a nice small compact yard with plenty of operational movements possible!

 

Will contine to watch with interest, just how many more bits can you add!

 

cheers

Keith

[eldavo]

Really impressed with the way this has grown, and you keep adding extra bits on! Not sure on the make of track

but it has a far more pleasing to the eye look than the Peco I used on my layout. Has a more real feel for some

reason. Also the grass overgrowing the sidings looks great, what or how was this done?

I have only used scatter stuff and it does not really look good...

 

My only comment would be, you cannot really have the yard exit signal (GPL) in advance of the power operated

points controlling the move, although looking at the layout I could see some interesting special instructions for the

operations anyway.

Its a nice small compact yard with plenty of operational movements possible!

 

Will contine to watch with interest, just how many more bits can you add!

 

cheers

Keith

 

Hi Keith, Thanks for the compliments. The track is SMP flexi which has the sleepers spaced much more prototypically than the Peco stuff which is after all H0. Grass and stuff around the tracks is a real mixture of things, hanging basket liner, static grass, scatter and some other long fibre stuff I can't remember the make of. It's generally just trimmed up and stuck in pools of PVA at judicious points. Very time consuming but effective IMHO.

 

The GPL was a topic of discussion when Cramdin went to the SWAG members bash at Taunton. It is quite clearly in the wrong place at present. The suggestion was that it should be moved back to be alongside the double slip and be a yellow and two whites with a direction arrow pointing right. This would allow shunt moves to pass it at yellow when the outbound route is not set. Not being a signalling expert I defer to those with more knowlwdge.

 

There is more to come once I sort the traverser which is on the list for next week when I have some days off.

 

Cheers

Dave

[Bruce Depot]

The GPL was a topic of discussion when Cramdin went to the SWAG members bash at Taunton. It is quite clearly in the wrong place at present. The suggestion was that it should be moved back to be alongside the double slip and be a yellow and two whites with a direction arrow pointing right. This would allow shunt moves to pass it at yellow when the outbound route is not set. Not being a signalling expert I defer to those with more knowlwdge.

 

Hi David

The above would be right, however it could get complecated since really you need a another GPL signal on the neck reading back towards the double slip

to avoid the points being run throught etc etc. I am half inclinded to suggest leaving it as it is, or at least just add a stop board.

If anyone questions it, just say its covered by special instructions!

 

Anyway great layout and watching with interest...

 

cheers

Keith

 

(Going for a swim since its 46c!)

[eaw458]

This is an inspirational layout - well done.

 

Just out of interest - what are Linka mouldings and where did you getthese? Is Linka a brand?

 

Many thanks,

 

Walter

[BlackRat]

great to see you back!

[eldavo]

...Just out of interest - what are Linka mouldings and where did you getthese? Is Linka a brand?

 

Hi Walter,

Sorry but I forgot to reply to your question. Indeed Linka is a brand name for a bunch of plaster moulds that can be used to create all manner of different bits that can then be cobbled into structures. They have been around for quite a while though became largely unobtainable for a while. Mould sets do appear on ebay but also you can get them direct from the US for a reasonable price. Try this link: Linka world

 

Cheers

Dave

[eldavo]

It's been make or break time for the Traverser on the scenic section at the front of the South fiddleyard. The very crude mechanism I built worked but only just. The mechanism was a bit heavy for the motor which was an elderly and crude 3-pole Triang job. The whole thing was noisy and difficult to use reliably. It had to go.

So what to replace it with? On the old forum thread several folks had suggested using the mechanism from a flatbed computer scanner or photocopier. These things have stepping motors that allow accurate positioning and also a mechanism that ensures the scan head stays orthogonal to the scanning direction. So off to ebay we go to look for a suitable candidate. For the vast sum of ??2 I obtained a Packard-Bell USB scanner and then set about wrecking it.

Here is the base of the scanner next to the existing traverser mechanism. Bit big really!



The mechanism relies on spring pressure of the scan head against the lower side of the glass to keep the moving carrier level so when I removed the glass and attendant gubbins of course the carrier flopped about in a rather useless fashion. The two strips of white plastcard are my normal sophisticated answer. These rub against a couple of plasticard pads stuck to the underside of the scan head carrier and keep it vaguely level. It doesn't have to be perfect.



Next up was some fairly serious surgery to the fiddleyard baseboard to fit the mechanism. A chunk had to be carved out of the longitudinal frame. Not pretty but it fits.



The base of the traverser well was then bodged onto the mechanism. All glue, MDF and bolts. Very crude!



In order to transfer the motion of the scan head carrier to the traverser bridge I bent up a bit of piano wire and gled it to the scan head carrier with epoxy. In this shot you can see that at one end the wire appears as just a vertical and at the other it bends round to run parallel to the traverser bed.




With the traverser bridge in place you can sort of see how some of this works. The bent end of the wire sits under the bridge and a U shaped section extends below the bridge and engages with it. At the other end a U shape section sticks out from the end of the bridge and engages with the vertical. This latter U shaped section needs replacing as it is too deep at present. This all allows the traverser bridge to be lifted off easily for travel and or maintenance.




Today I assembled the whole thing under the baseboard and wired it up. Amazingly it worked! There's still a lot to do.



The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that the stepper motor has been replaced with a standard cheapo DC motor. The thing is controlled via DCC so hopefully I can set it up to be easily controllable from the throttle and as I'm no electronics whizz I didn't feel digging into the required circuitry would be a quick solution. The new motor drives the original gear train so if at some point in the future I feel more adventurous I could refit the stepper.

Cheers
Dave

[eldavo]

With a pretty much working traverser I can now crack on and some scenic work on the front section of the fiddleyard. Today track has been laid, wired and tested and the approach road to the traverser has been ballasted with Chinchilla grit and Klear. Here's an overall shot of the area:



Looking in the other direction back towards the main baseboard things look like this:



After having laid the track it was then given a rather extreme test. If the traverser can move a Heljan tubby-duff then it will have no problem with a Hornby 08 and a wagon. In practice a loco as big as a 47 can't get to this section of the layout as the clearances around the buildings are very tight. Special instructions require the use of an 08 or smaller loco in this section.

Here's the Duff arriving...



On to the traverser bridge she goes, only just fits! Away we go...



Landed.



Finally off she goes into the frontmost wagon works road.



Me thinks some work on the backscene and some buildings will be next.

Cheers
Dave

[yellowvanman]

Cracking layout Dave , love the traverser, we used them all the time in EH works..heres a couple of pics .. great to see a model of one ..cheers keith

[eldavo]

Aha, yes I was aware of the traversers at EH though there are very few shots of them on the web (according to my friend Google). Thanks for posting those Keith as they have just given me few details for some of the building work I have in mind.

 

Cheers

Dave

[Trainsrgr8]

Looks really good Dave! Good call with the old scanner! Just given me yet another idea for a future project! Just need to have the money on the card first :icon_mutter:

 

Danny

[eldavo]

More progress on the new scenic section today. The 3 sidings to the extreme left of the layout have now been given a sprinkling of Chinchilla grit and Klear so should be down and solid in a couple of days. Yesterday I roughed out the basic core of a couple of buildings in MDF glued with contact adhesive. At the far end of the layout is a large half-relief works building that spans all the tracks. At the end nearest the main baseboard is a smaller building that abuts the existing ramshackle brick and corrugated iron structure. Here's a couple of shots of the area.





The smaller building has seen some attention today and has been clad in several layers of plasticard. It's intended to be a brick-built structure and, as it's fairly tall, would look odd as a slab-faced wall. This is a bit more complex than my previous buildings and I'm trying to get a bit more detail into it. It's all freelance and based on things I have seen around. Each side has recessed bays so an overlay was cut out with the openings for the recesses.



This bonded to a backing layer of white plasticard and then onto a further layer of brick to form the recesses. Lintels were cut out above the door and windows and bits of plain pasticard cut to fit. Here's the state of it so far. The corner joins are pretty crude and will be disguised with rain water downpipes.





Here's a shot of it on the layout showing how it sits in relation to the traverser:



Finally a view down the layout showing how it sits behind it's ramshackle extension. Not sure how I am going to disguise the gap between the new "old" building and it's extension. Also not quite sure what they do in this building but it seems to have something to do with wheels and the existing building obviously wasn't big enough. :?



Cheers
Dave

[eldavo]

The building has been attacked by the paintbrush. Not quite as I want it yet...



Cheers
Dave

[BlackRat]

Looking good, even better when all weathered etc!

 

Great use of the scanner to!

 

Very inspiring! Can see lots of traversers now!!

[Poindexter]

Very impressed with the step by step build of the building. Very handy for those of us that have not attempted to scratch build yet.

 

 

Thank You

Guy