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Ade's 7mm layout: Malmesbury station


Adrian Stevenson
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I have also fitted a smoke alarm. 

 

I have tomorrow off work, so Andy and Jeff are coming over to see the cabin and the layout. I am starting to get a few things for the cabin and have bought a new matching kettle today as I know Andy like his tea :D


Cheers, Ade.

Smoke Alarm.jpg

New kettle.jpg

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1 minute ago, Andrew P said:

Hi Ade, It's looking very good mate, Jeff and I are really looking forward to seeing it all in the Flesh as it were, tomorrow, we'll be up about 10-30 so get that kettle on, haha.:good::D

 

Any Welsh Cakes left from the haul you took from Corwen in November @andyp ? 

 

speaker on it's way tomorrow

 

Best regards

Craig.

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2 minutes ago, muddys-blues said:

 

Any Welsh Cakes left from the haul you took from Corwen in November @andyp ? 

 

speaker on it's way tomorrow

 

Best regards

Craig.

Haha, I only had ONE PACK mate, no rush with the speaker, but really appreciate it mate.

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Now designing the last baseboard.

 

This will taper off from 3 feet wide to about two foot wide. Length will eight foot.  Reason for this is to not block access to the doors.

 

The board will feature a small crossing over the line, known as Lover's Lane, then a small girder bridge over the Avon and finally into the tunnel. This will be severely compressed, but they are nice features to model. The fiddle yard will be on the remainder of the board. The fiddle yards will be cassette based I think?

 

The height of the baseboards has been chosen to coincide with one of the logs forming the cabin wall, so only one will be need to be cut, as eventually the line will run down the garden about 40 feet. 

 

Cheers, Ade.

 

 

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Hi Ade, Thanks for great morning and an insight into the Den.:good:

Trains ran well, but I still think you need a BIG cushion at the F/Yard end at the moment, that's a big drop onto the floor if you forget a Loco is running, haha.:no:

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Hi Andy, I really enjoyed your and Jeff's visit. 

 

I used your favourite tool this afternoon (the hot glue gun :D) to secure down the cattle dock,  lamp shed and coal store.

 

Gave the Sentinel it's first coat of GWR green too.

 

Cheers, Ade.

 

 

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Ade,

 

Loved the update photos! is that a 2-6-2T I see on the layout!? some mighty powerful shunting four sure! My Hornby 14xx finally arrived today, and I'm super excited to work on it. I'm Planning to upgrade the motor, replacing the tracting wheels with full flange wheels, add detailing, repaint and weather. I've noticed that on several forums discussing couplings in 00 scale, some have removed the Hornby Coupling all together in favor of Kadee metal couplings. Whilst others have preferred modifying their Hornby coplings using a bent wire that is fitted over the buffers (I assume).  I was wondering if you have any ideas for close to realistic couplings for 00 scale?

 

Thanks

 

Dan T.

 

 

Edited by Dan Taddeo
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Hi Dan, yes it is a Heljan Large Prairie Tank 6110 2-6-2 you can see.

 

For couplings these might be an option for you? I have not used them myself though. My days of doing 4mm were 40 years ago now and I just used the usual Tri-ang/Hornby/Wrenn couplings.

 

http://www.gwr.org.uk/procouplings.html

 

Cheers, Ade.

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Hi Guys, as I mentioned in a previously post, I had added a few temporary power feeds trying it here and there and all appeared ok? I started fitting the bus wires today.

 

I began by fitting the black bus wire first, which is for the front rail in my case. Fitted all the black droppers to this.

 

I then started fitting the red bus wire and as I added the droppers to this, I tested as I went along by running a loco. However, I have discovered a problem. This occurs after the first point when it is switched to run onto the main line. The loop and the engine shed loop both work fine. I have indicated the lines which run ok in yellow on the plan.

 

I have fed to power straight to the track at the end of the head shunt, next to the cattle dock, as I had not yet decided where to put it on the bus.

All the points have been converted and insulating fishplates added after the frog. I tried fitting a Gaugemaster frog switch to see it this was the problem, but no different, once the loco crosses the frog onto the mainline it stops?

 

I have checked I have not done anything obviously wrong, like mixing up a wire to the wrong rail and I have checked nothing is bridging the rails to short it out. But clearly something is amiss. I tried jumping a wire from the one live rail on the loop to the dead mail line section, but this causes a short. I have also tried feeding the power after the point, again no good.

 

The layout is still powered on DC.

 

I don't have a circuit tester.

 

Any ideas as to where I have gone wrong?

 

Cheers, Ade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hello Ade I had something very similar happen some days back when I was testing my layout pre-ballasting.

In my case I did a no power test [meter set to read resistance]  to check that the point frog switching was working correctly, it wasn't.   I had missed cutting one of the wires on the frog so it was still live all the time and did not switch polarity over.  If Andy has a meter that will be the best call to make or take a torch apart and make up a bulb tester BUT but but disconnect you DC power supply before doing this test.

 

It was a simple job for me to pop up the point snip the offending wire and relay it. 

 

There could be 2 problems, the one I had as described above and the one below.

 

As Andy has indicated both points in the main line need to switch together ie both be set to run the same routes or a short will occur.  Even if you do as Andy says you could still have a short as  either side of the insulation gap will connect to the same bus bar polarity.

 

To check set LH end and RH end points to run the main line, does the loco run, if yes switch both points to run the loop does the loco run?

If it fails short then I would suspect it is down to the frog polarity switching ie cut the offending peco point links to the frog as the frog polarity should be switched when the point is thrown.

Of course it is also possible that you have the wires crossed from the frog polarity switch as that would cause a short too.

 

Best  

Edited by Barnaby
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Hi Barnaby, thanks for the advice, much appreciated.

 

Hi Guys, had advice by PM too, again thanks.

 

So after a truly lousy day at work, I came home and went down to the shed tonight after tea. Pulled up the point, no offending wires, but managed to break the frog wire... So rigged the point up to a bit of track, added power and it worked ok. Checked down the bus wires and found I had put a black dropper wire on the red line.... Cut it off and now works fine.

 

Sackcloth and ashes time.....

 

Cheers, Ade.

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