Just for the fun of it!

[BernardTPM]

The puffer bottles pre-date the 'Grassmaster' type devices; Chiltern Green used static grass back in the '70s applied that way. Given how well it works on hair, I wonder how effective rubbing balloons on nylon jumpers might be!

[Woody C]

15 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

The puffer bottles pre-date the 'Grassmaster' type devices; Chiltern Green used static grass back in the '70s applied that way

Thank you for the reminder Bernard. It is amazing how many things we think are new innovations actually existed long ago but at the time never became fashionable - much like most of my wardrobe as Mrs. W would claim! Strangely I was looking at an eBay listing just the other day which included a whole host of Hornby Zero 1 items which reminded me that DCC control was something available back in the late 70s if you had the money - which may have been one of the reasons it never flourished at the time. Today we still think of DCC as something new.

[Woody C]

Hello and thank you for your continued interest in this topic.

 

It was Keith Addenbrooke who in his thread on his great layout , Narrow Gauge Beginnings - getting started in HOn30 and H0e, said 'The layout is now complete, with everything in these photos apart from some Minitrains rolling stock is either kit built or scratchbuilt.' I did say that the emotion of finishing a layout was something that had evaded me  and would continue to do so. However I find myself beginning to doubt the wisdom of my own words! Chalkdon as the layout is now known is actually at a stage when, as long as I don't get distracted (and I am easily distracted  - so many projects!) has a possible chance of getting to a point where I could say it is finished. 

 

Recent work has seen much of the scenery complete with scenic sub-bases glued down, including the platform and ballasting almost finished. The mayhem created by this work took the layout back several steps, 

 

but the end result was, in my view, worth it.

 

 

The main road out of the hamlet now has the beginnings of a crossing that allows the 4mm road users to escape the layout even if the only destination is a near scale 300 foot plunge to the floor!

 

 

Still some scenic work to do at the edges of the ballast and the rear gardens and the edge of the petrol station and road.

 

Both bridges are in place across the stream. The one at the front edge may look a little odd but that was my fault in misaligning the abutments! 

 

 

On the other side things are a bit more distant so my failures are to a degree less easy to observe! However I will, because of image size limitations continue that on a second post.......

 

 

 

[Woody C]

 

As the baseboard is in two parts I had the job of disguising the break in the road surface. I could have gone for a utility trench but not having seen a cattle grid modelled before I decided to try that which gives a natural break in the road surface. Still things to do but I quite like how this has turned out. I will need to repaint the road surface between the cattle grid and the bridge as I had to remake the road which was mounting card because the original was not right. Unfortunately because I did the original painting so long ago I have forgotten what shade of grey I painted the original in!

 

 

Meanwhile the Woody drone (no, not my voice!) has been in flight to provide some aerial photography. OK it was actually me stood on a chair!

 

 

I think the bus driver may need to readjust his trajectory around the bend if chapel and Leyland National are to avoid some form of union! 

 

 

As I started the post (well the first part in the previous post) with talk of words of wisdom I may as well plug my YouTube Video for those needing a cure for insomnia! In this gripping installment of WMD - Woody's Modelling Diary - A Woody WOW I cover everything I know about ballasting. For some reason it is actually 22 minutes long rather than the 22 seconds thought it would be! If nothing else have a look at the point 18min 50 sec in to see how I potentially put my personal well being at risk and incur the possibility of domestic disharmony. Have you done similar?

 

For those wondering a Woody WOW is a Woody Words Of Wisdom. I perhaps should rename that as a Woody WOOF - Words Of  Overwhelming Failure!

 

Many thanks for looking at this post and hope there has been something of interest.

 

Woody

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Woody C

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Hi @Woody C, thank you for the ‘shout out’ as the kids say.  I should clarify that the layout I’ve finished is much simpler than the one I originally planned when I started my thread.  It is true though that the ‘less is more’ approach has paid dividends in terms of satisfaction.  
 

Enjoyed the ballasting video - first time (only time?) I think I’ve ever heard 007 mentioned in connection with ballasting a model railway (yes really, folks - watch Woody’s video and see where).  All good stuff, Keith.

[ian]

1 hour ago, Woody C said:

The main road out of the hamlet now has the beginnings of a crossing that allows the 4mm road users to escape the layout even if the only destination is a near scale 300 foot plunge to the floor!

 

Do any daring souls sit on the baseboard edge dangling thir feet over the drop?

[F-UnitMad]

Close up phtos of the cattle grid, please!! You're right, I don't think I've ever seen one modelled either! An inspired way to disguise the baseboard join in the road. 👍👍

[Woody C]

20 minutes ago, ian said:

Do any daring souls sit on the baseboard edge dangling thir feet over the drop?

A very good question Ian! Not seen that on a layout before but it would be interesting to pose a figure sat on the edge. I was reminded by your question of a friend who visited Denver and told me about the bridge over the 1053 foot gorge with a river at the bottom. There is a sign saying ....

 

which has got me thinking! Now that is a dangerous activity for me as Mrs. Woody can confirm, but I  can invisage having a couple of figures fishing off the edge of the baseboard with a sign saying 'No fishing off the baseboard edge', behind them!

 

[Woody C]

On 29/03/2023 at 21:53, F-UnitMad said:

Close up phtos of the cattle grid, please!!

I hope these are OK? My phone camera is not the greatest or maybe the operator is not the best! 

 

 

 

 

Just need to do some tidying up scenically and get the road the right shade of grey but I have to admit I am quite pleased with how this all looks. Is this actually my layout??????

 

[Woody C]

On another note I started making a tree about 5 years ago from twisted florists wire which was covered in acrylic paste and painted. I can recall visiting a superb model shop near Shrewsbury where my inquiring questions were always met with a very informative response resulting in me finding out about the delights of Woodland Scenics foliage mat. Having departed with a pack of that and several other items which Mrs. Woody was informed were very necessary and highly essential purchases I did start to foliage the tree but for some reason it never got finished. Move ahead several years and said tree was found in a box along with 5 Hornby Freightliners and whitemetal conversion kit which were part of aforementioned very necessary and highly essential purchases (they will get done Ian!) Seeing it there led me to think about placing it on Chalkdon near the canal wharf. Having also found the tub I put the foliage mat in as the mat seems to shed leaves even quicker then Mrs. W can place internet orders on QVCs bargain night, I have finished the tree. Don't ask me what species it is. I don't do trees! All I can say is it is not conifer!

 

Having temporarily put it in its  intended place I will leave it for a while before deciding if it is right. I know that on any real railway a tree overhanging the track would be a no no but this layout is just for the fun of it. Initial thoughts are I am growing to like it - ironically the real life tree would probably grow more quickly then my mind will make its mind up! Anyway here it is.

 

 

 

[BernardTPM]

14 hours ago, Woody C said:

I know that on any real railway a tree overhanging the track would be a no no

Ever been to Minffordd, FR?

[ian]

16 hours ago, Woody C said:

Having departed with a pack of that and several other items which Mrs. Woody was informed were very necessary and highly essential purchases

Model shops need more people like Mrs. Woody!

 

The tree looks really good, congratulations. I expect the workers on the wharf sit around under it on sunny days.

Edited March 31, 2023 by ian

[Woody C]

Hello and continued thanks for your interest in my layout.

 

Some more progress on Chalkdon, as this layout is now known although it is still very much just for the fun of it! When I decided to call it Chalkdon, I then Googled the name to find out where potential letters of litigation might emerge from, from disgruntled residents upset at me devaluing their homes and area by association with my layout. Strangely enough my screen showed this 'Google Maps can't find chalkdon'. There appears to be no place called Chalkdon in the World let alone the UK! 

 

Anyway back to the progress! 

 

The station at Chalkdon has benefitted from some benches, name plates and lamps as well as the track being ballasted. The benches are the Peco ones with two glued back to back. Between them some square section plastic strip was added to support the name plates. These were printed out having used Word to produce them and then glued to some plastic sheet. The lamps are the Ration swan necked ones. The kit gives you various options to produce variations so I ended up with two double lamps and a single unit with parts left over to produce a few more. The small and delicate size of the parts plus failing eyesight made the construction a challenge but I think they came out OK. A few figures now inhabit the platform which are ones I painted from the Dapol Platform Passenger set. Much as there are some nice ready painted figures available I find it quite therapeutic painting these figures myself. My choice of colours for their clothes may be a full-on fashion failure but that probably reflects my personal wardrobe choices as Mrs. W would no doubt highlight!

 

The tree by the canal wharf is now glued in place as I think it just looks right there. With thanks to BernardTPM for highlighting an instance of trees overhanging tracks I feel fine about its location!

 

 

 

 

Whilst rummaging in a box I found this train. I bought the GVT loco about 30 years ago second hand for about £15 - those were the days! I believe it is a GEM whitemetal kit which was assembled by its builder using epoxy by the look of it and it is still in one piece. It runs on an old Grafar 0-6-0 chassis. I am lucky in that I run the layout with Bachmann EZ Command controller which does allow a DC loco to run on a DCC layout. You have to be careful as the DCC power makes the DC motor 'hum' and warm up so it is short runs only. I really need to convert it to DCC but that is a job for another day. In the meantime I am enjoying this, my first operational 009 loco that I had (their is a kit built chassis-less body that proceeded it and perhaps more of that another time).  The coaches date from about the same time but I did build these myself from Parkside Dundas kits. I never finished them as they still need glazing and the roof lights fitting. The couplings are Greenwich which I recall building happily with no visual magnification needed. That certainly would not be the case now.  

 

I like the photo below with the old rattily steam train and the modern comfy National bus side by side.

 

 

 

I have a few more kits for wagons and coaches in my 'to do pile' which should provide some variety. I just need the time to build them!

[Woody C]

Hello and for those wishing to see the delights of my video making failures involving this layout and the latest updates on it as well as some probably not so sound chatter about the Bachmann EZ Command controller which I use, here it is 

 

 

[F-UnitMad]

9 hours ago, Woody C said:

I like the photo below with the old rattily steam train and the modern comfy National bus side by side.

Indeed, that is a great photo & quite a contrast in transport!! 😁

 

Hopefully it's in the To Do list, but I would be looking for a boarded crossing for passengers to get on the platform, rather than just across the ballast? A footbridge is probably overkill & would dominate the scene too much.

[Woody C]

On 07/04/2023 at 09:02, F-UnitMad said:

Hopefully it's in the To Do list, but I would be looking for a boarded crossing for passengers to get on the platform, rather than just across the ballast?

Despite this job not appearing on Mrs. Woody's 'To do list', secret work has seen progress....

[Chris Williamson]

Dr G / aka Mrs W is away for a few days.  I have two To-Do Lists.  She left me one of them.  Guess which has more items crossed-off?  Got to go now as I've a bit of catching up to do on the other one prior to the Boat getting in on Monday evening.  It's always good to have a plan for making the most of these opportunities...

[Woody C]

Hello, Been too long since I have updated this but my time since early 2023 has been spent on a number of other projects including some on Mrs. Woody's' To Do'  list! However Chalkdon has been running on occasions and just recently has seen the arrival of some new rolling stock including this.

 

 

 

It is a 3D print that I picked up from the Sleaford Model Makers Show for £9. It runs on a Kato 109 chassis which cost me £26. I have added a Lais DCC chip which cost a further £12 making a total cost of £47 and about 10 very enjoyable hours of my time! All in all a bit of a bargain! There are slight compromises such as the chassis having a DCC chip fitted means the 3 volt motor is probably not as slow as on DC but fiddling with some of the CVs has made it good enough for me! I know that you can fit resistors, diodes and other electrical wizardry to reduce voltages but to be honest that is going a step too far for my skills!  Fitting the chip was relatively easy - the hardest bit being getting the chassis apart.

 

 

 

If you have trouble getting to sleep there is a YouTube video on this project at 

 

 

Hope this is of interest and thank you for your continued interest in my glacial progress with Chalkdon!

 

Woody

 

[cp409067]

On 28/11/2023 at 16:33, Woody C said:

 

.....

If you have trouble getting to sleep there is a YouTube video on this project at 

 

 

Hope this is of interest and thank you for your continued interest in my glacial progress with Chalkdon!

 

Woody

 

 

*

At 2.45 in the YouTube presentation it is stated that the KATO motor is 3 volts.

 

The packaging of a Kato 11-109 says -

 

"Maximum DC12v"

 

 

CP

[Woody C]

On 30/11/2023 at 00:41, cp409067 said:

At 2.45 in the YouTube presentation it is stated that the KATO motor is 3 volts.

 

The packaging of a Kato 11-109 says -

 

"Maximum DC12v"

Hello Christopher,

 

Thanks for your comment regarding the Kato chassis. One of the things I discovered whilst trying to research the Kato chassis and the possibility of putting a DCC chip on it was that there is not that much information about the technical specifications of this or the other useful chassis that Kato produce. What I have come up with, as someone who is in no way an expert on electrical matters, is purely my observations and interpretation based upon what I found on the internet, which can at times also be at odds with itself!

Whilst the chassis itself is advertised on the packaging as being capable of taking a 'Maximum DC12v' my understanding is that the motor itself may not be built for12v. From what I further understand, the 109s predecessor, the 103, had a 3v motor which ran on DC12v due to circuitry that dropped the 12v to the 3v that the motor was designed for. I am not sure if that circuitry was external to the motor casing or contained within but I am led to believe it was also advertised as 'Maximum DC12v'. Given that the Kato 109 packaging also states  'Do not operate this loco on DCC #00 (analog address)', (which is what you could do with the Bachman EZ Command DCC controller which allows the operation of a DC loco on a DCC track using that DCC controller) it is reasonable to assume that the motor may not be as robust as a pure12v motor in a modern model locomotive might be expected to be. To my mind this is an indication that the itself motor may not be 12v. In adding a DCC chip I also found that the chassis ran at relatively higher speed than I could obtain using just DC control.  Unlike DC control, where the voltage picked up by the motor from the tracks varies from 0v to 12v depending upon the controllers setting, my understanding is that DCC delivers a constant 12v to the motor but the speed of the motor is controlled by the chip as it pulses the 12v.  In adjusting CVs 2,3,4,5 and 6 I managed to have a slower running more controllable chassis but still not as good as DC. Again my suspicion would be that the motor itself is not built as a 12v motor. 

Whilst none of the above is conclusive proof that the motor is either 3V or 12V my own interpretation is that the motor itself is likely to be 3V although as advertised the chassis will run on a maximum DC12v which is what most DC users want to know. Either way the important part to me is that I have managed to build this loco for £47 including a DCC chip and it works and has continued to work running for 2 hours on the layout yesterday without a glitch and I hope that may encourage others to have a go.

As I said at the beginning I am no expert but I trust you appreciate from the above why I said what I did in my video.

 

Regards,

 

Woody

. 

 

 

[ian]

I can't vouch for the newer chassis but the old one certainly had a low voltage motor with an external series resistor to drop the voltage from 12V to something that the motor would find acceptable.

 

This is reflected in the motor's behaviour when connected directly to a DCC decoder rather than via the resistor - it goes like stink. Reducing CV 5 (Max voltage) ton the decoder o around a quarter of its default value provides a good starting point for getting the motor to behave properly.

 

As for running DC locos on DCC ID 0 - just say no kids.

[Woody C]

Hello, A bit of an open and shut case with the latest addition to Chalkdon with some long awaited level crossing gates having been constructed and installed. Probably would fail any Rail Safety checks but the locals are happy! They doo need some further bedding in around the posts and a bit of weathering but I am quite pleased with how this project has turned out.

 

 

Maintenance loco No5 has benefitted on its trial run of being able to run through at speed which is useful given its Kato chassis!

 

 

For some reason that I cannot recall I decided I wanted the main gates to be able to open. Brass wire hinges and a miraculous case of actually measuring things rightish means they do that.

 

 

Given that the width of the road is just about twice that of the track bed means that the gates conveniently fold over each other. Almost as though I planned it!

 

 

Unfortunately for this Dapol pedestrian the side gates do not open so it is going to be a long wait!

 

 

The problem with these close up pictures is that they show just how much more there is to do!

[Chris Williamson]

Congratulations!  I've been contemplating my gates for over three years!  Neither are they scratch built like yours!!  I offer, in my defence, the fact that I'm guilty of wanting to motorise their operation with a couple of DCC controlled servos already purchased for the purpose.  All I have to do is design and build the mechanism to mount the servos, link to the gates and allow the entire assembly to be fitted to a baseboard that hadn't taken into account this ridiculous inclination.  @Mike Buttell will now, quite rightly, point out the foolishness of my desires.  You, on the other hand should be applauded for having gates that Can be operated Without resort to such over engineering.  I really should know better by now.  Anyway, well done!

[Woody C]

2 hours ago, Chris Williamson said:

Congratulations!  I've been contemplating my gates for over three years!  Neither are they scratch built like yours!!  I offer, in my defence, the fact that I'm guilty of wanting to motorise their operation with a couple of DCC controlled servos already purchased for the purpose.  All I have to do is design and build the mechanism to mount the servos, link to the gates and allow the entire assembly to be fitted to a baseboard that hadn't taken into account this ridiculous inclination.  @Mike Buttell will now, quite rightly, point out the foolishness of my desires.  You, on the other hand should be applauded for having gates that Can be operated Without resort to such over engineering.  I really should know better by now.  Anyway, well done!

Hello Chris, Many thanks for not only your kind words but also explaining your own experience in words that brought not only a smile to my face but also an audible chuckle from me that Mrs. W picked up on! I then had the job of trying to explain what I was amused about and why, which was not that successful given that Mrs. W's main interest in railways is as a means of travel to get away from me! I must admit I did think about the possibility of motorising the gates but given my abilities thought the better if it as it would no doubt have ended up like a four handed clock with a major malfunction . It is a miracle that they even open and close with digit power let alone digital power! I do hope you get your gates mechanised and installed soon so I can learn how to do it. Woody.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Hi @Woody C, I’ve just enjoyed watching your Chalkdon 4 video on the YouTube channel.  I found the summary of time and cost really helpful - particularly the way you break down the cost into a ‘per hour of enjoyment’ figure.  Not only because it is far less scary for those of us on a budget, but also because it shows the tremendous value for money achievable in the hobby.

 

We’re due to move house in the new year (hopefully), so I’m having a clear out and planning ahead for a(nother) fresh start.  Setting a four year time budget of £600 - £800 for a compact layout gives me some useful parameters, thank you.  Keith.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Keith Addenbrooke