Chuffnell Regis

[Graham T]

A rather unusual view of Chuffnell R this morning, in that this one's actually got a train in it!

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

I've finally managed to finish the long run of fencing for the near side of the cutting.  Although a long way from perfect, it's better than the piece of bodgery on the far side!  I kept the wires under tension (as much as I could) whilst gluing all the posts and wire together.  You'll see I didn't add the two lowest wires; I didn't put those on the other length as they are all hidden in the grass, so thought it would look odd if I put them on this stretch.  It also made things a little easier with all the threading...

 

A top tip - this fencing is much easier to assemble if you don't paint the posts first!

 

Now to paint it, which should be relatively straightforward, and install it on the layout (which I'm sure won't be so simple!)

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

I probably spoke a bit too soon.  Painting wasn't especially difficult, but required several sessions as the wire has an aversion to paint!  And once you have some paint on it's hard to see what is wet shiny paint and what is bare wire.  It would be nice if Scale Model Scenery provided the fencing with pre-blackened wires...

 

Anyway, I got it painted and then installed on the cutting this afternoon.  The wires still aren't as straight as I would have liked, as I've obviously had to bend the fencing around to get it to follow the contours.  It's just about good enough for government work, I suppose.  Some carefully placed shrubbery should hide the most bodged sections.

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Graham T said:

It would be nice if Scale Model Scenery provided the fencing with pre-blackened wires...

 

Chemical blackening rather than paint?

[Graham T]

Just now, Compound2632 said:

 

Chemical blackening rather than paint?

 

That would be a much better solution I think.  Need to get myself some before I do any more fencing.  En garde!

[Graham T]

Having got the fencing fixed, I've been able to make some progress with the greenery on top of the tunnel and along this side of the cutting.  You can probably see some wet glue here and there, not to mention wonky fence posts...  

 

I added a few daffodils along the river meadow too; not sure if I like them or not.  I'm wondering if either (a) I need to take them back out, or (b) it would look better with a few more of them.  Any thoughts please?  And should I add a few more scraggly bushes to the top of the cutting, or not?

 

Maybe the odd patch of bare earth around the bushes here and there, to suggest where animals have been active?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T
Another thought...

[Graham T]

I need to weather the tunnel mouth next.  I'd appreciate any thoughts on how much soot I should apply - all the pics I've found so far don't seem to show very much at all, but they're also all fairly modern I think, so would it have washed away over time?  I'm not very well-versed in soot/brick dynamics...

 

And also add some telegraph poles.  Still researching the siting of those, and number of insulators they might have had.

 

I'm not going to mention the signal

[MrWolf]

I'm of the "less is more" school of thought when it comes to soot on tunnel mouths and bridges. It tends to get removed by steam and rain 

 

This is Glenfield (Leicester & Swannington Railway) in the early 60s, it had been used by steam locomotives since 1832.

 

 

[Graham T]

Cheers Mr W - I'm with you on the "less is more" piece (although you might not believe it looking at the rampant shrubbery on top of the cutting).

 

I managed to get hold of some weathering powders today, which I haven't used before, so may give those a try on the tunnel mouth tomorrow.

[Neal Ball]

Morning @Graham T the new scenes around the railway and river are looking really good. I wouldn’t add too many more daffodils, you would be in danger of setting the time zone too precisely. It looks like the height of summer at the moment and obviously Daffs suggest Spring.

 

As for Soot, I would suggest minimal amount… although I can’t find photographic evidence either way.

 

Have a good day

[Graham T]

6 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

Morning @Graham T the new scenes around the railway and river are looking really good. I wouldn’t add too many more daffodils, you would be in danger of setting the time zone too precisely. It looks like the height of summer at the moment and obviously Daffs suggest Spring.

 

As for Soot, I would suggest minimal amount… although I can’t find photographic evidence either way.

 

Have a good day

 

Hello Neal, thanks for the comments - it's always great to get some feedback!

 

I'll be sparing with the daffodils as you recommend, likewise the soot.

 

I'm painting the telegraph poles at the moment, using the Ratio ones.  Hopefully I might get them planted later today.

[Graham T]

Forgetting my manners!  Hope you also have a good day over there in sunny Spain

[Graham T]

The telegraph poles have now been cleaned up, painted, and planted.  

 

So the scenery on this side of the river is getting close to being done.  There are lots of little tweaks to make I'm sure, to try and make the vegetation look more realistic, but I may take a pause on this element for now.  And of course I also need to do the signal at some point...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

The tunnel mouth has also received some attention.  I think I might add just a little more soot to the front face - what do others think?  I've darkened the inside quite a bit, which helps to disguise the fact that the tunnel is only actually a couple of inches long!  I also added a bit of blended turf along the bottom of the brick walls.

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[Fishplate]

On 30/01/2022 at 16:47, MrWolf said:

On the subject of painting falcons, I thought that this image might be useful.

 

Is that one of your paintings Rob ?

[Fishplate]

1 hour ago, Graham T said:

 

So the scenery on this side of the river is getting close to being done. 

 

Superb 

[MrWolf]

40 minutes ago, Fishplate said:

 

Is that one of your paintings Rob ?

 

Unfortunately no, I never got into painting wildlife or animals in general. I mostly do illusrtrations, vehicles, people, street scenes, in a kind of B movie poster style. 

[Graham T]

I've mentioned my staggering level of numptiness with all things electrical before, and it's time to revisit that I'm afraid.  In @MrWolf's thread there was some discussion of modifying electrofrog points without having to lift them, but I'm afraid it didn't make complete sense to me (quel surprise...)

 

The issue I'm having is that I didn't modify my points before laying them, and now I'm having running problems across some of them with some of my locos, which I think is down to the switch rails not making the best electrical contact.  Over at Aston on Clun there was mention of using a length of wire to connect the stock rails at each end of the point to overcome this.

 

Am I right in thinking that I could do this by soldering a wire from x-x, and another from y-y, on the diagram below?  The layout is DCC, points are electrofrog, and I haven't modified them (i.e. the bridge wires marked by the blue dots have not been cut).  Any help from electrical gurus will be very gratefully received and rewarded with copious amounts of (virtual) beer!

 

[Graham T]

Beuller?  Anyone?

[MrWolf]

What I did to maintain continuity is outlined below. I basically drilled right through the boards and soldered a wire to the outside of the rails, linking each outer pair of rails so that I wasn't relying on the switch rails touching the stock rails for electrical continuity.

My track is all insulfrog to allow for the bacon slicer flanges on some of the older locos.

 

 

 

 

[Graham T]

Thanks Rob, that's very clear now - much appreciated.  But I don't know if that would be ok to do with electrofrog points?  To me all this froggery and electrickery is a very dark art, unfortunately...

[5BarVT]

2 minutes ago, Graham T said:

But I don't know if that would be ok to do with electrofrog points?

‘Fraid not.

With electrofrog, the V (to the right of your blue spots) needs to be switched depending on the lie of the points.

With unaltered electrofrog, that is done by the point blades and as I think you have found, reacts unfavourably to paint.

(But note that only one point blade is touching at any one time.)
Putting Rob’s loopy wires on solves the point blade continuity problem but has them both connected permanently.

Bang, click, squawk, etc depending on controller/command station. :-(

 

So to use Rob’s connection on electrofrog you need to:

Break the wires at the blue dots (I think this can be done in-situ using a razor saw (because I recall I had to do it!)).

Add Rob’s loopy wires.

Add another wire to the V which is switched according to the lie of the points (using a switch on the point motor, micro switch driven by same, etc etc)

 

Which I suspect isn’t what you wanted to hear, sorry.

Paul.

(I can’t remember how you control your points hence slight vagueness with options for switching the V.)

[Graham T]

5 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

‘Fraid not.

With electrofrog, the V (to the right of your blue spots) needs to be switched depending on the lie of the points.

With unaltered electrofrog, that is done by the point blades and as I think you have found, reacts unfavourably to paint.

(But note that only one point blade is touching at any one time.)
Putting Rob’s loopy wires on solves the point blade continuity problem but has them both connected permanently.

Bang, click, squawk, etc depending on controller/command station. :-(

 

So to use Rob’s connection on electrofrog you need to:

Break the wires at the blue dots (I think this can be done in-situ using a razor saw (because I recall I had to do it!)).

Add Rob’s loopy wires.

Add another wire to the V which is switched according to the lie of the points (using a switch on the point motor, micro switch driven by same, etc etc)

 

Which I suspect isn’t what you wanted to hear, sorry.

Paul.

(I can’t remember how you control your points hence slight vagueness with options for switching the V.)

 

Thanks for that Paul.  The points are controlled by Peco PL-1000 motors, which can have a Peco microswitch fitted to them - one of these:

 

[5BarVT]

2 minutes ago, Graham T said:

 

Thanks for that Paul.  The points are controlled by Peco PL-1000 motors, which can have a Peco microswitch fitted to them - one of these:

 

So (assuming each set of three is one micro switch), connect the centre pin to the V and the outside pins to the track supply.  (There are two ways to do the latter one is right the other is wrong!). Trial and error?

Just thought of an alternative way - use a frog juicer, then it does it for you.  Some people like them, others don’t.)

Paul.

[Graham T]

I have got a couple of frog juicers (DCC80 Gaugemaster  DCC Autofrog) for the single slip that I'm going to add.  I'm groping around in the dark here Paul, so please excuse my ignorance...

 

But if I fit a frog juicer to the point, does that mean that I don't need to solder the extra wires to the rails that we've just been talking about?  And it will fix the switch rail conductivity problem?