Dymented - the Serious stuff starts!

[Re6/6]

10 hours ago, Philou said:

 

...Due to friction occurring on the ski-slopes...

That's the last thing that you want on the slopes...

 

..hat, coat...🙄

[Philou]

@Re6/6 You forgot the 'Ta-boom tish'. I did wonder if anyone would pick it up - an awkward phrase unfortunately!

 

I have been having daily weather reports - here it's been grey and overcast for three days and never getting higher than +4°. There, they're having glorious sunshine looking down on the grey clouds - but it's -16°!!!!!

 

I did manage to do a little bit of cutting-in, but the time I went off to lunch and did some shopping plus hunting around for some suitable sealant for the floor, the rest of the day had evaporated.

 

I should have a couple of hours free in the afternoon tomorrow.

 

Maybe a photo or two to show.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Philou]

Hello chums,

 

The couple of hours came and went but I can announce that the painting of the walls, ceilings and Big Beam is finished! As time was short, I had to forgo taking a photo this evening, so I'll post one or two tomorrow - in fact, the photos may well show electrics under way too! If anyone does visit, I shall have to hand out shades due to the whiteness!

 

Downside of my shopping trip yesterday was that the DIY discounter had no more 10mm external grade ply in stock - so I shall need to go elsewhere.

 

Having been on my hands and knees finishing off the walls at floor level (not bothering with skirtings), I discovered that the floorboards are very very cold, and I thought that wood was a pretty good insulator. I am seriously considering getting a carpet monster as a pet - perhaps office type carpet tiles.

 

More tomorrow from balmy France (not!).

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Philou]

Hello chaps and chapesses,

 

Oh yes indeed, the electrics are underway. I cut off all the excess conduit this morning and after lunch, I managed to thread all the power cables into place.

 

Tomorrow will be the turn of the lighting circuits - it may take a while as it'll be arms-in-the-air job. I had enough trouble today working on the horizontal!

 

I did say I'd post up a couple of photos today - so here goes:

 

This is what it was like a few days ago:

 

....and this is today:

 

Another of the corners:

 

Another corner:

 

(The grey and white splodges are dust particles on the camera lens - honest!)

 

As soon as I've finished pulling the lighting cables through, it'll be cavity boxes and fascias to the power circuits and then the light fittings.

 

Towards the end of the week, I shall have to do a major tidy-up, clean and lightly sand the floor and thoroughly vacuum it. Before any sealant goes down I will need to spray some wood preserver on the boards as they were delivered planed but untreated. I shan't be able to do the sealant straight away as the preserver will need to dry out - thankfully temperatures are due to rise a little this coming week, which will help.

 

Once I get the sealant down (remembering NOT to paint myself into a corner), I shall leave it dry out completely. In the meantime, I'll finalise the 3D drawings so I can get a feel of what is really needed as I shall want to allow enough to be able to form the hills and valleys (the landscape element) along the edges of the modules with the cross members shaped accordingly.

 

That's the plan - but what about the timetable? Honestly, I don't know as there are a lot of variables that were just thought of as being 'things that will need to done eventually', but now as they come to the fore each element is taking time to be done - and real life gets in the way too!

 

I shall get there!!

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

PS: A huge parcel arrived from Accurascale today, but I've had no time to open it yet. Well done chaps at Accurascale as it arrived while Mrs Philou was out shopping. I shall only need to explain away the TPEs when they arrive!

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by Philou
Extraneous photo inserted

[Philou]

Hello chums and thank you for your encouragement.

 

This afternoon, I started on the lighting circuit. It all went quite well once I'd disentangled myself from the reels of cable ;). Well, until I started on the length between light units 4 and 5 when I had great difficulty in passing the four 1.5mm² cables through the conduit - there was only 2.0m to do. After pushing in about 150mm it just wouldn't budge! What I always do is to form a closed loop at the end of the cable(s) as French conduit is ribbed inside and out to give it flexibility and without the loop, the cable catches on the inside ribs going around curves. This I had already so done. H'mm. I tried a single cable (with loop) and with a bit of a heave-ho and a jiggle to the left and to the right I got to go past the ribbing bit by bit until it popped out at the other end. Hoorah! I removed the cable I tried again with the bundle of four but this time making a sleeve with some tape over the ends of the cables to reduce the chances of catching on the ribs. No joy! A bit of spit? Non! Washing up liquid from the kitchen? Nada!

 

Thinking cap on. Push the single cable back in and make a draw-wire? That too refused to go. Did it from the other end instead - finally arrived. Trimmed the insulation of it to reduce its cross-section and likewise from the four cables, made some loops and attached them to the draw-wire ensuring that there was just a bit of jiggle. As the draw-wire was quite long, I was able to stand on my steps and with one hand pull the draw-wire and push the bundle of cables with the other. Yay! The draw-wire arrived poking its nose of the conduit complete with the bundle in tow (normally by this time the loops have opened and left half the cabling behind!) but it stuck with just 3" to go. I pulled back and nothing - no going forwards nor backwards. I gave a sharp yank and a jack-in-the-box of conduit came out from the ceiling above my head! What the.....?

 

Seemingly, when I had put the plasterboard in place, a far longer piece than I had retrieved originally, must have got caught and had formed a very tight U- and S-bend out of sight. No wonder the cabling wouldn't slide through. Imagine wanting to coax a Radius 3 loco around a Radius 1 curve - ain't going to happen easily. Once I had cut off this bent-to-buqqery bit of conduit, the cabling just slid as it should have originally! I only wasted 90mins sorting it. However, overall, I have arrived at the mid-point of the lighting circuit, so it's all going the right way.

 

I do have an equally tight S-bend to tackle tomorrow, but I have allowed for that and it involves removing a piece of metal window framing and straightening out the conduit before cabling and then re-bending and putting it all back in place once cabled. I should have it done by the end of play tomorrow.

 

Cavity boxes and wiring up the sockets, then a dab of paint if I leave any marks on the wall and fascias clipped - that'll be for Tuesday/Wednesday. Lighting immediately thereafter.

 

Thanks for reading and more tomorrow.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[JeffP]

When I've had to thread cables into conduit I've found it helps a lot if you bundle the cables every 450 mm or so with electrian's tape, and ALWAYS keep the cables in the same plane as when you started, ie: no letting them cross over one another as this drastically increases the diameter of the bundle.

I have a professional nylon draw wire bought for a modest sum from Screwfix years ago.

That and my wire strippers are very useful tools.

[Philou]

@JeffP They are two things I haven't got - the draw-wire and wire strippers. The latter I shall need as there will be a lot of cabling to do under the modules. I'm down to the last three metres of conduit so I shan't be needing a draw-wire now.

 

Talking of modules - they're getting closer. Today I set off with good intentions of completing the lighting circuit and I did complete it from light unit 5 to 9 and beyond to the first of the two-way switches, including the dreaded second S-bend, then lunch called. I had an amendment to my circuit that I wanted to draw out on paper, which I did, and I was going to go back after lunch but it was too darned cold - there had been a fall of snow overnight (not forecast) and it was -2° this morning and it seemed even colder this afternoon. The call of a warm fire was too much and I did the club's finances instead - I thought I'd better start the fiscal year 2023 correctly.

 

That was done - tomorrow I'll have to cobble a couple of begging letters to the Maire of Chalindrey (where the club is based) and the Préfecture (County Hall) for some subventions (grants) for the forthcoming year. The Maire gives us around £150 p.a., and the Préfecture will grant upwards of 3000.00€ towards any show in the forthcoming year (which we are doing) - so not to be sniffed at!

 

Log gathering and cutting in the morning tomorrow, but I should have time to do my amendment, complete the circuit and to fix up a bulkhead light unit in the afternoon.

 

More tomorrow.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[JeffP]

Didn't realise you were close to Chalindrey.

My route home inexplicably took us near there one year, and a visit to the depot with both sons was quite enjoyable.

We also found and visited the source of the river Marne.

[Philou]

@JeffP Well! There you go! The club's moniker is Rotonde 52 after the roundhouse at the depot and there is a scale model of it (albeit reduced slightly in No. of bays). As the founder and Hon. Chair of the club works there, it just seemed sensible to name the club after it. I live about 30 miles away, but it's the closest club. They're a good bunch but they can't quite their heads around the difference between 00/H0!

 

Maybe you'll come back our way sometime? The door's always open ...............

 

Chums, I was hoping that I was going to write 'Lights, camera, action!' but alas it isn't going to be today. Yesterday was spent putting the cavity boxes in place, trimming any excess cabling and placing the sub-fascias in position. Sub-facias? Here in France, depending what make of sockets you buy, you end up with lots of 'bits'. First the cavity box that you have to place into the wall fairly square on - not easy as it really is a tight fit and there's no wiggle room. You then tighten up the cams that grip behind the plasterboard ensuring all your cables are free and accounted. Next comes the sub-fascia - this a square plastic/metal part that is screwed onto the cavity box - there is a bit of wiggle room to enable very minor adjustments to be made so that everything else that follows is square. 

 

Today, I carried on and it was a case of taking the sheathing off the end of each cable (about 12mm) ( @JeffP strippers would have been useful here ;) ) and pushing them into the back of the socket - grips and no screws - and then presenting the cables and socket to the hole in the sub-fascia. I can tell you that unlike UK sockets that tend to be constructed horizontally these French things are all depth and little clearance at the back of the socket plus 6 x 2.5mm cables and the cavity box behind! You need to push hard hoping the two flimsy clips will grip the socket aligned, while you give a good thump with your fist to make sure the clips are driven fully home. Once that's clipped, there's the fascia proper that just clips over the whole lot - but it plays no part in holding the socket itself in place - give me some nice screws to hold it all down!

 

This afternoon was spent preparing four of the nine light units (I have to find another five from somewhere) as they come without connecting cables so I made some up and soldered the copper stranded wire so it'll go more easily into my Wago connectors. As there was not much time left, I spent the rest of the afternoon wiring the power cables into the consumer unit and whilst I don't have lights I do have POWER in all the sockets! Tomorrow I can get rid of all the extension leads that I have jury rigged and plug straight into the wall sockets - hurrah, huzzah and hooray!

 

Fingers crossed that I can announce a lightning change in circumstances tomorrow.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

PS: No pictures - saving them for when the lights are in place and working.

[Philou]

'Lights, camera, action!' it is! Or more biblically, 'The Lord made light and saw it was good!' He also saw all the mess that was strewn about him ......

 

I have finished the leccy for the time being - I have some more ceiling lights to buy, but with the four already in place, there is plenty of light by which I can set-to and have a good clean up. After I touched up some patches with left over paint around the power outlets, I clipped all the fascias in place and that was it.

 

Having a little time at hand before calling it a day, I thought I'd better start clearing up and so I started to assemble all unwanted tools and left over electrical bits  ..................... it's surprising just how much crud one collects.

 

Here are some photos showing the major works to the room finished (missing luminaires excepted) AND working lights:

 

 

 

The great gathering of tools and the like being assembled, plus the additional bulkhead light illuminating the stairs. I had an after-thought about that as once the cellar doors are closed, the stairs are quite in the dark and I have no means of knowing if the lights in the railway room are off or not. The bulkhead light will be the tell-tale:

 

 

Tomorrow will be vim and vigour, though I shan't be using the brush excessively as I don't want to raise too much dust. After that, scrape-ity scrape of the plaster snobs, vacuuming and bit of light sanding of any rough patches on the floorboards, more vacuuming ........ I shall be pooped at the end of the day!

 

I will need to decide if I'm to caulk some of the joints that have gaps - there aren't many (five IIRC) - I have a load of clean sawdust ready to mix with some slightly diluted PVA and a drop of washing up liquid (now where have I heard of a similar formula before?) to make up my own paste. Leave dry and a bit of sanding down if needed, then onto the next stage.

 

Following on will be spraying of Xylophène (think Rentokil) on the bare boards. At this point, I just don't know how long it will take to dry - hopefully not too long as I have no intention of soaking the woodwork. Once dry to the touch I can use the sealant straight away as it's water-based so any residual damp from the wood preserver won't make any difference. After that .... time will tell as I shall want the floor really dry before I start walking upon it again.

 

Cheers everyone,

 

Philip

 

[Philou]

Progress will be slow at the rate of today's performance! By the time I had gathered up all the tools and put them back in their respective places, it was almost lunchtime when I spotted the black hole! The black hole is the window set in the internal dividing wall that I hadn't, until now, remembered that it needed painting so that I could then fit the acrylic glazing in place - which meant it would be another item off the floor.

 

Armed with my black Hammerite and a small paintbrush, I had the one frame painted before lunch and the other immediately afterwards - so job done and when completely dry tomorrow morning, I shall finish the glazing and then some more cardboard packing can go for recycling.

 

The amount of dust that I have swept is phenomenal. It appears out of nowhere, and as mentioned yesterday I don't want to go heavy-handed as it'll just get back into the air and come down everywhere. I did manage to do about half the floor with gentle sweeping and scraping off of the plaster snobs. If the glazing doesn't take over-long, most of it should be done before lunch and finished off afterwards.

 

I should be able to make up my 'paste' to infill any large gaps in flooring (by large I mean no more than 5mm) - there are only a few. I shall let it dry overnight and it'll be light sanding of the infills and any roughness of the wood grain - again not much but where the dust collects in the rough grain, it looks dirty.

 

More tomorrow,

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Philou]

Timetables! Pfff! I decided to finish off the sweeping up and scraping of the snobs off the floor first - that took me 'til lunchtime! I forwent the glazing having seen the dust that settled on everything despite gentle sweeping and spent part of the afternoon vacuuming up and then started to caulk the floor. My sawdust/PVA mix seemed to work quite well, but it took rather longer to do. I had done a good part of it before calling it a day. I shall continue tomorrow and then start sanding down. I shall only do the glazing once I have done all works that will create dust as the acrylic is static and seems to attract it somewhat. I had started to clean the inside face of the first pieces that I had fixed on the outer side, but even a soft paintbrush left microscopic scratches on the surface. I will try a soft chammy (chamois) slightly dampened to see if it works - I'll live!

 

I will say, without sanding but having vacuumed, the room has changed - and for the better!

 

More tomorrow.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

PS: I never realised just how hard sweeping is - I felt like Mrs Thursday (for the young'uns - TV programme starring Kathleen Harrison)

Edited February 4, 2023 by Philou
More haste - less speed = missing words

[Philou]

Not much to show for my two very sore wrists! The floor sanding is under way but it's taking a while with a triangular headed sander. I have a belt-sander but there's no fine control over it and just too efficient. I think a palm type sander is intended for work on a bench rather on the floor and the angles are all wrong for my wrists - or old age is starting to affect me rather more than I'm ready to admit!

 

I haven't hung about and I managed to do just under 50% of the flooring. Tomorrow is a non-day work-wise and so it'll be a restart for Tuesday.

 

Now it's been partially sanded and the marks caused by the tyres of the 'dead man's hand' and plaster snobs removed, the floor is looking re-markedly good. I'll try and take a picture tomorrow of the 'before and after'. I meant to do it this evening but I got waylaid by 'phone calls and messages when I went into the house to get the camera :( .

 

Not much will happen tomorrow, so more on Tuesday.

 

Toodle pip,

 

Philip

[Philou]

Hello chums,

 

I managed a photo this morning before being taken to town :( . I'm not sure if the difference shows very well but believe me it's oodles cleaner than it was before!

 

Tomorrow I'll continue with the sanding and as I woke up an hour earlier than usual this morning (daylight is noticeably earlier now) then I could (for a value of could) start earlier and get the whole floor done. It takes up to a half hour to thoroughly clean two strips 200mm wide x 7.8m long - there are 17 strips to finish.

 

Here's the floor at the day's end yesterday -

 

Here's the dirty half before sweeping:

 

 

........... and after a sweep:

 

 

............ the sanded half:

 

 

.............. and the two side by side:

 

 

We'll see what happens tomorrow.

 

Cheers everyone and stay warm,

 

Philip

Edited February 6, 2023 by Philou

[JeffP]

Dust?

Aye, where does it come from?

Ours, as a holiday home, so is shut up tight for up to five months.

On going back, as I go round getting the water and leccy set up, opening shutters etc, wife is busy in her wheelchair wiping every horizontal surface she can get to with neutral wet wipes.

We have THREE Vax cylinder vacuum cleaners, all bought second hand, one which was bought for parts and I fitted a new motor, all have cloth emptyable, washable bags and a supply of clean filters.

They are excellent for any renovation work, although the suction is so powerful that if I don't pick up big bits, they can block their hoses.

Three?

They are so heavy we have one for each part of the house.😄 

And guess who has to do the hoovering?😁

[JeffP]

Also might add:

I'm not sure how much caulking I'd be doing until I've seen the boards go through a full year or so of expansion/contraction.

[Philou]

@JeffP Dust? I'll tell the tale of MY dust toot dee sweet:

 

Following on from the day before yesterday, I restarted from where I left off the sanding and my wrists were becoming sore again after doing about 1/3rd of what was left when *ding* I remembered Mrs Philou had bought a Bosch hand-palm sander to do something or other.

 

I found it plus some spare sheets of 60 grade paper - what joy using a quality sander - just right in size, weight and speed, and the paper was good too. I finished all ahead of time but when I looked around me I was in fog! A fog of very fine particles of wood but the planking was clean! (No wonder as all the dust was airborne). Luckily I had a mask so no coughing or spluttering ensued. I abandoned ship asap and shut the cellar doors and allowed the dust to settle. You could see the dust following me down the staircase in the reflected light.

 

I couldn't start work straight away this morning as Mr Mayor had offered to bring some logs down from the woods on the back of his tractor. How could I refuse as it was that or in the back of my car. 1 tonne later, the logs loaded and unloaded by Mr Mayor and I, and all cut into lengths ready for the burner before lunch.

 

This afternoon when I reopened the railway room, the dust seemed to have settled and I then passed the vacuum on everything that I could reasonably reach - included the Big Beam that had turned grey - and cleared the room entirely. It had never looked so clean nor empty from the time I'd first screwed the planks down.

 

An hour later, the wood treatment was being sprayed and that too is now done.

 

Tomorrow, I've been booked an appointment with a hair-cut - no thrup'ny orloffs here, but it's only in the morning. If the floor is dry (it was drying out as I was finishing this evening), I shall attempt to do the stain/sealant over the whole floor. It'll be slower as I intend to brush it on rather than spray - but I believe it's doable.

 

Anyway, I did take a few photos to show progress:

 

L@@k!! RARE!! Just look at that clean emptiness:

 

 

 

 

This is the wood preserver going on - it really makes a difference to the colour of the wood. The stain I've chosen is warm pine so it should only be a shade darker:

 

 

The overspray was being caused by a dodgy O-ring that had been pinched when the spray unit had been factory assembled. Wood preserver was pisculting over my hands and feet and the sprayer wouldn't hold pressure. In the end I did a running repair as I had a box of assorted 'ose and it was fine afterwards.

 

@JeffP I went for the caulking as I've had the shrink and swell twice and any gaps of around 1mm I left and just did those that were larger, of which there were very few.

 

Cheers chums - hopefully closure of the floor staining tomorrow (remembering not to get myself trapped in the furthest corner away from the door ;) ).

 

Philip

[JeffP]

Looks like I remember ours.

It was around 10m square and had two large and two smaller Velux windows, so very light.

Some friends referred to it as "the dance studio".

[Philou]

On a roll at the moment ladies and gentlemen, on a roll.

 

The floor is stained! All 52m². Glad it wasn't @JeffP 's otherwise I'd still be there staining ;) . There's unfortunately no photo as from the stairwell there isn't a good viewpoint. The instructions seem to indicate that it may take up to 48 hours to dry depending on climatic conditions and it's very cold (but dry), and it may be Saturday before I can walk on it again.

 

I did have a contretemps with the paintbrush that I chose to use - an old pasting brush that was just narrow enough to pass into the paint-tin and it was nearly a whole plank wide. Unfortunately the bristles were made of a rather hard plastic type material and if I wasn't careful how I brushed, it had a rather nasty habit of flicking paint onto my nice walls - aww no! I have the tiniest bit of white paint left in the bucket and with a bit of luck any errors will be magicked away - good luck with that then!

 

After Saturday there will be no updates as I shall be in the UK for a fortnight but I might get to pop into RMWeb from time to time. On my return I shall get some supplies of plywood and have another vacuuming/dusting of the room and fix the last two bits of acrylic glazing, then:-

 

I think we can probably consider that 1st March (Dewi Sant's Day) will indeed be the start of a completely new phase. Ooh, I'm so excited!

 

If I'm to continue with this thread, do you think I should change the title? If so, to what?

 

Cheers everyone,

 

Philip

 

PS: The colour of the stain is 'exotic teak' and now the grain is showing through it reminds me of LNER teak, or is it GER .......................

[Philou]

Hello chums,

 

No real work today as I chose not to walk on the floor to give it time to fully dry - it felt dry to the touch but I suspect not over the whole area.

 

Anyway, I did venture onto the floor to take two photos which are here:

 

 

 

(The white spots are on the camera lens - worse still, I think they're inside the camera body and not external :( , as lens cleanser and a soft lens brush have no effect.)

 

 

I decided to shut it all down again and proceeded to treat my stairs with preserver instead, so another little job sorted. Everything can dry out thoroughly whilst I'm away.

 

I have a feeling this is going to be an expensive trip what with the travelling hither and thither and going to 'visit' my favourite model railway emporium :).

 

Speak soon and take care everyone,

 

Philip

[Barclay]

Room looks amazing, though I worry for your head - is that beam taller than you?

 

Looking forward to seeing the layout develop.

 

[Philou]

1 hour ago, Barclay said:

is that beam taller than you?

 

Thanks for the comment - it's taken eighteen months to get here.

 

In reply to the question, yes and no. At the one end in between the two 'windows' (top photo) it is well clear of my head at about 2.0m, but the other end 'tis only 1.4m above floor level - not too much bruising so far though.

 

Without any flooring originally in place, it looked much higher up, and annoyingly, I could have finally constructed my floor 400mm lower and have had 1.8m headroom at the lowest point (I would have passed underneath without parting my hair) AND I probably would have had a completely flat ceiling too. But there you go, it is now what it is and there's no going back. At least the design of the layout is such that under the lowest part of the beam will be the storage/fiddle yard peninsula that will prevent anyone from passing in a straight line underneath it.

 

I intend to put a foam guard in place complete with black and yellow warning stripes!

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Nick C]

4 hours ago, Philou said:

I intend to put a foam guard in place complete with black and yellow warning stripes!

And a red and white 'limited clearance' sign?

[Philou]

42 minutes ago, Nick C said:

And a red and white 'limited clearance' sign?

 

Ooh, I forgot about one of those. Over here they have an exact same one but is was used in the days of mechanical signalling and known as a 'carré' (square) and was the equivalent to a STOP signal. They're pretty common memorabilia as now superseded by red-light signals but still known as 'le carré'. I'll see if anyone up the club has one - though if they come to visit the layout they may think it's a 'no entry' sign!

Edited February 10, 2023 by Philou

[Philou]

I'm still lurking but from the UK! Went to the railway museum in York yesterday. It was very disappointing - not a patch on Mulhouse unfortunately. Half the site is being renovated and apart from the 1:1 stuff, the rest is poorly set out and worse, unlabelled. Not impressed! 

 

Keep safe everyone,

 

Philip