Dymented - the Serious stuff starts!

[lezz01]

1 in 8 seems to be the standard that everyone agreed on in the Scale 4 on line forum.

Regards Lez.

[Philou]

1:8 (12.5%) ties in quite nicely with the maximum grade that we would allow for driveways when I was in the Highways Department doing development control.

 

So far, the glazing has been doubled - so a job jobbed. This afternoon, I shall cut down one of the panels - however, they're forecasting 10 days of rain and to fall in a quantity of a normal month's worth - it would, wouldn't it!

 

More news tonight.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[lezz01]

Well they are forecasting disruptive snow fall here in the south of England. I'd rather have the rain myself.

Regards Lez.

[Philou]

Who's a silly billy then? Find out more in a moment ........

 

Pretty good afternoon overall - I managed to cut two sheets into a width of 880mm plus a 330mm left-over each. The first sheet I re-cut at an angle across its width the represent the point where Ledbury station's retaining wall adjoins Bromyard Road, the road is at angle to the railway. They must have used a lot of spoil from the cutting leading to the tunnel and the tunnel itself to create a plateau where the station now stands plus the embankments leading to the viaduct. The boards represent most of Ledbury station from the throat at Bromyard Road to almost the tunnel entrance.

 

Mrs Philou took pity on me as it went very cold this afternoon, and let me bring two of the sheets indoors measuring about 4.0m overall and set them up on trestles. I did promise that there would be no woodworking indoors as I'm intending to mark out the track plan only. I'm doing it now so when I put the cross-members underneath I can avoid the places where point motors are supposed to go.

 

As my wonderful stock list hadn't been updated to reflect additional points that I had bought/received some time back, it meant going back into the barn and having look - which meant unpiling them all. As I was at it, I decided that they could now be moved from the barn to the railway room. It meant lugging 33 boxes of assorted weights and dimensions! I found my stock of points and track.

 

The silly billy bit is whilst I have been busy stocking up on - er - stock in Cardiff, I completely overlooked that I need a lot more points! These I could have picked up whilst there - and I was looking at them too! So the tracklaying for the new layout will be delayed a while. It's not urgent as I shall have plenty of woodworking to do and I can recycle what I have for a dry-run. Once I can determine what is missing, I shall order all the items in one go. I am tempted to try some of the British Finescale points for those awkward junctions not readily available in ready-to-plonk format.  I have at least a wye, a diamond and an asymmetrical three-way missing for starters, plus some others outside the throat - doh!

 

Anyway, a few pictures from today's start on the layout:

 

Ready to cut with the aluminium straight edge clamped rather than screwed (saves making unwanted holes):

 

 

The first board cut longitudinally and then re-cut at an angle - the board on the right will be used later to make the landform leading to the two viaducts:

 

 

My stock-pile of - er - stock. Sssh, Mum's the word, Mrs Philou has never seen the boxes all in one place as spread out as this:

 

 

 

Ledbury station boards in the dining area with some points ready to be unpacked tomorrow. Bromyard Road bridge is the board furthest away. Once I've laid the points out, I shall be able to determine more clearly where their motors will go and thus avoid any cross-members under. I can then recut the long board too into a more sensible length avoiding any pointwork altogether. As a bonus I should be able to identify the toes of any cuttings and rout out channels alongside the cess:

 

 

Not a lot to show but I am underway!

 

Cheers everyone,

 

Philip

[Nick C]

I'd recommend the British Finescale points, very easy to build (I reckon about half an hour for a standard turnout), and the geometry is much better than Peco. No connection, except as a satisfied customer...

[lezz01]

Have you ever thought of trying EM gauge Phillip?

Regards Lez.

[JeffP]

19 hours ago, lezz01 said:

Well they are forecasting disruptive snow fall here in the south of England. I'd rather have the rain myself.

Regards Lez.

Who are?

Because if its mainstream media it will be pretty much nonsense.

[JeffP]

Read your silly billy post, and at first my heart sank for you.

But as s-b's go, not bad.

Nothing ruined, nothing needing replaced, no hours of work wasted.

 

So... onward.

 

PS: to steal a Monty Python idea, 

" Ah won't show that photo te yer wife fer a poond".😄

Edited March 7, 2023 by JeffP

[Philou]

11 hours ago, lezz01 said:

Have you ever thought of trying EM gauge Phillip?

 

In view of the pile of stock boxes above, I hope that was a tongue-in-cheek remark :). There's just too much to even contemplate doing the change. In any case, I think certain members of the club would like an opportunity to run their stock too and unfortunately EM/HO is wholly incompatible, whereas OO/HO..........

 

This morning, track laying out will continue and if no rain, one or two more boards cut as well.

 

12 hours ago, Nick C said:

I'd recommend the British Finescale points

 

I read the reviews in the thread and what interested me was that there is a certain amount of flexibility in the pointwork so it can be laid slightly curved if needed. I know it can be done with Peco, but the plastic seems to be more rigid. I seem to recall that the radius of the BF points are about 4' which would be a good compromise.

 

More news tonight,

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

[Nick C]

17 minutes ago, Philou said:

I read the reviews in the thread and what interested me was that there is a certain amount of flexibility in the pointwork so it can be laid slightly curved if needed. I know it can be done with Peco, but the plastic seems to be more rigid. I seem to recall that the radius of the BF points are about 4' which would be a good compromise

There's very little flex in the base, but you can readily cut the ties between the sleepers to curve them - though it then helps if you print off a Templot plan of the appropriate curvature to get the rail lengths right, as the supplied plans are straight.

 

He does two sizes at the moment - B7 and A5 (the number being the divergance ratio, so a B7 is 1:7 at the crossing) - If you want I can take a photo comparing one with a Peco large radius to show how they compare size-wize?

[Philou]

5 hours ago, Nick C said:

If you want I can take a photo comparing one with a Peco large radius to show how they compare size-wize?

@Nick C Yes please - I've just had 'fun' laying what pointwork I have at hand - funny how there seem to be a lot of R/H points left over. I accumulated a lot by way of gifts at birthday and Christmas. A pity I wasn't asked (surprise gifts) as I would have suggested a 2:1 ratio L/H:R/H. I may use a few more R/H ones as I work my way round to Pontrilas so nothing lost or wasted yet.

 

Here are two photos of the track setting-out to give me an idea of where point motors should go. It has also shown were I cannot have a baseboard joint as one I prepared earlier goes through one point. Not a problem as I can recut and add it to No2 board, which in turn I can reduce in length by 900mm - that makes for easier handling. Ledbury station throat to throat will measure just shy of 4.0m - most of the board No2 is taken up by the pointwork serving the yard and the assisting loco release roads:

 

 

 

There are gaps in the trackwork as I saw no benefit in cutting short sections now, as the whole exercise will be repeated for real, shortly. I also need to order asap the missing points. That was a really silly-billy moment on my part.

 

The empty space in the upper board (second photo - board No2) will be taken up by the cutting leading into the tunnel. The space towards the camera is the station approach road and yard access - there's some additional yard trackage to be placed too. There will be about 25yds of track just on those two boards - where does it all go?

 

Tomorrow will be cutting the boards to length and then forming the support/cross members. I'll also have to strip down some large battens that I have into smaller ones for corner re-inforcement. The side pieces will follow on - some I can cut from the left-overs but others are larger than that and I'll have to cut them directly out of the large sheets - there's exciting innit!

 

More tomorrow,

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[The Stationmaster]

On 05/03/2023 at 21:02, Nick C said:

I seem to remember a minimum of 1:8 from somewhere...

Possibly 'the Requirements' as they state that the slope of platform ramps must be no steeper that 1 in 8.  Some older and lower platforms were undoubtedly less steep than 1 in 8 but that would have still met the Requirements.

[lezz01]

6 hours ago, Philou said:

 

In view of the pile of stock boxes above, I hope that was a tongue-in-cheek remark :). There's just too much to even contemplate doing the change. In any case, I think certain members of the club would like an opportunity to run their stock too and unfortunately EM/HO is wholly incompatible, whereas OO/HO..........

 

 

 

Well once you mentioned having to build some point work you sort of opened the door. As a member of both the EMGS and the S4 Soc. I feel that I should evangelise where possible and once someone starts to build their own point work they soon get the bug as it's quite addictive and a heck of a lot cheaper per unit than ready to lay, once people are building their own track it's not that much of a stretch to change wheels and run EM in many cases it's just a case of pulling out the wheelsets. I didn't factor in the fact that our French brothers were going to be running HO on your layout so my bad. As I said I do feel the need to spread the gospel, it's sort of expected you understand although not written in either constitution.   

Regards Lez.

Edited March 7, 2023 by lezz01

[Nick C]

1 hour ago, Philou said:

@Nick C Yes please - I've just had 'fun' laying what pointwork I have at hand - funny how there seem to be a lot of R/H points left over. I accumulated a lot by way of gifts at birthday and Christmas. A pity I wasn't asked (surprise gifts) as I would have suggested a 2:1 ratio L/H:R/H. I may use a few more R/H ones as I work my way round to Pontrilas so nothing lost or wasted yet.

Here you go - first photo shows a standard Peco large radius next to a BF B7, second is the same Peco point with an A5, in both cases with the tie bars aligned :

[Philou]

Today was a bit of a let-down as the morning wasn't mine to do as I wished. Mrs Philou's brother is ill with cancer of the colon that's migrated into his liver and as he wasn't well yesterday, she decided at short notice to go with her two sisters and visit - it's 750km away - he is the priority right now and rightly so. My layout can go on the back-burner if needed.

 

This morning was spent getting suitcases and lots of other items ready and they left after lunch - it left me with the afternoon free. Except that it had been damp this morning and I'd only been outside about half an hour when it decided to pee on my parade!

 

Nonetheless, in the barn, I managed to recut the two boards from yesterday, strip another board into two longitudinal lengths and then recut the wider of the two into 880 x 100mm strips to use as cross-members. I stopped after having done a few as the damp was making it feel quite cold in the barn. Tomorrow, I'll form cut-outs in them to allow cables to be passed through and hopefully strip down some timber into battens. If the going is good, then I shall tackle the side frames. We might see one board completed wood-wise by the weekend!

 

Cheers and keep warm - I understand there was snow today in the UK!

 

Philip

[Philou]

@Nick C Thanks for the photos - I prefer the B7 as to me the A5 looks a shade toy-like - not sure why though. I think it's because it reminds me of the style of the Graham Farish OO points of years ago.

 

I took note of what was said regarding the web cutting and the idea of using Templot. The downside is the pointwork is bullhead whereas I'm using F/B throughout - though having said that, until at least 2008, there was B/H track and pointwork on the Down line through Ledbury station. I shan't knock it as I haven't tried it and it could be ideal for those odd bits of formation that can't be done in RTP -  nothing to lose in trying my hand on a pair.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited March 8, 2023 by Philou

[Philou]

Hello chums,

 

Things went the right way today despite an afternoon start, as Mrs Philou is not here, it was do-your-own-shopping this morning.

 

I finished the cross-members and cut some battens from a left-over eaves board that I had and assembled the main Ledbury board. I've called it Board B and it was made up of two parts. Surprisingly it measures over 1.9m long and there is no convenient place where I could have cut it shorter due to the number of points upon it.

 

Here we are, a couple photos. The first shows the cross-members that I 'holed' so cabling can pass through, together with the battens:

 

 

The second picture shows Board B partially assembled to the battens. When I do the contoured side pieces tomorrow, I think I'll have more of an idea how the thing will pan out:

 

 

Cheers everyone,

 

Philip

 

 

[Philou]

You've heard the phrase 'measure twice, cut once'? .................................

 

Yesterday was all ups and today was all downs. It started off badly with high winds and lashing rain so I decided that I wouldn't be working outside first and I'd avoid the rain - working in the barn is not really an option due to the dust that gets kicked up. Additionally, the floor is beaten earth and very uneven so not conducive to doing straight cuts.

 

Anyway, I had the cat litter tray to be cleaned thoroughly so that had to be washed properly - in the rain.

 

The cat-litter bucket was half-full of rainwater, so had to be emptied out in the bottom of the garden, that meant a walk ... in the rain AND when I raked out the fire and went to dispose of the hot ashes, the bucket was full, so another walk down the garden ...... in the rain.

 

I also went across the road to open the neighbours' house as they're away and another walk in the ....... I was feeling a tad rained upon by then.

 

Also had a long chat with Mrs Philou who is still with her brother and she was ankle-deep in mud, in a howling gale and in the rain! (He's temporarily living in an abandoned but weather-tight farm - with the owner's permission, I hasten to add).

 

By that time lunch was but 45mins away and as M. le Maire took pity on me, I'd been invited round to lunch, and couldn't be late (bad form around these parts - 12 midday is 12 midday and no later for lunch), so I spent what time was left calculating the cuts needed for my sides to the boards.

 

That done, went to lunch, to find Mme. le Maire had been delayed and so was lunch - aperitifs all round - don't mind if I do - have another? Oh go on then. Didn't get back indoors until gone three, by which time the rain had stopped. Set my self up, just got the cutting board out and it pisculated again. This time I set my workbench up in the barn and armed with the earlier measurements chose a piece of off-cut ply to shape up. There was 5mm missing on the desired height but as it was to be incorporated into landscaping I decided I'd live and it would save me cutting into a new panel.

 

Fortunately, before saw met wood, I noticed an error in my proposed length 1942mm + 1mm for the thickness of the board - nope 10mm for the thickness. I allowed for that and cut it as intended. About to start marking out the heights and having re-looked at the sketch, they too were all out by 9mm - which meant that my loss of height was now 15mm. Doh! Whilst it probably wouldn't make any difference really, I decided I'd better re-do the measurements altogether and in the calm. So what was left of the afternoon was spent doing just that. I have now a complete new set of figures that are similar, but definitely not the same, as those of this morning.

 

So there you have it - a soggy saga, a tale of more haste and definitely less speed and DO measure twice and cut once!

 

Tomorrow should see major progress with sides, ends and cross-members in place.

 

Cheers everyone and stay dry,

 

Philip

[lezz01]

Twice is never enough in my experience. I'm dyslexic and part of that is that I transpose numbers and even when those numbers are right in front of my eyes I will read 2485 as 2845. So I was putting up curtain track for my friends a few weeks ago and the track had to go up in 2 parts and was metal so it was vital that I started the curve in exactly the right place and on the fifth time of measuring I got a different answer so I measured again twice more and got the same number again and it was a good job too because my brain had been merrily transposing the last two numbers. After much cussing the curtain track went up as easy as pie and the job is a good un.

Regards Lez.  

[Philou]

@lezz01 I know the feeling only too well regarding the transposition of numbers in a set - found two in the measurements mentioned above. In my case it was simply rushing so I feel for you and others who are dyslexic. I hope you've found ways of overcoming your problem. On a positive note, my brother is numerexic and has trouble with figures - hasn't stopped him successfully operating his model shop!

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

I used to think I could get away with just measuring once and go straight into cutting - but I'm learning ............

[JeffP]

We did have snow in North Lincs.

It arrived 24 hours after it was forecast, put down around 50-60 mm, caused school and technical college closures, 🤔 and was all melted and gone by 1445.

Only upside was the fast melt was overflowing my garage guttering, so once it had gone I investigated, to find the downspout blocked by dead leaves.

Now cleared.

So without the snow I'd not have known...maybe.

[Philou]

A mixed bag today and a learning curve. Assembling a board looks ever so easy. It ain't. Even though I thought I was prepared I found after the event that I could have done the assembly differently.

 

Things I learnt:

 

Cheap plywood is cheap for a reason;

 

Measuring twice (again) pays dividends.

 

Things that I did that I shall do differently for the next module:

 

I cut everything out that I thought that I needed - however, next time I shall have a stack of glue blocks ready.

 

I assembled the side pieces to the battens to ensure a level line, then attached the tops to the side pieces, then the support/cross-pieces to the sides and tops.

 

No, next time it'll be the side pieces, cross-pieces, ends then the tops. I will assemble though, as a dry-run, the tops to the battens and then dis-assemble - the screw-holes will be ready (as they were today). The problem in assembling the cross-pieces last was it was very awkward to try and get them square and then screw from the other side - can't be seen, can they! The extra glue blocks will give something to which can be secured the cross-pieces. Screwing end-on into 10mm ply is not to be recommended - well, not by me anyway.

 

Here is the result of 4 and half-hours work and I have two more cross-pieces to fix and one end piece to cut tomorrow. This end piece will duplicate as it'll be the starter piece for the next module. Seemingly, it's going to take me four days per module but no doubt, things will speed up a little as time goes. For example, I can prepare a stack of cross-members at once and I can have a lot of sketches with the measurements ready for the next three or four modules rather than doing one at a time.

 

The trap I must not fall into is failing to check the space that I have in the room to fit all the modules!

 

Here is the very first module minus one end piece and two cross pieces:

 

 

 

 

You can see the height of the cutting leading into the Ledbury tunnel and we're not yet at the tunnel entrance. I haven't used compression but as the board is 900mm wide only, a lot of the cutting will be 'outside'. I need to add some triangular fillets along the cutting edge board to ensure that it stays reasonably square and doesn't flop about.

 

I am awfully tempted to stick some polystyrene on the board and carve out the cutting just to see what it looks like!

 

More tomorrow, but probably not much as Mrs Philou will be back tonight AND it's Sunday too (so, ssshh - no noise),

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

Oh, and the board twists at the moment but I expect it's due to its lightweight construction and one end piece is yet to be cut and fixed. Once squared up on its legs - it'll be all right on the night. The end piece in photo 2 will need holes for cables and fixing holes to attach to the next module, oh, and hand-holes too will be needed - very awkward to manhandle at the moment!

 

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Philou

[Philou]

@Nick C I don't know what happened but the post went off before I had time to attach the photos .........!

Edited March 11, 2023 by Philou

[simonmcp]

I found the only way to completely eliminate twisting on a similar baseboard was to use diagonal pieces the same as your cross braces.

[Nick C]

1 hour ago, Philou said:

@Nick C I don't know what happened but the post went off before I had time to attach the photos .........!

The 'cheap plywood is cheap for a reason' was enough to get you the supportive reaction, been there, done that!

 

Though round here, it's not cheap...