Lancaster Green Ayre - The Barn Owls have returned.

[trw1089]

Hi Jamie

 

It's looking a lot further along since my visit to the Clubrooms in November.  That OLE looks superb and the whole thing is really coming together.  I like your approach for the black c**p, I used a very similar approach for my layout yard areas, though my c**p mostly came from the firebox and smokebox of a 2' gauge 0-6-2T, so not sure if it is really as prototypical as yours!

 

Cheers

Tony

[jamie92208]

A nice sunny but cool afternoon meant that I got chance to do some carpentry out on the drive.   I'd done the last DAS work on the removable viaduct last night and needed to make a travelling box for it.  This will serve two purposes.:-

a)   To protect it in storage and

b)   To form the basis of a travelling display of the OHLE.

 

Anyway I trawled the garage for available timber and managed to make a box that now has four out of six sides.

 

 

Now all I've got to do is to find my 6mm drill and drill the two holes in the base that will use the existing fixing bolts to hold it stable in transit.

 

I've been wanting to do this for a while.  Now I need to attach the three OLE gantries and can then try stringing some knitting.

 

Jamie

Edited July 23, 2022 by jamie92208

[roundhouse]

I hope you didnt inadvertently cut up one of the scenic boards for Lancaster GA

[jamie92208]

I hope you didnt inadvertently cut up one of the scenic boards for Lancaster GA

No  Ian I'm not totally senile yet.  It's nearly the last of some boards from a friends loft layout that he dismantled when  he was selling the house.  It's been used for all sorts including several crate ends on Green Ayre.   I am looking forward to getting the poles up, hopefully tomorrow and then doing some trial wiring.

 

Jamie

[ozzyo]

My that workmate must be some age, mine is over twenty year old and is made out of pressed steel, yours looks to be cast aluminium, for some of the parts.

 

OzzyO.

[jamie92208]

My that workmate must be some age, mine is over twenty year old and is made out of pressed steel, yours looks to be cast aluminium, for some of the parts.

 

OzzyO.

Yes it cost me about £30 in bought sometme in the mid 1970's probably 76.  It's one of the original dual height ones.  I've had to have one of the castings welded and some of the bolts have been replaced but it's still doing it's job.   I remember buying it at Lewis's in leeds (Long since gone, and carrying it home on the bus.

 

Cheers

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Various things got done today and I now have three OLE gantries erected on the viaducvt section.  After tea I spent an hour putting the straps on the base of two more gantires and soldering the insulator pots and registration arms on..Not helped by the failure of my anglepoise so lighting wasn't very good on the modelling bench.

 

Anyway I managed to get the three gantries completed and then fitted them.  All the pins were pressed in but the inner ends aren't glued down yet.  However i was happy with the results.

 

Tomorrow I'll try and get it bolted into the carrying case and might even get a wire strung.

 

Jamie

Edited July 23, 2022 by jamie92208

[ozzyo]

Hello Jamie,

 

I was going through some old MRJs and spotted an article on Green Ayre, have you seen it? If not let me know and I'll scan you a copy.

 

OzzyO

[jamie92208]

Hello Jamie,

 

I was going through some old MRJs and spotted an article on Green Ayre, have you seen it? If not let me know and I'll scan you a copy.

 

OzzyO

I'm not sure if I've seen it Ozzy, but we've got the complete MRJ at the clubrooms if you let me know the issue I'll have a look tonight.  Thanks.

 

Jamie

[ozzyo]

Off the top of my head it's around 114-116.

 

EDIT, I've just checked it is 114.

Edited March 6, 2015 by ozzyo

[jamie92208]

A good evening was had at the club and it was great to see Tony Bond and John Patrick who were able to access the layout.

 

Tony had done drawings for the Stationmasters House (Does Mike need a new one) and we tried them in situ to see whether making it full size looked OK. A brains trust was held and we decided that the size was about right.

 

John set to work putting Hydrocal on a foam base to create a banking between the coal yard and the platform.

The end result made it start to look OK.

Dave spent his time using a vibro saw to cut out the area for the removable bit of pavement in front of the station buildings.

The pre cut piece of 6mm ply was tried in situ and fitted. It nicely bridges three awkward baseboard joints.

 

Whilst getting some scenic material out I found a set of Skytrex buffer stops and they seem to look the same as the ones that appear in the aerial photos.

I couldn't resist fitting them in place.

 

Today I've put the SM's house into CAD ready for having the parts laser cut in ply once Tony has constructed a mock up in foam.

 

Jamie

Edited July 23, 2022 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

The second post of the day but I hope worth looking at as momentous progress has been made.

 

I finally got my act together this evening and plucked up courage to tackle some Overhead work.

 

First off I made some little drilling guides the right distances apart for the 4 wires that need to run along the overhead these are

1) The contact wire at the bottom

2) the intermediate wire about 3mm above the contact wire

3) the two suspension cables 30 mm above the contact wire that clamp round the insulator pots.

 

First I pulled out a length of wire for the contact wire and ran it through the hole at one end of the carrying case, trough the three gantries then through the hole at the other end and anchored it with a cocktail stick.

Next I tensioned it with the big reel of wire and carefully soldered the wire to the underside of the registration arms, desperately trying not to get any solder on the underside.

The wire was then cut off the reel and anchored at the other end wrapped round a piece of dowel like a guitar string. The dowel was then rotated till the tension was correct. I could have done with a tuning fork to check the tension. Then the dowel was secured to the end board with two pins.

Next little wire droppers were soldered to the top of the contact wire at equal intervals (7 sleepers apart)

This was a very fiddly job.

 

The second length of wire for the intermediate wire was then run out, tensioned and anchored like the first

The previously attached droppers were then looped round the intermediate wire and soldered on.

 

The two suspension wires were then run out and anchored and I then put ties round them to secure them round the insulator pots before soldering in place.

 

This was the first attempt.

The got a little neater second time around

 

Wire loops were then added to suspend the intermediate wire from the suspension cables.

 

The various loose ends were tidied up and I then attempted to photograph the result.

 

 

It was then time for a nice glass of the Scottish Medicine of The Macallan variety.

It will probably looked rather untidy when I see it in the daylight but I have achieved one objective.

 

To get some wire up on Green Ayre before the first wires are strung on the GWML.

 

Jamie

Edited July 23, 2022 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

A quiet day so far today but I had a go at doing an inter baseboard joint. I took my life in my hands and snipped the contact wire a couple of inches past the end registration arm, bent the wire back then attached a new piece of wire with a bent end and ulled. The 'joint' held so I anchored it off and then did the auxilliary wire (Just seen on the plans that that was it's real name.) and then the other end. I'll now take the test piece to the club tonght and see if has held it's tension.

 

Jamie

[ozzyo]

What are you using for the wires?

[jamie92208]

What are you using for the wires?

It's spark erosion wire 0.3mm diameter steel cored and brass coated. It was suggested to me by Jim Smith-Wright of Brimingham New Street. It doesn't stretch and it's easy to handle. I got a reel given to me by a local spark erosion machining company.

 

By the way thanks for the lead about MRJ 114. I had a look at it last night and have seen it before. It does the layout the other way round but I wasn't happy with that arrangement for a variety of reasons. I beieve that MRC had the same plan a few years before.

 

Thanks again.

 

Jamie

Edited March 10, 2015 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

Evening all after quite a good day of modelling.  Last night I went down to the clubroom and did various jobs including measuring how the twolarge gantries fit at the end of the paltforms and working out how the wiring runs are going to work.

 

Today the priority was to get the DAS work done on the bridge that forms the ecenic break from Greyhound Bridge to the Fiddle yard.  This is actualy the bridge that carries the West Coast Main Line over the Midland Route immediately north of the Rive Lune.   I've made a basic plywood shape then added some foam and mounting board shapes that were then covered with DAS.  After two days work this is how it looked about 8pm

After a break to let the latest batches of DAS dry a bit I managed to finish it off.

 

I also spent some time this afternoon soldering brass bolts to the bases of Gantries 19 and 20 that will allow them to be bolted down.  These are M6 brass cheese head bolts.  I've filed parallel flats on the heads so that they fit between the feet of the uprights.

 

All progress.

 

There's nothing like a forthcoming exhibition to concentrate the mind.

 

Jamie

 

PS.  I've now managed to edit and attach the last photo despite the best efforts of Firefox, Adobe Flash Player, Internet Explorer and Windows 8.1 to stop me doing it.

Edited July 23, 2022 by jamie92208

[LNER4479]

 

There's nothing like a forthcoming exhibition to concentrate the mind.

 Agreed! 

[jamie92208]

As Nottingham looms plenty of work is ongoing.  Last night we cleared up and crated the baseboards that are at the clubrooms.  John Patrick brought his paints down and has now give a first coat to a lot of the DAS wok on the Scenic break bridge and the removable viaduct.

 

 

Meanwhile I' m going to try and get some more of Greyhound Bridge done and a it of work on the overhead suppor

 

 

Hope to see some of you over the weekend.

 

Jamie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 17, 2015 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

Just a quick update.  Much soldering has been done over the past couple of days and a bit of other work to get ready for Nottingham.

 

Yesterday when the sun was shining I spent the afternoon making a new set of crate ends for the Castle Branch boards.  When I made the original set i hadn't allowed for the 20mm that the insulator pots sit above the OLE masts.  The boards now sit the correct distance apart but that job ended up taking most of the asfternoon.  

 

I also set to work soldering up some more parts for the support girders for Greyhound Bridge.  This continued today and 2 of the three are now done.

 

As you can see the 'ladders' that form the basis for the cross girders, exists for the 3rd set and I've found all the other parts I need.

 

I also prefabricated quite a few OLE parts so that I can get them onto their gantries at Nottingham.

 

Come and see us on the ground floor in the same room as Grantham.

 

Jamie

Edited July 23, 2022 by jamie92208

[ozzyo]

Looks like one of your X beams has come undone  on the bottom bridge support. 

 

OzzyO.

 

PS. some nice work going on there Jamie and the boys.

[Jon Fitness]

Just a quick update.  Much soldering has been done over the past couple of days and a bit of other work to get ready for Nottingham.

 

Yesterday when the sun was shining I spent the afternoon making a new set of crate ends for the Castle Branch boards.  When I made the original set i hadn't allowed for the 20mm that the insulator pots sit above the OLE masts.  The boards now sit the correct distance apart but that job ended up taking most of the asfternoon.  

 

I also set to work soldering up some more parts for the support girders for Greyhound Bridge.  This continued today and 2 of the three are now done.

150319-1.jpg

 

As you can see the 'ladders' that form the basis for the cross girders, exists for the 3rd set and I've found all the other parts I need.

 

I also prefabricated quite a few OLE parts so that I can get them onto their gantries at Nottingham.

 

Come and see us on the ground floor in the same room as Grantham.

 

Jamie

Cracking work there Jamie. You got yourself an RSU yet? Took me a while to get started but totally in love with mine now!!

JF

[jamie92208]

Thanks for those comments Ozzy and John.   I'll fix that X girder this morning, just didn't notice it last night.

 

As to the RSU, yes I've been lent one and like using it once I got used to it.

 

Anyway off to fetch the van for the weekend in about an hour then packing for Nottingham.

 

Jamie

Edited March 20, 2015 by jamie92208

[islandbridgejct]

I've been reading this thread bit by bit over the past few weeks, and it's a stunning display of scratchbuilt craftsmanship - highly inspiring. Thank you for posting it.

 

Alan

[jamie92208]

Just got back from an excellent weekend at Nottingham with about 40% of the layout.  A lot got done and many photos got taken.  I'll try and do a full update tomorrow.

 

Jamie

[Edmund Kinder]

It's all coming along very well Jamie.  I'm very impressed by the etched brass catenary.  It was nice to see the layout at Warley last year.