Vanders Posted December 22, 2014 Author Share Posted December 22, 2014 I'm back! It's been a funny old year and for various reasons I haven't had the motivation or time (or at times, either) to work on the layout, but things have quietened down and I've found my mojo again. Once of the first jobs on my list was the finish off the removable sections of the landscape, which is across a board joint and cover the servos, so need to be removable for access to those. I've come up with a solution involving some rare earth magnets; two magnets are epoxied inside the base of each section, and two matching magnets are glued into the baseboard; each section then just "clips" down into place without much fuss. There's still some fettling to be done to ensure everything fits together cleanly, as there are three pieces (the bridge, and two removable sections on either board) which all need to come together cleanly for this to work. The next thing on my list is the retaining walls; two small walls on either side of the bridge on the headshunt/yard side, and the long tall retaining wall that will run alongside the "mainline" section, which measures just over 60cm in total length. There's still some work to do here; the coping stones on the top of the wall need to be trimmed & shaped, the ends of the walls need some work to make them look like walls, and some filing & scraping to be done. I also need to produce some suitable coping stones for the tops of the two smaller walls, which in the prototype are "random" coping stones which look something like this; I have an idea of how I'll produce something that looks the part, so there's a trip to the model shop tomorrow for supplies. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JZ Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Good to see things are moving again. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
37114 Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Thanks! I'm in Warmley myself, as it happens. It depends on your era, really. If you want something modern, have you thought about the Westerleigh Oil Terminal? I've always thought the Ashton Meadows exchange sidings would make an interesting model, but you'd have to model it as more of an "impression" of to fit it into 1.5' x 12' in OO! I have had the same idea about Ashton Meadows, the A370 forms a natural scenic break and it saw loco hauled excursions for the 1980 wine fair. You could also stretch reality and have a few specials for the Bristol power boat races. I am definitely giving it some consideration for when I finish my Avon street inspired current project. Great to see some more progress on Laurence Hill Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Gwinnett Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Great to see this hasn't been shelved. Keep up the good work! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted December 22, 2014 Author Share Posted December 22, 2014 Thanks everyone, I'm glad you like my work! I am definitely giving it some consideration for when I finish my Avon street inspired current project. This shows how detached I've been this year; I hadn't even seen Peafore Yard until now. That's some excellent work you've done there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted December 23, 2014 Author Share Posted December 23, 2014 Further progress on the walls today. First of all though I made a trip to Modelmania to pick up some half-round plastic strip, and I might have accidentally purchased myself D186. I'm a sucker for 1-Co-Co-1's! I also made a round trip via. Lawrence Hill to take a look at the bridge carrying the A420, and snapped a few pictures of some details on the bridge & platform. Plenty to keep me occupied with there when I start building my own version. Back to the walls; the 2.5mm half round styrene rod was taped down onto a piece of plywood and then "attacked" with various Dremel cutting & grinding tools, ending with a wire wheel. The result was precisely what I wanted; a lumpy, random looking length of coping stones. Fixed to the tops of the two smaller walls it looks perfect. Sods law dictates that the details hasn't come out very well in the above picture, mostly due it being white, in white, with more white, but it should stand out beautifully once it's painted. I also spent a lot of time finishing off the ends of the walls, and scoring and shapping the flat coping stones on the large retaining wall. There isn't much work to be done on these now; possibly just a little bit more filling & filing, before I start to paint. All I have to do is figure out how the heck I'm going to paint a 64cm long, 5cm high section; it's too wet outside to spray, too big to fit in the spray booth, and hand-painting is going to take ages. Might have to just bite the bullet on this one... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattWallace Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Great to see you back and modelling, you've been on the forums far less frequently than I have in the past 12 months and yet you seem to have achieved more! How are you managing the track connections across baseboards? I'm having issues getting mine to line up correctly every time so any hints would be more than welcome! Cheers, Matt Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted December 31, 2014 Author Share Posted December 31, 2014 Great to see you back and modelling, you've been on the forums far less frequently than I have in the past 12 months and yet you seem to have achieved more! How are you managing the track connections across baseboards? I'm having issues getting mine to line up correctly every time so any hints would be more than welcome! Thanks Matt. It's an illusion, I think; I did diddly-squat between roughly April and December this year, so I guess my progress over the past few weeks has looked like a lot in comparison! There's some pictures further back of the cross-board joint. I used copper-clad sleepers, glued them down and then drilled them out to accept some pins and pinned them down. Then I laid the section of track straight across the joint with the plastic sleepers removed where the rail crossed the copper-clad sleepers. Once the glue was dry on the track I just soldered the rail to the pins/sleepers and then cut it with a slitting disc in the Dremel. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted December 31, 2014 Author Share Posted December 31, 2014 Further progress over the past few days has including finally beginning to paint the previously completed wall sections; naturally I ran out of primer for the big retaining wall at 4pm on Christmas eve, and by the time I'd bought some more it was too cold and wet to even think about spraying. Thankfully it's done and the first basecoat has gone on, so it'll still be a few more days before anything is finished; there's a lot of layers of enamel paint. I have made a start on the platforms though. Just like the real Lawrence Hill, each platform is built in different materials; rough stone for the "Down" and corbelled brick for the "Up". My "Up" platform is based on the Midland Railway example at Warmley, rather than the real thing at Lawrence Hill, with a concession to myself to only have three layers of corbelling rather than 4 as wrangling a 70cms of 1mm wide embossed plastic didn't seem like the most fun. The first coat of paint is on the "Up" platform and the "Down" is still in primer while I experiment with a slightly different paint finish to the dressed stone I've used for the retaining walls and bridge. I'll see how the test piece comes out before I start painting the platform edge. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted January 10, 2015 Author Share Posted January 10, 2015 The bridge carrying the A420 over the line (on the real Lawrence Hill) is surprisingly complex. So complex in fact that I've had spent most of my time this week simply scaling dimensions from drawings, from there into some card mockups and and finally today into a CAD program; it's the only way I'll maintain my sanity dealing with the angles and individual pieces involved: Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to begin cutting plastic, although I have a feeling there's going to be a lot more work involved before I manage to build something I'm happy with. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted January 29, 2015 Author Share Posted January 29, 2015 As the CAD above hinted, the bridge structures for the A420 are complicated, and very big, which means construction has been slow (and did I say complicated?) I have now at least gotten as far as most of the superstructure, and I've made a start on one of the two bridges that will run down to the platforms; the one shown here was bricked in at some point and therefore fully enclosed, hence why the sides run all the way down to baseboard level. The other is open and be more delicate. There's still plenty of work here still, not least of which is the bridge itself, but I'm away with work for the next week so it may be some time before I have any more progress to show. Modellers world problems... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted February 15, 2015 Author Share Posted February 15, 2015 After a week of travel that included bumping into Matt Wallace, who happens to be a fellow modeller here on RMWeb, there has been progress. The bridge itself is mostly complete, and I've assembled the two stairways that lead from the platforms upto the A420. Here everything is just dry assembled; there's still a huge amount of work to be done. At this point it feels like there has been a stupendous amount of work involved for very little to show; I guess this is how it goes when you're scratch building pretty much everything, and only spending a handful of hours each week doing it! On the bright side as I start to clad the super-structure it'll start to come to life a little more. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartM Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 When you think that each step had to be cut by hand and then installed by hand is it any wonder that it all takes some much time, like you say, such is the way of scratch building, especially when working to a high standard. Keep the faith, it'll be worth it one day Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted February 22, 2015 Author Share Posted February 22, 2015 I little more progress. The different sections of brick & stone walling along the back echo's the real thing; I wasn't entirely sure how it would look, but now it's done I'm quite impressed (if I say so myself). Looking along the line of the road surface it's instantly recognisable to me, even though you'd think just using two different materials next to each other is a subtle difference! I admit I've cheated a little with the supporting legs on the "open" bridge; on the real thing the middle deck is quite large, and had (the bridge has been replaced) a rather nice square concrete structure holding it up. Here though I reduced the size of the deck simply because it looked a bit odd when I mocked it up, but that meant there was no longer the space underneath for the distinctive support structure. So I've coped out and used a pair of round "legs" instead. I'm allowed to make some concessions! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted February 27, 2015 Author Share Posted February 27, 2015 More progress; the cladding is finished, and various other smaller jobs like the coping on the top of the walls have been made and fitted. Everything has been dry-assembled and checked for fitting & levels; I may need to shave 0.5mm off the bottom of the brick-in-filled bridge as it's slightly high both top and bottom, and the gap between the bridge and the wall is larger than on the real thing, but other than that everything looks fine. I couldn't resist posing the 121 for a quick shot: Just some filler and a couple of cap stones to go and it'll be painting time (yay?) I'm also starting to think about roads, pavements, lamp post (yes, singular!) and belisha beacons, and it's time to go buy some ply to form the scenic edge to give me something to fit all of this stuff into. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
millerhillboy Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Just stumbled across this thread whilst looking for someone using easitrack. Very glad I did as it's a pleasure to see the quality of your building work. It's really quite something. I'll definitely be checking back to hopefully see more progress. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted April 6, 2015 Author Share Posted April 6, 2015 I've been working on a few things over the past month. The profile boards are all cut, primed & painted; the third coat is now drying (please be the last coat!) so I'll hopefully be able to fit those at the weekend. The A420 sections have benn filled, filed and are now in primer ready for me to paint; I may pop back out and put the first coat on the brickwork sections in fact. The brick built of the platform has also been painted. I'll have so much stonework to paint it'll take ages. but that's par for the course with me! Street lamps. I wanted some street lamps and belisha beacons. Just to make life even more difficult for myself, I decided it'd be great if the lamps actually worked. Readily available beacons are massively over-scale, and all of the street lamps I can find are continental models. So I figured I'd build my own; how hard can it be? Well, turns out it's pretty tricky! Street lamps are not things we tend to look at very often, but when I went off and found some drawings courtesy of the Leeds County Council website, I was surprised to learn that the real thing is tiny; the upper part of a street lamp is only 78-89mm diameter; 0.6mm when scaled down! At that size, brass is the only real option, and thankfully brass micro-tube is fairly easy to get hold of: The "working" bit has turned out to be far more difficult. I experimented with fiber optic but that would only carry a tiny pin-point of light; not very useful for a street lamp. The micro-tube was 0.4mm I/D, so I figured I should be able to get two 36SWG enameled wires down the inside, and then use a small LED to provide the light. Well, not quite; theoretically both wires should fit, but the tolerances were just too tight. Then I had the brain wave that only one of the wires needed to be insulated, so I could use some of the 0.08mm copper wire I had. Success! Sort of. The LED lights up but at some point the wires are shorting against each other, and the LED flickers as a result. So at this point I feel that yes, I can build true scale and decent looking lamps & beacons, but no, I really won't be able to build working ones. I don't know if I'll give up just yet; I like the idea of a set of three belisha beacons flashing away in daylight, just like they do in real life, but I may need to go back to the drawing board... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartM Posted April 6, 2015 Share Posted April 6, 2015 Hi, Having built working nguage signals, I can empathise with you Why not use the brass tube as one of the conductors, that way you only have to thread one wire down the inside of the tube SMT leds can also be tiny, I've used 1.2x0.8mm before now, that would be a good fit for your light. Another option might be to use a light tube, filed to shape Either way, keep up the good work, carry on Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted April 6, 2015 Author Share Posted April 6, 2015 Having built working nguage signals, I can empathise with you Why not use the brass tube as one of the conductors, that way you only have to thread one wire down the inside of the tube SMT leds can also be tiny, I've used 1.2x0.8mm before now, that would be a good fit for your light. Another option might be to use a light tube, filed to shape I'm trying to figure out a sensible way to use the tube as a conductor; it still requires me to find some way of connecting the LED to the tube, which is the biggest issue. The LEDs I'm using at 1.6x0.8mm SMDs, with 0.3mm pads. Light tube as in acrylic? I can't find anything small enough; no one seems to do anything below ~2.5mm diameter, and I'm not sure how stiff <1.0mm acrylic rod would be even if I found some. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymw Posted April 6, 2015 Share Posted April 6, 2015 The white slab/housing in your photo, maybe use a piece of pcb. cut a groove across the middle, so you've a couple of pads to solder the LED. Drill a hole at the end away from the post and push your wire into that from the top and solder. At the end of the tube, file a flat, half way through or so, and solder that to the other end of pcb. Thread wire from top down through tube. Cover the wire/pcb with a piece of card or mould on some filler. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartM Posted April 6, 2015 Share Posted April 6, 2015 You could solder one end of smt pad to the brass and then disguise it as the lamp hood, file to shape and use miliput etc You're probably right about the light tube, it was just an idea Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted April 6, 2015 Author Share Posted April 6, 2015 Thanks for the ideas guys, I'm going to have a think and a play around; I wouldn't hold your breath but if I have a breakthrough I'll let you know! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted April 12, 2015 Author Share Posted April 12, 2015 The boards are on finally! ...and a view you don't often get You might not be able to see it on the pictures but the brickwork sections, the concrete (steps and underside of the bridge) and the steelwork on the bridge has all been painted. That just leaves me a huge amount of stonework to finish on the A420 bridge sections and the retaining walls. Guess I'd better get started, then... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattWallace Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 The boards are on finally! boards1.jpg ...and a view you don't often get boards2.jpg You might not be able to see it on the pictures but the brickwork sections, the concrete (steps and underside of the bridge) and the steelwork on the bridge has all been painted. That just leaves me a huge amount of stonework to finish on the A420 bridge sections and the retaining walls. Guess I'd better get started, then... Looks amazing! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted June 23, 2015 Author Share Posted June 23, 2015 Me again! Changes at work have meant things have been slightly more hectic than usual, but I have managed to do enough few bits & pieces that I thought I'd update this thread. After my trauma trying to create a working street light for myself, version 2b is finally complete! I say 2b because although version 2a was a success, when I went to test it I managed to accidentally connect the LED directly to a 9V DC source; the amount of swearing when the LED when "crack" was impressive even by my standards. Luckily, after calming down, I managed to solder a new LED onto the already built lamp, which was even a surprise to me as these things are already fiddly enough as it is. Looks good, though: The picture quality is so poor because it's difficult to focus on something so small. I also distracted myself temporarily by building a self contained rolling road, complete with ammeter & voltmeter, partly just because I had the project box spare and partly because I really did need somewhere to run in locos. Last but not least the paint work on the walls etc. is all done, and I've started to fettle the self contained units into a nice fit. These components aren't fitted in yet, but I have fixed the long retaining wall on the approach side. I need to figure out the best way to create the road surface & pavement before I can plant the lamp in its new home. I'll also need to build those missing buffer stops, as access under the bridge will become tricky. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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