Tom J Posted February 19, 2015 Author Share Posted February 19, 2015 Feel free to put our video on your FB page, Rosemary - although it is a little late for Epiphany now! First test piece of track wired and laid, one end stuck with yellow gripfill and the other with PVA, which seems, against the odds, to have 'taken'! Have ordered sculptamold, a tortoise and a vibration motor for various test exercises. I'm on a roll... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted February 20, 2015 Author Share Posted February 20, 2015 I don't know what I did wrong but the spray adhesive, despite being used as per the directions, is causing the layers of styrofoam to come apart... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium PhilJ W Posted February 20, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 20, 2015 Must be using the wrong adhesive. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted February 20, 2015 Author Share Posted February 20, 2015 Yellow gripfill seems up to the job, although I am interested in trying 'Gorilla Glue' as suggested by my old friend Andrew C. For now I shall crack on. The things I am trying won't take as long to do as the joint is likely to take to come apart! Between the new battery Dremel (wonderful bodger's aid!) and the hot wire, I managed a first attempt at creating contours. I must confess that thinking in three dimensions simultaneously and converting that into hand/eye coordination, I find very taxing! Hopefully the Sculptamold will arrive tomorrow and I can crack on with a trial of that. I might even ballast this piece just to remind myself how enjoyable that task is ;-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted February 24, 2015 Author Share Posted February 24, 2015 Mrs J was on a business trip to Cardiff this week, so this morning the girls and I crossed off Cardiff Queen Street to Aberdare, Merthyr Tydfil and Treherbert. I hope people don't mind a bit of the contextual stuff, but I do think it has some bearing on how I achieve some of what I do with the youngsters. Ruth will, I am sure, now be pleased to see our Arriva-liveried 150, just like some of those we saw today! Rhoda, at the ripe old age of ten months, enjoyed her first ever donkey ride... Anyway, back to modelling business. Left drying at home was our test baseboard, now covered partially in he Sculptamold which arrived yesterday. I risked mixing a small batch (two small jam jars' worth!) as we were preparing to leave for Welsh Wales. Mixed at two parts Sculptamold to one part water, it didn't look like it was going to all combine until the last moment, after a bit more 'working' than the packet suggested. As it turned out, it settled into a most satisfying kind of cold porridge. With the girls in the house, we have plenty of that splattered about to compare it to! It's my first time using the stuff, so we shall see how it goes. It seems to consist of a mixture of plaster of Paris and toilet paper fibres! The hacked-about polystyrene should have provided a key but I did sense that maybe to have applied some plasterer's PVA grit mix or paint might have been helpful as it did sometimes show a reluctance to hold on to the smoother bits. I didn't have chance to do much to it, but it is clearly smoothable with a wet tool as it goes off. You can work it for a few minutes but it hadn't gone off when I left, best part of an hour later. It was a bit lumpy even with thorough mixing, so I might be tempted yet to add just a tiny bit more water, or just attack it more when mixing! Anyway, we shall see what it has done in the morning; tomorrow I will aim to get a base of colour on it, and might even manage to trial my first tortoise... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted February 24, 2015 Author Share Posted February 24, 2015 Update: thoroughly unworkable but cold, damp and can be marked with a fingernail after 36 hours... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Clarke 1980 Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 Hi tom I have just read this from the beginning up to now I know its already been said but can I just tell you that your a amazing dad and have a amazing family its bought smiles reading this although my son is just turned 3 and my daughter is 5 I try to involve them with my layout mainly with the operating side of it as I built it when they were small (Olivia was just turned 2 and ayden was I think 16month when I started it )he's not to bad at controls but olivia picked it up very well however they have been on for wile its quite cold in the garage for them even with a fan heater on! Can I say once again how good it was to read this and with all the trials and tribulations yove come through how very happy for you iam I hope you Thomas and your family are well I shall be following this to see how it gos All the best Phil Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold roundhouse Posted February 25, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 25, 2015 Update: thoroughly unworkable but cold, damp and can be marked with a fingernail after 36 hours... Tom How is it this morning? I have tended to stick with interior filler powder (Homebase / WIckes on brand) , mixed with black water based paint which gives a light grey finish. if laid thin it dries very quick. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Steve Purves Posted February 25, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 25, 2015 Just found your thread tom, will spend some time having a read through when I get a tea break. Just thought I would post to say hello! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgman Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 I've just found this too and found it totally heartwarming ( call me old fashioned) what a brilliant father, and a really enjoyable storyline. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted February 25, 2015 Author Share Posted February 25, 2015 How is it this morning? You can stand a child on it, apparently! almost dry I'd say. Impressed so far. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted February 26, 2015 Author Share Posted February 26, 2015 It's about dry now, i.e. Five days, but that's in a draughty Georgian house with minimal heating in the kitchen! That picture I posted doesn't do it justice. Ruth (2) has since stood on it. Without permission. Whoops. I like the idea of adding some PVA and brown acrylic paint next time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted April 10, 2015 Author Share Posted April 10, 2015 Update time at last! The Sculptamold is superb. Quite a range of textures ought to be possible, depending on what it is a substrate for. It took about 5 or 6 days to dry fully in a relatively cold atmosphere, though it was not workable for all that long. I slapped some cheap brown acrylic paint onto it and a thin sprinkling of Woodland Scenics mixed turf straight onto the wet paint. I also very hurriedly ballasted the track, more as an acoustic test than anything else. The board is quite noisy at the moment, but I think it will resonate less once a few more things have been attached and holes cut. Speaking of holes, I have fitted a test turnout and to it a tortoise! Since PVA seems to bond plywood frightfully well to the foam, so long as it is keyed, I PVA'd the turnout to the ply, used a bit of 3M VHB tape to fit the motor, and sunk it into a hole in the board, plunge-cut with the hot wire, and tapered to allow access to the terminals without unduly weakening the board. I will give the motor a test with some flying leads and a PP3 battery later on. Also worthy of note are the wires to the track, which on the real thing will need conduit making from paper or plastic straws, to prevent the de-plasticisation of the wire sheathing. So, to some pictures, hastily taken in the garden just now on the iPad. Unfortunately I couldn't get the board high enough up to background it with sky! Meantime, we have seen Thomas Ivor for his first visit of any length in three months. He blew his accrued pocket money (almost year's worth!) on the 4F, the prototype of which he saw at Keighley at Christmas. He got stuck in for a couple of days as part of the 5305LA gang stripping 70013 ready for the fitting of new tyres... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Alister_G Posted April 10, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 10, 2015 The scenery on the cutting has turned out really well Tom, I like the fact that you've not overdone it, so the brown paint shows through in places, it's very lifelike. Nice job! Al. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted April 10, 2015 Author Share Posted April 10, 2015 Pleased to report that the tortoise works a treat - simply tested it by twisting a couple of bits of wire onto the terminals and touching them on a 9v battery. I think I will use edge connectors on the 'real thing' but daft as it sounds it was very encouraging to see the motor actually work. Yes, it needs a bigger hole and they are harder to get hold of, but they are in another league to solenoids IMHO. I wish I'd used these on the layout I had as a boy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted November 11, 2015 Author Share Posted November 11, 2015 Hi everyone. Good grief - it's been even longer than I feared. Cut a long story short there's been a lot going on that I can't share, either publicly or in a hurry. If anyone who is willing and able to help gets this message in time, I am in urgent need (i.e. by tomorrow early afternoon) of short, two or three sentence character references for Thomas Ivor, who was visited by the Police last week and needs his friends just now. Just how you know him and what you make of the lad, by direct message, would be wonderful. We hope we will be surfacing again before too long. He has just earned a Farish 'Jube' for his reading progress and is asking to go to exhibitions! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyram Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 My goodness Tom it sounds like you are not having a good time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold McRuss Posted November 11, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 11, 2015 Hello Tom, these didn't sound good. I hope Ivor Thomas and your little family will come out of these without much damage. Markus Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted December 10, 2015 Author Share Posted December 10, 2015 Well, there has been some progress. That which is related to model railways is good. If our last month or so's expenditure on legal costs relating to the lad had been layout budget, I could have commissioned someone famous to have built a good deal of it for us! Anyway, first thing is I am now minded to ditch our cutting edge blue foam baseboard design in favour of some of Tim Horn's handiwork. Ruth (2) and Rhoda (1) now have their own layout on one of his boards, and whilst there will have to be some compromise and clever adaptation to give me the terrain beneath track level which the plan very much requires, I think working around this is going to be less stressful, knowing that the boards will fit together beautifully. We visited Tim's premises in deepest Norfolk the other week and I was very impressed indeed. Ruth has had a whale of a time and it has reminded me that Thomas Ivor was already using N gauge stuff at the girls' ages. A 4x3 board and some Kato Unitrack from our local model shop later, they have a layout, and I am knocking up some Metcalfe buildings for them to place on the layout. Ruth has asked for some 2mm scale cows for Christmas, and Rhoda a tunnel... We also went to Warley, which sadly Thomas Ivor missed, through no fault of his own. Good to see a number of old friends in the course of our brief visit! Back to business, then, I am looking at sectioning up the layout like this: That gives me three pairs of boards, the fiddle yard can be used for other projects (with or without replacement return loops) and a better chance of getting boards up and down our tight staircase to be worked on elsewhere, or taken for exhibition. I'm talking to Tim at the moment about the details of attachment etc. As you will see, I have an idea for a narrow supplementary board(s) to go on the front, at a lower level, to allow us to model the embankment as it falls down to the level of the reservoir at the front of the layout. This might only get attached much later in the project, but it's an option.Right now, my thoughts are occupied by fiddle yard track configuration. I'd be interested for thoughts on this. Thomas Ivor has asked for some track for Christmas, and I would like to keep faith with this modest and most patient request. The lad's got a lot on his plate right now, as have we all. He's earned himself a buffet car this week, for his efforts to do more reading - having despatched the Famous Five, he's now reading about the BR Standards! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom J Posted December 22, 2015 Author Share Posted December 22, 2015 A momentous post... The baseboards for the fiddle yard, produced by Tim Horn, to whom very many thanks indeed, are arriving by TNT tomorrow. on a well known portly gentleman's sleigh on Thursday night. After much falling out with the new, more expensive and less feature-filled version of RailModeller(!) we now have a new track plan, with a much more realistic shape and flow, not to mention better positioning of the track relative to the baseboard joins: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ess1uk Posted December 31, 2016 Share Posted December 31, 2016 How's things? Hope you all had a good Xmas. Any updates on the layout? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyram Posted December 31, 2016 Share Posted December 31, 2016 Hope things are ok. We have not heard anything from you recently. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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