emt_911 Posted December 23, 2014 Share Posted December 23, 2014 Wishing you a Merry Christmas and productive modelling 2015 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted December 25, 2014 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted December 25, 2014 Wishing you a Merry Christmas and productive modelling 2015 Duncan, I wish the same right back to you! I am looking forward to seeing HA progress in leaps and bounds during 2015! Kind regards, Neil Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted December 25, 2014 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted December 25, 2014 To all who follow DE, on this fine sunny Christmas morning (at least it is in Doxey) Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted January 21, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 21, 2015 A month since my last post on here! Sorry to all those who are looking for quick progress. That doesn't appear here very often! I'll start by wishing a very late Happy New Year to all followers of DE. I expect a lot more movement this year than last (well I know there will be as I already know what I'm about to post!) Before Christmas I had a list... So I have a plan of attack for the Christmas week... Sand down the mounting plate on the first electromagnet and fit it - 1 hour Complete the second electromagnet mount and fit them - 3 hours Cut down the last two points (loco release) - 1 hour Remove the webbing and excess sleepers from the four remaining lengths of scenic section flexi-track - 1 hour Lay the remaining scenic section track (the two points and four lengths of flexi) - 1 hour plus setting time Complete the basic track wiring (no relays yet) - 2 hours Spray the track and clean the top surface - 1 hour plus drying time Pin temporary track into cassette fiddle area - 10 mins Play some trains! I then rashly suggested that I could probably do that all in 20 hours, so could fit it in during the two weeks that I had taken off work. Well that strange thing called family stepped in, along with accompanying coughs and colds, to put an end to that thought. So where am I now... well from the above list 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are complete. Well almost, because 2 isn't done there is one length of track simply pinned into place until I have placed the second electromagnet in the board. But other than that the track is all there! In addition to that I've also built my first cassette for the fiddle yard. So things have definitely moved on. I'll post photos of the various bits and pieces being done (I did take photos even though I didn't post the progress until now.) But that will probably be tomorrow as I want to spend the rest of the evening on the second electromagnet to try to get the last of the track down before the weekend. So, it may not be as fast as some on here (Andy P, Jeff and Larry come to mind!) but I'm pleased with the results of the last month - but I won't be making predictions like the last one again. Lists yes, timelines, no! Kind regards, Neil 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew P Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 A month since my last post on here! Sorry to all those who are looking for quick progress. That doesn't appear here very often! I'll start by wishing a very late Happy New Year to all followers of DE. I expect a lot more movement this year than last (well I know there will be as I already know what I'm about to post!) Before Christmas I had a list... I then rashly suggested that I could probably do that all in 20 hours, so could fit it in during the two weeks that I had taken off work. Well that strange thing called family stepped in, along with accompanying coughs and colds, to put an end to that thought. So where am I now... well from the above list 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are complete. Well almost, because 2 isn't done there is one length of track simply pinned into place until I have placed the second electromagnet in the board. But other than that the track is all there! In addition to that I've also built my first cassette for the fiddle yard. So things have definitely moved on. I'll post photos of the various bits and pieces being done (I did take photos even though I didn't post the progress until now.) But that will probably be tomorrow as I want to spend the rest of the evening on the second electromagnet to try to get the last of the track down before the weekend. So, it may not be as fast as some on here (Andy P, Jeff and Larry come to mind!) but I'm pleased with the results of the last month - but I won't be making predictions like the last one again. Lists yes, timelines, no! Kind regards, Neil Hi Neil, its not a race mate and its good that there was at least some progress and that's great. Looking forward to more progress over the coming Months. Also looking forward to meeting up again at Stafford, (I working my old Deesdale Road). 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted January 22, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 22, 2015 As promised, some pictures of progress over the last few weeks. It jumps about a bit as I swapped from item to item... but the end result is what I was looking for. I'll start with another mistake! The points for the loco release crossover had been (reasonably) neatly trimmed to give the 45 mm centre separation of the station road and the loco release road. I showed how I trimmed the points before, so I'm not going to bore everyone with it again. For those that want to look back I cut the templates in post #77 and used them to trim the points in post #86 (both on page 4). They were then glued into place alongside the existing uncoupler. I then went to bed and woke up the next morning with the realisation that I'd forgotten to remove the connectors that electronically bond the frog to the switch blades. As I had connected the switch blades to the stock rails I'd created a permanent short! There was nothing for it but to get up and fix it! But once done I had the last two points of the layout in place. There followed an hour of sleeper gap widening, soldering of drop wires and fitting of straight sections of track to complete almost all of the platform road (the remaining section being that over the top of the second uncoupler) and also the loco release road. I also added in the final bits of track on the warehouse board that lead into the fiddle yard... another minor mistake here. I started cutting the webbing and increasing the sleeper spacing and then gluing down the first of the three lines before realising that this bit was completely out of sight... so why was I wasting time respacing sleepers! Glad I'd only done one before thinking that! 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted January 23, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 23, 2015 While the weight was on, the wait was on, for the glue to set. So I had time to look at something completely different. I decided I'd have a go at my first cassette. As it was to be the first trial I didn't go for one that would hold a complete train, just a 300 mm one that could hold my 37, or a small tank with a single wagon. My track is code 75 which from sleeper base to rail top is 4 mm. This is laid on a base of 3 mm cork. My cassette area / fiddle yard doesn't have a cork underlay. As I wanted to use aluminium angle for the cassettes, with a thickness of 1.5 mm I needed to have a cassette base 5.5 mm deep. So out came the sheet of 6 mm MDF which then had a 300 x 47 mm piece cut out of it. My intention was to file down a slope into the ends of the aluminium angle to avoid the 0.5 mm step. But I put it on the board next to the track and I'm over a mm too high which is too much to make into a slope! Don't ask me why the maths did't work... it just didn't! So, instead of 6 mm MDF I moved on to 3 mm MDF (much easier to cut!) with the addition of pieces of 1 mm mounting card. This had the added advantage that I could easily cut it in a way that would give me more space for the wheel flanges. Here's all the components... Stuck together I was very pleased with the result. I used PVA between the MDF and card (and the card and card!) and two part 5 minute epoxy to attach the aluminium angle. A quick trial on the layout board showed that I still needed to file a small step of about 0.25 mm into a slope at the end of the aluminium. I guess the glue between each layer is adding up to that. But the end result was very pleasing, so I took a couple of shots to show off You can see where I've respaced the sleepers on the hidden piece of track on them! The overall result is a robust cassette (I was initially worried about the card, but sandwiched between aluminium angle and MDF and coated in PVA it's plenty strong enough) that will now form the prototype for the rest. I still need to finalise my electrical connections for them, but I have some ideas on that... more on that in the future! 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted January 23, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 23, 2015 In general I've not used track joiners to connect the track pieces. I've left gaps. However, there are a few places where I have used them. While the sleepers at the end of Peco points have slots to allow the joiners in flex track doesn't. So where I've needed sleepers next to a joiner I've surgically modified a sleeper to fit while keeping the chairs. The joiner makes the rail quite significantly wider, so I needed to cut through the sleeper in the middle of the chair, and trim out some of the plastic inside the chair. I then trim off the outside ends of the outer pieces of the sleeper and cut a piece from the middle of the inside part.Not sure that makes sense. So here's a picture. In the close up you can see that I've actually trimmed a little too much off the ends. But fortunately it's not noticeable without the camera. In the picture you can just make out the line of the cut between the rails (close to the chair for the top rail) where I removed about 0.5 mm. I'm very pleased with the result. If you look closely you can see that the chair is slightly out of line with the one on the sleeper to the left of it, but with some rust and grime I don't think that will be noticeable. The bits that were cut out of the sleeper are those little bits of plastic scattered at the top of the picture. It's quite a bit that you need to remove to get it to fit properly! 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted January 23, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 23, 2015 Sorry for the multiple posts. I thought that was likely to be more reliable than doing it all in one and losing it if the forum decided to play up in the middle of it! We're finally up to this evening (or I guess by now that should be yesterday evening!) The last section of track remained. 440 mm of the platform road over the second of the electromagnetic uncouplers. While I know I covered before how I mounted the Kadee uncoupler I thought I'd show it step by step again as last time I had a false start and didn't take photos of all the steps. To start with I cut a rectangle 70 x 35 mm from 3 mm hardboard (easier to cut than MDF or plywood) and used it as a template to mark and cut out the cork from the base. I then put the rectangle in the hole and marked the lines of the rails. Using the rail lines and the assembled uncoupler as a guide I marked in where the slots were needed for the cheek plates. These slots were then cut out using the grinding cutter on on the Dremmel. Once cut out the slots were used to draw through to the ply baseboard for the cutout to be made. This hole was cut out in the conventional way... rows of drilled holes then a chisel to finish it off (very slightly) more neatly than the drill can manage. Having finished using the hardboard mounting plate as a template I then glued the assembled uncoupler magnet onto the mounting plate with two part epoxy. The coil and core need to be in place for this to provide rigidity while it's setting. The coil and core need to be removed as the bolt doesn't allow the assembly to pass though the hole in the board. I guess I could have made it wide enough for it, but I wanted to leave the widest ledge possible for strength. I did have to grind down the thickness of the hardboard a little around the edges so that it sat flush with the cork. PVA was then used to glue it into place. The prepared (sleepers respaced and drop wires soldered on) track was then laid over the top and soldered to the screws in the end of the board. It probably is a little more effort than the recommended approach from Kadee, but I think that the end result is a more robust mounting that still allows the coil and core to be removed from under the board if needed in future. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted January 23, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 23, 2015 So now I have reached a landmark. All of my track is laid! I still have six cosmetic sleepers to put in, Three at the board edges around the brass screws, and three where I have track joiners, but other than that the track is complete. Here's my AnyRail track progress diagram... ...and a photo that required quite a stretch to get it all in... The first bit of track was laid in post #73 on 10th September. So not exactly express layout building. But I have a good sense of achievement having got the last bit down. The next step will be to wire it all up. The droppers are all in place as is much of the bus wiring. It will be a temporary setup initially as one big single section just so that I can run trains around. Then I'll need to get to work on the servos for the points so that I can get some power to those frogs. But the single section will allow me to run some trains again. That's me all caught up. So that's all for now folks! Kind regards, Neil 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jock67B Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) Morning Neil, I did look in last night/early am but too tired to post! Cracking work indeed, you must be very excited at this stage as you can now 'have a play'! The cassettes look very professional and I must confess that I've made notes on them for the future so I hope you don't mind me 'cribbing'. Hope you have a great time at Stafford, meeting the other members and another set of images like those you produced at the last show would be really good for those of us who can't attend! Safe journey although it shouldn't take you too long Ha Ha!! Edited January 23, 2015 by Jock67B 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold ChrisN Posted January 23, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 23, 2015 Neil, Well done. It must be a real sense of achievement to get this far. I assume the motto is, less posting, more modelling! Have fun, hope you and yours are all well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG John Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Is your 3mm cork actually 3mm? The Javis cork underlay I'm using says it's 1/8" 2.5mm on the label. 1/8" is 3.175mm according to my calculator! The first lot I stuck down came from a sheet I bought 6 or 7 years ago. Then I used some from a newly purchased sheet with the same thicknesses on the label, but it's significantly thicker! Enough that I need to sand it down or use a bit of packing when I lay the track. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted January 23, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 23, 2015 Is your 3mm cork actually 3mm? Hi John, No, it's not exactly 3 mm. It's clearly slightly under. That's what I get from buying from an unknown eBay retailer I guess. But I'm not 100% convinced on the thicknesses of the MDF sheets either. To the limits of my ability to measure they's correct as stated, but when I stack them up I can clearly see the differences. I got a combination that works though, so in the end I'm happy! Kind regards, Neil 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted January 24, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 24, 2015 All wired up as a single section... and nothing runs! A bit of troubleshooting has found the guilty part, one of the roads into the cassette area. If I leave that disconnected then the rest of the layout runs perfectly. I can't see anything obvious, so I'm going to have to get the multimeter out and look for continuities where they shouldn't be. But unfortunately we have people over this weekend so I've had to take the boards down, so it may be a while before I get the chance as I'm in London this week and it's the Stafford show next weekend. So after that quick jump, we're back from the express line and on to the slow! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted February 5, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 5, 2015 (edited) So what have I done when I should have been eating my lunch... Well after much checking for continuity between lots of places where it shouldn't be I tracked down the culprit, or at least the prime suspect for the lack of movement. I must have again left the connectors between the switch rails and frog rails on one of the points... the fourth one that I had placed on the layout, way back in September, then lifted again the next day because they were not in perfect alignment! That bit had never been connected up electrically as it couldn't go anywhere without either the cassette yard or the platform road in place. So has only now got tested. So some water down and the track comes up and sure enough the evidence is conclusive, the suspect is guilty... Because I'm not using switch rail contact to route power to the frog the stock rails are electrically connected to the nearby switch rails (in the purple ovals) so I need to remove the connections that Peco put in between the switch rails and the frog (in the green oval). As you can see in the photo of the lifted point above I hadn't removed them. They're gone now and the point is back down with weights on top of it, so this evening I should be able to test the complete layout with a loco. I have gone around everywhere else checking for incorrect continuity (and indeed for continuity where it should be) so I'm fairly hopeful it will all be good to go now. Thanks for persevering in watching the coverage of this saga! Edited June 14, 2022 by Anotheran Adding back images lost by site change 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted February 5, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 5, 2015 (edited) So what to do while on a teleconference that requires no input from me? I can't do any more on the wiring until the glue is well and truly set on the replaced points. So it must be about time I started something scenic. So I picked something small that could progress during the call. The Ratio coaling stage seemed like a reasonable target. The stairs and hard standing next to them aren't attached, just assembled and placed in location. That's as far as I got. The call was only an hour and I really should get back to work now! So tidying up the stairs and corners and adding in the last few details, not to mention painting, will need to wait. I should add... Whenever I did plastic kit models as a youngster (the last time I did anything like this) I used poly cement. So this was a first for me with butanone and a brush! Wow, what a difference, it went together so quickly and easily... and none of the risk of sticking fingers that you get with superglue... Wish I'd known about it thirty years ago! Edited June 14, 2022 by Anotheran Adding back images lost by site change 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted February 5, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 5, 2015 The glue is set, and the whole lot connected up again as a single unit... and 37 238 does the business on every inch of track! Nothing to photo here as it looks the same as it did when it didn't work. But very satisfying! That means that this weekend I can put in the six remaining cosmetic sleepers (around the brass board edge screws and where I have rail joiners) and build a couple more cassettes and we're away. Well sort of. After that I'll start building the servos so that I can get the points working with the powered frogs. But a productive day considering I was on conference calls for most of it 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted February 6, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 6, 2015 (edited) A rather shiny Evan Williams dropped by from Edwardian Newcastle Emlyn to take a look at the new coaling stage for Doxey. He looks relatively pleased with the result. At the moment the fire buckets are simply hung on the hooks and the light is fixed with bluetac as I will paint them separately before attaching permanently. The closeness of the photo shows up flaws that weren't quite so obvious when I was building it, like the chunkiness of the bucket handles and lamp bracket, as well as the gaping hole to the left of the steps! The steps themselves are still remarkably rough considering the amount of time I've spend filing and trimming. I'm going to live with the handles for now but I'll fill the hole and try to smooth the steps a bit more. I'd forgotten how satisfying it is to actually build plastic kit models! Edited June 14, 2022 by Anotheran Adding back images lost by site change 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold ChrisN Posted February 6, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 6, 2015 Neil, Glad you enjoyed putting it together, kit building is so much fun. You will have to decide how much you file depending on what you can see at normal viewing distance. I know when I am making things or painting figures you think you have removed lines and flash and when it is under the magnifying glass you can see all that you have missed. By then for me it is often too late unless it is really bad. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted February 7, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 7, 2015 (edited) Just to keep everyone on their toes, it's back to the cassette for a post! As my cassette (there will be more than one, but it's still experimental, like the whole of DE) is built from two angles of aluminium, and I wanted to use brass square tubing for the connections to give both electrical contact and alignment, I needed a way to electrically bond the aluminium to the brass. After much consideration, and not a little searching on Google and asking others I decided I'd go all out experimental and bought some "wire glue" on eBay. I had no idea what it would be like, other than it would be black. It arrived a couple of days ago, so this evening I gave it a go. It's quit a thick glue and full of carbon. I cut my pieces of brass and stuck them on. OK, so I used too much glue. I'll know better next time. But the end result is a good electrical connection and a bond that appears quite strong. I am considering adding some epoxy around it as well to ensure a strong bond. But so far it looks like it will work. I've also built up the board next to one of the cassette yard lines and stuck the corresponding brass box section on there too. But I forgot to take a picture before adding weight, so that will need to wait until tomorrow. With that, I think it's about time I got some sleep. It's been a productive modelling week for me for a change and I think tomorrow should be more of the same. Edited June 14, 2022 by Anotheran Adding back images lost by site change 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted February 9, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 9, 2015 (edited) Continuing the cassette experimentation I tried attaching wire between the tracks of the approach roads to the connectors for the cassettes using the wire glue. While this worked to a degree I wasn't totally happy with the slight resistance that I could measure across the connection. So, I decided I shouldn't try to be lazy, cleaned up the areas and soldered the wires on. That way I was then able to run a loco straight from the layout on to the cassette. However, I was a bit concerned about how close the square section socket on the cassette (left side in the picture in the previous post) was to the steps on the 37. So out came the City class, and the outside frame on that was even closer. I wasn't happy with the clearance, or lack of it, so I removed the square section from the cassette and replaced it with brass angle, giving me an extra mm clearance. Doesn't sound like much but it was enough to give me content that I wasn't about to knock off steps or break a frame. Having completed this one cassette and docking point I may use angle, or smaller box section, for the plugs as well as the socket in future to allow even more clearance. The fact that I now have angle for the socket means that the plugs can be any dimension! Please forgive the black mess of the wire glue. I'll not use as much in the future. You can also see that instead of completely dismantling the socket on the rail side (bottom left of the last picture) to replace the box section with angle I just cut a section out of the box. I have cleaned up that a bit more since I saw the swarf in the photos! Also, my soldering isn't exactly prefect. But this will all be out of sight so as long as it works I'm ok with it. It's the first go, so I hope to get more efficient and neater as I do the rest. The end result is something that is easy to remove and turn round (though I've not put the connectors on the other end of the cassette yet) and to reconnect all with good electrical connectivity. Which is what I need from a cassette. The only thing I do need to add is a gate system so I don't tip the cassette content on the floor while moving it around! So a successful experiment, need to make some more now. Edited June 14, 2022 by Anotheran Adding back images lost by site change 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jock67B Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Brilliant concept for the cassettes Neil, I fancy that it will be well copied and I've certainly made notes! Kind regards, Jock. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted February 11, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 11, 2015 Brilliant concept for the cassettes Neil, I fancy that it will be well copied and I've certainly made notes! Thanks Jock, though before you copy it please await version 2 as I made a lot of mistakes in that one that I've now learned from. So the second one should be better... But that is what DE is all about! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Anotheran Posted February 19, 2015 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 19, 2015 A week on and I've not done any more on the cassettes. I guess I just like to jump around a bit! The fact that the first one works was a big confidence boost, so the second, third, fourth... seem sort of a chore. But I'll get back to them in the near future. There's just so many bits to do that I'm acting as if in a sweetshop not knowing what to choose next. Well, as I only really had time while I was on calls, and as I enjoyed the coaling stage so much, I thought I'd kick off another kit. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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