T'was Christmas Eve and Santa's little helper was ...... Soldering and gluing of course!!!

The soldering is old hat now. I need 3 Servo 4 boards from MERG to operate the points and signals on the left side board of the junction, Newton Purcell. Each time I make one, my soldering gets better and they get easier. One down. Two to go.

The gluing was more frustrating. As you will have gleaned from this blog, operation is key here. I hope it will be quite scenic too, but it will not be a Pendon. Operating signals are a must. Two were made operational using servos for the right side board. The signals were bought fully made, but I extended the operating wires and added a Servo below each sub base. See previous entries. Now I need 2 bracket signals and either 3 or 4 stop signals for the left board, depending on length of clearances. I decided to make these from Ratio kits. Typical of me, I dived into a bracket signal kit. Why didn't I start simple? Even these "quick assembly" kits are really hard. The minute brackets and cranks are very fiddly to say the least, so I sought assistance from this site and eventually decided upon a real cheat. It works, but doesn't look right. On the next, I will find an improved method. A rocker assembly has been suggested and sounds like a good answer. As you will see, I simply linked the operating wire for the bracket arm diagonally from the arm, through the elevated platform and the base. 2 stacked servos will operate the wires. I did away with the twin cranks below the platform, which should be used according to the instructions. In fact I managed to make those and got the link wires right but they didn't inspire confidence for operation. The final crunch came when one of the wires came out a crank whilst I was wrestling with the arms and spindles.

I also did away with the small blanking plates that should go behind the spectacle glasses on the arms. These were a nightmare. No matter type of plastic glue, solvent, cement or adhesive I used, the plastic spindle on the back of the arm, melted. Not only did the blanking plate not stay put, but the plastic spindle fused into the hole it passed through, stopping the arm from moving. Eventually I chopped the spindles off, superglued track pins in place (heads against the back if the arm), used the pin as the spindle and made new, out of scale, blankers to also take the stress of the operation. Time will tell how well they hold out. Another advantage is that the distance of the wire away from the spindle is greater so the travel in the wire is greater. This allows for greater accuracy in the Servo movement.

The wires now pass over the rear of the signal. In practice the diagonal wire is not quite as obvious as it appears in the photos. I am sure many far more experienced modellers have made these kits with no issues, but my skills are rudimentary and I need the signals to work first and foremost.

So will I get time over the rest of the Christmas break to build the second bracket signal or solder 2 more Servo 4's? Can I find a more acceptable operating method for the bracket arms? I'll let you know.

Merry Christmas!

Rich