Leaderboard

Hello. After struggling a bit soldering the point rodding stools on Friday evening my mind started to think of an alternative solution to holding the bits together while I solder them. As per normal I ended up spending pretty much all of Friday night/Saturday morning lying awake in bed trying to think of a new jig and I got an answer in the early hours of Saturday. After a few sketches (above) my milling machine was out and a new jig was made. The rest of this weekend has pretty much been spent assembling the first bit of point rodding (on and off, I have done other things!). The photos below hopefully show how much a normal viewer of the layout will see! Missy

No progress on the servos for point operation as the Tam Valley Octopus that arrived was faulty. Duncan has been very helpful in fault finding and is sending me another free of charge. In the mean time I've been making a start on the basic shells of some of the buildings: Two of the ones so far are based on prototypes from Plockton. The small single storey building on it's own is a freelance fisherman's store. The other two buildings are based on these: Another building has appeared today, I decided to do away with the idea of having a chapel, so to replace it I was looking for something quirky and a little different from the others on the layout (crofts, shops, hotel etc). Looking through my staple inspirational books of postcards and old photos by Christopher J. Uncles I came across the Customs House at Ullapool. Fits in quite nicely I think, but as you may be able to tell from comparing the StreetView link and the photo above my one will be a little less ornate and a little longer than the prototype.

Having been putting this off for some time, I finally knuckled down and have fixed the coal drop deck and sloping wing wall in position. Some minor adjustment to the end of the track on the adjacent board was required to align the rails, mainly to correct a slight difference in height. This was done by re-soldering the rail attachment at the end sleeper, where it is soldered to the head of brass nails which pass through the rivet holes in the ply sleeper. After a couple of goes, as satisfactory result was achieved, as checked by rolling a 13 ton steel open wagon (visible in the photos) over the joint. Actually, there wont be much stock movement over this section of track, but it's best to have the alignment to a good standard. Fixing the deck wasn't quite a straight forward as it might have been due to a slight degree of warping and bowing of the deck timbers. A general purpose glue (similar to UHU), a pile of weights at each end and a final dose of super runny cyno appear to have done the trick. Time will tell...... Photos show the deck and wing wall in situ, after fixing. Also a more general view over the station area with the deck in place. Dave.

It's been a busy week and today I've had the first chance since last weekend to do a bit more on the new chassis for 82044. To re-cap, it's a Bachmann body, but the chassis just wouldn't run smoothly until I dismantled all the valve gear. Having seen how essentially loose and apparently wobbly the valve gear was, I decided to build a replacement chassis, based on a Comet kit for a 76XXX 2-6-0. The Comet side frames needed a lot of alteration to fit the Bachmann body, and they also needed to be extended at the rear, due to the fact that this was now going on a 2-6-2T and not a 2-6-0. Today I fitted the driving wheels, having first taken a tad off the flanges to give a slightly more satisfactory appearance. Yes, I'm using Romfords, despite there not being the correct number of spokes. This project is all about using up some of the stuff I've had in the Nutkin Store for years... And anyway, no one has thus far tried to count the number of spokes on my other 82XXX at exhibitions... Having soldered up the coupling rod overlays, these were fitted, together with the crankpins and retaining washers on the outer wheels and the whole thing directly wired into the motor and given a test on the bench. To my relief, it all worked nice and smoothly first time. Having said that, I'd have been slightly disappointed if it hadn't, given the very basic, uncompensated chassis... Rear chassis extension: