Leaderboard

The S&T team were out again today, taking advantage of the reduced Sunday service to install a ground disk at the exit of the down goods lay-by. This signal was built from some etches which I believe were produced by D&S in the last century. It is f**tingly small!, the disk being about 5mm in diameter and the total height only being about 11mm. Normal/Danger:- and when cleared The wire linkage through the baseboard also drives the balance weight.. Normal/Danger and cleared. Hours of fun to be had.... David

Some LEDS were ordered over Christmas and once they arrived I set about adding front and rear lights to the power cars. Here's a grisly shot of the internal wiring - can you tell it's still at the prototyping stage? I'll tidy it up once I'm satisfied that the wiring is complete. It's not as complicated as it looks! Somewhere in that tangle is an 8 pin DCC socket so any decoder (or blanking plug) can be swapped in and out in seconds. I made all the lighting connections to the wires leading away from the socket, so again there's no need to tamper with the decoder wiring itself. Up front is a light cluster of three warm-white LEDS, with two arranged to shine through the main lights, and the middle one (lit in this shot) arranged for the reversing light. These lights are controlled by function 0 and reverse automatically with the direction of the train: i used translucent red to tint the middle LED - it could still benefit from a few more coats. Another option would have been to order a red LED! By the way, these are all pre-wired with resistors so they can be used without any modification. I used 5mm types but 3mm ones would have worked perfectly well. In order to produce a lens effect, I drilled right through the front castings and then added a dab of that clear glazing solution to each light. A lot of work was then spent light-blocking the interior to prevent the light from the LEDS shining into the cab and the bogie space. As before, here's a short clip of the unit in action: Cheers!

Having received my first order from Britannia Models, now having N-gauge track to go with the points I had left from my younger days, I set about laying the track for Praze station. As both my points were left‑handed this dictated modelling a later time period when the passing loop was converted to just a siding. With the track laid and glued in place, it was time to reacquaint myself with ballasting. Having viewed a number of various “tutorials” on‑line, time to get started. I am reasonably happy with the results, and was thankful that GWR was known to ballast up to and occasionally covering the sleepers. Still this is a learning model, I can only improve when move to OO‑gauge and the Helston station. Having then set aside Praze station, it was time to try my hand at modelling buildings, so started with the Helston engine shed. The shell was cut from foam board (old company presentations with the printed surface peeled off). Although not purchased on purpose, I found that one of the craft knives I had purchased had a blade for cutting button‑holes, this was perfect for cutting the windows, done simply by pressing down the blade and getting a perfectly straight cut right into the corner. Having assembled the shell I tried a new technique, at least for me, of applying a thin coat of air drying modelling clay and then scoring out the various stones. At this point I was again glad for one of my father’s “hobbies” when I was a teen, namely renovating a traditional Cornish farm labourer’s cottage only a couple of miles from Praze and Beeble. As a result I have had hands on experience, for more years than I care to remember, working with granite walls and slate roofs, taking them to bits, cleaning them up and rebuilding them. To my mind this experience makes it easier to model something you are intimately familiar with. Although, far from perfect, a very acceptable result, and again a great learning process. Lastly, as I have had plenty of time being off work for two weeks over Christmas, I have been tiling the roof. Although I am aware of a number of other methods, I still prefer the process of cutting out thousands (about 2,400) tiles from index cards each 4 by 3 mm. Then individually gluing each on, with just a small overlap. In reality on the real building each slate would have been overlapped by about four tiles above. I very much like the effect created and was more than happy to see it taking on some of the profile characteristic profile of an older slate roofing that can never be purposely modelled! Painting next.

With the legs and worktop done last entry, that leaves us with one last section to build; the shelving. This will actually be built as a self-contained unit, which means theoretically you could make the desk able to be disassembled by securing this shelving section in with an M10 bolt or similar; rather than gluing it in place. So as long as you have the crossbar in place beforehand, you can actually just slide the shelving section into place; making assembly easy to do by yourself. When I design furniture, I like to think about how I could make it be easily taken apart, in case you wish to move it into or out of an awkward location; just as most layouts are built with multiple boards! Above: Hopefully you will have cut out all the components by this stage, but if not, we'll need: 1x Rear panel, 18mm plywood 1x Bottom shelf, 12mm plywood 1x Middle shelf, 12mm plywood 3x Shelf supports, 12mm plywood I realised today that I never uploaded a dimensioned drawing of the desk, nor a cutting list; so you would have no idea what you'd need to cut out! I will get this online as soon as I find time to make it; so that you can build this desk, or one like it, should you wish... I purposefully didn't show all the rebates being cut out last time, so assuming only the rebates in the legs have been cut, we'll need to tackle some on this rear storage section. First, we'll cut out the hole in the back panel (that will allow a UK plug to fit through). Once again, there are many methods of doing this; but I still find that the router is my go-to tool, and takes all the effort out of it. We'll set up a guide just as we did in the last part, and cut out the hole. I chose to do a large letterbox, but in reality, a simple hole 60mm in diameter would be sufficient for most standard plugs. Above: The hole in the rear panel has been cut out in this photo, and the bottom 12mm wide rebate has been marked out. Also visible are various annotations to help me keep track of what I'm doing. Note that the position of the central shelf support has been drawn on (as well as a small 's' within, that denotes the position of the right hand shelf); so that we ensure everything lines up properly when we glue it all together later. Above: Here, I'm routing out the 12mm rebate for the bottom shelf to sit into. As it's close to the edge, I can use the routers own guide. Above: The photo above shows another of the rebates needed; there will also be a matching 18mm wide rebate on the other end, so that the storage section can sit against the legs more securely. Whilst there is a small notch on the bottom left corner that I did not plan on rebating, in reality it was easier just to cut it out as well; it would never be strong enough to stay in place anyway. Above: All three shelf supports will need rebates for the shelves to slot into. Each will be half depth (so 6mm deep), and 12mm wide. There are two shelves; one that will sit (rebated into) on the top of two of the supports, and one that will sit part way down. The centre shelf support therefore needs two rebates, as it will have both shelves slotting into it. The outer shelf supports will only need one. Above: Due to the small size of the shelf supports, there was no way I could clamp them without the clamps getting in the way of the router. The solution was to instead sandwich the shelf support between two clamped ply lengths. The key was to make sure there was a straight edge to help us guide the router, and to sandwich the three parts together as firmly as possible. Above: With the rebates cut on the shelf supports, we'll move onto the paintbrush shelf next. As you can see, I'll be using a selection of different sized drill bits to account for a variety of paint brush sizes. Once again, I thoroughly recommend that if you have access to a pillar drill, you should use it! Doing them by hand, especially with such large bits, is difficult. If like me you had to use a normal battery drill, then use the fastest speed on it, and clamp the wood down so that it doesn't start spinning; it'll also minimise the likelihood of the underside splitting out as well. As always, start with a pilot hole as a bare minimum before using the final size drill bit. Above: Once the holes were drilled, I actually used a conical sanding attachment on the Dremel in order to sand the rims; it's not necesarry, but it'll make it look a bit neater. Above: Another feature I was keen to add to the paintbrush shelf was a circular rebate to hold a pot of water in place. My Dad is seen here plunging the router around the perimeter. As we won't be able to use guides here, it will be pretty tricky getting a perfect circle; but that's not the end of the world! Above: To make it a little bit neater, I used a cylindrical sanding attachment on the Dremel. The end result wasn't perfect, but I'm not worried; the important thing is that it holds the pot of water in place. Above: Before we go ahead and glue the shelving unit components together, it's not a bad idea to add some sort of edge to prevent things falling off. I had a metre length of aluminium angle spare, so it was cut in half (1), and 3 holes drilled (2). The holes were also countersunk so that the screws were more or less flush, and both sections were drilled and screwed onto their respective shelves (3). Above: The aluminium angle was actually an afterthought for me, so I had to use a 90 degree drill attachment to help me screw the bottom one in place! I'd still recommend attaching them before you glue everything together though. NOTE: If you plan on painting the desk, I'd recommend you do this before gluing anything together! Above: With all the parts rebated, we can begin to glue the shelving section together. First, the bottom shelf is glued (1), and then clamped (2). Once sufficiently cured, the shelf supports were also glued (3). Above: It's wise to also clamp these (1), so that you can immediately glue the shelves in place (and clamp those, too!) (2). Leave that to cure overnight. And there we have it; the shelving unit is complete. That leaves us with just one thing left to do; assemble the desk, which I'm afraid we'll have do next time! As I said, I'll get that cutting list and dimensioned drawing done, and let you all know when it's up. I'm not sure where I'll put it, but it'll likely go in the first entry; as it makes more sense to put it there. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this entry, and as always, if you have any comments or questions; go right ahead and post them below. If you found this entry informative, I'd also appreciate a vote, and I welcome any and all feedback! Till next time, Jam/Jamie Warne

I managed to make some more progress on the signals for Clare and now have the down home and up advanced starter in position, if not properly bedded in. Both have 3d printed tapered 'timber' posts and lamps with the rest of the details, arms, ladders etc being from Model Signal Engineering. The taller home signal was printed on the Anycubic photon but I reverted to my new Ender 5 to print the shorted starter. Both have a length of brass rod running up the inside for strength. The advanced starter has a patch of white paint on the bridge to aid sighting, the signal still needs some colour in the spectacles. Yes, I did have to have two attempts to place it which is why the hole in the ground is bigger than it ought to be! The home is taller and the arm is visible over the bring parapet so that the signalman can see it. The track on the left is the goods lay-by, the signal reads for the running line on the right. Both signals are driven by servos and a MERG Servo4 board running the 'Sema4' firmware. This means that the servo can be set with on and off positions, the speed of the movement and optional values for 'bounce'. This last one is going to take a bit of adjustment to get right, but it is fun playing. https://youtu.be/KFD-4s0eeVY Also over Christmas and the New year period I was able to get some thin ply (thanks Michael) added to the front of the layout. This allowed me to tidy up the contours, hide the polystyrene and generally make things look more pleasing on the eye. I am still undecided as to the final finish, I think it is too light at the moment but don't know whether to vanish/stain it as wood or paint a suitable colour. I've still got to apply some more static grass to the section nearest the camera. Happy New Year and hope 2020 goes well for you. David