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There are a lot of small buildings and structures in any shed yard not least those associated with the ash disposal plant. My latest efforts have focused on two of these - the small concrete building used by staff working the ash pit and a brick built shed which I believe housed the ash plant controls. Both are shown in the following photo. The first model to be attempted is the concrete shed, the dimensions of which are scaled from photos in my collection, which is probably a Taunton product which appeared at the shed in the late 1950's. The model is constructed from plasticard and suitably weathered. Interesting as the model is position over a board joint. The following photo, taken in 1965, has some clutter on the roof which I might add at some later stage. Now for the ash plant control hut.

Over the past few days I've been able to almost complete the four Dapol 16T mineral wagons I've been working on. If you remember I had removed the top doors from two of them in my earlier blog entry. Since then they were finished with Tamiya NATO brown and black. Then using prototype photos from Paul Bartlett's excellent site I have been able to weather the quartet. I have used my usual Vallejo acrylics for weathering. Dry brushing has given the desired effect. Tamiya masking tape has been used for defined lines and the white door stripes. Transfers are from the excellent Railtec range. The number sets are ready made for MCV's and have used ones that look right. In that sense all four wagons are not necessarily correct and are generic. The transfers need sealing with varnish and a the weathering needs tweaking. Then they can be returned to their owner. Another lovely build from the Dapol stable and once more excellent value for money. Well recommended. Cheers, Mark Best put 70's disco hits album away now...

Today I made the cylinders. Rummaging through my brass stock I found two concentric tubes, one whose inside diameter was a nice sliding fit on the 0.5mm piston rods, and another that fitted around it and had 2mm outside diameter. These two tubes will allow me to make a (coarse) representation of the housing/bearing where the piston rod enters. I had calculated that the whole thing needed to be about 4mm diameter, allowing 0.25mm for an outer wrapper (looking at prototype photos, it look like this is not cylindrical underneath, hence my choice of a separate wrapper). So I used the lathe to face and turn down a length of 5mm brass rod to 4mm, and to drill a 2mm hole through the centre. The two tubes were cut to length appropriately and soldered in, with a cocktail stick masking the hole in the end of the inner tube. The photo below shows me filing a slot in the top of one of the cylinders to take the slidebar. I started the slot with the piercing saw and then cut the rest with a thin file. This was a case of trying the slidebar in place along with the valve gear, filing more and more until it was nice and straight at the correct height. I then soldered in the slidebars to arrive here: And finally, with the valve gear in place: I'm hoping that there is sufficient motion in the piston rod, but if not I may need to carefully file down the bearings in the end of the cylinders. I still need to cut the piston rods to length so that they don't stick out of the front of the cylinders, as you can see. Next I have to attach the cylinders to the frames, and holding them in place shows that they need to be set out quite a long way from the frame. I think I will do this with pieces of brass - watch this space!

A pictorial journey: To test the choice of the textures I started to build the toilet group. Next step is building the main building of the school. Then the base had to be made and the school must be glued on the base. Base made with the help of a frame maker. The scene would be a photographer taking a picture of Victorian school class for a special occasion. I hope you have enjoyed this little journey. Comments and suggestions are as usual welcome Keep save and healthy. Job

Furloughed. But its not all bad, I’ve been allocated a corner in our 2 bed London flat to embark on a model railway project to pass the time. HURRAH! I thought I’d start a blog about this adventure and this first post details the progress so far. Scheming. I'm a Theatre Production Sound Engineer in London, who grew up in North Somerset. Ghosts of old branch lines that snaked around and through the villages near my childhood home have always been a potent source of inspiration. A pile of Hornby 00 track and assorted western rolling stock has been sat in a box for years, leftovers from a childhood 6'x4’ loop layout that closed to goods and passenger traffic circa 2008. The project is to build a model railway on a budget in the limited space available. I have some modelling experience and am handy with a soldering iron, drill, files and to some extent paint brushes. I’ll be using this layout as a test bed to learn some new skills and try things out, building as best I can while having fun. I’m not going to worry too much about perfect true-to-life design or operation. The gist is a fictional GWR country terminus (because we can't get enough of those!), perhaps a preserved line, effectively based on a shrunken version of the old B&E / GWR station in Clevedon, North Somerset. Photos of said station below... I’m naming my layout Kingston Bridge, the landmark still standing about halfway along the disused Clevedon branch from Yatton, and just up the road from my childhood home. LINNMON to the rescue! Base boards... I have no wood, and no means to quickly buy wood online at a reasonable price. Step up the ikea LINNMON table! Two 100x60cm white tops, sturdy, and £6 each! Add 8x ADILS legs at £2.50 each and we’ve got ourselves a budget base board. Thank you IKEA. I’ve laid 2mm cork on the top of both tables as a base - six pack of 300x1000mm rolls from Amazon did the job - though it turned out more like 295x1010mm. So a slight gap at the back that will need filling later. The legs took longer to arrive so the “boards” sat on an existing table to get me started. I’ve used two small flight case catches to join the boards. They keep the table tops together nicely while allowing for some vertical adjustment for levelling. Only gripe is that the holes on the hook component were smaller than listed - hence ugly countersunk screws instead of nicer pan heads... I’ll fix that later. Track attack I had a pile of used Hornby 00 track, but it wasn’t in good nick and I decided to treat myself to something new. After a fair amount of research I’ve chosen Peco code 75. I like the way it looks on other layouts and having never used Peco track before, I thought it was the time to try! Well I was too slow, because it seems EVERYONE has had the same idea! Buying track was quite a challenge. It feels as though the parts for this project have been sourced from every model shop in the UK! The original track layout (planned to be all wooden sleeper) quickly went out the window and was adapted to suit what I could get my hands on for a sensible price - I was not going to pay £10 per piece of wooden flexi track!!! I’ve ended up with concrete sleeper flexi track, and wooden points with the exception of two right hand medium points that also had to be concrete. I was determined to get a single slip into the layout, I find them interesting and wiring and operating it correctly would provide some exercise for my brain! Initially the mix of sleeper types annoyed me, then I remembered my mantra for this project - I can learn to model with both concrete and wooden sleeper types. I’ll have to make up some back story for the mixture of sleeper types later... thoughts on a postcard please. Rough version of the plan above. The lower sidings might change a bit... that idea was a mileage yard, and that the uppermost track crossing the road might enter a factory yard or building, set into the back scene. Who knows, its a moveable feast. Meanwhile the table legs arrived! Super easy to install and remove, with plenty of adjustment for levelling - at least 25mm. At 70cm high they’re not “exhibition height” but are ideal for sitting and working. What’s the point? I have a pile of Hornby point motors, and the initial plan was to use them. However, once I’d committed to the LINNMON tables I decided to surface mount as much as possible rather than hack away creating holes for things. Wire in tube with slide switches for frog polarity seemed like a neater option and a fun learning opportunity, so thats what I’ve chosen. The switches are part no. SW05898 from CPC.farnell.com, PTFE tube is 0.5mm ID / 1mm OD from Amazon. The wire is 0.4mm silver coated copper... I know I know, I’m probably going to regret not using steel, but I had it on the shelf and It seems sturdy so far... perhaps I will curse myself later. I’ve soldered on thicker wire for the point end so there is more rigidity and less play in the hole through the tie bar. The switches are soldered up to the frog wire with two drop wires for + and - feeds, then set into holes drilled with an 8mm bit and filed to shape. The PTFE tube is set into a slot cut in the cork, then everything is fixed and filled in with a hot glue gun. Each individual piece of track has drop wires, which are 16x0.2mm 0.5mmSq (20 AWG) from railwayscenics.com - I couldn’t find lengths of wiring under 25m as cheap as theirs, and its great quality. I will be using 32x0.2mm 1mmSq (17 AWG) for the bus wires under the tables - probably overkill but better too much than too little and should be future proof for upsizing. I will run ‘analogue’ Initially but would like upgrade to DCC at some point... Rust, rust or rust? Painting the track has been a voyage of discovery. I don’t have an air brush nor the funds to buy one. My initial solution has been Kobra low pressure spray paint In Chinotto brown for a base coat on all track, wooden and concrete sleepers. Used with black dot caps from Graff City, this provides a more controlled spray than the regular spray paint cap. The concrete sleepers have then been brush painted in Humbrol No. 72 Khaki Drill Matt Enamel, and the rails brushed with No. 62 Leather for a rusty look. The No.62 works well In my opinion for unused extra rusty track but is a bit too red for track in regular use. Thinning it down on top of the Kobra chinotto looks okay but its not perfect or consistent for the main track. I think I’ll try a darker option down the line... Also, brush painting concrete sleepers takes quite a lot of time... I have some Plastikote grey primer that I think comes out roughly the same colour as the humbrol, so I might give that a try going forward in conjunction with some darker rail rust paint. And thats it for now! I’ve started laying track and a bit of test ballasting, but I’ll save that for a more bite-sized next instalment. Please comment with your thoughts, I’m trying to learn and would welcome all opinions!

Among many other things I've got on the go at the moment (many, many things) is this SER brake, later SR diagram 1553. Variants covered diagrams 1552 to 1557. I needed a brake van that had plausibly been relegated to lesser used branch lines by about 1910, and this one seemed the ideal candidate as they were pretty widespread and numerous. CAD progress is good, I have wheels in stock and the other bits needed, so hopefully it'll be a good project. Not looking forward to doing the brake gear, that will be very fiddly (both on CAD and in real life!)

A while back I ordered 3 un-decorated GWR Fruit 'D' wagons from Dapol. As you've previously guessed I do like Dapol for a source of modelling projects. I understand the bodyshell for the Fruit 'D' has a venerable past and there are some dimensional inaccuracies. However Dapol have breathed life into it with a new chassis. With this I feel it makes suitable layout NPCS vehicle offering a bit of variety. These 3 have received Lanarkshire Model Supplies buffers and roof ventilators which gives a bit more finesse. The roof had been sprayed with Tamiya German Grey. The sides use a psuedo BR Crimson from Citadel brush applied and the chassis is sprayed with Tamiya NATO Black. Wheels are standard Dapol inked in with a black Sharpie indelible marker. Transfers once more come from Cambridge Custom Transfers and were fixed with Johnson's Kleer. I've used a wash of Vallejo acrylics to pick out detail. They await a dusting of track dirt from the airbrush shortly. More soon and thanks for looking. Cheers, Mark

I’ve scratchbuilt some more buildings for Farthing. First up is this small goods shed, adapted from a prototype built by Eassie & Co. at Speech House Road station on the Severn & Wye. The contractors Eassie & Co. had an interesting history, nicely described in this PDF file by the GSIA. The prototype had a brick base, but I decided on a timber base and a few other detail changes to suit my tastes. The roof is detachable so I can detail the interior. The doors are modelled open so you can see what’s going on inside. I like the effect but it does add to the time and cost as you have to model the interior walls and framing too. One reason I chose this prototype was the potential for a nice view through the open doors across the tracks, in line with my preference for “see through” structures at the front of layouts. There’s also a view through the side door. The prototype had the door right up against one corner, probably to save space inside. It looked odd in model form though, so I moved it. If only the real world was so easy to change! Here’s another little building I’m working on. This is a lock-up/storage room based on a prototype at Long Marston. There was a very similar structure at Lustleigh. My version is some 25% larger than the prototype, in order to add a bit of mass. I normally use the Wills sheets for slate roofs, but on this lock-up I thought I’d try out the slate sheets from York Modelmaking. I have seen them used with very convincing results, not least on Iain Robinson’s wonderful creations (no longer on the web, sadly). Unfortunately I had forgotten how sensitive paper can be to glue stains and bending/fraying at the edges. Experienced card modellers would no doubt have made a better job of it! Here’s a direct comparison between the Wills sheets (left) and the York Modelmaking strips (right) before painting. I’m really not very happy with the roof, and may give it another try. Incidentally the prototype photo doesn’t seem to show any gutters or drainpipes, which puzzles me a bit. The buildings in place on the layout. The shed painted and showing the see-through effect. The lock-up on the workbench, ready to embed.

I have added a bit of scenic detail to that corner. Much improved in taking the eye round at the end of the viaduct. I am going to have a go a tree making to disguise the rather abrupt end of that big retaining wall, but for now thats the layout back together and some trains running again. A couple of rough snapshots. Hope everyone is managing in these strange times.

Having acquired some confidence in making 3D extrusions from 2D drawings, I decided it was time to move on and try something slightly more ambitious. While there are many good things about building engines from sheet brass – after all, the real things are made from metal – there are limitations when it comes to making components with significant depth or complex surface detail. Although it was an interesting challenge to complete the firebox and smoke-box from the BGS Gooch Goods kit for my model of ‘Rob Roy’, it wasn’t an exercise that I was especially keen to repeat, so I decided to try the idea of making these components as 3D-printed items. Having already explored the possibilities of ‘hybrid’ construction techniques, I decided to try making the boiler assembly of ‘Tantalus’ from a combination of brass and 3D-printed parts. I’ve found already that there are many advantages to using 3D printing for making components of a model, rather than attempting an overall print. The design process can be broken down into small steps (remembering Mikkel’s dictum on ‘how to eat an elephant’ ) and each part can be printed quite quickly. When a model takes several hours to print, there is a strong disincentive against doing too much experimentation but, when print times are down to a few minutes, it’s easy to find out what does or does not work, with the tools that I have. Although my 'Geeetech E180' printer had me tearing my hair out at times, often due to inadequate documentation, I am now finding it to be an easy-to-use and non-temperamental machine, which fits very well into the domestic environment. I also note that, having checked recently on the web, there is now greatly improved documentation available, including a proper explanation of the bed-levelling process. The overall precision seems very good, for a low-cost machine, and the main limitation on detail seems to be the 0.4 mm diameter of the extrusion nozzle, which means that prototype details smaller than about 1”, cannot be represented in 4 mm scale. So, tackling my ‘elephant’ one bite at a time, I start with the boiler: Standard Goods Boiler These early engines had remarkably large boilers for their time. By the time of the final lots of the ‘Standard Goods’, the boiler barrel was 11’ long by 4’ 6” diameter. I obtained a length of 18 mm diameter brass tube as the main component, which I shall fit into holes in the back of the smoke-box and the front of the firebox, respectively. Boiler bands will be added as narrow strips cut from 5 thou brass sheet. Standard Goods Smoke-box I decided to 3D-print the smoke-box in two parts – the main body and the front plate. I extruded the main part of the box from a 2D drawing of the end-on profile and opened out an 18 mm diameter hole to accept the end of the boiler tube. Main Body I raised a ring of rivet heads around the opening for the boiler, as seen on the prototype. These were on the limit of what could be resolved by my printer, so they appear more as a ‘suggestion’ than an accurate representation of each individual rivet. I also extruded the back ends of the cylinders and the gland for the piston rod, with a hole to accept a 1 mm diameter rod, leading to the cross-head. Front Plate When I came to the front plate of the smoke-box, I realised that there was an important difference between the front of ‘Rob Roy’, which I have already modelled , and the Standard Goods. In the ‘Waverley’ class, the cylinders were almost horizontal but, in the goods engines, the cylinders were inclined, to allow the connecting rods to pass over the front axle on their run between the cross heads and the cranked driving axle. Although books, such as the RCTS series, provide plenty of information about boiler and cylinder dimensions, they remain silent on the angle of inclination of the cylinders. I measured the angle, from a detailed drawing of ‘Pyracmon’, as 7 degrees. This angle has to be reproduced on the front face of the cylinders which are contained within the lower part of the smoke-box wrapper. Setting up this angled section presented a new challenge on my learning curve about 3D-modelling with ‘Fusion 360’. My solution was to start with a flat front plate, matching the profile of the main section of the smoke-box. I soon realised that, while there are plenty of drawings showing the side elevations of locomotives, other views, including the head-on appearance, are much harder to find. At the period I am modelling, these engines had a bottom-hinged door of rectangular shape, with rounded sides. There were two hinges at the bottom of the door and three clamps at the top to keep the door tightly closed. Although I could not find a drawing of the front of a Standard Goods engine, I found that Mike Sharman’s book of Broad Gauge drawings included one of the front of ‘Lord of the Isles’ (1851), taken from the Locomotive Magazine 1950, p.197, Fig.5. This provided me with many details, including the line of rivets around the edge of the front plate. From this drawing and various photographs, I was able to make a 2D drawing of the main features of the front plate. I then used the ‘push/pull’ tool in ‘Fusion 360’ to raise these details above the background surface. This left me with the problem of adding the 7° angle to the lower part of the front plate. Trial and error led me to the following method, although there may well be other ways of achieving my aim.. I split the front plate horizontally, immediately below the smoke-box door. I then rotated the lower part by 7°, using the ‘Move’ tool in ‘Fusion 360’. Next, I used the sketch tools to draw a triangle between the original plane and the inclined plane. I extruded this triangle across the width of the front plate to fill the gap between the inclined section and the original front of the smoke-box. After carefully aligning the lower part with the upper part, I used the ‘join’ command to re-combine the two parts into a single body. I illustrate the steps below. Because the front plate is thin, it only took 5 minutes to make a test print. Sadly, this demonstrated that all the fine rivet detail, which I had laboriously added, was too small to print clearly. I decided to make the individual rivet heads larger, to give the printer a chance, but this also required me to increase the spacing between the rivets. Rivet counters look away – it mean that the total number of rivets had to be reduced . I decided that this was an appropriate compromise in 4mm scale, as the presence of rivets remains obvious, although the number is incorrect. Once I had printed these two parts of the smoke-box, I checked the fit of the front onto the main body, as shown below: In general, I was pleased with the overall appearance, although the printer did not reproduce the smaller details, like cylinder cover bolts, on the inclined surface as well as the details on the flat surface. There are also visible steps in what should be a smooth slope. Standard Goods Firebox The firebox on the prototypes was a large but simple round-top design. All that was necessary was to make a 2D drawing of the cross-section of the firebox and then extrude it to the required length . I opened out a hole of the diameter of the boiler tube (18 mm), so that the boiler could be fitted into the front of the firebox. I also provided a small hole for fixing the safety valve cover in the appropriate location. One of the most awkward features to model by traditional methods is the curved ‘fillet’ between the firebox and the boiler. This is very simple, however, when using ‘Fusion 360’ - just a mouse-click on the ‘fillet’ command! When designing models for 3D-printing, I find it is useful to pause for a while, to think about other details that it is appropriate to add. In this case, I realised that it was easy to add the spectacle plate to the rear end of the firebox. I left the back of the firebox flat and printed a separate part to form the backhead, Backhead The various driving controls and the fire-door are mounted on the backhead of the firebox. I made this as a separate part by again extruding from a drawing of the cross-section of the firebox. As with the front of the firebox, I used the ‘fillet’ command in ‘Fusion 360’ to produce the curved rim to the backhead – this will be given a polished brass finish, as on the prototype. As I mentioned before, in the context of the smoke-box, it proved difficult to find a drawing of the backhead but, once again, Mike Sharman’s book of drawings contained one of ‘Lord of the Isles’ (1861). This showed the great simplicity of the controls on engines of this period. The regulator is placed centrally, near the top, while on the left are ‘try-cocks’ for checking the water level in the boiler, together with a circular gauge. Apart from the oval fire-door, that’s it! I made drawings to represent these components and then extruded them from the face of the back-plate, using ‘Fusion 360’. I realise that this is how things were done back in the days of Tri-Ang models and that applying separate fittings is now the norm. I thought, however, that it was useful to use the 3D-printer as a simple method for reproducing these items. They can always be replaced by something better, if I decide to refine the model at a later date. Again, I was pleased with the appearance, which conveys the ‘basic’ nature of these early engines. Conclusions My method of constructing the boiler from an assembly of separate components has proved to be a quick and easy way to build a locomotive! Most of the time, of course, is spent on preparing the drawings while the printing of each part only took a few minutes. This was significant for me, because it meant I could try out ideas, without having to wait for hours to see if they worked. I show the complete ‘kit of parts’ below and am pleased to report that the firebox and smoke-box fit firmly over the ends of my brass tube, which will add substantial weight to the whole assembly. I’m sure I could add many more refinements but I intend to turn my attention back to the chassis for my next session, so that I can then assemble the complete engine, with any ‘extras’ I think of along the way. Mike

As it has been another nice day here on the Welsh coast and the grass mat had arrived I decided to finish off the landscaping of the Civic Centre and also complete the New Courthouse Square. The Civic Plaza needed an airbrush wash of gunk to tone down the "Portland" concrete and the grass mat needed rolling out for the lawns. I think the Director of Parks and Recreation is aiming for an award at the Chelsea Flower show, or has gone a bit Radio Rental and blown the next five year's budget on floral displays. The frontage of the Civic Centre as it will look from New Courthouse Square. The two storey ex-Vollmer station will house lock up shops on the ground floor with a Councillor's reception, with steps up to official offices for the senior councillors. The Council chamber is on a mezzanine at the rear, fronting onto the Member's terrace. Main council offices on the left, with the main public entrance, reception and paying in offices at the rear. The Peace Garden and War Memorial on Civic Plaza, now that the final landscaping is in place. Floral displays courtesy of various sellers on the Bay of Tat. Why waste time trying to make your own when others are selling them for not a lot? Gives me time to concentrate on creating a believable setting, and things like airbrush weathering which doesn't show up too well in this shot, but has toned down the pinky-beige simulated Portland concrete. Overall vista from the visitor's car park. Overall I'm quite pleased with the result, I just need to decide what to do about lighting as the boards are designed to be removable for track access, which precludes the usual rat's nest underboard lighting electric supply. However, some more serial TatBay surfing has thrown up a potential solution... New Courthouse Square, before the glue had set. The paving is 3d printed, as is the bus shelter and "Law Courts" planter-sign. I painted the paving and the base ply with Gesso, which gives a good dark black finish. It then had an overspray with the airbrush. Part of me thinks it should be given another overspray with some lighter grey as asphalt is rarely completely black unless freshly laid, but I do like the Gesso finish. Again, Parks and Rec have gone riot with the floral displays. The new Central Library with Pat Butcher's earring inspired Circular Arguments sculpture now placed within a proper landscape setting. You can just make out the colourful interior of the library, a 3d print I designed to allow me to illuminate the building at some point. The gluey mess next to the bus stop will be cleaned up at some point! Courthouse Square overall view. The Central Police Station, Shaw Taylor House, will be on the left mounted on a separate board, Building the scenery on removable modules has helped enormously with the decoration and construction, and will enable me to do the track-laying next week unencumbered by having to reach over buildings. The court house is a Vollmer "New Ulm" station and the Library began life as a Chinese kit from Alibaba until I ended up making a pig's ear of it and it ended up more as a kit-3d print hybrid semi scratchbuild.

Morning all, After an intense 3 months of work, including readjustment to WFH I was happy to have pre booked a week off after Easter to have a break and of course, profit from some modelling given current restrictions. Following the last post with the apron, the next job before tackling the dries was to undertake the ballasting. This was using some black ash ballast from Green Scene following the tests I did and posted last year. No point to dwell too much on the ballasting as this was done using the tried and tested dry lay, mist coat and then pva/wul/water mix. One board seemed to adhere better though and even after a coat of a well known hair spray manufacturer, giving it much needed volume and bounce I resorted to a second spray of said solution. This seems to have fixed it with just the usual patches needing some touching in. The chairs have been painted rust colour and the whole thing now needs toning down using some weathering powders. I also added some patches of static grass just to give the feel of it becoming unloved as this is set circa 1983 just before it closed...small hints of weeds will be added to the apron and the gap between the concrete and rails in due course. Right, that’s the ballast bit....now the clay bit...namely the dries. As mentioned before I had produced some drawings based upon the originals from an Architect friend I studied with and these formed my quick n dirty foam mock ups. Whilst I usually prefer to work in card, I knew I was going to build the dries in plastic as I needed a mixture of random stone (the base) concrete (the floor and projecting platforms) brick (for the columns) and block (for the later infills) Primarily as I didn’t fancy applying DAS and hand scribing and ending up with a mixture of materials. All of the sheets were purchased from South Eastern Finecast at an exhibition but also topped up by mail order direct during lockdown. I started by building a foam board carcass of about 300mm long which was then expanded bit by bit. The brick columns were cut paying attention to photographs and counting courses and received a few strokes with a file on the edges to get mitred corners making sure the courses lined through...that’s the Architect in me coming through Random stone was applied using double sided tape and I built a brick pier followed by a block work infill before commencing the next brick pier again. This continued until I had the complete length (1100mm approx.) and I set about making the timber wall plates and rafters. Here is where things took a detour I started the first bay building the rafters bearing on the wall plate with the idea I would attach the fascia board. The fascia board was pre prepared using some excellent gutter brackets found online by googling. Giles kindly ran me off some and dispatched in time for this week. These were glued into place and the fascia board offered up and glued in place as per attached pic. Feeling pretty pleased with myself, whilst I transported the layout back to the spare room, I bumped into a shelf and the dries building fell flat on its face...breaking off all the gutter brackets - the room was filled with much fruity language Relax, walk away, think it through and ponder overnight. The next day the first task was to make a foam board support jig to prevent this happening again...It then occurred to me that I was approaching this all wrong as I was having trouble keeping the alignment of the fascia as well as having to cut/trim each individual rafter Ok, time for rethink...and some cheating At the level of viewing the underside of the rafters will be barely visible from the front, so why build this as a traditional roof? What was needed was a box type structure with a soffit board to allow me to get the alignment as well as attach the gutter brackets separately to the front. This was made in sections, welded together with MekPak and attached to the structure. This would allow the fascia board to be attached as well as the profiled roof sheets. Win. So to end the week, I attached the fascia boards (having first predrilled and glued the gutter brackets) filled some joins with model filler and then the whole assembly was taken to the garage for a spray with grey primer...to see what needs more work! I have sprayed a test piece of roof but am not so sure about the profile yet so will get some more options before attaching. I now need to add the gutters, downpipes and further detail such as metal guard rails etc. The unit was placed on the layout and some test running followed to check clearances. One of the projecting platforms needed a tickle with a file as the handrails on the 08 caught on it but this is an easy fix. First runs were shocking despite cleaning the track prior to remove the pva and paint so a good coating of IPA on the rails seems to have resolved that. Going forwards I am tempted to now start the dries buildings on the other board before I start painting and weathering this one however I will see how the mood takes me on that. I now have a methodology to build the other more complicated building and as this sits more forward and will be more visible I may look at trying to laser cut some timber rafters at the studio when life gets back to some normality. Overall I am happy with what has been produced this week and turning a negative into a positive, this lockdown has allowed me to progress with the modelling which normally is undertaken for a couple of hours at the weekends. As always, comments welcomed and stay safe all, Pete

With that rather unwieldy title looming over this post, I thought I'd revisit the O gauge plan from a few days ago, copied again below. Why would I bother making this layout as a minimum space O gauge, if I could fit more in the same space in OO? This question was nagging me, so I thought about what I could add that would increase the reliability, interest and fun factor of the layout. Firstly, I love tiny locos. Manning Wardle Class B/C, small Rustons, Planets etc. Short, fixed wheelbases tend to have pickup issues so why not try out R/C? This wouldn't be possible in OO, but might just be able to squeeze into an O gauge version of my MW Class B. Secondly, the small size allows access to all areas of the layout, which in turn means things like working point levers, scale shunter's pole for uncoupling etc. Maybe also moveable cranes, adding a puzzle element to the layout. Start with a train of empties, rearrange it and fill a few specific wagons with produce in the process. Maybe one crane down by the wharf/quayside, another up in the top left by the production facility of whatever this enterprise may be. Finally, having R/C control could mean having other elements to add to the puzzle. A working road vehicle to load, for example, or a shunting tractor replacing a loco. Of course, this is all pretty fanciful, I haven't yet built the other micro layout and will have no space for another until I move somewhere bigger! But planning things like this is fun when you haven't got the motivation to do any physical modelling.

Fresh off the printer, a quartet of SECR tenders for a customer. These are from my OO scale F1 and B1 kits, resized to N. This is a bit more complex than just multiplying by half, as all the walls need thickening up to make them strong enough to print properly. Still, I think they've come out well enough! Stats: Print time: 3hrs 40min - much quicker to print in N gauge! Cumulative pushup counter: 3925

I didn't finish work until 1am last night, so not much modelling got done... So instead I'm revisiting an old plan for a micro O gauge layout. The Peco track version shown is 1350x350mm, but I reckon I could make this smaller by making my own track - it's only planned for tiny industrial locos and wagons, so with tighter curves could be under 1220mm long, and hence fitting on a standard bit of ply. The aim was to make an O gauge layout fit the sort of space you'd get a OO gauge micro layout in. It would of course, be the loading area of some kind of small industry. Other than that, I haven't really put much more detail into it. It's an ambition for the future, this layout! Stats: Layout: standard inglenook 5+3+3 Max loco length: 125mm (small Manning Wardles etc.) Cumulative pushup counter: 3775

This is the first time I've attempted outside motion, so apologies to the experts. I've concluded that it's rather small and fiddly, but no more so than other fine details. First off, I drilled, sawed and filed up the connecting rods in the same way as the coupling rods, from two sheets of 15-thou nickel silver sweated together. Here you see them once the paper pattern has been removed. They're shape is supposed to be a simple approximation of the real thing. As you can see in this enlargement, one of the crank-pin holes is a bit bigger than necessary (I don't remember how that happened now). But hopefully it will still work ok. Next, the slide bars were filed up from pieces of code 40 plain rail. The left-hand ends (as seen here) will be attached somehow to the cylinders. The drawing here shows how the crosshead hangs from a single slide bar on each side. I omitted the piston rod itself from this print (must have been on a different layer!). There then followed some experimentation with how on Earth to make the crossheads. In the end I settled on a variant of a design described on Henk Oversloot's website (http://www.fs160.eu/fiNeweb/Lconstruction/walschaerts/walschaerts.php). In my case the main body of the crosshead is made from a front piece of 10 thou nickel silver, and a rear piece of thicker brass (I didn't have any thicker nickel silver). The rear piece has a channel milled into it for the slide bar, and another channel milled part of the way along for the little end of the connecting rod. The photo below shows me after milling the first two channels: This is the resulting piece of brass (containing both crosshead backs as mirror-images of one another). The other two slots (top and bottom here) are just to give me a guide for cutting out. The holes will take the pivot pin for the connecting rod. Here you see one of the crosshead backs cut oversize, with the slide bar and connecting rod in to give an idea. The little end of the connecting rod still needs thinning down here: I then soldered on (temporarily) some 10 thou brass for the front layer, drilled the hole through this, and shaped both pieces. The photo below shows these and the 0.5mm diameter crank pin that forms the pivot. I had to thin down the head to make a better representation of the real thing (from photos). Next, I drilled a hole in the side for locating the piston rod, before separating the two layers and soldering the piston rod onto the rear layer. It is just 0.5mm nickel silver rod with a collar of brass tube (again just for cosmetic detailing). In fact, I originally tried to solder on the piston rod after soldering up all of the other bits, but this was a bad idea as the connecting rod jammed up solid and I had to heat it all up and separate all the bits again. In this picture you can also see that I soldered the crankpin to the front layer. (Again, this was the result of experience showing that it was better to attach it without the con rod being in sight. No need to actually solder the pin to both front and back.) The next photo shows my "lash up" for soldering the two layers together with the connecting rod in between (sorry about the focus). I just stuck the rear layer to my work board with double-sided tape, and held the piston rod firmly in place with masking tape. There is a layer of Rizla paper on each side of the con rod, and these are soaked in oil. As a final precaution, the con rod and the insides of the front and back layers are coated with black marker pen where they are not supposed to be soldered. Although in practice this seems to have little effect at stopping the solder. This lash up worked, however, and allowed me to solder front and back together without gumming up the rod or unsoldering the piston. Of course, working this all out took much longer for the first one than the second! And the final result:

Making the most of the good weather, by painting the backscene outside. The first stage is painting the whole thing white, and I've already managed to cock this up in at least two ways. Firstly, by trying to paint it with a spray can - this hardly stuck at all, and would have taken several cans to get any decent coverage. So a tin of all-surface matt white was acquired instead. Second problem, insufficient sanding before application. This left some rather obvious woodgrain in a couple of places, I could have done with some wood filler too. Oh well, it's getting a good sanding between coats and that'll have to do! Stats: Number of stuck bugs removed from drying paint: oh, loads. They seem to love it! Cumulative pushup counter: 3625

I should probably explain my choice of components for the controller a little bit. It's a mix of SMD and through-hole, normally you'd go one way or the other, but I felt in this instance it'd be better to compromise. As such all the resistors, caps and LEDs are SMD to reduce the number of holes in the PCB, hopefully making it look neater. The same goes for the 2x 15-pin headers holding the Arduino on. The rest (switches, terminal blocks etc.) are through-hole, as that's what is readily available and cheap. This hopefully confines most of the messiness to the outer edges of the PCB. The other thing I'm quite happy with is finding a throttle potentiometer with a centre-detent - on of the biggest issues I have with my current 'proper' controller (a Morley Vector, otherwise excellent) is that you can't tell by feel alone when the controller is centered, and therefore off. This leads to occasions when you think you've turned off the power, when in fact it's still on and your loco is sat on a dead spot, so that as soon as you knock the boards or move the loco (to uncouple it, for example), it takes off again. Having a simple notch so you can feel the off position should solve that nicely. Stats: Total component count: 23 Cumulative pushup counter: 3475