Leaderboard

Back in April I mentioned that I was considering building an extension board for the layout that could be used at exhibitions. The new board would hopefully have the following benefits. 1. It would eliminate the need to move the fiddle yard during shunting maneuvers. 2. If I give this base board full scenic treatment then the view under the bridge would be greatly improved! 3. My fingers couldn't be seen when moving the fiddle yard to set up roads for different locos and their accompanying stock. 4. Trains could reach a reasonable speed before entering or leaving the scenic part of the layout. 5. I could incorporate an area in front of the scenery to put a cup of tea or coffee! The post generated lots of useful comments, which I've pondered at length! Despite the temptations of engine sheds and trailing crossovers that the comments raised, I've decided to keep things simple and concentrate on my initial brief. The layout takes quite long enough to set up in exhibition halls as it is, space is limited in the hire van and Al and I have to carry the wretched thing once I've built it! The new board is 3 feet long, two feet wide and constructed from wood salvaged from the layouts "Mark 1 fiddleyard" New board in position I used C & L templates to work out which radius point to use, settling on a B 5.5 left hander. Grahame (BGMan) spoke highly of the point kits available from Greenwood Model Railway products, so I decided to give one a go. https://greenwoodmodelrailwayproducts.co.uk/shop/laser-cut-products/timber-track-base/o-gauge-straight-turnout-kit/ I can concur that the kits are excellent and the pre formed "crossing nose/wing rail makes point construction a doddle The point kits are available in standard 32 mm gauge and also in 31.5 mm and 33 mm gauges. I used a 31.5mm version to match the rest of the layouts track work. The only draw back as far as I can see with these kits is the fact that they come with 3 bolt chairs, which aren't really appropriate for a GWR layout. I decided that as my point is to be ostensibly "off stage" i wouldn't lose any sleep over it, I guess purists could always change the chairs for two bolt offerings from C & L! Greenwood Point in position I decided that for the sake of simplicity I would operate the point mechanically, rather than use a tortoise point motor which seemed a bit of a luxury for an off stage point! The bell cranks were "borrowed" from an old radio control aircraft project and the point is thrown by a simple slider switch which also changes the frog polarity. Bell cranks, pushrods and polarity switch I'm not a fan of backscenes with a 90 degree sharp corner, so a length of hardboard was spayed with water then bent around an old paint pot as a former and held in position for a couple of days. Once the water had evaporated and the sheet dried out, the hardboard held the curve pretty well. The backscene was then fitted to the base board using some inch square soft wood batten. MDF was used to form the back and sides of the shelf at the front of the base board for the all important tea/coffee mugs Curved backscene and coffee shelf. Expanded polystyrene sheet was used to build up the basic ground formation, this was then sanded using a Surform to create a a curved flowing surface. Polystyrene sheeting Once the Polystyrene had been sanded and the resultant debris swept swept up, the sheets were glued in position using PVA white glue. Weights (tins of paint/drill bits🙂 were used to hold the sheets in position while the glue dried. Weighted polystyrene Here are a couple of pictures of the view under the bridge, from the main layout. Obviously early days at the moment, but I hope people agree that it's looking more promising than the view of my fingers! View under the bridge I'm looking forward to getting out the static grass gun and adding some textures and colour to the embankments, but before that can take place I've got the "joys" of ballasting and point rodding to tackle! Until next time....... Best wishes Dave

At the end of my last post, I felt that I had solved all the main problems associated with building my Armstrong Goods engine, although a lot of detailing remains to be done. To complete the model, I needed to add a tender, which I intended to contain the drive unit. I have made several powered tenders based on 'Hornby' ring-field mechanisms, around which I used components from either plastic or white metal kits. I have used two different 'Hornby' mechanisms: type X9105 with 7' 6" + 7' 6" scale wheelbase and type X2024 with 6' 6" + 6' 6" scale wheelbase. In both cases, only the outer axles are driven, while the centre axle is free running. There is a very useful overview of GWR Tenders by Jim Champ on the GWR.org website. In this, I read that “The earliest standard-gauge tenders, like the locomotives they were attached to, were a rather motley collection from a variety of manufacturers.” From 1866, however, Swindon-built tenders had iron-plate frames and most had the now standard 6' 2" + 6' 10" wheelbase. 306 were built, typically 1800 gallon capacity. Typical Armstrong Tender Note that the overall wheelbase of these tenders was 13 ft, which matches the 'Hornby' X2024 drive unit, in which the centre axle can easily be moved to represent the unequal spacing of the prototype axles. There are many photographs of Standard Goods engines with these tenders, some with or without coal rails but often with remarkably high loads of coal which, in model form, can be used to cover the drive motor! A particularly spectacular example is shown at Widney Manor Station on the Warwickshire Railways website. I found a drawing of an Armstrong tender at Fig.62 in Russell’s ‘Pictorial Record of GW Engines’, which I used as the basis for my model. There are many differences in detail between different photos but I decided that this drawing was a fair representation of the type. Whereas my practice in the past has been to prepare my drawings in a 2D program, such as ‘Autosketch’, I decided to try a new approach by using the drawing tools within ‘Fusion 360’, which meant that all my design work was done within the same software package. This proved very successful, as these drawing tools have many features that made it easy to align and replicate the various elements of the drawing. To guide my drawing, I used the ‘Insert canvas’ feature on ‘Fusion 360’ to display a copy of the drawing in Russell, as a background over which I could lay out my own drawing. By following this procedure, I drew one side of the tender as shown below: My Drawing of Tender Side in 'Fusion 360' Drawing all those rivet and bolt heads could have been extremely tedious but the ‘move and copy’ commands in ‘Fusion 360’ made it a lot easier! I drew one short line of rivets and then duplicated these, as necessary, to form long rows or regular arrangements, such as those around the hornguides. A line of five quickly duplicates to 10, then 20, and so on. Once I had completed the drawing, I could use the ‘push-pull’ tools to raise all the necessary features by appropriate amounts, to create a 3D drawing of the complete tender side. The selection tools make it easy to select many similar feature at the same time, so that these can be raised all together. The resulting 3D model is shown below: Tender Side extruded from 2D Drawing in 'Fusion 360' I also continued my method, as used in other models, of designing the complete tender as a ‘kit’ of separate parts that could be printed and tested individually, without involving long print times. Having drawn one side, it only required a single click on the ‘Mirror’ command to create the opposite side The front and back of the tender were created by using exactly the same methods and all the parts were transferred separately to my ‘Cura’ slicing software to prepare them for 3D printing. Even the long sides only took around 20 minutes to print, so I could make minor adjustments to the drawings without any very long delays. Once I had printed the individual parts, I could join them together by welding inside the corners with a soldering iron bit set to 210°C. Then I lowered the open box structure over my X2024 drive unit. It proved to be a very close fit and I shall have to re-arrange some of the wiring to pack everything in, within the narrow constraints of the overlays. Tender Sides fitted around Motor Drive Unit It is clear that the coal load has a lot of work to do! A highly visible feature of early tenders was the profusion of tool boxes that they usually carried, either all on the top plate or, in some cases, on a broad shelf immediately above the back buffer beam. In a study of GWR tenders published in the Broad Gauge Society magazine ‘Broadsheet’ vol.18.14, the authors speculated that these extra boxes held locomotive screw jacks. I 3D-printed a suitable collection of these boxes on a top-plate for the tender, which will also form a base for the considerable ‘coal load’. The two slots, adjacent to the central cut-out for the motor, are to fit over raised strips on top of the motor block. The following photo shows the tender top loosely positioned on top of the tender body, to check the fit of these components: Tender Shell with Four Tool Boxes & Filler Cap (in primer) In order both to conceal the motor and provide a base for a coal load, I first wrapped the drive unit in 'cling film'. This was to protect it from water and dust during the following process. I then cut a small rectangle of plaster bandage (‘Mod-Roc’), soaked it in distilled water, and wrapped it closely around the upper part of the motor unit. I laid my printed top plate over the bandage and weighted it down to hold everything in place while the bandage hardened overnight. I only used one layer of bandage since I did not want too rigid a structure but simply a conformal cover that would prove a suitable surface for adding ‘coal’ chips. Once the bandage had set, I trimmed away all the excess material but left a layer of cling film inside the bandage across the top of the motor. I then painted the exposed surface with dull black acrylic. The final task was to paint the tender sides and top with two coats of 'Precision Paints' 1881-1906 GWR Green for the sides, Indian Red for the outside frames, and Black for springs and other parts. The final result is shown below:, My ‘Armstrong’ Tender with base for adding ‘coal’ load I realise that many people do not like tender drives but there is no reason why my modelling methods could not be applied to any other type of chassis, if I decide to make changes in the future. The more recent 5-pole 'Hornby' motors run a lot more smoothly than earlier designs and I note that ‘Strathpeffer Junction' models list various ‘upgrade’ kits based on the use of CD/DVD motors, although these are currently not in stock. I may try one of these at some stage, to see if they make a significant improvement. I need to consider the addition of lining and will do this when I complete the detailing of + locomotive. In photographs of the prototypes, the lining always seems quite subdued and I feel that many models suffer from over-prominent lining. I shall probably make my own, using my Silhouette cutter, as described in earlier posts. Mike

Various odd jobs around the layout today. The first was an attempt at painting the Dock which utterly failed. My paints were cheap rubbish which I could do anything with so will have to invest in some better quality paints and try again. So with a quick change in plan I set about giving some relief to the railway arches which will form the base of my station. (thin strips of balsa cut out to the arch shape and overlaid on the 5mm ply to give a bit of shadow and then a further strip of balsa to represent brick piers.) The idea is that these brick arches represent the original base of the 19th century railway station at Seahaven Eastern Docks which was subsequently knocked down and replaced by an art deco structure in the 1930's when the original train ferry Linkspan was constructed. Just need to get some n gauge brick paper to cover these. Having completed this the next thing to do was to start the process of building the platform edge. I used the Peco concrete edging as this is prototypical for the southern region. (platform edging in and a cargo wagon out to check clearances) Next will be building the station in an art deco style. I want it to feel a bit like the architect thought of a cruise liner when he designed it. Think de la warr pavilion mixed with Surbiton station Some further shots around the layout at close of play today (dockside) (View across from station) (aerial shot) Thanks for reading

The subject of my first blog is now nearing completion after only 8 years! It has been a problem build right from the start. I also painted it when I was really struggling with my airbrush so the paint is far from perfect. 2306 was an early Dean Goods which numbers started at 2301. In 1912 it was at Pontypool Road by which time it had acquired a B4 Belpaire firebox the Autumn before. This is mainly an old Mallard kit, narrowed footplate with additional spare parts from a Martin Finney Dean Goods including the more pronounced sweep of the cab sides. It has a Comet chassis, Gibson wheels, High Level gearbox and Mashima motor but is still not too good a runner. As a working layout loco it will do for the time being.