Kirkallanmuir

[Caley Jim]

Nice article on the big girder bridge and retaining wall in the new 2mm Scale Association magazine, good to see Kirkallanmuir in print.

Thanks, Stephen.

 

Other commitments have left little time for modelling of late and 'diversions' within the hobby have taken up what little time I have had.  Some progress has been made, however.  The interchange sidings have now been walled round (though painting of the walls has still to be finished off), bedding in of the above mentioned retaining walls etc. has been started and the ground work between them and also behind the rear wall has also started.  More photos once these jobs are nearer completion (which might be a week or two at current rates of progress).

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

Well, at last a little more progress on the layout.

 

The exchange sidings are now bounded by stone walls:

 

Ground texture has still to be applied to the fields.

 

The water tank has been fixed in place and bedded in:

 

Some bedding in has been done along the base of the retaining walls at the goods yard end, the platform end has been fixed in place and the scenic base built up above the walls:

 

In both the latter two areas some painting work is required to get the ground the right colour.  The DAS slurry dries so much lighter than you expect, no matter how much black powder paint has been added!   I thought I had added too much!

 

Hopefully it won't be quite as long before the next progress report, but you never know!

 

Jim

Edited August 31, 2023 by Caley Jim
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[Donw]

Nice work as usual. I remember with pollyfiller it was surprising how much colour you needed to add. 

Don

[Southernboy]

Updates here always feel somehow 'different' from the rest, a certain distinctive character is emerging and I'm looking forward to how things evolve / develop

[Caley Jim]

In our area group we set ourselves a little challenge to each produce a small 2mm scale diorama 20cm x 16cm and to have it completed by our February meeting.  I decided to use this to try out some ideas I had for the buildings on Kirkallanmuir using the downloadable building papers from Smart Models (www.smartmodels.co.uk).  So far I have completed the wagon weighbridge office based on a drawing of that at Rutherglen Weighs in the HMRS Journal Vol 7, no 7 of July-September 1971.  A photo of it on the diorama is in the 'Whats on your 2MM workbench' topic at post 1488 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/page-60&do=findComment&comment=2529485 .  However I thought it would be appropriate to post here a couple of shots of the building in it's intended place on Kirkallanmuir.

 

 

The loop is to allow locomotives to draw their train past the weighbridge, propel the wagons across it and then draw them onto it to be weighed.  Locos were not allowed to cross weighbridges, due to their weight, and wagons were weighed as they were drawn across.  This ensured that none of the weight of the wagon was being supported by the pressure against its neighbours as might have been the case if they were being propelled.   Another arrangement sometimes employed was to have gauntleted tracks across the weighbridge with one pair of rails mounted on the weighbridge and the other on the ground.

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

I see that it's been over a month since I posted anything here, but this has not been due to lack of progress.  There has been much activity in the S & T (sick and tired) department and the signals for Kirkallanmuir are now ready to be installed.

 

 

From L - R they are :- down loop starter with drop-flap to headshunt; Down main starter; Down loop starter (up end) (the down loop is bi-directional); 2 drop flaps, one the reception road starter and one to exit the up sidings; Up inner home with bracket to cross to down platform and drop-flap to run forward to shunt up sidings.

 

The operating mechanism for the down starter is mounted in the base, the rest are sitting in their operating mechanisms.

 

The operating mechanism for the Up inner home gave problems.  The magnets for the two arms are at different levels inside the tube, but it was too much of a squeeze to allow the wire for the bottom one to pass the 2mm dia magnet for the top one, so neither would work!      Back to First4magnets to get some 1mm dia. ones and once one of these was fitted all worked well!  

 

While waiting on paint to dry on these work was started on the etched locking table for the lever frame.

 

This is the base for it (upside down).  The ends will be bent up - or down as you look at it - to attach to the side members of the lever frame, but I want to keep it flat until all the rods and bars are fitted in place and working.

 

Here we have it with the locking bars in place with most of their tappets fitted.  The eagle eyed will note that bars B, C, D, E, F & H are each missing a tappet (note the little slots to locate them).  This is because the bars from levers operating turnouts need a tappet either side of them, each fitting into a notch.  As a result, once these are in place the rod is locked in and the bars under them (as viewed) are also locked in.  These tappets will be soldered in in situ once I'm happy that everything is working OK.  The tray will be given a smear of Vaseline before final assembly begins, both to provide some lubrication, but also to prevent any of the bars getting soldered to the tray during fitting of the tappets.

 

Jim

edited to correct locking bar letters

Edited August 31, 2023 by Caley Jim
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[nick_bastable]

signals look great I'm so glad I model light railways with no signals  

 

Nick

[Caley Jim]

The locking table has now been completed and appears to function as expected.  How well it will work when attached to the lever frame remains to be seen!   I did find one interlock which had been omitted and that was between the cross-over (lever 2) and the drop flap on the Up line to allow drawing forward to shunt the up sidings (6).  The latter could still be pulled off even though the cross-over was reversed.  It was a simple matter to file a notch in rod 6 at the appropriate place and solder on a spare tappet (I always put as many spares of small items as I can fit in on an etch), minus its locating tab, onto bar D.   Unlike the turnout lever rods, those for any of the signals can be slid out provided the route is set up.  Once installed, pins in the ends of the levers will engage in the holes in the rods to operate them.

 

A shot of that end of the table.

 

Everything has been weel slaithered* with Vaseline as lubrication.  The double tappets on the turnout lever rods (1,2 & 3) can be seen.   As set in this photo, turnout 3( access to up sidings) is reversed, so the only signal which can be pulled off is the drop flap controlling exit from there (8).  The drop flap which would permit access to these sidings is off scene.

 

Levers 4 and 10 control turnouts which are not on the main running lines so are not involved in the interlocking.

 

Next up I need to shunt any rolling stock off the centre board, remove it from the layout, and bring it into the house to install the signals and locking table.  That is unlikely to happen for several days as I have a rather busy week ahead.  Sometimes retirement leaves you very little time to yourself!!

 

Jim 

 

* generously smeered

Edited August 31, 2023 by Caley Jim

[Donw]

Jim kindly sent me some more details of the etch in response to a query. It really is a clever design well thought out. It was drawn and etched for the specific locking frame Jim wanted which saves cutting out the notches in the rods ensuring they are correctly sized and spaced. A great example of getting the maximum out of etching.

 

Don 

[Caley Jim]

As planned in my last post, the centre board has been in my study (AKA workshop/grandchildren's toy room) over the past couple of weeks and the signals have been installed and are all working satisfactorily.  They can easily be removed and replaced with the magnetic link between the cranks and the operating wire functioning as intended.  

 

 

The signals at the down end.  From L-R, reception road starter, down loop starter with drop flap giving access to the headshunt and down main starter.

 

 

Signals at the up end.  Up inner home with bracket to down platform and drop flap to allow drawing forward for shunting up sidings, behind, in front of the wall, the drop flap to allow exit from the up sidings and the signal allowing exit from the down loop in the up direction.

 

This shows the connections to the up end signals.

 

And this the connections to the lever frame.  The PTFE tube is held in place with Bambi staples driven in individually using a pair of pliers which grip at the tip (Tim knows the kind I mean).  The tubes have to be well anchored to minimise loss of movement through them flexing.  The heavy white wires are the track feeds.  I used this in order to minimise any voltage drop.

 

Next up is to fit the locking frame.  Watch this space!

Edited August 31, 2023 by Caley Jim
Add lost photos

[Caley Jim]

Well, it took a bit of fiddling and fettling, but the locking frame is now installed and doing its job,

 

 

Since the levers had all been made 'freehand' the holes for the pins were not all in exactly the same place, so most of the pins had to be bent slightly to get them all to line up and go into the holes in the rods.  You can just see the tips of the pins in the holes.  A couple of the pins were a bit on the short side, so i bent up the ends of the rods to engage better with them.  Remember, the photo is looking from the underside.

 

The sides of the frame each have two holes in them, which you can see in an earlier post.   The larger one clips over and engages the ends of the rods carrying the micro switches, while the second one has a 12BA bolt passing through it and into a threaded hole in the side of the lever frame itself to hold everything in place.  The locking frame can therefore be easily removed should the need arise.

 

BTW, the three 'stubs' poking through below the frame are the 'feet' of the diagram which sits behind the lever frame.

 

Hope this is of interest,

 

Jim

Edited August 31, 2023 by Caley Jim
Add lost photos

[Caley Jim]

Well, long time - no post!     For a variety of reasons, too complex to go into here, modelling time has been in very short supply and what little there has been was in odd few moments.  Some progress has been made, however.

 

The signals have now been bedded in;

 

(compare with the second photo in post 60)

 

A smear of Vaseline was applied around the base and then the surrounding area built up with DAS slurry.  The Vaseline acted as a separator so the signals can still be easily removed;

 

 

When designing the etch for this signal, I overlooked the fact that the main lines are laid on 1mm thick card to simulate the ballast shoulder.  As a result the bracket didn't quite clear the roof of a coach!     Hence the strips of white styrene to raise the signal up.  The magnets on the operating wires had to be lowered accordingly so that the signals returned fully on.

 

While I have this board in my study I decided to do some scenic work on it, so the wall bounding the market (which will be up against the backscene) along with the gate in it and the sleeper fence between the cattle landing and the road have been made and fitted and the road and the dock for the agricultural warehouse surfaced, again with DAS slurry.

 

 

The wall is surfaced with the same Smart Models brick paper as the weighbridge office in post 55.  Some weeds etc will be 'planted' along the base of both the wall and fence.  In the foreground, the second gate of the opening onto the warehouse dock and its post, along with a short section of sleeper fence (probably only a sleeper or two) will be fitted once the warehouse itself is in position. 

 

I've decided to get the parts for the warehouse building etched in 1mm ply, and a drawing for that has just been sent off to Brian Taylor (Smart Models) to see if I've got things right!  Meanwhile, I'm preparing the drawing for the stonework for it.

 

I've also assembled a couple of signal mountings to fit in my little demonstration board in preparation for manning the 2MM Scale Association 'Roadshow' stand at the Perth exhibition http://www.perthmrc.com/page6.htm .

 

Well, for now, 'That's all, folks!'

 

Jim

[nick_bastable]

nice work as always

 

Nick

[Caley Jim]

I've decided to get the parts for the warehouse building etched in 1mm ply, ....

That should of course have said 'laser cut in 1mm ply'  I think I've got etching on the brain!  :-(

 

Jim

[nick_bastable]

you draw it Jim and if you want I will etch it  0.8mm ply or 1mm mdf etches or cuts very nicely with the beast

 

Nick

[Caley Jim]

you draw it Jim and if you want I will etch it 0.8mm ply or 1mm mdf etches or cuts very nicely with the beast

 

Nick

Thanks for the offer, Nick. I sent the drawing off to Brian last week, but I haven't had any response from him yet.

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

Well, once again progress has been delayed by gardens, holidays and other diversions, so only a little work has been done.

 

Some of the hand point levers for the yard have been assembled from my etches and installed on the middle board.

Most of them will be the McNee pattern which are nice and low and unlikely to get damaged during track cleaning:

 

 

But I decided to ring the changes and fit one of the later style straight levers on the turnout where the two up sidings diverge as it is up against the wall bounding the agricultural merchants premises:

 

 

 

 

 

I expect to receive the laser cut parts for the warehouse any day, but meantime I've prepared the paper for the walls of the building.  It is too long to print on one piece on A4 paper, so I've designed it as having been extended and have made the extension in a slightly lighter shade.

 

 

I have also been soldering up the etches for the windows and doors for it.

 

The sash windows comprise 5 layers, allowing the gazing to be slipped in after painting.  On the left is the fret for three of the ground floor windows and at top right is one assembled with, beside it, one sitting on edge to show the slots for the glazing.  Below that is an upper floor window painted and glazed.

 

The walls will be in two layers, the window openings in the inner layer being 3mm larger all round to accommodate and locate the etches.

 

The two layers of the doors are also soldered up and are awaiting fitting the handles, after which all the doors and windows will get a good clean with CIF prior to painting.

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

The laser-cut sheet for the warehouse arrived this morning and a trial fit of the parts shows that all appears to be well, apart from a few small errors on my part, which are easily sorted.  It also fits perfectly into its intended location and the windows and doors fit perfectly into their locations in the inner layer of the front wall.

 

 

Nothing is glued here, the parts are all just sitting slotted together.   The odd appearance of the rear left corner is because this is cut across by the back-scene.  Needless to say, the assembled window and door etches didn't get cleaned tonight!  

 

Jim

[nick_bastable]

fantastic track and the warehouse looks the business every 2mm modeller should have a laser or access to one 

 

Nick

[queensquare]

More great progress Jim. RMWeb is rich with 2FS pre-group modelling at the moment.

 

Jerry

[Caley Jim]

Well, progress on the warehouse has been slowed by a hiccup, a diversion and a holiday.  

 

The walls and floor went together well and once the corners and slots for the tabs had been tidied up and, where necessary, filled with DAS slurry and smoothed, the longer section of printing (the original building) was carefully cut out, the fold lines scored on the back and presented to the carcase.  Then the hiccup! Some of the window apertures didn't quite line up.  Back to check the drawing and I remembered that I had moved some of the openings to avoid the need to trim the window etches where two windows were close together.  Of course I did this on the drawing for the MDF, but not the one for the printout!

 

The drawing was edited and a new print out set in motion, half way through which my black ink cartridge ran out - late on a Friday evening!     Fortunately I found that the smaller section (the newer extension) was OK, so that was cut out and fitted.  I used PVA to glue the front part on, but found that there was a wee bit of pinkish colour coming through, presumably due to the ink running slightly.  It's not enough to be an issue (slight shading of the stone?), but for the gable end I decided to try John Birkett-Smith's method, in his recent MRJ, article of using Pritt Stick.  This worked a treat.

 

The diversion was the need to put the centre board back into the layout, check that everything was OK electrically (which it wasn't!) and do some maintenance on a couple of locos in preparation for a meeting of our Area Group here immediately on our return from a week's holiday.  A report of that meeting is here http://2mmfcag.blogspot.co.uk/ .

 

In the meantime the new cartridge had arrived and a new print out prepared and cut out.  This time it fitted! 

 

The photo below shows the current state with strips of the printed stone stuck on to simulate the stone sills being slightly raised from the walls.   The difference between the 'old' and 'new' stonework has worked quite well IMHO.

 

 

Next up will be to fit the windows and doors and then strips of pre-painted 10 x 20thou for the wooden window sills and the door frames.

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

Slow but steady progress on the warehouse.  The windows and doors have been fitted along with their respective sills and frames.  The roof sections are also now in place allowing the cornices, roof-lights and gutters to be added.  It's beginning to develope its character.  It could be argued that some of the details are a bit OTT for a 'background' building, but I know they are there and would miss them if they weren't!

 

 

Next job is to slate the roof with strips of slates.....ladies and gentlemen, I may be some time.....!

 

Jim

[nick_bastable]

that looks very nice excellent work as always

 

Nick

[Caley Jim]

Work on the warehouse slowed after the last post due to a week's holiday in foreign parts (Berwick on Tweed!) and other commitments starting up after the summer, however it is now complete and in situ along with the second gate.  The proprietors are two well known members of the 2MM Scale Association who both have agricultural connections.

 

 

 

 

The down pipes are 1mm copper wire bent to shape and attached by the usual method of wrapping fine wire twice round it and twisting the ends togther at the back to form a 'pin'.  The two rounds of wire are pushed apart slightly to simulate the joints and then soldered.  To ensure that all the joints were at the same level I made a little jig out of scrap MDF.

 

 

It also served to hold them while they were painted and they have had a first coat of paint here.

To the left is another jig to let me make the holes in the walls for the pins in exactly the right place.

 

The holiday in Berwick was not unproductive, however, as I took the laptop with me and drew up the signal box.

 

 

It's a CR southern section box to the design which became standard from 1880 - 1923.  It has to be tall so that the 'bobbie' can see over the bridges and the limited space between the weighbridge line and the loop requires the base to be narrow.

 

Now I just have to decide how to design an etch for it.   

[nick_bastable]

I do like the down pipe idea

 

thanks

 

Nick