m.levin

3 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

 

You're looking at it in the thread......money well spent..

 

My dad brought me a soldering iron for my 13th birthday, then gave me several things to fix the following day!...

Chas only went out to get a packet of cigarettes, 38yrs of searching and still can’t find any! That’s commitment!! Don’t know why he even went out to get some, doesn’t even smoke! 
 

Hi

I have used Neo pixel rings and mounted them in spot light housings, then runs it off an Arduino uno.

it simulates sunset and sunrise, simulates a moon moving across the sky with a white glow and a random thunder storm thrown in. 

To activate it I have it switched via a point decoder and relay, which is activated buy the fast clock on RR&Co, 9pm sunset and 6am sunrise.

A high relay signal activates the sunset and when it drops low it activates the sunrise. The moon is on a random cycle, left side of the room, right side or non, when non its a 1-100 chance of lightning. 

this video shows it in action

On 14/05/2020 at 21:56, Chas Levin said:

Here's another pre-grouping wagon I was pleased with and another D&S kit, a GNR 10T Implement wagon ('implement' in this case typically meaning farming implements such as tractors). Jonathan may remember helping me figure out what happens at the ends of the platform, as he was building one too . Paint is Phoenix Precision's GNR Freight Brown, transfers HMRS, chains and fastenings from Cambrian, the ropes are a type used for model ship rigging and the tractor's from Oxford Diecast. The wheels are Romford Lowmac - I tried Gibsons but my trackwork's too coarse. It does sit level by the way - the last picture's got some camera distortion...

 

 

 

 

Hi Chas

I don't go on forums much now, but thought I would have a wonder over and see what's happening in the modelling world. I stumbled across you, thinking you might be my long lost dad and wondered where my 38years or birthday and Christmas money was and reading your thread found the flat beds with the tractors on, I recall seeing a photo of a train with these heading to I believe Huddersfield and I believe these were also massy Fergusons, something I really wanted to model, but always thought they might look a bit "train set" looking, but after seeing yours it has inspired me to rethink the idea, only if I could remember where I found the photo. 

Thanks for sharing 

I would do the transfers, but got a number of bakelite mk3 coaches to rub down!

Early December I got the time together to start the last 6 Hornby VIX ferry van conversions and these are now at the rolling coupling box that needs detailing painting and decalling stage.

These vans include 3 Italian FS vans with 6 vents per side, a similar SNCF van with 4 vents per side and 2 Interfrigo vans of the same length including a "Flying Snowflake"

All use the standard Hornby VIX chassis with the side detail/mess cut away and the VIX body with the doors removed and the aperture filled with plastikard.

 

I opted for metal bufferheads only from 51L rather than full units and I think the choice was a good one as the Hornby buffers are not bad. 16 inch diametre for the FS vans and 18 inches for the Transfera blues.

51L also supplied the brake levers, guides and the tie down cleats and towing anchors whereas I procured the vent plates from Jon Hall.

 

P1030129.JPG

 

The French van so far:

 

P1030121.JPG

 

One of the Italian ones:

 

P1030122.JPG

 

The under trussings of the original Hornby chassis were cut away and replaced by Evergreen 'L' section and other details were just scrap box bits and bobs.

5 quid now for 4 pieces of microstrip............these may be my last builds that use it.

 

P1030123.JPG

 

Here's an older Interfrigo van. I experimented with contact adhesive, sticking the plasticard sides to the Hornby sides, hence the filler....the sides buckled and had to be ground down.

 

The snowflake also melted!

 

P1030124.JPG

 

Should be good now though. I'm not looking forward to building the ladders and walkways at the ends of these 2 refrigerator vans.

The Hornby roof was cut off this one and replaced with a plasticard re-enforced and sculpted one.

 

I got hold of an old HO Electrotren van to help me out but if anything it hindered me.

 

Here shows the difference between the scales:

 

P1030126.JPG

 

And finally a picture of the solebar so far showing how far away it's come from the Hornby base model:

 

P1030128.JPG

 

 

 

 

Here's the 00 model

Any update Andy?

looking good

Just missing black gloss weathering applied with 2inch brush!!

Kemp it up mate.

You could do with some MTKits to work on.

Looks ok Andy.

Kemp up the standards!

Some pictures of the now complete Class 375

yer warm white 3528 LEDs

We used 3528 warm white LEDs, easy to get of EBay.

Then the greenish glow comes from the glazing.

It is a fine line between the LEDs being to bright or not bright enough.

Think we used 5K2 resistors, but can't remember off the top of my head.

It's best to experiment with resistance for the right glow or play about with decoder CVs to adjust the brightness.

We spent the time getting the brightness right with out playing with the CVs, because if you do a factory reset on the decoders, changing the function brightness CV is something else to change, along with address.

No it's PI55 0FF ;-)

 Have you bought another one,

 

or shall I post this 3 set one I have on the shelf ?

Yer post it to never never land 

Yesterday Went and did some more work on 375 lighting, with Andy.

We fitted directional lighting, interior lighting and door open lighting.

Had issues with light bleed but got around that with some electrical magic.

Still some more work to do and another unit to complete. but attached is a taster.

I will knock 10% off my fees!!

didn't even notice the capital S, when I first drafted up the transfers it was a low case.

either MS word automatially changed it to a capital, as it was good for doing that!! or I had to use about 4 diffrent font types as some of the letters were diffrent and mixed up the fonts to get it as close to the real lettering font, but with this a number of the letters sizes needed to be increased/decreased to get them all the same size, so it might be lowercase but wrong size.

Good stuff

I have been working on the Battle of Britain, as seen in earlier images in bits.

We believed this project would be a nice and simple project, Simple is an

We knew what out come we wanted and what we needed to get to this. 

This BOB started of as the Hornby Fighter Pilot and after some researching we found a BOB that was similar to the fighter Pilot in BR Green, as we found that they had a number of different tenders and Cab sides and at the time we wanted to keep it simple. So this lead us to 229 Squadron so off we went and made a start on stripping it down.

all went reasonably well until Decals were added and first problem!!

We noticed that the Loco body sits higher then the Tender and the lining didn't line up well, which looked wrong trying to get them to line up by off setting the lining.

So work was done to lower the loco body, which opened a massive can or worms, we learnt very quick that Hornby had a reason for producing the body slightly higher.

So lowering looked great and it ran like a bag of spanners and derailed for the hell of it, all the issues down to lowering and clearances of pony truck and front boogie.

We then released BOBs when worn causes the connecting Rod to hit against the Wheel nuts, bending the conn rod and locking up wheels. We had play in every moving part so work was required to tighten up the play. Sounds easy!! umm no when you start to handle part and move parts, with lowing the body, bits that you don't want to break breaks and bits you expect to break don't. 

We could write a book with the issues this Loco has presented to us, so not going to put every last one on here, but those that had got both of us scratching our slight less haired heads!!

This Project has become one of the biggest we have ever dealt with and left hanging on the edge of the work bench, hoping that one of us you knock it off and in to the bin!!

But I'm pleased to say that it seems to be getting close to the end and I have managed to get it to run around a 2nd Rad curve.

I spent a good evening at Andy's and we worked on his Transefa Vans.

The pictures show progression of vans and increased alcohol consumption. Amazing how straight lines look when a little consumed.

Haha 

depresses me seeing how much work is left to do on the Battle of Bull*cks!!

West country class - battle of Britain class, with the hassle both Andy and myself have had with them, we found the sweep from workbench in to bin seems to fix any defects/issues you will encounter.

how you finding the Sprog II?

I use/Andy abuses my locobuffer II which I use via my Digitrax system and JMRI. its great software for reading all CVs and create a log/back up.

I liked the sound of the Sprog as a stand alone interface. 

Hi Andy

Been looking for those Etched brass connecting rods for BOB, but no joy.

Maybe someone on here maybe able to help and then I will get some ordered, for when I come over next for our kiss and cuddle session.

My good mate AndyF told me to wonder over to this layout thread and have a look, its very impressive.

Pullmans look smart, what you need for those Pullmans is a nice battle of Britain class loco, The Hornby BOB is such an easy loco to work with!!