Dave at Honley Tank

Has anyone any experience with the Danak or any other dragknife in a cnc engraver.

Gosh this forum has got large! Can't find my way around now-a-days! So forgive me if I'm in the wrong section or if my question has been raised before. Has anyone here had experience with any make of dragknife in a cnc machine? In particular can anyone recommend the Donek version. What success, with what materials and what thickness of materials? It's a pricey outlay with only sellers to say it's good; so any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks, Dave

Hi Dave, happy new year, and nice to hear from you. Yes it is narrow gauge, 32mm gauge, 16mm - foot or 19:1 scale ratio. Mostly freelance, certainly mine will be. It's much more forgiving than my last 40 odd years experience and rather than, - " those locos had five front lamp brackets.....", its much more like, " it's my train set andI'll do what I want...." Assuming that I'm not called to join that big model railway club in the sky, then this will give me another ten years of pretending to be a good modeller. Incidentally I passed by Delph just before Christmas - mill gone,- loads of houses appearing, so your model is now so important as a historical record. Dave

In April of last year I said not to expect frequent posts here and there has only been one post since that date. My 4mm finescale modelling has not completely stopped but I've done little worth writing about with any of my EM or S4 layouts and stock. There has however been big progress on building baseboards, mounting them without soil connection and then track laying, through most of last summer and autumn. No electrical wiring required because this is all live steam with remote radial control or battery driven electric with radio control Therefore I'm happy to report that I now have a garden railway of sorts, albeit devoid of buildings or scenic features, but with a passing loop on the main line, a secondary 'roundy-roundy' and two turn-outs ready for siding connection. A few pics of the garden below. I spoke about the special train 'Diamond Jubilee', and work on that is slowly progressing. A few goods wagons are built, but no guards van! My first loco has been built but still needs the livery completing, it has however done plenty of work, mainly test hauling rolling stock, both passenger and freight, all of this giving test running all over the layout too. This loco is a small, freelance diesel, radio controlled, battery driven. The electronic part of that was yet another learning curve but I can see a future for this type of control in the smaller gauges - I understand it has already been applied to RTR N gauge with success! Think about it, - no track wiring, no track cleaning, absolutely no pick-up problems, loco control like the real thing, - like being in the real cab, - that is individual control (feed in the loco address) and then, with a wireless remote control, beautifully smooth speed control from crawl at less than walking speed to "eat your heart out Mallard"! All the builds have so far been from kits but those little grey cells are already starting to itch! As a closing giggle I will tell you that the larger baseboards out in the garden are based on the baseboard design I started this blog to talk about - extruded pvc insulation foam, light as feathers but much, much stronger. Oh!, for those considering this a doubtful idea, particularly outside, the largest of the boards has now spent two winters out there and shows not a hint of twist or decay. Random pics of the full route.

Thanks again Jim? I've got a goodish bit forward since I started this thread, thanks to yourself and others who joined in. However I'm working at Manchester M R exhibition this coming weekend (demo stand) and I now need to prep for that so the cnc is going on the backburner for a few days at least, but I may have a rest from it for this year and come back fresh in January. Have a good xmas evry body Dave

Jim, I've now gone through the "grbl issues" pages you quoted. This makes me think that my meager knowledge of programming is perhaps behind my problems with grbl controller. Mach 3 sounds more user friendly and I ' ve seen frequent referrance to it. Are you aware of any problems in using Mach 3 with one of these cheepo things? Am I correct in thinking that the trial version can be used indefinitly and that even though 'watered down', this version is ok for us modellers? Thanks for any further guidance Dave

Thanks Davey; I have been trying to get to grips with the info on github for about 6 hours a day over the last few days, I'm pretty well brain dreary but getting there. However I think perhaps Grbl will not give me what I want. When I started this thread I thought I had configured the machine but I have since found some errors which are now corrected. Strange that you have cnc'd a Proxon because thinking I may do mine was part of the reason for buying this cheepo T8 as a learning cnc journey. Perhaps I'm getting too old to learn!

Yes Jim, you've got that right.That's what I want but had not considered that Grbl would not allow it. I'll have a look at other controllers, might even pay for one!

Thanks for trying Al, but eveything up to the referal to " laser software" in that video I have done, but I dont understand that reference; certainly I got no "laser software". That bit of the vidoe seems to be relating to the machine's settings and I'm fairly certain that that is where my problem lies; in the original gbl input to the Aduino board. It would help if I had any worthwhile understanding of programming, and indeed cnc'ing! Perhaps my assumptions of what the machine should do are incorrect: I expectd "home" meant "take the tool head to x/y zero and take z to its upper limit"; I thought the gcode compiled by CAM from my CAD, related the machine's "home" to the work piece "home". That's what I can't achieve; but are my assumptions correct?

In order to teach myself cnc, I purchased the smallest ("1610"), cheapest (about 170gbp) cnc router kit from Banggood. Not a good idea if you simply want a cnc machine! Assembly without instructions or even an illustration, not even in Chinese, was achieved only due to many childhood hours with Mr Hornby's Meccano. Long, cut short, I eventually located the required software to fire up the Arduino board but then had problems with something called gcode! If you have the good sence to purchase a ready made cnc machine from GB company all that is done for you and you get plug and play cnc. I went through a massive learning curve and learned a lot that I don't need, in order to drive a cnc machine. That said, I'm still not cnc' ing because I cannot get the tool head to "home" to x/y zero I've had the tool correctly cut following my Cam drawing but only at some random position on the workpiece? If we had to pay to watch You Tube I would now be bankrupt but I have been unsuccesful in finding what I want So my hope in coming to rmweb is that some kind reader can kick me in the right direction. I use Sketchup Make as CAD, Sketchucam as CAM and grblcontrol as the controller.Im sure that it is the latter that I am some how using incorrectly. Is any one here using that combination with success and can you help me? I use Sketchup for 3d printing so wish to stay in that camp. l know of other control programs such as UGS and Mach 3 but why can't I get grblcontroller to work correctly? Simply put, my question is how do I set up my machine to go to zero when I tell it to "go home" using my existing set up. It must be possible but how?

Just to prove that I'm still doing a bit, albeit mainly at this much larger scale - SM32 - I thought I'd upload a picture of Lady Margaret as she now is with lining, brass boiler bands, brass dome and brass safety valve shroud, to embellish Roundhouse's finish. Yesterday was her namesakes birthday! Four coaches for her to haul as the Diamond Jubilee Train are more or less completed, and here's a view into the interior of one of them: Its roof and one of its compatriots are in the background. Two further coaches to follow, then they all need detailing, then I have to design and print the decals for Honley Tank Light Railway. That's all for now

Yes!, well sorry about that I'll try and put those pics up again:

Hello again everybody who is interested, sorry I've not been posting and I think I should explain. Over the last few years of this blog, since about spring 2012, I have many times referred to poor health of both myself and Margaret, my wife. Around that time Margaret was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers' disease, which early on caused us little trouble beyond silly, even laughable forgetfulness. I was declared her full time carer and initially we had, and needed, little help, but as her carer I lost a lot of free time normally spent in the workshop or writing about my work in there. In those early years Margaret's deterioration was slow and life was near as before her diagnoses. However during the last weeks of 2016 and early 2017 problems increased very rapidly and three weeks after our Diamond wedding anniversary, I was taken ill and Margaret had to be taken into full time care on a respite basis. Unfortunately the assessment for that resulted in the medics deciding that Margaret needed 24 hour care and that that was beyond expectation of my abilities. Margaret has been in a dementia care home since the end of June 2017 and her condition was so far gone that she was and is, totally unaware of the distinction of achieving Diamond wedding status. Very, very sad! For myself, it has been extremely traumatic and I am still in a mental state that at times I have difficulty in controlling; concentration is poor and modelling only has priority in battling the condition, but I have made a few startling decisions. So enough of the misery talk; I'm sure I have bored most of you who have not already flicked the page. But the events of the last year have effected where my hobby is taking me and an update of what is going on is I believe essential. There are two biggish changes both essentially caused by my loss of Margaret. One is not so big but certainly convenient for me. Margaret's craft room has become available as a centrally heated railway room and light workshop, within the living quarters of our property, not as "Honley Tank" which is housed in back-ground heated out-houses The craft machines, tools and card stocks have been inherited by our daughter Lynda and now reside in darkest Dorset. So now, the so called subject of this blog, a super-light EM layout called Wheegram Siding is housed on what was the bottom shelf of Margaret's craft room. The second change is much more dramatic! Some time back, sat with my son Nigel on his patio, partaking of some liquid refreshment, he said " I keep thinking about building a garden layout, like Roger's". Roger and I are the only survivors of those who founded Huddersfield Railway Modellers and he is a friend of many years standing, but when I left HRM he dropped P4 modelling and went very heavily into radio controlled live steam under the heading "SM32" , and now has an extensive garden railway, which at the village annual festival weekend he opens to the public. What matters as far as today's story is concerned is that he always invited Margaret and I to attend and indeed to operate. Here is the crunch! Margaret got near child-like pleasure playing trains with live steam, radio control. Now, if you will, put three things together: money destined for a 'Bit-of-a-do' for our Diamond wedding had not been spent. Nigel fancied a garden railway. Margaret got much pleasure from R/C live steam. The money was spent on three locos from Roundhouse of Doncaster (yes I now own locos built at Doncaster!!). One of these will carry nameplates "Lady Margaret" and a train headboard "Diamond Jubilee". All future locos will carry family names or, to amuse the kiddies, names from 'Thomas and Friends' . I drew the names and head plate and they are now etched and painted ready for future use. I also now own a cnc engraver and a 3D printer so memories of the horrible events of the last eighteen months or so, or slowly being lost in brain activity about new things and re-activating others. Just a couple of pics: An over-all view of Wheegram in its new, permanent site A look at my first static grass attempts. The etch of head, and name plates less "Lady Margaret", those plates are away with the loco for professional lining out - well it is a very precious loco! More will follow but please don't expect very frequent posts. Sorry if this post was not what you expected but I'm facing big life changes and these will, indeed are, effecting my hobby.

I do hope you've missed me! Sorry I've not been here. Some of you know that family commitments over the last year have been much higher than is desirable, and why. If that does not include you then don't worry about it. The fact is that I have been released from much of the commitment and slowly, very slowly, I'm re-organising my life. One result of this up-heavle is that I have started to dabble with 16mm scale, 32mm gauge; or SM32 as it is known. Radio controlled live steam and a very long way from S4 finescale. A lot to learn and a tendency toward 'toy train' compared to my hobby over the last 30-40 years. May put something on here when I've moved on a bit. Note I've no intention of dropping S4 or EM, at least not at this stage; so 'Birch Vale'; 'Wheegram Sidings' and Bowton's Yard will at very least be maintained. Mean while I've just about finished that signal cabin for 'Bowton's Yard'. Remember this is based on the Scalescenes kit plus Brassmasters etched windows etc. Because it is to have sound effects and a fully fitted interior, I have taken precaution against 'Sod's Law' and the model is constructed of three sections which 'plug/unplug fairly easily; the roof lifts off and the wooden cabin section will lift off the brick-built locking room. Here's a few pics:- picsABC R-H side; full frontal and L-H side views; I really must do something about that tatty lower window! pics DEF The roof is held by inner, false gables which fit tight against the real gable ends of the cabin proper; this shows the right side of the roof unit The left inner gable shows here, as too does the tight fitting slot which clips around the chimney stack. The kit's two-part roof is fitted to my scratch built framework rather than to the cabin body as per the kit's instructions.. t pics GH These show the interior. The gussets at floor level allowed dowel fixing of cabin to locking room, and you can just make out three of the dowels. The booking desk was bodged up from plasticard and the easy chair is moulded in milliput. The personnel are each Slaters 'huminiatures', heat-treated to mould them into suitable positions. - How many of you remember George Slater doing this on his exhibition stand? Heat source was his glowing cigarette end! How did he live so long? chain smoking over an open bottle of MEK; modern health and safety would have killed him off before he'd time to introduce us to this hobby-changing material. Thanks George. That's all for now; I hope to be back! Dave

The other day I got the now rare chance of a quiet running session and started with the newest unit to traffic, the Met Cam lightweight or Class 101. After a few runs and stops at Birch Vale station, the unit slipped as it started out of the platform; the ability of the traction unit to haul its train was non-existent. Inspection while still on the track and powered up, showed that only one axle was spinning.. A need to strip body from under-frame and have a closer look at Lima's pancake motor driven transmission. I still have difficulty in believing what I found! - the last but one sprocket of the drive train, i.e. that which drives the sprocket fixed to the axle, had left its stub-shaft; so one set of wheels was no longer being driven; - no wonder that the sole driven axle would not move its train! Inspection revealed that its partner for the second axle was in place but could quite easily be eased of its stub-shaft. Unless this particular unit has suffered undue ware at this axle, it appears that Lima rely on good luck that these little cogs will stay where they are needed. When I purchased the DMU as a "previously owned" model, I had the shop owner allow me a longish test run on his test track, because I was aware that these Lima, pancake motorised models had a poor reputation, both for slow running and in lacking pulling power. In fact I was quite impressed by this test, mainly because the speed range was impressive and the slow speed running was nice and smooth. Hence my purchase! Whether or not the previous owner had suffered this cog-wheel loss problem, whether or not he had caused the problem, I'll never know. Nor will I ever know if that's why he decided to sell; what I do know is that with the drive train built as I now had it, those little gear wheels were very, very likely to fall off. I needed to think up how the problem could be eradicated! I've included two pictures in the hope of making this discourse easier to understand. The cocktail stick is meant to indicate one of the problem cogs, the point of the stick is actually between two teeth of the cog which is otherwise totally hidden by the large diameter cog above. This latter has a hexagon headed retaining screw as does the similar sized cog to its right. It would appear that all other cogs have no means of retention other than rubbing against these large ones, or another immediate neighbour so retained. Unfortunately I found that the distance between the face of the small, final drive cogs and the rear face of the large ones was greater than the depth of the small, recalcitrant wheel. Thus, if the small cog ran up its own shaft, it could come out of mesh, but there was also the possibility for it to fall off, - which it had done for me in this running session. The thinking period was much longer than the time taken to make the modification. My original idea was to drill and tap the gear's stub-shaft end and fit a retaining screw, -similar to the Lima method on the large cogs. However the stub-shaft is less than 3mm diameter so to leave a safe amount of shaft diameter , 14BA was about as large as would be safe, and at that size I would need to make large headed, special screws. A daunting task. A much easier method, but perhaps falling into the realms of bodging, was chosen. I removed the large wheels, centre popped the stub shaft by eye and scriber, and drilled 0.5mm about 3mm deep. A touch of super-glue gel on the end of 0.45 phosphor-bronze wire and wire into hole. After the curing time the wire trimmed to about 4mm length, the stub-shaft coated quite liberally with silicon grease, cog back in position and p-b wire bent gently to about 30 degrees. if the cog now reaches the end of its shaft the wire will not allow sufficient travel for gear meshing to be lost. The p-b wire end can just be seen in the picture I'm hoping this is a long term solution and that my model railway operating will not emulate BR's early DMU operating problems: i.e. too many and frequent break-downs!! Better luck with your modelling, Dave

A careless picture; I seem to have left detritus below the foundations! This gives an impression of how it's going to look. The basis is the Scalescenes digital model with the finer detail of the Brassmasters kit that was designed to enhance the self- printed card The locking room window (in the brickwork) is the card version and allows the picture to show the much finer detail using etched brass window frames as in the cabin itself. May go back and change that; there's some scruffy and careless sticking of brick-paper there too! (lazy boy!!) Because the Brassmasters kit includes an etch of signal levers, I decided that the interior would be detailed in full, so my current activity is producing a couple of worn-out and discarded-from-home-use, easy chairs; a booking desk and chair, and modifying two or three plastic miniature people to become signalman. relief signalman; booking-in lad etc. The cabin windows still on the etch but painted. ready to be added (see first pic!) Without the cabin window frames, this view shows some internal detail. The lever frame can also be seen here. This has so far been the most fiddly bit of the modelling; building up a frame which fits the marked position on the card version was not as easy as I had expected; fixing the odd lever in the 'pulled' position also needed plenty of care, and ensuring correct but different coloured levers caused me much "www.xxxx.co. myword?" searching as too did finding a list of bell codes. The latter was needed because I intend to have a sound unit for this cabin but at present that's for the future, although I have purchased the birthday card sound recorder/player in readiness. This gives a good impression of the way I have organised construction. The brick base which houses the locking room but includes the rear wall of the cabin with its built-in chimney stack. The lever frame's temporarily in position but not yet painted. The cabin itself, all wood and windows but only three sided, will sit in place, retained by plugs and sockets and allowing easy removal to give access to those levers and the furniture and staff referred to earlier. At present my plan is to make the roof as a separate, easily removed part too; but we'll have to wait and see!! More in a week or two; hopefully! Good luck with your modelling, Dave

I said I'd tell you about a signal cabin but I've experienced a strange fault with the Class101 when working on 'Birch Vale'. It's so strange that I think it's worth re-telling on here in the hope that the knowledge may help others with future faults. Both my S4 layouts have been DCC operated for a long time but with the ability to quickly switch at will to analogue dc. Accordingly the 101 was wired with a decoder and sent to Birch Rail, for which it was always intended, - Bowton's Yard is supposed to be freight only. It ran well except that at one particular turn-out (there's only 2), it always came to a sudden halt. The same bogie was always in the same place. Because it had suffered pick-up problems, which I thought I had solved, then I suspected I was wrong and there was still a pick-up problem. I could locate nothing! My thoughts then turned to the electrics of the turn-out. Where the train always stopped, the motorised bogie was standing on one of the turn-out's closure rails so it was likely that the closure rail wiring had a fault. To make it easier to use a voltmeter I switched the layout to analogue and tried to drive the train to this stop position, However the fault now seemed to have disappeared. On dc the unit ran OK; on DCC it always stopped at the same place - the fault had not disappeared! I was now in total confusion, and ended up 'groping around in the dark' for a total of about 8 hours over several days. In the end it was only chance that gave me the required clue. Birch Vale's analogue controller has an ammeter and a voltmeter built into it and as the 101 ran over the offending point I noticed the ammeter needle flutter. When I slowly manoeuvred the vehicle to the fault position, the needle shot over to 'dead-short'. Next was to try the DCC again. With the DMU running at normal passenger speed it stalled at the fault position but now I was watching the handset's read-out - "fault switch off" but then, immediately - "fault cleared" and every thing re-set. At last I knew that with that particular bogie, at that very precise position on the turn-out, there was a short circuit - not a pick-up problem at all. What must have been happening was that the short-circuit protection in my analogue controller was too slow to operate as the train passed this precise position and the fault time was so brief that it did not show. The NCE DCC system's short-circuit protection is very rapid and shut the system down but train momentum cleared the fault and the DCC quickly re-set itself, but only back to 'train stopped'. So the train stayed minutely beyond the short-circuit position, ready to be off again at the driver's command The cause of the fault was removed in less seconds than the hours taken to find it!!. A little too much solder on the new pick-up unit just touched the top face of the unused closure rail of the point, and that closure rail is always at opposite electrical polarity to the rail from which the pick-up is collecting. A few file strokes cleared the problem but a couple of coats of nail varnish offer further insulation. NB the nail varnish is very quick drying, needs no brush cleaning, and paint thinners easily removes it. It all pinched a lot of precious time and was very frustrating but the eventual success is very rewarding. Model well, Dave

Will any of you who enjoy reading my ramblings under the "Honley Tank" heading please accept my apologies for such a delay since my last input. Quite drastically changed family commitments mean that I now have very much reduced time to allow for my hobbies. As the Honley Tank verbiage has always been based on my activities in the workshop (i.e. Honley Tank), this means that not only have I less to say but I'm more reluctant to use what little time I have available in whittering away on here; sorry about that, assuming you will miss these postings! A brief update then:- The Class 101 DMU has gone to traffic; it still has the original Dapol numbers because my searches have not revealed numbers that I can be sure reflect what actually appeared on the Hayfield branch. Because it is not really finished it has also not been weathered. If and when I obtain reliable info about running numbers on the branch then both numbers and weathering will be added. 'Bowtons Yard' has managed with a very ancient, Midland signal cabin, - an original Airfix kit circa late 1960's and in a disgusting, battered condition. A slowly moving project to scratch build a highly detailed signal cabin of more likely proportions is underway. "Scratch built" is perhaps doubtful as it's based on the Scalescenes 'print-it-yourself' kit with some etched parts but it is suffering my normal 'Booth' modifications The aim is that it will quietly emit the typical bell sounds of a busy box. There are some pics in the camera and I'll take others as the job progresses. I'll leave you with what I hope is the tantalizing thought of seeing and hearing more in a few weeks (months???) time. Model well, Dave

Happy New Year everybody, and may our modelling in 2017 be even more enjoyable and successful than last year. "Slow continuation" means that the trailing vehicle of this DMU now has correct (I think!) destination blinds. I have made negligible progress in two areas of research; namely, the actual wording on the blinds and an accurate set of vehicle numbers (cab numbers in steam terminology), for the Metro DMUs that worked on the Hayfield branch. Any input would be appreciated! I have assumed that the accepted protocol of steam locos on the branch is likely to have followed through to DMU sets, so my powered car will be at the front when leaving Manchester Piccadilly (nee-London Rd) but of course trailing when in the opposite direction. In my view, this latter choice is of little importance but I would like to have a correctly numbered DMU on my version of the Hayfield Branch. The fact that there was no need to 'run-round' at Hayfield does mean that the wording on the blinds never needs changing; - "Manchester" at London Rd end and "Hayfield" at the other. I make the research even more demanding in wanting my DMU to travel via Guidebridge and Hyde Junction and I'm pretty certain this was included on the destination blinds as "via Hyde". If Lima got the size of the blinds correct then I'm absolutely certain there was insufficient space to include "via Hyde" but at Manchester it was vital information for some passengers, so I'm equally certain it would have been included some where. My choice was to have a much smaller plaque quoting "via Hyde" and slipping into a clip such that the plaque was viewed through the driver's cab windows. Production of my model versions were by using CorelDraw. I drew a black-filled rectangle sized to match Lima's destination blind moulding, and wrote on this in white Arial narrow font with font height of 1.27mm. The two main blinds were 7.6mm long by 1.5mm high and my estimated size for the subsidiary blind was 2.5mm by 2.3mm. printed on an A4 Sheet they looked like: While still on the A4 sheet, each blind had two coats of gloss varnish and allowed 24 hour drying. Note all the spares; - I expected to loose some along the fitting stage! I did!!!!!!!!!!! Four millimeter scale eyes may be able to read them; my aged 12" to the foot eyes certainly can't unless aided by an eye loupe, and this shows the slight damage to the black areas caused by manipulation with the point of a cocktail stick. Adhesive used was gloss varnish and a further top coat of same finished the job I shall do the power coach but one has to wonder how sensible the whole operation was. Dave

Dave, Thanks; same to you and thanks for the card, see you some where, some time. Dave

Hello Again, Previously I said:- "I now set off on a 'good-dose-of looking-at ........', and finished with: "That's all for now but more, with pics in a few days time."; - Well, here they are: The "good-dose-of-looking-at" led to an idea for scraper pick-up soldered to a cantilever plate, such that the phosphor-bronze wire scraper could be fixed away from the under-frame and have contact with nought but its fixing and the back of the wheel flanges - no fiddly bending and no need for very accurate measurement or fixing. To make for fairly easy maintenance, the cantilever plate could be mounted onto the removable axle retainer. Unfortunately the plastic of the latter was of that greasy-feel type that adhesives seem to detest! On this example, the prototype as it were, I eventually got araldite (slow-set) to hold the plate, but to add some 'braces', I added a bridge of araldite on top. This is the driving bogie and benifitted from my first attempt. Here the plate was not only araldited to the plastic, but soldered to a pin through the plastic. Care was needed here so as to keep clearance between axle-retainer+pick-up parts from rail-head; its not much more than 0.060" without the added pick-up! With thoughts of maintenance and DCC wiring, I decided that the pick-up wires would terminate at solder terminals (i.e. - a bit of PC board!) This 'washed out' photo' shows the termination of the wires from both my and Lima's pick-up from the powered bogie. The other bogie retained the Lima circlip and wiring through to the opposite end but my wiring terminates here so as to aid easy un-soldering should I need to remove this bogie. That bit of blutak is to limit movement of the circlip and possible contact with my bits of added pick-up. The red wire is soldered to a pin which in turn is soldered to my cantilever plate; the pin gets through the Lima floor via a slot which allows for bogie swing. Since this picture was taken, a red wire has been run from back to front connecting my rear bogie pick-up to the main solder pad at the front. This will be the main pick-up termination point. With the ballast weight added I thought we had a risk of short-circuiting the solder pad, so I cyanoed a piece of cigarette paper around the end of the weight which allowed a bit of colour coding too! All this has now been assembled and the DMS has been run all over both 'Birch Vale' and 'Bowton's Yard' a few times. Much, much less 'fingerpoken' now, but not quite so good as I expected. I'll accept it for now; the decoder will improve running almost certainly; we shall see. Good modelling and Merry Christmas to all, - see you in 2017! Dave

Hello All, The under-frames of both cars were assembled ready for test running with the electrical pick-up system unchanged from Lima's original. Rubbish running resulted because pick-up was, not to be too rude to Lima, - intermittent! I gave a lot of thought as to why this could be and decided that the system included far too many sliding contacts; rail to wheel - wheel to axle springy-phosphor-bronze scraper - spring scraper to bogie pivot pin, the latter joint being pushed together by a coil spring. The tension of all those springy contact points would fluctuate at every track joint etc. Final y the connection to the bogie pivot pin is by a circlip, which will also be a moving joint each time that the pivot pin rotates. All of this was picking up only from a total of four wheels from a possible eight. Silly in my opinion. Why not pick-up from all eight available wheels? Making new bogies with full split-axle collection would do that and I would be operating in my area of knowledge. But that would be a big job! What about increasing the number of pick-up points by adding scraper pick-ups to the insulated wheels? Easier yes; but I have always been rubbish at designing and building scraper systems. My first decision was to try to remove some of Lima's poorer areas of design. First I soldered the pivot pin to the phosphor-bronze axle scrapers and I tightened up the circlip joint by judicious squeezing with pliers. This did dramatically improve running but finger-poking was still far too frequent for my liking. I now set off on a 'good-dose-of looking-at', with a view to making scrapers for the four wheels that Lima's system abandoned. I'm a great believer that all engineering design should deeply consider the problems of future maintenance and I want those bogies to be easily released from their under-frame but hopefully without the likely poor connection of that circlip! That's all for now but more, with pics in a few days time. TTFN Good modelling to you, Dave

Hello All, Last time I said that some of the pictures taken while I progressed through modifying the Lima wheels still needed uploading to my hard disc; well here's some of 'em: Sometime ago I painted the interior section in an attempt to get upholstery and walls etc approaching the colours as originally introduced. Also there's no point in a passenger service without passengers so a few Prieser people have been randomly accommodated. Luckily, being able to see inside the coach when on the layout is near impossible, so the fact that the passengers are of the wrong scale (3.5mm/foot) and the colours are guesstimated-mixed is of little consequence. When I came to fit the modified wheels to the new 2.5mm silver-steel axles they were not a sufficiently tight fit! The likely reasons are that they had originally been on splined, steel axles, possibly causing the axle hole to be over-large after removal; and/or when I miked up the new axles the diameter proved to be minutely less than 2.5mm. To get round this, I flooded the axle holes with solder, and using the Boley lathe and a step chuck, re-drilled them to 3/32". In order to have maximum truth this drilling was in steps of: centre-drill; drill through 1/16" and open to 3/32". To aid axle entry, the hole was counter sunk with a 2.5mm drill on the wheel rear face. This is one of the trailing bogie axles, prior to cleaning but ready for fitting in place, The red paint on one bush is colour coding for the insulated side. The back-ground is a flame proof mat that will easily cope with the blow torch flame. It is, of course, important that the wheel is raised to a temperature which will melt the solder and to not melt the solder with the heat source. These two, one of which appeared last time, are for comparison; an original Lima wheel-set and a converted wheel-set; spot the difference? That's all for now; TTFN Good modelling to you, Dave

Cobbles, The cobbles on Birch Vale were originally a purchased product in embossed card and pre-coloured; - make unknown, but I was never happy that they looked prototypical to the area. When I started on the scenery of Bowton's Yard' (I might finish the scenery one day!) I made a rubber casting of a section of hand embossed plaster. Unfortunately I used air-drying latex. This is an easy process; - simply paint the master with release agent (fairy liquid works) and then paint all over with the latex. Allow to dry between about 5-6 coats and you get a reasonable but frail mold. I managed about twenty casts from the one mold, certainly enough for both layouts, but now it has degraded and is no longer usable. I would make the mold in the air setting rubber used for white metal casting if I were to repeat. The idea of using plaster (plaster cast type not decorating type) was to over come the problem of joints in the cast slabs- I left a 'cobble-width' space between slabs, filled those in and hand-embossed the filler when it dried. The other reason for using plaster was the final colouring. You've got the colour description right; I'd say "mucky buff";- its mainly local sandstone I think. I flooded my cast plaster with a watery black mix and when dry, one or more coats of matt varnish, which dependent on make, will dry a bit brownish; if not add a touch of buff paint to the varnish. The black highlights the cobble joints. Good luck with it. Dave