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goldngreen

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  2. goldngreen

    A Diversion - Stamford Engine Shed

    By goldngreen,


    Diversion
    I came across a model I made some time ago just for interest when I did not have a layout: Stamford Engine Shed in N gauge based on the Prototype Kit:
     

     
    I scanned in the original Prototype kit and then used The Gimp to replace all of the brick surfaces with a Scalescenes equivalent. The roof tiles were replaced using the same technique with a home made slate paper made from a photo of the roof of the school at the Beamish Museum. The water tank sides were drawn from scratch in The Gimp. The kit was then printed on similar thickness card to the Prototype kit and built the same way as the original using the supplied windows. It was finished with Ratio guttering and chimney pots made from plastic sheathe stripped from electric wire. 
     

     
    Looking back at it now I can see many rough edges but I think the original building is a great prototype. It has no place on my GWR Marlott though so back in its box!
     

     
    This is the original prototype kit which I believe is still available from Freestone Model Accessories.
     

     
    I thought I had done a post on this some time ago but cannot find it. Do old entries in these blogs get archived after some period? Anyway, if you had already seen this then apologies for the duplicate.
     
  4. goldngreen

    Ballasting

    By goldngreen,


    Ballasting
    For ballasting I use sandpit sand bought from ToysRUs before it disappeared. It is reasonably coarse so can pass for ballast in n gauge. 
     
    One of the things I do not like about commercial N gauge track is the depth of the sleepers. I therefore wanted to use the ballast to hide this depth consistently. After some experimentation I came up with a scheme to achieve this.
     
    Once the track was laid, I lined the edge of the sleepers with evergreen 1mm quarter-round StripStyrene. The depth is just a little lower than Peco code 55 sleeper depth. An example of this can be seen in the attached image showing a bit of test track.
     

     
    Ballast was then glued to the edge strip using water proof wood working adhesive painted on to the strip with a fine brush. Note that the water proof wood working adhesive was used for this step to avoid the next step, which involves water, undoing this step. Once this was dry the remaining gaps between the sleepers were ballasted in the traditional way by spreading ballast carefully and setting with watered down PVA with a little washing up liquid to kill surface tension. This creates the illusion of a ballast shoulder on which the sleepers are resting. 
     

     
    It was then airbrush weathered using a range of colours but mostly Precision Paints Track Colour.
     

     
    EE D6827 has no real business being there. I just like it!
     
  5. goldngreen

    Baseboards

    By goldngreen,


    Marlott
    5mm ply was selected for the baseboards. If offers enough rigidity for a micro layout but is also very light. The small layout size means that a shallow edge frame suffices to provide the necessary rigidity. Having made these decisions the ply wood was bought. The images show the boards upside down showing how the edge frames are attached.

     
    No scenic sections are planned to be lower than the track so the baseboard covers the entire area. The baseboard for the fiddle yard uses the same approach.
     

     
    Construction is simple. The frame is glued to the baseboard around the edges using Evo-Stick Weatherproof Wood Adhesive. Strengthening is provided by a beading around the inside.
     
    The boards sit square with no rocking motion on the flat shelf surface below. There is no movement in them.
     

     
    The scenic baseboard was finished off with a layer of foamboard to reduce engine noise from vibration. It was glued on using the same weatherproof PVA, held down until dry with large heavy books.
     

  6. goldngreen

    Best Intentions

    By goldngreen,


    Planning
    A short list of best intentions I would like to adhere to for the layout:
    Diorama presentation controlling the viewing angle Continuous backscene with curved corners Effective hidden lighting Lightweight rigid ply wood baseboard Analogue control - too many N Gauge models of the type in which I am interested would be difficult to chip Peco code 55 track Mechanical remote point operation Only large radius points Try to get the colour consistent across the diorama Use weathering effectively An effective fiddle yard to allow switching between trains of the length accommodated by the platforms & sidings  
    Large radius points are an unusual choice for a micro layout. The normal recommendation is to save space by using the shortest possible radius points however I prefer large radius so I will have to try to make it work. The track plan will therefore have to be considered carefully to meet this requirement. Perhaps it is over ambitious.

    The fiddle yard will need to be cassette, traverser or a combination of the two. There is not enough space to accommodate points in the fiddle yard even if I made a compromise on radius off scene.
  7. goldngreen

    Billy Bookcase Fiddle Yard

    By goldngreen,


    Other
    If I can build a Billy Bookcase layout, then perhaps I can build a Billy Bookcase fiddle yard.
     
    Adjoining the 80cm Billy Bookcase on which the layout lives is a 60cm Billy Bookcase. I do not think that the 60cm version is made anymore, however, I have one and it is the ideal place to locate the fiddle yard. 
     
    Although the layout itself will only accommodate short trains, I did not want the fiddle yard to be restrictive length. I therefore decided to build a traverser rather than using points. The base for the fiddle yard is a smaller replica of that used for the layout which fits snugly on top of the bookcase.
     
    I have gone for light weight construction using a large sheet of plasticard which I got directly from Slaters. Although it is in their catalogue I could not find it in any shops. The traverser slides on two brass runners glued directly to the baseboard. It is held in place by brass strips at either end. The track is glued using a hot glue gun. The traverser is moved by hand. Alignment is achieved using home-made brass bolts which also complete the circuit to the aligned track when connected. The other side is permanently wired.
     
    A curiosity of the Billy Bookcase when used for this purpose is the raised edges mean that the available area on the top is 4 cm shorter than the overall length. There is a 2cm gap at either end. To connect the fiddle yard to the layout this gap must be bridged. This is achieved with a piece of foam board with two track sections.
     
    Hopefully all of this is visible in the images:
     

     

     

     

     
     
     
     
  8. goldngreen

    Bridge

    By goldngreen,


    Scenics
    The line exits stage right through the back-scene. I have decided to use a low relief bridge to disguise this exit. The exit is just a hole in the back-scene board and also cut in to the back-scene sheet:
     

     
    The idea of the low relief bridge is that it will just slot in to the hole to make it look more bridge like. Since I want it to recede in the gap on the underside, it also has to be removable to allow separation of the layout from the fiddle yard. 
     
    Here are a couple of images of the low relief bridge from the front and from the back to show how it slots in:
     

     

     
    Construction is simple using thick card and a cut down Peco plate girder bridge side. The buttresses are finished with Scalescenes dark blue brick. 
     
    Here are a couple of images of the mock bridge in place, one front on and one from the layout viewers angle:
     

     
     

     
    More scenic work to go on in the foreground and to cover the right hand edge but I must retain the ability to remove the mock up.
  9. goldngreen
    Here is an attempted wide angle focus stacked image to get good depth of focus close up. Unfortunately the wide angle does not focus so well at this range around the edges. My eyes are not what they were either so my judge of focus may be impaired, however I think it is all in better focus than any of the images that went in to it.
     
     
     
    It is similar to the last photo I posted but is actually completely new.
     
     
  10. goldngreen

    Coal Merchants Office

    By goldngreen,


    Yard
    My most recent project is not very ambitious: a coal merchants office for the yard. It is based very closely on the Scalescenes kit, however I modified the window to suit a prototype I found on the far right of a picture of Kings Heath Station, just because I liked it. I realised having completed the build that it is quite similar to a OO gauge kit given away by Metcalfe on the front of the Railway Modeller a couple of years ago. The brick work is just the Scalescenes original however I put the arch in over the window using The Gimp. The roof is home made from a photo, squared up and joined in to a larger sheet also using The Gimp. The chimney pot is a white metal casting from Langley. I can only find the OO gauge ones on their web page but I picked the N gauge ones up at a show. The gutters and down pipes are Ratio. The overgrown ivy is Woodland Scenics.
     

     
    The coal merchant will fill a gap at the back of the yard.
  11. goldngreen

    Coaling Stage

    By goldngreen,


    Yard
    The coaling stage is built from the excellent Poppys Woodtech laser-cut wooden kit. Despite the small scale the kit goes together very easily. The fact that it is real wood makes painting and weathering easy. I used a combination of water colour and pastels. I just need to get some coal on it now.
     

  12. goldngreen

    Control

    By goldngreen,


    Control
    I opted for DC rather than DCC for a number of reasons including:
     
    I have a number of older locomotives that would be more difficult to chip I felt that DCC was unnecessary on such a small layout – although I am now in two minds and I ended up over-engineering the DC anyway!  
    I chose cab control as described in Wiring the Layout Part 2 (my copy is about 40 years old but I do not think cab-control has changed much) mainly because it is what I had done before on a previous larger layout. So despite its small size the layout is divided into 4 sections. This does have the advantage that I am not relying on the points for isolation. I have used the common return approach to minimize the number of wires under the baseboard and between the layout and the control panel, with a view to using some old 5 pin din leads to connect the layout to the control panel; 4 sections means 5 wires, one for each section plus one for the common return.
     
    Here is a view under the baseboard.
     

     
    Figure 1 shows one of the droppers from the track. The droppers are terminated immediately under the baseboard into choc-box connectors. This makes it easy to reconfigure if necessary and also means that the wiring does not pull at the droppers. The droppers are fixed to the underside of the track by first removing a small section of the track plastic webbing, then filing the underside of the rail with a needle file to provide a rough surface to bond to. About 4 mm of the dropper wire was stripped and about 2mm of the stripped section bent at 90 degrees. This right angle section was soldered to the underside of the track. The droppers were poked through the drilled holes when laying the track and then connected to the choc-box connectors.  This makes the droppers completely invisible from the top side.
     
    Figure 2 shows the central bank of connectors for all of the sections. The wires are colour coded, yellow for common return with a different colour for each section. The central bank is connected to the 5 pin din edge connector (3). Figure 4 shows an alternative connector at the back of the layout which is currently not used but could be wired to the central bank in the same way as the front connector.
     
    I now wish I had included isolated sections at the end of each siding. I might try to incorporate them later but it will mean some droppers that are not as tidy as those that were put in before the track was laid and ballasted.
  13. goldngreen

    Control 2

    By goldngreen,


    Control
    In control I explained how the underside of the layout is wired. Now for the controllers and control panel.
     
    I decided on two controllers. This is perhaps more than necessary for a layout of this size but I wanted two controllers to get optimum control of different loco types. I find that the older locos and some recent ones respond better to PWM feedback controllers. I used the now defunct ECM controllers on earlier layouts many years ago and found them to be highly effective. The modern locos with coreless motors respond badly to PWM controllers and can be damaged by them, as explained here.
     
    The PWM controller is a Gaugemaster Model DF. It includes 2 PWM controllers and importantly 2 transformers (required for common return wiring). It also has a 16v AC output.
     

     
    My other controller is a Gaugemaster Model W hand held, powered off the AC output from the Model DF.
     

     
    I also need a control panel to mount the section switches. I decided that this would be the central hub so the Model DF, the Model W and the layout would only be connected to the central hub. This avoids a mesh of wires between different components keeping things tidy. For the hub controller I wanted a simple box with switches, sockets and a track diagram.
     
    Carpentry is not my strongest suit so I looked for a practical solution. I puzzled for some time before remembering a trick we used as radio control boat modellers in the 70s to protect the expensive radio control gear. The components were mounted in Tupperware containers with small holes for control wires. The top could be flipped off easily for access. Although not providing a tight seal due to the holes, this kept splashes off the electrical gear. I did not have the water proof requirement but a readymade plastic box seemed like a good option.
     
    I looked around for a suitable plastic box and found my best option at The Range.
     

     
    It is a robust black box with a semi transparent lid allowing my printed track plan to show through when mounted on the inside. Power comes in to the box from the Model DF via two phono sockets on the left, one for the controller and one for the 16v AC. The handheld Model W is connected via a 5 pin din socket on the right hand side which provides power out and control back in. Four switches are mounted at the top of the box to control the sections which are colour coded on the diagram. The switches are 3 way, up for one controller, down for the other and centre off. Control to the layout leaves via a 5 pin din socket at the back.
  14. goldngreen

    Engine Shed

    By goldngreen,


    engine shed
    After a long hiatus for the summer progress has continued a little. The engine shed has been largely finished for some time but I put the internal white washed bricks in this week to finish the job. The engine shed will be adjacent to the coaling stage, to which I am adding coal now! 
     
    It is not modelled on a prototype. It is however in the GWR style with similarities to Tetbury without the water tower, or a shorter version of Wallingford. 
     

     
    A view looking inside a little.
     

     
    The camera never lies; having seen the images I took for the blog I will have to improve the weathering on the doors. 
     
    It will help cover the scenic break bridge to the right of the layout. This means that, amazingly, I am still largely keeping to my original plan. Here is a view of it plonked in that location. 
     
     

  15. goldngreen

    Engine Shed Details

    By goldngreen,


    engine shed
    A quick run down on materials used for the engine shed.
     

     
    Outside bricks: Scalescenes Red Brick TX01 with the colour dulled down using The Gimp Inside white washed bricks: Scalescenes Painted Brick TX05 Guttering: Ratio Guttering & Drainpipes Doors: Ratio Doors with the arched tops removed with a razor saw Roof: York Modelmaking Slates N-Tiles01 Windows: Scene-Setters Glazing Bars 3x4mm -  I got these at a show. They are not currently listed on the website as they are rebuilding the site. I made the frames look more worn and yellow using a pastel. I smothered them in the pastel colour and then brushed it off. It sticks to the bars just enough but comes off the clear areas easily. 
  16. goldngreen

    Grafar!

    By goldngreen,


    N Gauge
    So pleased to find this reproduction of the 1973 Grafar (Graham Farish) catalogue. The models were so basic compared to the amazing ready-to-run that we get today but in 1973 when I was still a child, making the first move in to N Gauge, this was the first I saw of what was available. It was very exciting at the time. I ended up with a 94xx pannier which, despite the original plastic chassis worked very well; it ran reliably for years and had excellent slow speed performance. I also got a Hall (Burton Agnes Hall) that unfortunately did not work well. There was a short rake of the "GW" mainline coaches as well which I still have today. 
     
     
     
     
  17. goldngreen

    Laying Grass

    By goldngreen,


    Scenics
    Following up on Long Grass, here are some shots of the messy business of laying the grass. Looking back at my inspiration again:
     

     
    I see a greener layer under the straw coloured grass.
     
    With anything that is not stuck down removed, I marked out the boundaries of the grass lightly with a pencil, making clear the areas that should remain as path. I then started by laying a short green layer first painting the area to be grassed with PVA and then using the Flockit to drop the grass. This image shows it immediately after spreading with the glue still very wet:
     

     
    The glue dries translucent so the whiteness has gone.
     
    The long straw coloured grass was then laid by spraying the required area with Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement spray glue (a dilute PVA). The areas were masked with a combination of printer paper and paper towel. 
     

     

     
    Some of the areas, in particular the fence, were masked by holding paper in front of the them while I sprayed the glue. Although it looks a mess here after spreading the grass, it only stuck to the areas I wanted it to stick to. A quick vacuum with a cleaned portable Dyson cleared the area and allowed me to empty the Dyson back in to the bag for reuse.
     

  18. goldngreen

    Lighting

    By goldngreen,


    Lighting
    After a long hiatus I have finally got round to another post.
     
    I often find that some of the layouts that stand out at shows are those that are well lit. I think it is particularly important in small cameo layouts. I am also struck by how much layouts of this type look similar in dimensions to home aquariums. Home aquariums always seem to be well lit. This set me thinking.
     
    So I visited my local aquarium supplier with the dimensions of my layout noted. In addition to seeing a wide variety of exotic fish, I also found an aquarium lighting unit that seemed to be a perfect fit. It is LED. It came with a transformer and a switch in the cable.
     

     
    When I got it home I found that the fit was even better than I had expected. I literally had to make no modifications to the layout to fit the lighting unit. It sits perfectly between the ends of the already existing frame at the top of the layout. 
     

     
  19. goldngreen

    Long Grass

    By goldngreen,


    Scenics
    In my last post I said I was aiming for long grass in the foreground. These were my inspiration shots from a walk in late summer:
     

     
    Armed with a mid-green for the base at 1mm and a straw colour at 6mm, here is how I got on. First a close up attempting to show the detail:

     
     
    A wider shot:

     
     
    One thing I learned is that it is not easy to get a photo that reflects the actual colour of the grass. It looks a bit more vivid in the photos that in does with the naked eye.

  21. goldngreen

    New Modelling Tool

    By goldngreen,


    Other
    My latest little investment is shown here. Despite appearances, it is not a phaser! It is a small vacuum cleaner for cleaning up the layout, amongst other things. For years I have struggled to clean the layout with a larger vacuum attachment. It works but it is easy to break something along the way. This is rechargeable via USB, quite small (it is sitting on n gauge track) so easy to manipulate, and works really well.  
     

  22. goldngreen
    I am working on a new roof for the coal office. I have succumbed to the point of view that says, "a viewer sees more of the rooves than anything else" so I have decided an upgrade is in order. The tiles are 2mm wide which makes them 12" to scale. I have tried to make some of them slightly uneven to make it look more natural by slipping some by 0.1, 0.2 or 0.3mm. This is the effect so far: 
     

     
    I still have the ridge tile, painting and a new sign to do.
     
    If this works well then I will do some of the other buildings.
     
  24. goldngreen

    Platforms

    By goldngreen,

    The platforms use Peco platform edging with a cardboard top. The fact that this is a terminus means that the platforms meet at one end. To avoid joins in the surface, I cut all the platforms from a single sheet of cardboard using a template marked on tracing paper laid on the baseboard. The surface is airbrush painted with a Humbrol grey and then weathered using pastels.

  25. goldngreen

    Point Control

    By goldngreen,


    Control
    Last year I was asked a question about how I intended to actuate the points. Unfortunately I missed that question and so have only just responded. Apologies to Jack Benson for that. Here is the explanation I promised. I am using stiff push/pull wires under the baseboard as shown here:
     

     
    The other components in the design are choc-box connectors. The brass insides of the choc-box connectors are used as joiners for the wire to allow the system to be re-configurable (see 1). The consequence is that it can, in theory, be reconfigured to operate from the front or the back by undoing a couple of screws and connecting the handle to the other side. Another brass choc-box-inside is used directly under the point. A groove is filed in to the side of the brass connector into which a vertical wire is soldered. This engages with the point via a hole in the baseboard (see 2).
     

     
    The wires are guided by brass tube which is held in place using the plastic outside part of choc-box connectors (see 3).
     
    I have one side of the double-slip mounted in line with the Y point. The consequence is that I needed to divert the control of the Y point sideways past the double-slip actuator. This is done using more choc-box-internals with filed grooves and soldered wires to effect a horizontal bridge (see 4). I needed the double bridge with tension on the wires to make it stiff enough.
     
    A similar approach is used to operate the switches required to complete the double slip electrical continuity (see 5).
     
    The wires stick a short distance out of the front of the layout. They are covered with small plastic handles.
     

     
    Label 6 shows one of the holes for the alternative rear operation configuration. I cannot have these permanently setup since at home it is against a wall.
     
    The use of the adjustable screw connectors makes it easy to fettle the system to get the right tolerances. It is also easy to fix if something goes wrong although it has been working reliably since installation.
    I think I got the basic idea from a BRM article which, unfortunately, I cannot find now.
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