kipford

Jason Good to meet you albet only fleetingly at Southampton on Saturday, it wood have been nice to have had longer to talk. Some great modelling and I admire your tenacity with the micro strip, you must have shares in evergreen! Keep up the good work.

Colin Thanks for you comments. The colour I forget what it is, is a B & Q emulsion tester pot. Yes you are correct the facade does face east! The building though, like the rest of the layout, is a pastiche of recognisable bits from the Barry building (soon to be demolished when they redevelop the hospital) but viewed from what is assumed to be the rear. Dave

Andy Thought about it, using something like a thick thread and cyno, but as you view from 2ft away you will be hard pressed to see it and life is just to short!

Time for a few more updates. Christmas was quite a busy period and I felt like a bit of a change from buildings: So introducing 'Caroline' the MARC Models kit of 975025. This was an xmas present from my wife and the photos below show the progress to date. The basic body is finished with interior and underframe detailing to do. Its going to be finished in the livery as refurbished by Fragonset in the late 1990's. Over Christmas more time was spent on buildings. As mentioned before my son is a medical student in Brighton and he has spent a lot of the last 5 years in The Royal Sussex County Hospital Barry building. So this is our homage to the place and it fills a big hole in the background. Its not quite finished, you can see the drain pipes are only just going in. Again its a mixture of laser cut shell, window and the fire escape railings coupled with scratch build. to make things a bit more interesting we have added some scaffolding where remedial exterior work is taking place. The scaffold involved a quick crash course in scalffold design and lot of Evergreen plast rod and strip. I will add some photos of the building was constructed when I have photos of the finished building. [ Finally to show its not just my work - The bulk oxygen supply for the hospital, scratch built by my son. Its not quite finished but shows the intent. Almost forgot. I am demonstrating at Southampton Show on the Saturday (26th only as its my wifes birthday on Sunday) along with Jonathan Buckie (Great Shefford. We are going to show how we use computers and modern manufacturing techniques in our modelling. I will be taking the terrace houses, station building and canopy, the buffers etc. So if anyone is there pop along and say hello.

I have spent a couple of lunchtimes with the real track plan. Here is the fruits of the labour. In 4mm scale without any compression the length is only 14 ft (very usable) howver the width!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8ft. Would be an interesting challenge because it remained pretty much as drawn up to closure. What do you think Colin?

Colin Thanks for the comments. Ref the clamps I agree I need check the stops at Brighton, we normally go to Brighton train to see my Son. For various reasons this year we had to drive each time so I have not been able check for myself and I have been unable to find a photo on the interweb of the stops taken from the opposite way to those above. Thanks for the offer of the Kemp Town track plan, I actually have a copy in the Peter Harding book on the branch. Brighton East was never meant to be a copy of Kemp Town but is an in the spirit of. The track plan although short in length, a similar setting to Ventnor, appears to require wide base boards. I must admit though it does cross my mind every so often to build Kemp Town and set it around 1960-1962 ish but assuming again the passenger service had remained open and been electrified. I think I will spend a few lunch time hours setting it out on Templot to see how much room it really needs and report back. Shunting a 4 way point with the toe located in the tunnel mouth, would be interesting, see the photo below, a case for Alex Jackson couplings me thinks.

Its looking really nice, you are correct it is four in row. By the way my 'if I had the room project' is Ilfracombe' with a representation of the bank up to and including Mortehoe station.

Some pictures of the first off ‘Plate Buffer Stop’. As the layout is Brighton based the only buffer stop to use for the station running lines was something like those used at Brighton station. As I mentioned in the last post these are very similar to those that Pete Harvey makes but they are only available in OO. So it was out with the CAD machine and see what I could sort out for myself using laser cut parts. The breakthrough came when Jonathan got hold of some phenolic impregnated paper in 0.25 and 0.5 mm thickness. The result was a basic kit of parts with a slot and tab construction, using evergreen section for the scratch built items. The next two pictures show the basic assembly drawing with the laser cut parts, as cut and ready for assembly Then we have the first one assembled but not yet painted When painted I will add some more pictures

Iain What material were trying to cut? Romark is the plastic that York Models and Jonathan Buckie (Great Shefford) use. The useful sizes are 0.75, 1.0 and 1.5 mm. 2 mm MDF is brilliant for all sorts of general items while for really thin stuff we are now using 0.25 and 0.5 mm phenolic impregnated paper. The phenolic paper is great because you do not get a charred edge. See my layout thread for examples of stuff we have laser cut. Dave

Do not call £139 still at Hattons barely giving them away? Only paid £124 for mine last year? Yes I will buy another at some point.

Thanks for the comments guys, its really appreciated I have only just noticed, due to pressure of other things! Latest (additional) project, its too cold to undercoat the station building at present, is plate buffer stops for the running lines ala Brighton. Pete Harvey does a very similar one in etched brass but they are in OO and will not do an EM version unless he gets a minimum of 12 to make the etch viable which is fair. So I have done my own version using a mix of laser cut parts and Evergreen section. Two are part assembled and it all seems OK so far. The difference with these from other laser cut parts is that Jonathan of the laser cutter now has a phenolic paper, basically that used for transformer laminations, which is available in 025 mm and 0.5 mm thickness, this is now opening up a new level of fidelity which was not available with Romark. I will post some pictures when I get the first one assembled.

Adriano Nice to hear from a fellow high end CAD fellow. I must admit in my current position as Chief Designer for an Aerospace company I do not get the seat time I used to, so modelling projects keep my hand in. Do not mention smarteam, the only piece of CAD software where the time taken to produce a model and drawing at least doubles in time and crashes with monotomous regularity Regards Dave

Some notes and photos on the station building. The building as I mentioned in an earlier post is based in the style of the original Kemp Town building shown in the photo below. It’s a bit longer than the length available so it got squashed up a bit. So we ended up with this As I mentioned in an earlier post the shell was laser cut in 2 mm MDF, with the doors and windows in 0.75 mm Romark. The roof coins (if thats the right word) were laser cut along with an alignment jig which made the glueing in place a doodle. View of the back of the building The canopy is a mix of laser cut Romark and Evergreen strip. The first photo shows two of the basic trusses. These were edged with 0.5 x.0.5 square section form the flanges of I beams. The same method was used for the longitudinal beams. The next couple of photos shows a bit more detail . Finally I trial fitted both parts to the layout tonight Still lots more to do, filling, painting etc. Dave

Thanks but Its only temporarliy layed on a piece of spare track and has not been fully pushed home. Regards Dave

In between building buildings I have been playing with buffer stops. I wanted some that were typical of the area and found this rather splendid example at Chichester station. I believe it is an old LBSCR design, please correct me if I am wrong? Anyway I could not find anything in kit form that resembled this so it had to be scratch build. EDIT: 1 hour after posting this, I find Ragstone models produce a kit! however I prefer my solution as it does not require the rails to be cut to prevent shorts! Anyway a couple of lunchtimes work saw a suitable CAD model produced, based around code 75 bullhead rail. So far so good, how to make it? Convention says get some rail, bend up the three individual rails for each side and solder the lot up. I made up an assembly fixture and started trying to bend the rail (remember the rail is being deformed in its most stiff orientation). Without a proper bending the rail would not bend correctly, softening it result in a deformed mess. So I put it to one side for a couple of months until a light clicked ‘why don’t I get the sides rapid prototyped! A quick teak of the CAD model gave me a one piece side with simulated bolts/rivets, with holes in the flanges for attaching the cross beam and in the rails for the stretcher bar. As I wanted 4 sets of buffers and to keep the costs down (Shapeways charge a 5 Euro handling fee for each item) I joined all the bits I wanted with sprues. The file was uploaded to Shapeways website, FUD selected as the material and electronic beer drinking vouchers handed over. Then two weeks later (last Friday) a package arrives from Holland with the side beams. The picture below shows what I got (note I have removed the first two). The next picture shows one virgin item. Assembly: Lightly burnish all over with a glass fibre pen (literally a couple of strokes). Clean out the cross beam and stretcher bar holes, 0.5 mm for the stretcher 0.8 for the cross beam. Make up the cross beam from 2.0 x 4.0 mm Evergreen strip and drill the cross beam flange holes 0.5 mm. I used a template printed from the CAD model to drill the holes. The next 3 will almost certainly use laser cut beams. Push some 0.6 mm brass dressmakers pins through the buffer beam to simulate bolts (available from Eileens wonderous emporium, I also use them for track feeds. Cut the pins to a suitable length. Using some spare rails to the gauge of your choice (must code 75 bullhead) as a spacer carefully place each side assembly onto the rail (do make sure they do not foul the chairs), care is need because they are fragile in FUD until assembled. Keeping the side square superglue the cross beam in place using the brass pins to locate the beam. The reason for the 0.8 mm holes was to allow for sloppy hole drilling! Make up a stretcher bar from 0.5 mm brass or nickel silver wire and superglue in place. Finishing Undercoat with Halfords grey primer. Paint and weather to you chosen prototype to end up with this:- I must admit I am quite pleased with the result. In all it took about 30 minutes to assemble and about another 30 minutes of messing about with paint and weathering powders. Any questions just ask Next instalment will be progress on the station buildings. Dave

Rich See post 90 it has the contact details for my source. Dave

For anyone interested who is going to Scaleforum this weekend, the Terrace house and the embryonic station building and canopy will be there on Jonathan (great shefford) Buckies laser cutting demonstration stand. I cannot go due to a weekend break in Cornwall Dave

Damm you beat me to it. Was looking at this for a future project a couple of weeks ago! Good luck and I look forward to seeing it progress. Dave

I got bored with playing with Terraced houses so Friday night I started to assemble the 'Kit' for the Station building. The building is in the spirit of the Kemp Town building but shortened a bit. Again its been laser cut in MDF with the windows and doors in Romark. The canopy is also kitted ready to go. The first photo shown the the laser cut parts assembled, the remaining parts will be all scratch built. The second photo shows it in place on the layout. Its always amazing how changing from the printed card mock ups to the real thing changes the way the layout looks. Regards Dave

Post 71 on page three showed the embryonic corner area by the tunnel. Well that has moved on a bit, as can be seen in the first two pictures, there still a lot to do in this area but now the terraces are just about ready to plant we can soon finish it off. On the same post was the yard building waiting some colour. Well this has now been painted and just needs weathering. It not going to be planted yet because I am not happy with the concrete colour and texture and intend to rework this using Plasticote suede and the grey primer and matt black misting technique (it work brill on the platform). PS Provisionally it first invite as a finished layout is DEMU 2014. Regards Dave

Jeffp Its all planned (see post 64) and the third rail components are Scalefour Society ones, although a bit fiddly they are the dogs..... The conductor rail is from the P4 Track Company. However until the the major structures are finished and planted there is to much risk of damaging the third rail, On a previous 'OO' layout with third rail again it was just about the last thing to finished probably as it would be on the prototype. PS Where there are protection boards I am going to use PECO parts. mjcampbell The laser cutting is done for me by SHMRC club member Jonathan Buckie (Great Shefford of this parish). He is a professional model maker (look at his PW Tamper in 2012 scratch built challenge thread) and is happy to quote anybody for laser cutting, he can also prepare the CAD geometry for you as well, I don't need that facility as I have access to CATIA. Jonathan can be contacted at: Jonathan Buckie<jonathanmbuckie@hotmail.co.uk> or if you are going to Scaleforum later in the month he is taking his laser cutter up there as one of the demonstrators. PM me if you want any advise on laser cutting, we are always looking at new materials and pushing the boundaries on whats possible. Regards Dave

The terrace houses: As the evil bus drivers link shows these are based on the houses that run up Freshfield Road in Brighton which overlooks the old Kemp Town site. The first picture shows the real thing. A quick word about how I design my buildings. I use 3D CAD and first model the building as I want it to look. When complete I then create a second model around it effectively developing a one off kit. The terraces were designed to be laser cut. Because the buildings are rendered the use of 2mm MDF for the main shell was an easy choice. Also because of the rendering the shell can accommodate a slot and tab assembly technique, which allows the shell to self jig. The bay window walls are 0.75 mm Romark as are the laminations that form the windows and doors. The remainder of the detail is conventional scratch building from plasticard and brass section. The whole thing was sprayed with white car primer then the walls painted with emulsion from tester pots. The roof slates are York model self adhesive ones repainted a slightly darker shade of grey and lighter and then weathered. Pictures 2 and 3 shows the basic MDF shell. :Picture 4 shows the completed buildings at first fix filler stage with some more detail still to be added. The final 3 pictures show the buildings basically finished. They just need a little bit more weathering and some more greenery in the front gardens. Regards Dave

37114 I agree with regading the cassette holder. Its fine at home, but vunerable at an exhibition. It was a stop gap solution for its first exhibition. Ultimately it will be replaced by the same system Richard Bulter uses on his 'Westcliffe layout with great success. The stock is stored on cassettes in stock boxes. The stock box has a removable front cover which allows the stock box to be latched to the fiddle yard. This gives very quick set out and pack up times and minimal stock handling. The attached pikkie show a schematic. Dave

Simon I will prepare a bit more detail later this week, but the buildings all mixed media using laser cut shells, windows and doors with the rest scratch built. All are to my own design but laser cut by a club member. PS Third rail comes after the buildings are planted. Dave