kipford

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

Colin, Simon Sorry guys been on holiday and did not notice until today your requests for news! I have been busy on the layout, using my limited spare time in between working!!!!! to do modelling rather than update the thread. I have been concentrating on the buildings and will do a more in depth update shortly, but as taster here are three photos of the 90% ish complete terraced houses, Barry building based structure (though from Brighton will know this building well) and the tunnel mouth. Plus a link to a new post on the CAD and 3D printing group where I have just had some trial signal parts made at Shapeways. http://www.rmweb.co....atre-indicator/ Dave

Dave Great news, personally for sentimental reasons the NSE version of City of Winchester would be great. I also have a second request can you at this early design stage ensure that adequate clearance is built into the bogie side frames to allow a straight forward conversion to EM or P4 and that 2mm diameter axles are used, no weird axle diameters please. Regards Dave

Pete Order enquiry for EM versions sent

Missy South Hants Model Railway in Portsmouth. It a one day show which we have just changed to the last week end in November, our last one was on 26th November. I agree unless you take it as a layout under construction then dont exhibit it until you are ready, you will enough problems any way. if you are interested then November 2012 and 2013 are up for grabs. PM me if you want. Regards Dave

Time to start the formal buildings and get some of the other scenery done. Matt was home from uni last weekend (his birthday) and decided to start on the sorting out the corner area above the tunnel mouth. As a scenic block he decided to put in a large advertising hording but facing the back of the layout. In addition there is the embryonic stages of an electricity sub-station. Before anyone cries cannot do that! There is one in virtually the same sort of position on the hill surrounding the old Kemp Town site. The photo shows the work in progress. The wall is temporary card one with the ratio fencing. I have drawn some full size (4mm) fencing of the type used in Kemp Town - little job for Matt over Christmas. Some time ago I had finished all the design work for the yard building so I built that over a couple of evenings last week. Its finished but not painted. Its all plasti-card with the strip sections from evergreen (its all I use now). First photo shows the card mockup used at the show, then its more 3-dimensional replacement. As Matt wants to continue on with the tunnel mouth corner when he comes home or Christmas, I though I better get on sorting out a proper tunnel mouth. So I had the following parts laser cut in 2mm MDF (MDF is a lot cheaper use than plastic). first photo shows the bits, second how it all goes together, using superglue and a spray accelerator to make sure it goes off quick, to give the basic structure. To finish it (not sure if its going to work on some of the inset bits) I plan to use Scalescenes brick paper. Finally I also had the basic parts of the main back scene building laser cut. Again this is in 2 mm MDF, the finish will be rendered so using MDF gives an ideal smooth finish. All the windows were also laser cut from plastic at the same time. Time for a plug, presume I am allowed to this? Jonathan Buckie (Great Shefford of this parish) runs a great laser cutting service, that is extremely reasonably priced. He can also (for a fee of course) sort out all the art work for you. Jonathan can be contacted at Jonathan Buckie<jonathanmbuckie@hotmail.co.uk> The building has been designed as a slot and tab kit thats made up from three sub assemblies. The idea here was to produce a self supporting structure that jigged itself and allowed access to put all the windows and doors in. While I was at it we need a number of fire escape staircases and I had a couple of slot and tab jigs lasered as well. The last couple of photos show some the laser cut bits and how the two (outer side assemblies of the building go together. Dave

Missy No updates for a long time. How is it comming on? I have an exhibition invite waiting for you when its complete! Dave

Well the exhibition is over and I must say it went quite well apart. The only technical issues were couple of back to backs needing adjusting and the failure of a point crank mechanism which need about 20 minutes to fix but my fellow chorts Gary and Son Matt operated a passenger only service. The other problems were all operator from forgetting to set the road and getting the inevitable short to me trying to destroy the layout by standing up when I was not clear of it. The crash of stock falling off the fiddle yard storage rang pound notes in my ears. Luckily nothing was damaged! We got tentatively 2 invites for 2013 (long enough to complete the layout). Chris P it nice to meet you and no you were not a nuisance, good luck with your own layout. Interesting because we operate from the front the amount of people asking questions about DCC. We gave loads of try before your buy drives to all ages from about 5 to 75. A couple of photos from the event, quality is not brilliant because the camera is working against the still mainly white background. Having a rest today! Dave

She as ready as can be, all operational, not full scenic but with mocks ups of building etc to give a flavour what the completed layout will look like. The curtain is borrowed off our club LNWR layout Hope under Dinmore (its 25 ft long and a lot of it hung up around the back of the layout). Just two locos to change couplings and 4 cassettes to make. I am off for glass of wine! This is for my son!

When can have a couple to suit EM please? Layout is waiting for them! Dave

Right one week to go to its first exhibition! The layout went back up this afternoon for the first time since I completed ballasting. not to bad but track is still dirty but at least it runs. however it seems when I was unclagging the points I have broken one tie bar and the joint on he operating crank on three others I suppose 8 out of 12 is too bad. The rest of this week will be spent sorting out the points again, making sure its running 100% and making four more cassettes. the photos below show the new MPV running for the first time and my 3-VEP (platform is too short for a 4 coach train) so we have a 3-VEP, not strictly prototypical but what the heck. Dave

Mark looking forward to seeing you and Portchullin again. For those interested this is the link to the SHMRC show http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/44018-portsmouth-south-hants-mrc-26th-november-2011 Dave

Personally I think Nigel Burkins method is butchery. On the non driving sections I used Gibsons NARROW 2mm bearings, these have an outside diameter of 2.49 mm, no need to drill out the bogies and the unit can have its OO wheel sets popped back in if required. The bearings are set up with the top hat inboard with a 3mm o/d brass tube, 8.8mm long spacing them. It needs about 15 20 mins to bed in then it fine. On another point I initally fitted a Bachmann 553 decoder which is pretty standard throughout the fleet. It performed awfully, jerky poor speed control etc. On the advice of the other VEP user in the club I put in one of DCC concepts stay alive decoders, programmed to their recomendations for an EMU. Total transformation it works brillantly. These decoders will now become my standard.

In between ballasting (I find about an hour at a time is the most I can stand) I have finished the show guide plan, quite pleased with it. Also worked out where I think the third rail needs to go (based on the S4 Society CLAG recommendations), I have a separate thread in the permanent way section to get comments.

Colin Forgot add that I have a workshop and all the spraying was done in there where it will not result in a divorce. I will post more pictures when the ballasting is complete, i recon its gong to take another 5 or 6 sessions so realistically its going to be the middle to end of next week. In between eye strain on the ballast I have also EM'd and chipped a Railtrack liveried MPV, an NSE 4-VEP and a Virgin Class 220. THe 4-VEP needs a bit more work on the non powered cars, but the power car is running very sweetly! Dave

Colin You have jogged my memory from when I wrote the thread. The track including rail and sleeper was first primed all over using Halfords grey primer. The sleepers and were then painted using an Aztez airbrush with a tan nozzle, not worrying about overspray onto the rails. Colours were all Pheonix Precision paints, weathered concrete for the concrete sleepers, weather sleeper for the wood. The sleepers were then weathered with the airbrush using track dirt colour. In between each coat the tops of the rails were cleaned of paint. The rail sides and tops of the chairs were painted using a rusty rails painter tools, with a bit of care it works really well. Main running lines were oily track colour and yard lines were painted different with rusty rails.