Jump to content
 

MinerChris

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    149

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by MinerChris

  1. MinerChris
    Lydford Station has always stricken me as being an almost ideal location for layout, with plenty of prototypical interest; the combination of Southern and Western region lines running parallel to each other, the great views onto open moorland in a old mining area, to name but a few reasons. For me it is also ideal as it only requires a handful of buildings in this sparsely occupied corner of the country. Along with Lydford, I can only think of Exeter St David’s and Plymouth North Road as the other examples of where it was possible to travel to London in either direction either by WR or SR.
     
    Several different scenes will hopefully be recreated along the layout:
     

    Given the many viaducts and embankments along this section of line it seemed a shame not to include one, when a return curve would be needed to access the fiddle yards anyway. Lydford Viaduct is a good candidate for this, as it isn’t too big and is the first viaduct towards London from Lydford. The start of the curve will also be where the unusual home repeater will be placed on the opposite side of the track.
     
    The GWR track from Liddaton Halt climbed relatively steeply through an embankment, Thus I envisage that the track will emerge from the side of this, the return curve being placed below the layout as I have yet to think of a better idea, particularly if a valley prevents me from running the track below the baseboard to the same location as the SR main fiddleyard.
     
    The track highlighted in yellow was the original yard at the station, which originally acted as the transfer yard between the broad gauge GWR and the standard gauge LSWR. Hence why there were two sidings entering the goods shed, and no road access. Before the connection was reinstated, it was possible to divert trains through this yard to reach the other companies tracks.
    The station itself is very small, being able to hold 7 coaches, perhaps unsurprising given that the ticket sales were very low owing to the distance to Lydford proper.
     

    Immediately south of the station, the SR-GWR junction was reinstated during WW2, having been originally built as a means of the standard gauge LSWR traffic to access the mixed gauge GWR Launceston branch before the PD&SWJ built their own line from Lydford to Plymouth. The reinstation allowed trains to be diverted to Plymouth depending on the availability of either line.
     
    In ‘The Okehampton Line’ by Nicholas and Reeve, it is suggested that additional siding capacity was built during the second world, in order to act as a staging point for Plymouth. In later days a large amount of withdrawn stock was stored, awaiting its final journey. I have reduced the siding space considerably, as for one I doubt I could ever build enough stock to fill these and I wanted to keep the original station road access. In the real world, the SR station was accessed by using the GWR access and crossing over the footbridge.
     
    With all the distinct features of the prototype this layout is unlikely to be small coming in at 8.4m x 85cm and over 30 points needed between the four different yards. It’s quite likely that it will be under construction for at least a decade, possibly two, any suggestions of things to leave out would be welcome. In the meantime I will still be continuing with my other PD&SWJ layouts “Congdon’s Shop,” and “Hingston Down Halt,” as testbeds for the larger project. The mockout confirmed just how much of a project this will be!

    In the meantime there is lots of new stock that will be needed for the layout. When the WR line at Dawlish was closed, due to storms say, services would be diverted along the north of Dartmoor, allowing for a good variety of SR and WR stock to be passing through the station. This eventuality was well prepared for as a WR train would be run over the SR metals at least once a week to keep the route refreshed for the drivers. It’s my intention to run traffic from one of these occasions, perhaps twisting the axe a little to keep both the Southern main and Launceston branch open.
    Progress recently (last few years really!) has been focused on building rolling stock for the potential layout:
     

    Masterclass Maunsell BCK:
    Finally the start of a prototypical train for the Callington Branch... There isn’t too much to say about this really as I haven’t departed too much from Chris Higg’s MK1 instructions the different shape of the brake compartment does make the construction interesting however. The replacement chassis for the Ivatt 2-6-2T is waiting in the wings (and has been for the last 3 years…)
     

    Worsley Works Class 118:
    The ongoing saga with the Class 118 continues having started and binned a BHE kit and moved onto the Worsley Works scratch aid, but thanks for Jeremy for giving me the impetus to get started again. I’m still hoping to finish this before Dapol get theirs to market however the progress made 3 years onwards doesn't look promising. The Bodyshell of one of the driving units has been soldered together in order to get the correct measurements for a 3D printed roof and headcode box. I’m still working out how to draw a 3D printable representation of the bogies and the engine details, and reassemble the TPM motorising kit inside the WW shell.
     

    Mineral Wagons:
    A recent addition to the gloat box is a load of Stephen Harris’ mineral wagons. Again I haven’t strayed too much from his kit instructions and they are going together nicely. Hopefully you can see the improvement from the Parkwood kit (That came from the Starter pack!) although I’ll readily admit that the biggest improvements are below the solebar.
     

    LowFits:
    Two more lowfits have joined the fleet. I have a plan to 3D print some loads for these, to be added to the next order (the mystery continues… I will reveal that they would’ve been made in Cornwall and are yellow, guesses on a postcard please.)
     

    Mink A:
    Finally another of the Resin Minks joins the fleet albeit still needing a roof. This is a little more off piste that the predecessor on the left, as I was trying to recreate a V24 diagram, using the RCH 10ft wheelbase chassis, with steel solebar conversion, etched layered RCH axleboxes and a piece of scrap etch from a coach bogie kit for the running bar. I have another couple of Mink bodies, but I need a research trip back to the UK to consult my Atkins et al.
     
     
    Whilst I’ve been here 3 packets of DG’s have arrived, and a can of etch primer purchased from the Hardware shop. I should really get around to using them soon!
  2. MinerChris

    Under the lid

    By MinerChris,

    6 months to go to the DJLC. I’m not at all confident of ‘finishing,’ the aim now is to get it in a presentable state now stock is reliably running through all the pointwork. In fact if you compare the how much has changed since June from the top, it doesn’t look like a lot has changed at all – though at least an angle poise isn’t providing the layout lighting now.
     

     
    The layout lighting is provided by three 60LED/m RGBWWW strips which seem at the moment to be more than adequate for the space required to be lit. Each of the 5 channels is controllable from an Arduino to adjust the white balance and eventually when I get some roundtoits, the ability to dim to a sunset/night mode. Each strip is attached to the rig using some aluminium channel which gets quite warm, not too surprising really given the power supply is 65W.
    Although the top doesn’t appear to have changed too much, looking under the skirt shows that a spaghetti monster has begun to swarm beneath the layout. It’s actually incredibly dull to look at but with a reasonable number of colours and a half-hearted attempt to keep wires in a loom, troubleshooting hasn’t been too onerous. However, my old Maplin wallwart transformer was a casualty, (I won’t be getting another one of those…) after what I think was an issue between my controller and a short across a couple of sleepers that I had forgotten to gap. A fuse has been duly inserted into that line to stop that from happening again.
     

     
    Despite the cautions of my peers from the midland area group, I’ve gone for servo control for the points, mainly due to the lack of space. I’ve fitted a power mosfet on the power feed to each of these, so that when they are not required to move, they cannot. There is also a big chunk of brass section between the delicate tiebars and the servo with engineered tolerance introduced into the mechanism to increase the angle required for the servo to move through.
     

     
    I have had to sacrifice the traintable fiddle-yard (for now anyway) and replaced this with a quick and dirty cassette adaptor.  It’s a shame especially as I’d had curved brass strips laser cut by PPD for this rather than having to make a Copenhagen fields mangle to get the exit tracks right, but I’d have probably spent at least another week more than I have trying to make it work.
     

     
    You’ll have also noticed the distinctive shed roof has started to come together. Luckily, the National Rail media store has a copy of a drawing of this which was a good place to start to build up an etch artwork from though I refrained from getting it printed onto a mug as well. I’m a little dubious of the origins of the drawing as there are several things not quite right about it, but it’s closer than my guesstimates would have been.
    Each leg is made up of four layers of 15 thou NS, which where aligned for soldering using a frame. Yes that really is a lot of scrap NS for not a lot of part – it took 3 A4 sheets. Four layers let me build up the roof joists and create a hole for the cross member to be soldered in.  In the end, the holes that I’d etched to allow me to use 1.5mm drills to line everything up with were useless and the layers were aligned by eye.
     

     
    I’d also etched a cutout in each leg piece in order to solder in the Y braces on each leg, though for convenience and adjustability these were designed as inverted V’s. A couple of long strips with square holes etched in made sure that the legs are the right spacing and approximately square.
     

     
    After soldering in some transoms to the roof to give some rigidity to the shed and giving everything a cleanup, the spacers were then glued onto the baseboard. This then still allows for the roof to be removed while I build the rest of it, but lets me ballast over the top of the spacer strips to hide them.
     

     
    Finally, I should mention that D869 of this parish has very kindly offered to build some appropriate motive power for the layout and his progress on this is on his new workbench thread. It should be pointed out that if it wasn’t suitable for his own micro layout, South Yard, he’d probably be building an M7 or a T9 instead, as he has threatened to on a couple of occasions.
     
    Please hope for good weather for me over the next week, so that I might get outside to put some paint on the tracks.
     
    Until next time,
     
    Chris.
  3. MinerChris
    With another international move under my belt, this time back to the UK (at least for a third of the time, Outer Mongolia for the remainder) I’ve been left with much less space than I had available in Utah, with very little chance of this materially increasing in the near future. This coupled to the fact that I’d not progressed my plans of Lydford Junction in the last two years have led me over the last couple of months; OK Years again, to evaluate the different plans that I’d had.
     

    Lydford Junction’s temporary home.
     
    After several false starts, reading quite a few books and reading RMWeb quite a lot more than I should, I looked again at the part’s I liked from Lydford Junction, and came up with a new concept keeping them. The result is Lydford Town, a smash up of the layout of Bridestowe station on the western slopes of Dartmoor, placed where the line comes closest to the village of Lydford, just to the North of the viaduct, borrowing the attractive PDSWJR station building at Brentor. This should still capture running through the landscape feel I think suits 2mm so well, utilising Dartmoor as a backdrop, albeit not on the scale of messers Greenwood and Jones’ empire’s
     

    3D Design for the revised Lydford Town. Only +20 coaches to build before then!
     
    Despite Lydford Town’s much smaller scope compared to Lydford Junction, I still have a mountain of stock to build and convert to run anything like a representative schedule, realistically making this a long term prospect. After more deliberating, procrastinating and contemplation, I decided that it would be a good plan to enter the Diamond Jubilee Layout Challenge for the shindig in 2020 as well. A couple of Idea’s bounced around for the DJLC included:
     

     


    · A scenic section of the Princetown branch, which might be a bit boring to operate, and suffered from a lack of points, without an improbable quarry siding shoehorned in.
     


    · A section of the old layout of Meldon Quarry, which the viewpoints & Scenic blocks wouldn’t really have worked for, and
     


    · A section of the end of Newham goods station in Truro, which again, would be pretty uninspiring to operate.
    It was at this point that I remembered the old baseboards that I’d put together for the semi-theoretical extension of the Callington Branch in East Cornwall, called Congdon’s Shop, with the aim of fitting this into a boxfile coming in at 714x 233mm. These are not dissimilar to the DJLC dimensions being 600x 239mm, or 240mm depending on how accurate your tape measure converts 9.42”. This has got a far as laying track, and installing TOU’s, but for one reason or the other, has failed to get beyond.  

    A rubbish photo, almost showing the length of the layout.
     
    Rather than trying to modify a set of boards already built, it seems to make sense to me to recycle the concept (and correspondingly all the research, stock collated and idea’s) onto a new set of boards built to the right challenge dimensions. Fortunately the amount of tools and information available to layout planners has increased dramatically since 2012, with Templot and NLS maps freely available, coupled with the learnings from my own previous failings and successes.
     
    One of the main dissatisfactions with the original plan was that “714mm is just too small a length of track to be interesting.” This statement, on the face of it, is a problem. The DJLC length is specified as 114mm smaller than this. But templot and inkscape to the rescue:
     

    Layout plan on Scale map of Callington, showing the DJLC Dimension area and the extra extension after this.
     
    Actually, the prototype trackplan is quite a lot shorter than I’d originally guesstimated, and the more important, interesting bits of the station will reasonably fit into a 300ft scale length. This, to me, still feels stiflingly cramped having three entry points to the layout from the fiddleyard. So, I’ve planned the layout to actually be 900mm in length so that following the challenge in 2020, I can replace the backscene side to the full intended dimensions. This allows me to include the yard entry point and thus reducing the fiddleyard entry’s down to two and I feel gives a more open feel. The irony isn’t lost on me that the layout might only be ready for 2050 or the ninetieth anniversary, (a more realistic projected completion date?!?)
     
    I wasn’t particularly happy with the straight-curve-straight portion of the platform road on the initial rendition, the old trackplan solely using straight Easitrack B6 turnouts. This time I’ve planned to use B8 curved turnouts soldered up from templot printout’s. Curve radii were specified to be greater than 450mm which has, mostly, been adhered to. The soldered turnout construction will give me more strength, and greater opportunity to adjust and correct when I construct it out of gauge.
     
    I am keen to try to use a sector plate type arrangement with this layout to ease the amount of handling stock needs and the faff that this involves. I envisage that cassettes will still have a role to play, acting as the headshunt off the end of the traintable and potentially to load stock onto the layout from extra storage cases. To also assist with this, the straight portions of the table are planned to be made from brass strips, as anyone who’s tried to load up the traverser on St Ruth, this is a difficult task to do this on plain rail with fat fingers. Only three roads are anticipated to be required on the traintable, up to two for passenger and one for goods stock, the vacant road being able to act as the run-around road. A 70mm thrust bearing is used as the pivot, whilst alignment and power should come through cabinet barrel bolts, until I can think of a more unnecessarily complicated way to do it.
     

    Fiddleyard and lighting rig plan, along with check for strengthening ribs above things like tie-bars
     
    The 3mm ply construction of the baseboards has proved to be remarkably robust, to be honest they have now survived a couple of trips in the hold of a 737 so there can’t be much fundamentally wrong with this for the small size of board required. I plan to use 6mm stripwood rather than cut plywood strips this time though. Life’s just too short, trying to get straight flat edges from a sheet material.
     
    So there you have it, the grand sum of what 6 years of paper planning gets you… Nothing to show, a pile of materials, but at least a vague idea about how they ‘should,’ all fit together.
  4. MinerChris
    Firstly I should mention that it was great to meet and catch up with many familiar names at the supermeet in Tutbury last weekend. Sadly, I didn’t spend as much time as I should’ve speaking to folks, as I was busy screwing up D869’s shunting tractor while he wasn’t looking. Still I’m told that one of the objectives of the day was to test the reliability so that in itself can be looked at in a vaguely positive light.
     
    So back to Callington Road, when I arrived back at the beginning of the roster break, with around a year to go to the Expo, I felt it was time that I really should have some trains running by now.  The last couple of breaks have been used up with getting all of the various bits of woodwork painted in a suitably garish shade of green, whilst trying not to contaminate all of the areas needed to be painted white.
     

     
    The full templot plan was then printed out, stuck together and then traced over onto the baseboards, ensuring that the stencil wasn’t moved in the process. Following this slots were cut out of the baseboard top for the tie bar positions, and holes drilled for the PM2 uncoupling magnets.
     
    The pointwork was then sliced off the hardboard shelf with a steel ruler standing in for a palette knife and the whole assembly dunked in a bath of water with a little bleach mixed in, to soak the templates and to try to bathe off any remnant green label flux from soldering. The sleepers were then gapped using a semi-circular needle file and droppers soldered on with SWG 33 Nickel Silver wire, a departure from using 5A fusewire, as I find this to be a little too flexible. The hand drill was brought out once again to punch more holes in the baseboard tops for the for these to passthrough, with only a couple having to be re-sited as they went straight into a spacer block. Then, there was nothing for it, but to grab the solvent PVA and bring the beer out!
     

     
    Actually this is a bit of a lie, I quickly figured out that this wasn’t a great way to hold the track firmly to the baseboard as there were spots where it was lifting up, particularly the pieces of easitrack at the end of the pointwork, so I had to resort to balancing heavy lumps of brass and steel over each section as the glue dried. While this was all going on, Brasso was applied liberally to the rest of the easitrack sleepers and once dried, the plain track panels were assembled, more droppers soldered on, more holes drilled and these in turn glued onto the layout, with lots of prodding during drying to ensure that the straight bits are straight and there weren’t any kinks in the curves.
     

     
    The board joints provided to need a little head scratching for, if I was starting this from scratch I’d probably just do away with this and build the whole 900mm as one baseboard, but for some reason I decided it was a good idea back in August... Long rail sections were glued down over the joint, and cut with a very fine (0.2mm) razor saw to ensure consistency in the curve, the same being done to the points laid down over the joint. PCB sleepers (and chairplates) were then inserted and soldered in to provide some strength against the inevitable snags on jumpers.
     
    The coal siding that goes off the front of the baseboard also presents another quandary, this is one of the tightest spots on the layout at 450mm radius, or in other words, less than the 600mm recently suggested as what the minimum radius ‘should’ be. From what I can see from the maps and photos, this is in fact kinder than it was on the prototype, as it was laid originally in the 3’6” East Cornwall Mineral Railway days, avoiding a couple of stores to access an area of the yard beyond. With the track going up to the edge of the baseboard, and being keen not to send any stock on a one way journey into the abyss, this siding will not be powered after the break at the baseboard join, which will mean that it needs to be shunted with barrier wagons to reach onto the tighter part of the curve.  I may yet still resort to fixing a wagon down on the end of the siding too, so to prevent a whole rake of wagons being sent off to their demise, before the loco reaches the dead area. The cast brass sleepers on the end were put in so that the rail ends would be secure, and so I could take a big file to them to match the baseboard front edge.
     
    Whilst we are on the subject of the prototype some photographs that I had found after I had built the trackwork, inevitably showed that the yard entry point should be tighter, and both yard points should be ‘Y’ points. Oh well, this is going to be Callington Road after all then, not just Callington.
     
     
    More PCB sleepers have been glued under the layout along with the modified filmstrip tiebars housings, and the droppers soldered onto these ready to land the wires from the control box. Of course, I’d really meant to get these all wired up too but then, I think we all could do with 26 hours a day.
     
    Finally, the mousehole was cut into the backscene view blocker to allow everything to be put back together for storage again. In doing so, you get a full view of the layout in DJLC guise, with the DMS of the Class 118 DMU which I’ve been building forever, plonked on for scale.
     

     
    Until next time, when there might actually be some movement to write about… Chris.
  5. MinerChris

    Tracking Progress

    By MinerChris,

    Evening all,

    Three months later, whittling away the long winter evenings, pressing the soldering iron, files and brass gauges into action has meant that the pointwork needed for Callington has emerged on my workbench. Admittedly this has been a heck of a lot slower than it should of have been, as I have opted to use Laurie's 'fiddly,' chairplate system, rather than soldering the rails directly to the sleepers. It's a shame that the piece of hardboard wasn't wide enough to build the yard entry point inline with the remainder of the trackwork to make sure there isn't any kinks in it, but also as the exit from this is straight, there shouldn't be any issues with eventually getting it lined up on the baseboard.
     

     
    In close up, this matches the easitrack plain track pretty well, but time will tell whether painting and ballasting will hide all of this work. Tweaking to allow a DMU to be pushed through nicely took some time, I should have really remembered that the switchblades would narrow the gauge when I was laying out the outer rails. As I'll be using the 'modified filmstrip' tiebar design, I've soldered on extra chairplates under the swichblades, to stop these from rising above the railhead height.
     

     
    Best Regards,

    Chris.
  6. MinerChris
    The first job off my ever increasing list for this roster break was to finish off making the backscene pieces. This is to both block off the scenic area to 239x600mm as per the DJLC criteria, and to try to limit the amount of background light coming onto the layout. I’d spent a little while over the last four weeks pondering how to neatly curve the dark corners away and tie this onto the layout. In the end I opted for a piece of 1/32” birch ply (the thinnest sheet, singular, in the model shop,) which was curved around a set of plywood formers, scoring vertically along the backside of the curve to achieve the 75mm radius bend evenly. The formers are spaced using M4 threaded rod and nuts, which are inserted into holes in the baseboard top and the lighting rig, to keep the correct location tight to the back of the layout, and to stop everything from falling over. Once I was happy everything was in roughly the right place the backscene was glued onto the formers to make sure that pesky gap at the top join is permanent.
     

     
    The front end of the sides have also been glued onto another length of 8mm square hardwood strip, which are in turn, screwed to a couple of new front wing pieces to allow them to be held securely in place, but still be removable for painting etc. Similarly, where the ply sheet has been cut to allow the baseboards to separate, it has been secured to the back plywood support with a couple more countersunk M2 screws.
     

     
    Come 2020, when it’s time to extend the layout to it’s full size, there should only be 12 holes to repair in the baseboard, and a new piece of ply to cut and curve around the formers. ‘Why not 8 holes?’ you might ask (4 curved piece anchors, 4 for the front wings) that’s right, I drilled the holes with the baseboard the wrong way round the first time.
     
    You’ll have noticed that there is an random extra box in front of the baseboards. This is the start of the control panel. A sheet of 'glass look,' acrylic will be bolted to this, with the layout diagram below printed out below this, in a shameless ripoff of Kylestrome’s control panel for Kyle. I’ve tried as much as possible to keep to the Southern nomenclature, as I don’t have any idea what the PDSWJR would have used. Hopefully someone will pick out what I’ve done wrong, aside from missing half the diagram out, before I get to printing this off rather than afterwards!
     
    With the backscene conundrum out of the way, my attention moved onto the traintable in the fiddleyard. Unfortunately although vastly improved, my plywood cutting knife wielding skills don’t extend to curves quite yet, so these were first marked out with a big set of dividers, and cut roughly with a jigsaw, before finishing off with sandpaper.
     

     
    The spin motion is based around a thrust ball bearing, picked up from Cromwell tools, which was araldited onto a couple of spacers above and below to sit the top of the deck at the correct height compared to the baseboard. Those spare bits around chassis etches have finally come in useful! The holes for the attaching screws have been drilled oversize to allow for a little adjustment, to ensure that the table spins around with the minimum gap from both sides of the table. The bearing works with nearly no friction, perhaps a little too well really; I can’t resist spinning the table around far too quickly! Time will tell if rust becomes a problem, as the bearing is only mild steel, but I don’t think it’s really worth the extra effort of engineering an oil bath for it to run in.
     

     
    Finally I took the opportunity at the last Midland area group meeting to start cutting PCB sleepers for the pointwork, carefully avoiding disturbing all the sleepers for Lydford town glued on the reverse side of the board. Looking at this again, I can see one mistake I’ve made already!
     

     
    Best Regards.
    Chris.
  7. MinerChris
    On the first day of my last roster break, a trip to Wickes resulted in a car load of hardwood strip, a couple of packets of brass woodscrews and a generous smattering of enthusiasm. I didn’t buy the plywood from a DIY Shed, I thought it would be more prudent to use 1/8” hardwood ply from an online model boat shop in Cornwall. My logic was that using ply destined to be partially submerged, even occasionally, may have a better chance of resisting warping than normal birch ply. Admittedly I would have liked to have seen the sheets before buying, but in the end I reasoned that with the quantity that I wanted (5, 3’x 1’ sheets,) the local model shop would probably have had to order this in anyway. In the end, a couple of sheet’s had some minor twisting, I’ll use one of these to form the ends of the storage case and the other was a spare sheet bought to discard.
     
    The plywood was cut up using a Stanley knife, (fingers clear!) run along a steel edge clamped both on the top and bottom of the cut. Somehow I still managed not to cut a single edge without a chamfer that needed sanding off.
     

     
    Two weeks later, the start of two baseboards, and corresponding lighting rigs were fashioned. Lining this new baseboard up against the old layout, you can better appreciate about what an extra 6” will do for you.
     

     
    The alignment between the two boards is held with Station Road baseboard dowels, which rather nicely match the brass woodscrews. They are held together using M4 bolts and wingnuts, bushed with a 5mm brass tube (which on their own, would probably be good enough for alignment.) The lighting rig bolts onto the backscene, which was strengthened with more hardwood stripwood, and then the baseboard, again with M4 bolts - got from a proper hardware shop in Rothbury in Northumberland. I was worried that this might not be enough strength to lever against any load placed at the front of the rig, but it is a lot sturdier than it looks.
     

     
    The jobs ‘to do’ list has started to mount up already; trying to get the traintable fiddle yard made was on was on the list of things to have got done before I left back for work. While I’m away, I’m planning out the electrical layout, so that I know what connectors I’ll need and where they will need to go. I've also got to think of a clever way that I can attach a backscene that wraps around the sides neatly. I’ve shot myself in the foot on this one, trying to build a 900mm baseboard for a 600mm layout means that I’ve not got anywhere to attach a piece of curved sheet to! (does anyone have suggestions?)
     

     
    Best Regards.
     
    Chris.
  8. MinerChris
    The second instalment in this ongoing saga has been three years and two international moves in the making; thankfully the end is nigh, with no casualties as a result of a chassis catapulted in anger across the room. An update for those who didn't read part 1, I am slowly working through an 14xx conversion kit from the 2mm association for the Dapol model, designed by Chris Higgs in order to produce my first steam loco for use as an branch passenger train on the groups layout St Ruth and my own layout(s). Last time I had got to the point of fixing the motor, I did eventually get around to attaching the gears and wheels and painting that version, but the result was a chassis that still had a severe limp at one of the two speeds available, hence it seemed like a good idea to start again (again) rather than writing up yet another failure.
     
    Hopefully writing up the trials and tribulations up will be a help to someone starting from fresh in the future anyway.
     
    7. Too much time drinking beer, still
     
    After the predictions from the last time I wrote about this kit, I have changed. I now drink Gin and Tonics too. In fact it helped more than once to go and have a beer instead of trying to muddle on with some infernal problem. Listening to the archers used to be a good excuse for a break too, but it’s gone all eastendersey now instead of the relaxing nonsense it used to be.
     
    8. Go away and build some other kits.
     
    I think this is possibly the most important step. The last time I had built the chassis, with the combined experience of a couple of BR 4 shoe chassis’ for vans and a mineral wagon starter kit. I’ve now gone through close to 40 wagons and a couple of coaches before starting this time. I have also invested in a temperature controlled soldering iron, and whilst I don’t usually vary the temperature, I think the feedback from the iron helps to control the amount of heat into the piece.
     
    9. Strengthening.
     
    Last time, the attempts I had made to give a little more rigidity to the chassis, after making it banana shape, involved soldering brass rods to the inside faces of the chassis sides, but this hadn’t really worked too well as there was still an weak point around where the spacers were placed. Taking inspiration from the more recent of Chris’ chassis, I took the last iteration of the chassis (MK7 or whatever, I lost count,) straightened it out, filed off some of the more protruding bits and used it as an overlay on a new etch. It helped to keep the new sides on the etch keeping them flat whilst sweating the two together using the bearings as alignment pins. If I was starting from scratch, I’d advise myself to buy two of the kits and do this again.
     
    10. Simpson springs
     
    I tried Simpson pickup springs again on the new chassis, using the same wire I used in the previous attempt. This time, however I drilled the bearings out to 1.55mm to give a little ’engineering tolerance.’ I also didn’t bother to fit springs onto the pony wheels, given that they should be relatively easy to retrofit if pickup becomes a problem later on, and liable to damage during the assembly process.
    I tried to fit top acting wipers to the driving wheels, but in the end they were causing too much resistance on the wheels when testing. Possibly because there is very little room to fit them on the side frames meaning that they had to be sprung greater than they would otherwise be if attached above the wheel.
     
    11. Assembly
     
    Having overlain the chassis, the supplied assembly jig was now useless as it would not fit in between the slots. The association chassis assembly jig was pressed into service to help keep everything square. However all is not as simple as it seems, as pointed out on the VAG some time ago, the central spacer on the jig is designed to set the spacing for PB frame material and not for the PB Bearings (which were coincidentally, just about, protruding through the double thickness chassis.) This was solved using a piece of square tube of approximately the correct dimensions with a perpendicular(ish) hole drilled through the middle. It would be nice to get a new pair of spacers to fit the jig turned on a lathe, to get everything entirely square and accurate but this’ll do for now. The spacers were then soldered underneath and on the top, wicking the solder up to meet the sides of the chassis creating a, on the whole, more solid joint than just attaching to the folded tab on the top.
     

     
    12. Motor and gear selection.
     
    Chris suggests using the Association flat can motor for all of the kits, however having heard many good things from Jerry and Ian, this time I plumbed for a Nigel Lawton micromotor. It’s true that not many motors would fit in the 14xx body, the Faulhaber 1016 wouldn’t fit, but the micromotor does and seems to handle a chassis with more stiction at lower speeds better than the flat can motor. I used a quality engineering approach to attach the motor to the chassis again this time, it’s epoxied onto a piece of plasticard epoxied onto the chassis. It helped to runs some volts though the motor whilst there is still some plasticity to the glue to get the worm and shaft all aligned with minimal binding. As the motor is closed there was no need to worry about paint getting into the internal mechanism too.
    I originally used the now discontinued imperial 30:1 imperial worm set and in the spirit of starting again I replaced this with the metric 30:1 set with a brass worm gear, which seems to have solved the meshing problems seen in the previous incarnation along with a more diligent assembly of the etched gearbox. After pushing the driving gear onto an new muff I epoxied it in place which stopped it from skewing, or at least to a lesser extent, as I believe that this was the primary issue behind the bad running in the first place. I think it helped to only push the gears onto a muff once, as after this I think there is too much horizontal slop, which means the gears don't mesh properly together.
    The modifications to the chassis spacing meant that it was necessary to file back a part of the gearbox supports and reverse the order of the spur gear and wormwheel gear, but all’s well that ends well.
     
    13. Coupling rods and crankpins.
     
    In stripping the old chassis, I took the precaution of removing the old pins from the wheels and starting again with these too. This time I used the flanged crankpins instead of the normal crankpins in an effort to keep them square to the wheel from the outside face. After fitting these it was time for another polish. I only managed to stab my hand with the crankpin once whilst it was spinning in the minidrill…
    On the last assembly, I had decided that the old coupling rods were irretrievably bent, so new ones were fashioned from the generic stainless steel coupling rod etch from the association. Unfortunately there weren't 14mm spaced rods on this etch, so a hole was drilled through the coupling joint in one of the pannier sets. I think that this bodge may have resulted in a spacing that may have just been a tad off still, so these were retired with the arrival of a completely new etch.
    The new coupling rods were sweated together with a thin layer of solder between each of the layers, copious flux, pressure to ensure that all were aligned flat and plenty of heat. The holes in the coupling rod were then opened out slowly with a reamer until they were close fit on the crankpins with minimal slop. Rather than shortcutting to get to a running chassis underneath the body, with insulation washers, this time I kept the crankpins at the original length. Once happy that everything was running along nicely, I soldered the turned washers on and used the edge of a thin track file to cut the rest of the pin off, with the minimal of displacement.
     
    14. Quartering jig.
     
    It’s worth every pound in my opinion. Yes the wheel s will still need a little adjustment afterwards, but the wheels will be safely pushed on without distorting the chassis or crankpin square-ness which I was extremely careful about in this build.
     

     
    15. Lubrication.
     
    Having applied some power to the wheels, I was astonished to find everything moved as it should. I then ran it up and down my test track on full speed for an half an hour or so, (more in amazement than actual planned running in.) I’d probably put some oil on the gears straight away next time as there were some suspiciously bright spots on the worm gear following the initial run in. Strangely, slow running improved a hundredfold after I had applied some oil (I think I shouldn’t have used bicycle chain oil, but it’s all I had and seems to work fine.)
     
    And so that’s it… probably not some of the best practices in loco building, but I managed to get a chassis to work smoothly at an reasonably low speed in my opinion, without resorting to a backhand deal with a deity.
     
    A small drawback that was found after finishing, possibly as a result of using the flanged crankpins, was that the coupling rod washers were fouling the body when it was sitting down on the chassis correctly. This was rectified by cutting the body around the crankpins giving them clearance but upon reflection was probably caused by the use of the flanged crankpins over normal ones.
    I also made some modest improvements to the Dapol body: filing off the bottom of the boiler, replacing it with a piece of brass tube, gluing on the etched bufferbeams and replacing the handrail on the boiler, hence it looks a little more like a reasonable likeness to the prototype. I don’t really want to do too much more though, renumbering to 1419 (or 1434 if I want to stick the top feed on) adding some of my personally mined coal and touching up the new paint is probably all I will manage without a complete repaint and the dreaded lining.
     
    Stuffing as much tungsten putty into every orifice available in front of the centreline also seems to enhance adhesion to the rail and may even mean that it can pull a couple of autocoaches along quite happily. It may also mean that the rail doesn’t have to be completely spotless to ensure that something moves. I don’t think it’s going to be the next yard shunter on St Ruth, but as long as I don’t have to follow it with a finger on the branch passenger run, I’ll settle for that!
     

  9. MinerChris

    Re-Tracking

    By MinerChris,

    I had thought that the return of the winter weather would have resulted in slightly more activity on the bench, the new low score being -27oC, but as per usual life managed to get in the way of the things I would have liked to have done.
     
    First up some housekeeping on Hingston Down Halt. After much deliberation, including considering picking somewhere that was a double to single track junction, I have installed a missing catch point on the siding for the quarry. Apparently it’s very much best practice to rip up perfectly good 2FS trackwork at some point, although I feel a bit late to the party.
    Admittedly I probably should have realised a catch point was required when I was laying the original track, but then planning and building the baseboards in an afternoon means that these kind of details are missed. Days after I had glued this down and wired up the new feeds, I took a look at some photos of Luckett on the Callington Branch, I realised that the blade should have only been on one of the rails. Nevermind…

     
    This went together in an evening, even with evil chair plates. Unfortunately there is a very slight curve to the whole panel, presumably as I hadn't put enough tension on the rail when soldering. The class 22, bubblecar and minerals that I tried all seemed to navigate through without difficulty, so I'm not worried, just means that you’re unlikely to see a shot looking down through there any time soon.
    I thought it would be wise to build a small cover for the layout to avoid rails being bent, buildings being smashed up (“when I get around to it..”) as the storage picnic hamper also holds the power supply and controller. Cue some handy foam-board and a few offcuts of square dowel, and hey presto… one cover.

     
    Secondly I felt that I needed to revisit the planning for Lydford, 7 boards of 2’3 x 4’ just wasn't going to be practical for storage nor building strength. So I reduced this down to 6 boards of 2' x 4', using a little more compression to the mainline and removing the down war sidings. There is still over half a mile of scale running, plenty of opportunity for locos to stretch their legs. I'm still unsure about including the Lyd viaduct on the Southern up side, as I don't have any measurements and the views are obscured by the dense woodland in the valley.

     
    Having settled on this for the time being, I went off on my bike to collect the materials needed from the local “Hardware Store,” The result was probably bemusing to most locals to say the least:

     
    Extruded polystyrene boards made the most sense to me thanks to their low weight, and if they couldn't be taken with me, they would probably make a nice pontoon to swim out to in one of the many local lakes. The wood was attached with no-nails and 3" screws to provide the foam some protection on the edge, more than anything structural. I suspect that this may yet prove to be a hindrance when I try and marry the boards together with dowels, as the hardwood maple was fairly green when they were assembled meaning that in all likelyhood, nothing will be square. I will most likely put 3mm ply on the top surface before laying track, as it is still pretty vulnerable. It turned out that I just had enough room to lay 5 of the constructed boards out... Aren't I glad that I didn't choose to have 7!
     

     
    Finally, in the run up to heading back for Warley this year, I attempted to build a decent length of Stephen Harris’ mineral’s to bung up shunt the goods yard with on St. Ruth. Despite being snowed in at Sudbury airport for 6 hours, drinking the bar dry, I made it with my wagons intact.

     
    Thanks to some fairly disastrous shades of grey (yes, the vac fitted 21T’s are supposed to be brown, so I realized,) and drinking fine beers instead of applying transfers and weathering powders, they didn't make it and a number have been stripped off waiting for improved weather and another attempt.
     
    This is likely to be my last post in Canada as I am about to be relocated to the neighbours in the south. I happened to stumble upon a Flickr photograph showing that a miner having to up sticks from Cornwall isn't a new thing. At least I have some hope to have a return to the UK someday...
     
    cornwall - gwr emigrants train arriving redruth station by johnmightycat1, on Flickr
     
    Until next time; my fellow ostriches…
  10. MinerChris
    Circumstance is a funny thing. Everything that you see in this post has travelled westwards across the Atlantic to my residence for the year in Canada. Whilst this makes some things easier, like not wanting to venture outside during winter, it makes the logistics of most things much harder. I’m afraid that I’m not going to give a blow by blow account of the kits that have been put together, as instructions for the things worth repeating are mostly available elsewhere.
     
    The Ugly (the Scenics)
     
    Firstly I should explain, the ugly isn’t a reflection of the quality kits or even (possibly) my ability to build them, more the fact that nothing is painted and is likely to remain so for some time.
    Finally, after much procrastination, I have finally decided on where my stupidly small layout would be based. Hingston Down Quarry backed onto the Callington branch and was originally rail served but was disconnected some time before the 50’s. Under my slightly dis-orientated time lime and geography, the quarry doesn’t lose its siding, exporting granite to Plymouth and beyond. Some passenger services will be provided for via the halt platform adjacent to the siding, with much of the infrastructure “borrowed,” from the adjacent Chilsworthy Halt and Luckett Station. I had originally chosen Chilsworthy for my dual boxfile layout, although I decided against it for Congdon’s shop, due to the impressive views over the Tamar towards Dartmoor. Hopefully the mock ups with views from google earth give some impression of the effect that I’m hoping for.
    One thing that I had been meaning to get around to before I left was the fiddleyard cassettes and adaptors, which of course were started when I finished the move and are still yet to finish. For this I took a lead from D869's layout’s and went for brass strip cassettes. It will just be my luck to ensure that they won’t be compatible…
     

     
    The cornflake packets mock up how big the bridge and platform will be, a purely temporary measure… Mark 2 of each is currently being drawn up in CAD. Also on view is the Higg’s Bufferstop constructed at the end of the siding, once I had finally made up my mind that this was to be a siding.
     
    The Coaches
     
    Several kits arrived from the trip in my hold luggage, with only slight damage, to reduce the gloatage sitting in the UK, under the premise that if they were here, there would be a marginally better chance of them being built.
     
    The first thing out of the box was one of Mr Higg’s replacement underframes for the autocoach. Whilst I haven’t gone to the same level of detail as Missy, it is a vast improvement on the moulded efforts of Dapol. With four left to start, and one still to finish, I doubt if I would get the chance to start on the auto gear if I have any hope of finishing all of these in the next year. Eventually I hope to recreate the auto-trains formed of 4 coaches which went up to Tavistock from Plymouth, if I have remembered correctly.
     

     
     
    In addition to this, I have been making progress with my first Higg’s coach proper, with an early CK Collett. These are really well thought out and the building of this was only hampered by my inability to read the instructions, which led to having to unsolder most of the underframe in order to put the V hangers on. Eventually this should be paired up with a Hawksworth behind a 45xx, in a scene reminiscent from the Launceston Branch.
     
     

     
    The sides and roof are only held in place with bluetac for demonstration purposes and to test the fit of the sides, the bending of which was a most nerve-racking experience.
     
    The Goods
     
    Naturally, once I got to my temporary residence abroad and had kitted myself out with a soldering iron, which could cope with less volts out of the wall, I felt the need to try it out. I had picked up a Midland Van many moons ago with the incorrect premise of trying to change it into an LSWR van. Again this is of a Higgs origin and went together well, with copious amounts of flux applied during the sweating.
     

     
    Also out of the time period, albeit no so far out, is the V14 Mink inspired by Rich Brummit’s build (on a Higg’s DC braked underframe)
     
    The Lowfit’s have a parentage from the parkwood range of kits on BR standard 4 shoe and 8 shoe underframes. The long term plan for these and the three more to follow will be revealed at a later date… although they do keep the bogies for the next autocoach underframe, from rolling away in the meantime.
     
    Perhaps I would have been better calling this entry “The Higg’s Boson,” given the parentage of the majority of the etched metal I’ve been working on.
  11. MinerChris

    Novel Fine-scaling

    By MinerChris,

    One of the reasons that is most off-putting for people to move to finescale is the additional job of replacing the wheels of RTR stock in order to get things running. Inevitably this leads to a back-log of items in the gloat box of things waiting for wheels, alongside all of the additional kits. So far I have used the conventional methods of replacing coach wheels with replacements, sending wheels off to Gordon for re-profiling and attempting to build a replacement chassis (with only partial success,) however there are situations that require some more elaborate thinking.
     
    One of the problems with the track plan of St. Ruth, and even the real Penzance, is the lack of crossovers to release Loco’s arriving from up country, or bringing empty coaching stock in from Long Rock depot or Ponsandane. To combat this in real life, exemptions were granted to propel stock up and down the line and to allow coaches to be gravitated into the platform.
     
    Naturally we heavily rely on propelling in the schedule, but the addition of the new sea siding allows us to explore the other option. Several solutions were composed for this, including running a series of magnets in a channel beneath the base-board, but for now it was proposed to place a motor in a coach, and rely on a good knowledge of the location of section breaks, and the strength of the DG loop, to perform the operation.
     
    The basis for the “gravity coach,” uses a combination of pieces from a Farish MK1 and one of the motorised bogies from the infamous parcels DMU, so called as there are several others using said DMU for similar, rather than the intended purpose. Initially the wheels of the DMU were replaced with drop in wheelsets, and a mock up tested to ensure that the whole train wouldn't buckle off the rails when run.
     

    Initially the coupling arrangement was removed from one end of the MK1, in order to produce a flat floor for the DMU chassis to sit on. Then a suitably shaped hole was filed into the floor for the gears to fit through. Essentially the remainder of the work was filing the body and the chassis so that the two gave a good fit.
    The MK1 bogie was reutilised, but with the addition of the pickups from the non-driving bogie of the DMU, and some suitable holes through the floor and interior for the fixed wires to pass through. These are connected to the chassis via a IC socket, and a new fixing fabricated from some PCB, which provides power to the motor via new wipers (isn’t DCC isolation wonderful?...) and with that, what must surely be the most complicated conversion of a MK1 is complete, for now.
     

    All in all although temperamental, does produce the required effect. Certainly at the shows that we have utilized this, much amusement is caused behind the backscenes by moving the coaches a little, causing putners to say “I’m sure those coaches just moved on their own…”
     

    The other unusual conversion just completed concerns the Dapol Class 22. From conversations on the VAG I believe that it is possible for the wheels supplied to be turned down, albeit presumably without thinning the wheels down due to the spoked wheels.
    Instead of this, taking inspiration from Nigel Hunts Manor kit, I have turned pinpoints onto an extended axle driving wheel using a mini drill, and pushed these onto the existing muff. At the same time, these received a polish, in order to attempt to avoid the rusting which will affect electrical pickup.
     

     
    This may seem daunting (especially considering the price of a wheel-set,) but the pinpoints in the bogies are fairly generous and shorter pins can be paired with longer pins to even the wheel set out to the required length.
    As the wheels are 8mm compared to the required 7mm, the wheels are much more noticeable, and has the effect of lifting the loco up by 0.5mm, However when matching it up to a MK1, whilst noticeable, it is less so.
     

     
    Whilst there are simpler methods of changing the wheel-depth, these are certainly more satisfying and at the very least are a means to an end.
  12. MinerChris
    My last promise to update within 6 months may have been broken quite resoundingly…
     
    I have been slowly plugging away at some of the projects, the main one to finish off the 14xx “Vomit Comet,” project in order to run it at St Ruth’s various outings, more on this to follow soon.
     
    I have also been making a start on the trackwork that will be eventually laid on my dual-boxfile layout “Congdon’s Shop.” As the layout is small, I decided that “easi-track,” points were the way to go, sacrificing potential mechanical strength for some chair detail. Needless to say, the publication of the “Track,” book was enormously helpful, particularly as no-one in the Midland Area Group has any prior experience with building plastic points.
     
    After building said first point it was apparent that my preferred method of TOU wasn’t going to work. This TOU is a modification of the film tie-bar, made out of 10thou brass, split in two pieces soldered together with sleeper PCB. Perhaps a picture would be a better description?
     

     
    Installed correctly through a slot in the baseboard, this has the potential to look like a good representation of a locking bar, whilst also having the benefit of being removable and replaceable. These TOU’s are also used on St. Ruth, Swanage and South Yard. They do however have one drawback, they rely on a fairly stable anchorage on the last chair of the switch rail, upon which to spring it. From experience, plastic easitrack chairs don’t provide this
     

     
    The solution I settled on was to substitute the offending sleeper with a PCB replacement also using old chairplates to bring the top of the sleeper to the right height. This took me quite a while to get around to implementing, being mindful of how not to melt the rest of the point in the process.
    At this point I was becoming increasingly aware that I still didn’t have anything to test the 14xx on and not still entirely sure that the tie-bar would work with the points. Hence, I created a small test layout of a branch line and a siding with the single point that I had made.
     

     
    I actually wish that I had made this layout slightly bigger, as trying to fit a location to the track-plan has been unfruitful (any suggestions??) The original specification had been to create a layout of B5 size (250mm x 176mm), with the TOU being driven by a DPDT switch which also controlled the frog polarity.
     

     
    In order to make the layout “ultra portable,” I have only used a maplin plug-in transformer powering my home made controller. The entire assemblage with some stock fits loosely into a picnic hamper obtained from a Christmas Present. I may one day get around to making it a protective carrying case, using the backscene as two sides. It would have been nice to get the hinge to fold the layout properly, but unfortunately my woodworking skills aren’t that good, and hence they are only used as locating pins.
     

     
    This ramshackle assembly does at least work! It has been out to Aylesbury and Wallingford on St Ruth, wheel cleaning duty taking over from South Yard. I am really unsure as to what scenery to kit this out with eventually, possibly a light railway platform? (I forgot about catch points from the siding :-s) again suggestions are more than welcome.
    The learning’s from this have been carried forward onto the points for Congdon’s Shop, with construction of the remaining points progressing well. The next probable stumbling block is how to drive the crossover across the board joint, as I am increasingly thinking that using servo’s are a bit overkill for this job.
     

  13. MinerChris
    This blog entry starts with the entirely predictable “Has it really been six month since I last wrote something,” comment. Well yes it has. Real life it seems has a way of getting in the way of modelling time, that and commuting into London on Mr Branson's 1:1 train set every day.
     
    In that awkward time between graduating and starting the first proper job, I did manage to get some modelling done. This was in the form of one of Mr Higg's excellent replacement chassis for commercial bodies. The body that was donated was a 14xx in lined green livery picked up off an popular auction site. I chose the 14xx in particular as it fitted in nicely with my scenario for Congdon's Shop and it would be useful for the branch service on St Ruth, whilst also making up for the lack of steam on the layout. It also lacks outside pistons which I don't want to tackle just quite yet a I foresee it as another area of problems. I had meant to write something up earlier about the construction of this from an absolute beginner’s point of view but consequently I haven't got around to it.
     
    The chassis at one point was running quite well, albeit on a pure smoothed 12VDC supply and with two white-metal cars bluetac'ed on to give some traction.
     

     
    A number of things were changed from this early rendition. Firstly the cars were removed as they wouldn't fit under the body. I also changed the way the motor was mounted, replacing the bracket at the front of the motor with brass rod soldered onto the terminals at the rear. From memory I think the chassis went for 4 rebuilds, mainly due to issues with delaminating PCB. I can't remember how many times the wheels were quartered, but it was probably in the tens of times.
     
    You may gather from the title of this entry that the final result wasn't all together successful. I did manage to get the chassis “running,” and the body “fitted,” before St Ruth went to TINGS and consequently it made its show debut there.
     
    Needless to say when the Autotank and Autocoach appeared from the branch, it was promptly followed by the “finger of god,” or an “earthquake,” knock from below the baseboard. Even when the loco was moving the juddering was so violent that at one point it lost its Autocoach. This is the reason why the designation “Vomit Comet,” was applied. The Autotank combination then limped back, disgraced by its builder, to the fiddleyard, where it was replaced by one of these newfangled diseasel thingbob’s. Not exactly a good advertisement of the better running qualities of 2mmFS. It was so bad that I even forgot to get a picture of it on the layout.
     
    The combination has had one other outing of note, to the AGM in Bedford where it accompanied South Yard. It here that Mr Higg's himself looked at it, along with Rich Brummitt and gave me some pointers as to how to improve the running. After this, it has sat in a box whilst I oohed and arred as to what to do with it. Eventually, after was over Christmas, I decided that I had better stop dithering and start to go through some of these suggestions.
     
    I should reiterate that I am not a loco builder, and these practices are probably questionable at best. Those with much more experience would do things differently the first time around. Most of these points seem to have been debated quite thoroughly on the 14 page forum entry.
     
     
     
    1. Too much time I spent drinking beer rather than building the engine. Especially a 0-4-2 as a first try, where there is little to no weight.
     
    Well... this isn't going to change now.
     
     
    2. Rusty Wheels.
     
    Rich's suggestion was to polish the wheels off with Autosol metal polish. I can definitely see the benefit of this as the steel tyres on the association wheels rust extremely quickly, which is catastrophic for the pick-up on this very light engine. Thus the coupling rods were removed and the drivers pulled off the muffs. The sideframes were then un-soldered from the body, (damaging them in the process ,) revealing the pony wheels to also take off.
     
    The wheels were then placed in a mini drill and the polish put on using a cotton bud, at the same time that the Manor's wheels were done. Now the wheels are safely put away in a re-sealable bag away from moisture until they are needed once again.
     
     
     
    3. Bent Chassis.
     
    This really where the tale of woe begins. Once the wheels and sideframes were taken off the chassis, something caught my eye. The chassis wasn't lying flat on the workbench.... a check with a ruler confirmed my fears.
     
    I'm not sure how or where this happened or how, but I am fairly certain that it either happened when the wheel were pressed on the muffs using the bench vice or perhaps an error was made when building the soldering jig.
    Worse than this, when the spacers were un-soldered it was found that the etched sides were also as bent as a banana. Surely this was the sign to start again from scratch...
     
    In an effort to save £15, the etched sides were clamped on the baseboard, and lengths of brass rod were soldered onto the sides in a truss like pattern. These are strategically placed in order to avoid the uprights of the soldering jig. The hope is that these brass rods will both straighten the chassis out and make it stiffer so that it doesn't occur again.
     

     
    Once the soldering jig had been straightened using an set square, the sides were placed in once again, (MK5 remember...) The sides were checked for square-ness by using long lengths of axle steel (~1')
     

     
    Initially pieces of brass were used to “tack,” the sides together, which allowed for the sides to be removed from the jig. It was then possible to check the straightness again using the ruler before placing the sides back in the jig and soldering the spacer’s onto these. Initially I had used the wider 7mm PCB spacer, however I reverted to the 6.4mm wide spacer. I think that using the wider PCB had caused the ends to splay on the sides due to my ropey soldering.
     
    The narrower strip certainly left much more “tolerance.”
    In an effort to reduce the amount of delaminations, I decided to solder the flat spacers in place and then cut the insulation gaps afterwards using a razor saw.
     
    This immensely improved the success rate, possibly as it spreads the heat over a relatively larger area. The downside to this is that there is only one isolation gap rather than doubling up. The vertical spacers were similarly treated however an isolation gap was placed down the middle before emplacement due to the difficulties of putting a razor saw into the chassis.
     
    4. Bearings and Simpson spring's
     
    As I was aware that electrical pick-up was going to be a problem with a light, 6 wheeled engine. I decided to follow the recommendation to fit Simpson springs and completed these to the letter. This basically involved reaming the bearings out to 1.6mm and using the straightened spring wire from couplers. I found this wire extremely fiddly to use, and when the wheels were fitted the wire had lost its springiness and had already bent into the wrong shape. I had replaced this with DG wire which worked well, however to keep the friction low I only fitted these onto each side. I have now replaced these with slightly finer wire, fitted these on all 6 wheels and used a longer length to try and reduce the friction whilst maintaining the springiness.
     
    I have also replaced the bearings on the driving wheels. I know that this shouldn't make any difference under the tolerances of 2mm, however I think that under my loose tolerances it didn't help the quartering.
     

     
     
    5. Sideframe Repairs.
     
    The sideframes that cover the rear pony truck are folded up from the etch material and then soldered on, and hence not the strongest construction. The etched spacers were replaced with lumps of brass, cut and filed square before being soldered to the main body. The sideframes will be fixed in place with glue once the pony wheels are positioned and fitted, to avoid damaging the paintwork.
     

     
     
    6. Motor Mounting.
     
    Fitting the motor was the subject of many trials and iterations. I chose the flat can motor to use a recommended by Chris. Others that I have spoken to would recommend shelling out for a coreless motor. I am however told that this could be risky with AMR, PWM controllers around.
     
    Perhaps my first mistake was to chop off the wrong end of the spindle as this left the holes for the bolts in the gearbox end of the motor. After trying several different mount configurations I couldn't make one accurately enough to use and maintain electrical isolation. This would definitely be a lot easier if the motor was the other way around.
     
    In the end I have opted to use a solution similar to what was used before. The problem with this is that after painting the chassis, the motor has to be soldered into position. I have probably been lucky once already no to get paint in the motor after soldering it on before spray painting it.
     
    To solve this problem, I have used brass tube soldered to the end of the chassis attached to the side-frame spacer brass. Into this brass tube, appropriately sized brass rod is inserted which is in turn soldered to the motor terminals which creates a socket. Overall this configuration isn't perfect as there is a lot of strain placed on the solder joints on the terminals, however for the occasional fitting and removal this shouldn't be much of a problem. The other problem is that an old bit of rail ticket also provides the insulation between the chassis and the motor body, perhaps not the most elegant engineering solution.
     
    Originally I had used both sides of the gearbox, however I think that this may have been causing an bind in the gear chain. As a lot of other people have done, I chopped the nearside off. With the other end of the motor still supported, there isn’t too much problem with the Motor moving around.
     

     
     
    This brings it up to date so far. I think that I am now at the point of having to wait for the weather to break to do some painting, and possibly waiting further to use that etching primer that my dad was using for his manor. There is still much more to do, but I will have to save that for the next entry. Unfortunately that will probably be another 6 months away.
  14. MinerChris

    Staying Grounded

    By MinerChris,

    The more recent meetings of the Midland Area Group have consisted of fettling points and generally resolving faults that emerged from the running weekend at the Nottingham show.
     
    One of the major alterations consists of altering the traversing fiddleyard so that more than one track is live with DC at a time (John can describe, along with the rest of the electronics.) Eventually with enough operators present, four loco movements should be possible at the same time. This is more impressive when the fact comes to light that the layout is firmly DC, although all of these operators will have to become GWR signalling masters as well.
     
    All the fettling is to make sure that St Ruth will be running more reliably by TINGS (affectionately known as the “Thank God its N Showâ€!) on the Fosse way in Warwickshire. It is at this point soldered point construction comes into its own, as the simple application of the soldering iron, a gauge and some green lable, is enough to correct mistakes on the permanent way.
     
    The one area of progress that has been slowly developing is building the many signals that will be eventually needed. Andy is working on a fairly complex one, and I will leave him to unveil it when it’s ready. After opening my mouth on his previous entry, I seemed to volunteer to build the ground disk signals needed for shunting movements. What’s more I even offered to light the lamps and make the disk move.
     
    Whilst in the fair country, I managed to find myself a prototype at the London end of Truro station. It’s most accurate to say that all of the single disks will probably be based on this one. I believe that this is of the 1960’s replacement design or close enough, although I stand to be corrected.
     

     
    The disk itself is taken directly off the MSE GWR etch, rescued from previous signal building activities. The disk pictured is actually MK2. MK1 was lost to the carpet, with spectacles filled with solder. With MK3 I tried to be slightly smarter with a small piece of 1mm diameter tube soldered onto the back of the disk to act as a pivot.
     

     
    As you probably can’t see in the photograph, when filed down I managed to catch the wire which meant it no longer sat well in the bearing. It was at this point MK2 was rescued which had been discarded due to the same reason as MK1 and a 0.3mm hole drilled to accept the operating wire. The spectacles in this disk were rescued using a small reaming broach as these holes are smaller than my smallest drill.
     

     
    The post itself is fashioned from 1mm tube in order to feed power to the lamp through an wire threaded through the center. The body will act as the return when I eventually get around to making and fitting the lamp. The bearings themselves were formed from a strip of nickel silver, which was bent and then soldered onto the post.
     
    The trickiest part so far has been actuating the balance weight. Eventually I settled on a system where the wire that operates the disk is bent through a hole in the balance weight. This isn’t perfect as the wire above the balance weight hole has to be exactly the right length or else the balance beam hinders the movement of the disk.
     
    The disk still needs its wiring up to its control servo and there are many details to finish the signal off including perhaps most importantly paint, however progress is progress none the less! I apologise for the poor quality of these photographs, I’m still learning the best way to photograph something that is 7mm tall!
     
    We have also made a start on putting catch points onto the layout. These will be purely decoration as we don’t really need an extra obstacle to derail. The catches for the two carriage sidings under the station roof are the only ones to have been installed so far, as per a prototypical photograph.
     

     
    The loco pictured has become the groups test loco, due to its ability to fall off dodgy track. Thankfully it didn’t fall off over the new additions.
     
    Finally readers of my personal blog Chris’ Minor Blog will be aware of a number of “lubricated,†purchases. Two Dapol HST’s, in Cross Country and First Great Western Livery are now in the stock box along with a Cross Country voyager to sit next to Andy’s Virgin voyager. Something must have rubbed off on my trips back to the midlands from Cornwall as I traveled on all of these!
     


     
    These have just been plonked on the layout without any conversion to see if they feel at home at ST Ruth. These probably won’t be ready for TINGS due to the lack of Dapol MK3 coaches and wheels. Eventually I might be persuaded to send all the dummy wheels as well to Gordon for reprofiling in order to keep the lightbar compatibility. I wonder with all the tasty offerings released yesterday, how many more “lubricated,†purchases there may be in the coming 18months.
  15. MinerChris
    As suggested in the last entry, Congdon's Shop's home will be in boxfiles that were picked up cheaply from a supermarket. I am still not entirely sure what the future holds with my job, but conceivably I could be flying once a week to a mine site in the middle of nowhere. I'm not saying that the layout would be taken, but it would be nice to have the option.
     
    The baseboards themselves have been constructed from plywood and fit into the boxfiles. This gives the baseboards the slightly unusual dimensions of 357 x 235mm or 1' 2 1/16†x 9 3/16†in old money, as it allows a couple of mm to remove the layout whilst maximizing the available space. I'm not sure whether this means Congdon's shop is a “boxfile layout,†especially as two boxfiles have been used for the scenic sections and is quite likely that buildings, scenery and stock will be dumped in a further (two). I'll leave that description for others to discuss. The baseboards are 33mm thick, which leaves enough room for some control below the layout.
     
    Construction was based on the same basic structure as south yard, plywood sides glued together by short lengths of hardwood. The 3mm plywood was cut using a high tech stanley knife. For anyone considering the same method, it is much easier to start with a new blade, which I discovered about halfway through after a trip to Wickes. Cutting accuracy was a problem, especially cutting the long side pieces and hence a plane was used in order to ensure that all of the side pieces were the same width.
     

     
    Using this KISS principle, it should have been really hard to make a mistake. However a slight step was observed about half way along the join between the two boards. This was corrected by sliding a knife in the joint, clearing out the dried glue, applying fresh glue before clamping the rise down.
     
    Departing from south yard, I decided to incorporate an additional plywood baton down the centre of the boards in order to try to stop any warping or sagging. South Yard has only very slightly sagged in the centre of the board. Additional diagonals had also been cut out but upon consultation it was decided that these weren't needed and would be a hindrance.
     
    The other departure was the two blocks of softwood incorporated into the joint side of each baseboard. This will eventually be for the C & L pattern makers dowels, to ensure correct alignment. More by coincidence than planning, the recess incorporated by this is slightly larger than the depth of the dowels.
     
    I couldn't find the dimension of these online, so for those who are planning to use them in the future; the screws supplied are 3/4†length with 16mm thread showing when installed, the plate is 1†diameter and 3mm thick. finally the dowel itself 8mm diameter and 11mm length.
     

     
    Keeping the two boards together will be done by a couple of bolts through the softwood blocks. As can be seen in the photograph, when these holes were drilled it dragged some of the side of the block out, coupled with this the bolts are also very tight. Eventually when I make my escape from Cornwall and get access to a drill once again, I will ream these holes out and glue the shown brass tube on the inside. The bolts will pass through these tubes, which I hope will be a more accurate and neat solution that will be less susceptible to wear.
     
    The track plan has been drawn based on the layout of platforms and sidings at Callington. This should mean that one day the layout could be back converted with the addition of more modules and buildings. Unusually this means that coaches have to be propelled back out of the station for the loco to be able to run around, which also happens to be excellent for space saving. A standard CAD package was used to draw the diagram in layers with templates for the points recycled from the planning stages of ST Ruth.
     

     
    The platform length was determined by the longest train that I was planning to run, which turned out to be a three car Class 118 DMU. Loco hauled trains will only be comprised of 2 coaches, but in reality 3 coaches for specials can be accommodated with a slight overhang. I will concede that the sidings are probably too long, but there are photographs of lots of wagons surrounding Callington station, so who knows maybe not?
     
    I will be using easitrac to build the trackwork, including the milled turnout bases. The turnouts and solitary signal will be controlled using microservo's, should I be able to get them to work. DG couplings will be released using the Gaugemaster EM-1 electromagents to allow for some shunting activities. I only plan to have one controller for wiring simplicity, but isolating switches will be incorporated to allow for more than one loco to be on the layout at a time. Trains will be fed to the layout by cassettes, which will be compatible with my dad's (so I can “borrow,†if I need extra!)
     
    Once the track plan was decided upon, the diagram was printed out and laid over the baseboards. This highlighted possible issues with the tie bars fouling the sides and were then adjusted accordingly. It also allowed me to check the clearances around the layout between the sidings.
     

     
    This also gave me an opportunity to play “paper trains,†the results of which can be seen in the photographs below with the limited amount of stock that I have.
     

    BHE- WW hybrid Class 118 DMU waits at the platform, and for painting.
     

    A perhaps unlikely scene, Dapol 14xx and autocoach’s waits at platform, whilst the Dapol 2-6-2MT shunts association vans in the yard. Both locos are awaiting replacement chassis, 14xx from the association and the 2-6-2T from Nigel Hunt.
     
    Construction will be delayed for a couple of weeks, due to recovering funds from an celebratory splurge to Hattons for getting an first in my degree. More details of which may appear on the ST Ruth blog soon. Some eagle eyed readers may have noticed a bottle and glass of beverage in one of the photographs, however the question has to be asked “Have I Earned it?!†(groan...). Predecessors of this glass may have had something to do with the splurge.
  16. MinerChris
    First I would like to extend greetings to all reading this first blog of which I hope there will be many. I have been reading various topics and blogs over the past couple of years and very impressed by the quality of the modelling undertaken on here. I would certainly be glad if my modelling was a fraction of that shown on here.
     
    I have just finished my Mining Engineering Degree in Falmouth and have also worked for the last two summers underground at Daw Mill Colliery. It seems an appropriate time in order to start a blog, as my summer will most probably be spent on a few projects before starting work in the autumn.
    My modelling interests have been passed down from my dad, Andy (D869), as 2mmFS and 16mm scale garden railway (currently undertaking an accurate representation of a disused line.) I have been a member of the 2mm association for the last year and a member of the midland area group, currently working on the BR WR group layout St Ruth. Holding my hands up, I was one of the people who managed to screw up the operating schedule at our most recent visit to Nottigham and then proceeded to decide that it was a good time for lunch.
     
    I have also started work on my own shunting boxfile layout inspired by a variety of sources including South Yard, Kyle of Lockash, Inverneuk and Mayfield Street. It is this layout that this blog will be dedicated with details of other bits and pieces posted elsewhere.
     
    When looking for a location, a number of parameters were decided upon in order to narrow the choices down. Firstly perhaps unsurprisingly given my location for the last three years, my layout was to be set in Cornwall. Secondly it was decided to make the layout a branch terminus in order to avoid fiddle yards and scenic breaks at both ends.
    This suitably restricted the options down to a handful, from which Callington Station was picked, possibly due to its historical connection with mining. With the track plan extending over 6 boxfiles, I decided that this was however probably too ambitious for a first project.
     
    The Callington Branch still interests me due to its history. This is detailed on such websites as the Colonel Steven’s museum, these railwest pages and Bruce Hunt’s excellent website. Details were also found in various books.
     
    I won’t bore you with the details but it can be summarized as follows:
    1890, 3’6" East Cornwall Mineral Railway serving the mines in the Tamar valley and Kit Hill area, linking these with the quay in Calstock by means of a rope worked incline.
    1908, Line Regauging by the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway. At the same time construction of the Tamar viaduct and wagon lift commenced, along with the connection to the mainline at Bere Alston and conversion of several of the goods depots into passenger stations. The line was operated independently by the PDSWJ railway, as appose to being leased to the LSWR like the mainline.
    1923, SR Grouping, The line passed several times between WR and SR until the line was cut back to Gunnislake courtesy of Dr Beeching in 1965.

    A useless pub fact that I have read somewhere is that the Bere Alston to Gunnislake section of the line is the only remaining section of railway built on a Light Railway order, still in commercial use.
     
    Along its history many extensions were proposed to the line. These ranged from a GWR connection to Callington from Saltash, through to ambitiously extending the line all the way through to Boscastle on the north coast. The most likely of these extensions which could have occurred was a 7 mile route through to the parish of North Hill on the fringes of Bodmin moor. This extension had a light railway order granted in 1907, perhaps as a response to the GWR connection and the predicted loss of traffic caused by this. In the end this proposal faded away when the GWR connection failed.
     
    The terminus of this failed extension was in the hamlet of Congdon’s Shop, and is where my layout will be based. My layout assumes that the GWR connection was constructed and that the line was extended. This may be using a tablespoon rather than a pinch of “modeller’s licence,†but it allows for the much more compact layout that I am looking for. Perhaps in the future when more experience and room are available I will reconstruct the layout to represent Callington with the attractive overall roof and small engine shed.
     
    In terms of era, I’m aiming to try and stick to the 50’s and 60’s. This allows for a variety of stock including both steam and diesel from Southern and BR(S). Ivatt 2-6-2T’s were seen on the branch right up to 1964, whilst Adam’s 02’s, Class 22’s and Suburban DMU’s also made regular workings. Due to the scenic nature of the branch, summer specials also were not too uncommon. The GWR-Callington connection should also allow for a good excuse to run and construct GWR and BR(W) stock, as it is presumed that the GWR would have obtained some running rights through to North Hill. This stock coincidentally, will also be required for the branch at ST Ruth.
     
    I am hoping that the construction of this layout might be quicker than my dad’s previous layouts, however this is just hoping and will probably not be the case. South yard is still under construction after 11 years and Taw Bridge (which I didn’t even know still existed until a couple of weeks ago) apparently still under construction after over 16 years. I might even get distracted by another project before getting this one finished (something clay related maybe!)
     
    Thanks for getting to the end of this entry and I hope that it hasn’t been too boring, especially with the lack of photographs (the line closed a couple of months after my dad was born,) or any modelling progress. So far I have started building a few items of stock, built baseboards and started planning the detail based on a trackplan, all of which will be revealed in the coming weeks.
×
×
  • Create New...