Michael Edge

OK, on to link witches, panel photo repeated.

At each end of the lines leaving this panel there is an on/off switch, mounted vertically, these are the link switches - 5 on this panel. Each one connects the inside rail (outside is common everywhere) of a linking section to the coloured section on the panel (the ones with the two way centre off switches). They don't connect to any of the controllers, just to the sections. The next panel along (in this case all 5 are on the fiddle yard panel) has the same switches to connect its last sections to the link section. If the link on your panel is on you can drive on to the link section, if the next panel's link switch is on you can continue to drive on to that part of the layout.

This system also gives the ability to switch out a panel completely and allow through running from another one, for example the up line at WJ (green section running left to right). If the main section switch is off as seen here, switching the links on at each end allows the fiddle yard to drive right through without affecting anything else going on here. It also applies to the down line here since there are only two main sections in it - if there were more through running can be done by connecting all the sections ot one of the Junction controllers and leaving its direction switch in the off position. Alternatively an additional "link through" switch can be fitted to connect all these sections if required, we do this with one of the main lines on Herculaneum Dock.

Operating procedure on the down lne (up the hill!) is that the train draws up to the starter signal at the right, train engine switched off with the on/off on the dotted part and a banker is attached at the rear. Then the operator switches the main red section to off, the dotted one to on and the link switch on at which point the fiddle yard operator can take over by switching his link on to drive all the way in.

The system is completely flexible and allows any controller to control any part of the layout by various combinations of switching - on my older layout (Cwmafon) any one of seven control positions can access any of the layout.

We've been using this system on Leeds club layouts for more than 50 years giving rise to the frequently heard "turn your ******* link off" followed by every operator surreptitiously checkin his own panel....

Hope this is clear enough and helpful.

To answer your other queries, for uncoupling we used cheap coils from Whistons (remember them?) with a chunk of large nail through them for many years but this supply has long since dried up. More recently I've been cannibalising old H&M point motors to use the coils for uncoupling magnets.

I haven't used the Cobalt point motors but they work in exactly the same way as Tortoises, their only drawback is that are just about impossible to drive backwards - the Tortoise is quite easy to work by hand for testing or in case of power failures. If you are fitting Tortoises all they need is a hole about 9mm or so under the tiebar, when you lay the track glue a strip of paper at either side of the hole to leave a narrow slot for the wire to move in - don't bother trying to cut slots for the operating wires.

The layout in France is about 5ft off the floor (not my choice!) which makes working on it a bit difficult but does make wiring underneath very easy - and I have to do it from underneath because it's all fixed. I think I might suggest somewhere in between this and normal layout height - say about 4ft.

Drawings won't help much, your turntable is much bigger than the one at Ilfracombe - or any other UK one for that matter. You'll have to design it yourself.

The RSH looks great, I'll have a look at your suggested corrections as soon as I can.

Take care with the number for this, these locos had two distinctly different riveting patterns for the tanks.

I would solder up the screwed spacers (needs a fair bit if heat), remove the screws and fill the holes.

It's printed on photo paper and under acrylic sheet (perspex). As for software, it's drawn in Turbocad which is what I use for all drawings.

I have to say that the F1 is still mostly Jidenco and there would have been more if I had actually had all the kit to start with. This one is also nearly all Jidenco.

Both of these kits were better than I expected and I've been building Jidenco kits since the very first one. Some are truly awful and some are very good but I've not found one that was unbuildable. I do treat all kits as a set of parts which should help to build a model and don't hesitate to throw out and replace anything which is wrong.

Basic DC wiring for two controllers:

One rail everywhere (inside one or outside one) should be common.

Section switches connect parts of the other rail to one or other of the controllers, easiest and clearest way to do this is with two way/centre off switches.

Mount these sideways on your panel so left goes to one controller, right to the other and centre is off.

Get away from the train set idea of a separate controller for each track.

Very different layout but same principle, this is Wentworth Junction's panel.

Ignore the 5 switches at the ends, possibly not relevant to you but I'll explain if required. These are link switches to the rest of the layout.

Each different colour on the panel is a section, switchable to either of the controllers, left or right, as required with two way centre off toggle switches.

The dotted sections are within the main sections and controlled with an on/off switch mounted vertically - this is for operational reasons on this layout, you may not need it but these switches do not connect to the controllers, just to the main section itself.

The black push buttons are for uncoupling magnets and the black coloured sections are switched automatically by the point setting (you won't need this).

Possibly not relevant to what you are doing but the panel is laid out as a signal box diagram with the normal point setting show as continuous lines, the switches along the bottom mimic the levers in the box and reverse points (identified by numbers) as required - I use Tortoise point motors.

Hope this helps, it really isn't difficult.

The bubbles are in the sort of places I would have poked the rubber in first - I had to learn this from the same sort of experience.

If you wire it with DC and section switches you can easily change to DCC later by simply turning all the sections on.

Show us how it comes out then.

For moulding items such as this I start by poking  some moulding rubber around all the fiddly bits, especially undercuts and small holes with a coktail stick first. Let this settle for a while and watch for any gaps or bubbles. Finally pour in the rest of the rubber from one corner, letting it flow over the pattern - don’t just pour it on the top. Yours looks like the same sort of rubber and Lego box I use

That makes sense, I always find yellow discs a bit confusing but it's not going to work anyway. More puzzling is the lack of a ground signal facing the other way here for a move back on to the running line which is a routine move on the layout for adding bankers.

It was just a foot crossing in later years, for early fifties it should be a stop signal though. I have hardly any photos of the crossing so I‘ve put what I know was there at one time at least.

The locos are quite short, weren’t the shoe beams added to the stock to avoid gapping?

That can’t be 12083, the Bulleid wheels are a giveaway, must be 152xx.

1 hour ago, Richard_A said:

I'm hoping to get stuck into this today, but first, I have another question about the axle bushes. 

 

I have been reading a thread about building a k's coal tank, where it was suggested that to increase sideplay to allow the loco to negotiate tighter curves, some of the bushes should be fitted from the inside and filed flush to the frames on the outside. 

 

Is this something that anyone does, or would recommend? 

If you fit them that way round there's a lot less metal to file away, I do it if the frame width requires a lot of filing.

8 hours ago, brightspark said:

I didn't know that, but that explains a few things about the variable quality of that period.

The bit I like is that the holes are starting to break through the edge of the plate.

 

I used the Mainly Trains etch available from Wizard. But there is a better etch with the tender brakes (missing from my model) by South Easter Finecast. But I don't know if this is available on it's own. The brakes for the King Arthurs are what you will be after.

I thought that I saw the same thing, but came to the conclusion that it is either an optical illusion and/or variations to the shape of the cylinder casing. 

The cylinders are angled, but sometime the casing appear to be flush and almost parallel to the footplate.

That probably explains why the DJH model has them laying horizontal and why some of the scale drawings seem to be variable.

 

Iain Rice discussed this model in his book 'Locomotive kit chassis construction' (I found this book to be very helpful). He points out that the cylinders are at an angle and notes the J hangers. But later photos show that he missed off the J hangers and left the cylinders as per the kit. 

If you do lay the cylinders flat you will find that the J hangers won't fit, so angle the cylinders until they do align.

 

I have found some photo's that I took for my build thread and slowly uploading them.

But this one may be of help as it is my sketch as to where the cylinders should be.

The round shape is for the curve of the front footplate.

Note that I added filler to lengthen the cylinder body to 12,8mm.

The other positions are for the J hangers and the end of the slidebars.

 

This page on the Hornby website is also helpful as there is a low resolution drawing of the loco and tender.

https://uk.Hornby.com/community/blog-and-news/engine-shed/s15-class-decorated-sample-and-tts-king-class-sound-test

 

"Me fail English, that's unpossible."

S15s have cylinders inclined at 1 in 24, clearly stated on the GA and they are all the same.

9 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Printers' hards would've been better...

No doubt (I still have some of it left!) but what I really meant was the total idiocy of not having frames that run the whole length of the loco. The compensation system I use for my own work and in our kits is easy, foolproof and 100% reliable so why not do it? If I started from a crude brass frame like that I would probably compensate two of the axles by using them to jig drill a pair of compensating beams, pivoted in the centre. I worked like this for many years building from scratch before I started mainly using etched frames and coupling rods.

Not exactly the best way to start building a 4-6-0…….

4 hours ago, Chuffer Davies said:

I am planning to experiment with self adhesive Copper Slug Tape from the local garden centre.  It is very thin so can be cut with a scalpel blade, and more resistant to stretching/distortion than plastic tape.

 

Has anyone else already tried this I wonder?

Frank

Not slug tape but I do use .002” copper for boiler bands which aren’t going to be lined. I cut it with a scalpel on a cutting mat. If boiler bands are to be lined I just scribe lines for their position, painters put them on with tape.

Far too soft, I did use melamine face chipboard at one time but aluminium angle is best.

Use a hard steel pin (or an old gramophone needle), hold it with forceps and drop a hammer on it. Dropping from the same height produces same size rivets but it does very much depend on what the brass is resting on, not too hard and not too soft (said Goldilocks), I use a length of aluminium angle held in the vice. I have three different rivet presses but still use this method for very close spaced ones.