innocentman

Needing 32 DGs for a rake of 16, I have opted for instanters in two blocks of 8. Yes they are fun to fit, but after 4 wagons down I have just about have got it down pat. The rest of the team have already confirmed that I will be the one coupling them up!

You learn something every day. Thanks

We have short video of the ICI hoppers in action on Chapel. https://www.facebook.com/255524804592290/videos/1272387932905967/?hc_ref=ARS7XWqNvdymLXhk7o5Ugfvx2WglM9KGDh2HTTnzsrrpy-ezo2Ac47XKNwc5EZ60cNI&fref=nf

I did't realise they could be a wrong way round. Can you let me know why you think that Andy

The first of the Hattons/Oxford Rail hoppers have arrived and taken a quick trip on Chapel-en-le-Frith. Very smart indeed Nine arrived so far, another seven weathered on order

Stand by Credit card, looks like there may be a hit as soon as February from Hattons for ICI Hoppers http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/97603-ici-hoppers-from-hattons-in-partnership-with-oxford-rail/?p=3019129

Been back to the clubroom to finish the wiring on the replacement baseboard. Nice new curves laid and tested.

Just been down the club room this afternoon to lay new track on the fiddle yard link board at the London end of the layout, New track required after we replaced a dodgy plywood top on the board. More waves in it than Fistral beach! It was that cold, my phone went flat at the end of the day and went flat before I could take a picture of the finished article Oh well, I will try again on Wednesday

I can let you borrow 44767 if you want?

Thanks. I wonder if there is any video of the Fell at speed, must have looked like a Whirling Dervish at high speed. Wouldn't like to be on a platform when it went through with all that metal flying round! Your hoppers where impeccably behaved, the only difficulty was coupling a three link onto the back of a DG coupling. There were a lot of admirers of your hoppers. Once again, thanks for the loan in the absence of the Hatton's hoppers Andy

Just finished a couple of 16T wagons to take up permanent residence in the yard on Chapel Parkside Diag 1/108 16T Coal wagon Parkside Diag 1/100 16T Mineral wagon (Ex SNCF Type) These will be wired onto the layout. Lets see who tries to shunt them at Warley, or even worse tries to take them off the layout at the end of the show! Andy

For the bridges on the Leeds MRS layout Chapel-en-le-Frith we turned to 3D printing as a way of forming the basic structures. The bridge was printed in sections, glued together and then clad with embossed plasticard for stone/Brickwork. Regards Andy

Spent this evening extracting the failed Tortoise from the layout. Turned out to be a sheared bit of heat mushroomed plastic that holds the metal switch contacts in place. Installed a replacement while I work up an engineering solution to prevent it happening again as simply glueing it back on doesn't look strong enough. Andy

I would welcome a Benelux section as well. I have a large collection of NS stock and hope to embark on a layout for it next year (once the attic bedroom mods have been carried out) Andy

I have bought quite a few things from Edwin over the years including a large number of his dry rub transfers. Some interesting kits in his range as well. Always a pleasure to deal with Andy

Footbridge Construction Now, when I started putting the footbridge together I had no plan to publish photos of the construction process. As a result I only have limited few of the actual assembly of the etches at different stages. A little earlier this year, I produced my first ever etches (also for Chapel) which was for the Manchester Rd bridge beams and the Church Lane Western portal beam. The Manchester Rd bridge in particular consisted of three layers of 0.4mm brass, which i knew from the off that my trusty soldering station didn't have a chance, so I invested in an Antex BP80 80W iron, which would prove extremely useful when putting the footbridge together. Construction commenced over Easter 2017. Where to begin. Lets start with the bridge The bridge consist of cross-sectional formers into which the dummy beam/windows are affixed so forming the main walkway. The structural beams are bent up and ribs added along with the rivet plates. The rivets were half etched holes and punched with a Midland Railway Centre riveting tool. The structural beams were soldered onto the outside of the dummy beams via slots etched into the dummy beams. The roof was rolled in a set rolling bars to the desired radius and secured to the structure from below. On next to the stairs. This is where the use of a 3D cad package proved useful as I could refer back to the design to see how I overlapped the corner joints of the different layers The back boarding layers were soldered together first and once square and test fitted to the 3D printed steps the framing layer was added. (you can also see the internal framing and dummy beams of the bridge section in this image) From then on it was just more of the same for each the walls and continual test fitting of the etched parts to the steps and floor. Eventually after attaching the various modules I ended up with....... The above shows the footbridge being test fitted to Chapel The foot bridge support legs were constructed as separate units which bolted on the 3D printed floor. These were constructed using 3mm x 3mm section conveniently acquired from Eileen's Emporium at York that same weekend. Th cross bracing was etched and secured to the H section using slotted plates soldered into the web and on the faces. Just painting and weathering to go....

Continuing on with the Footbridge saga, just found an image of the film etch design sent to PPD earlier this year With the PPD system the colours mean: - Black - Not etched, White - Etched all the way through, Red - Etch from front only, Blue - Etch from the rear only In the case of the above the only blue required was a fold line in the main stair roofs

Hi Phil, Not sure if the Caprotti 5 belongs to Mike Edge or Barry O. Hopefully one or both will get back to you Regards Andy

A couple of our club members have also suggested I turn into a Kit as well. Not sure how big the market would be. Should anyone want one of course I would be more than happy to sell a set of etches. A bit later this evening or over the weekend I will post a few pictures of the construction phase, so watch this space

Now that we have a few shows under our belt and construction of the major items on Chapel have been completed, I thought it would be nice to provide some details how some of the structures have come about. So I thought we should start with the footbridge which is a combination of 3D printing and etched brass. The footbridge drawings are included within Bill Hudson's Excellent book "Through Limestone Hills" which was a plus. Using the drawings we generated the steps and floors in a 3D drawing package. This was printed on my home printer in ABS sections so as to avoid supports structures and fit in the bounding box where a single part would not fit. The parts were designed with rebates at the joints to give large surface area for the glue to take hold Now normally I would sit down with AutoCAD and draw out the etches required to form the walls and roof structure, but in this case, I decided it might be a good idea to design the etched parts in the 3D software. This turned out to be a master stroke as it allowed me to construct the walls and roof of the footbridge with the risers and floors. Having chosen to have the structure etched in 0.3mm brass each part could be designed with the correct thickness and allowed overlaps, slots and tags to be accurately determined Once all the required parts were drawn, the design was exploded and exported to a DXF file for importing into AutoCAD to begin the assembly of the jigsaw and try and minimise the size of the etched sheet. Once one side was drawn, the parts could be mirrored for the other set of steps. In the end I managed to get it all on a sheet about A3 size and then off to PPD for processing

Thanks to every one at the Leeds show for the lovely feedback on Chapel. Layout worked well with the exception of a pesky Tortoise loosing the ability to change the frog polarity on the entrance to the down loop! This one is going to be a dooooozy to change as its nestled up under the embankment! Long magnetic screwdriver required!

Chapel-en-le-Frith after a hard days work

Railway Modeller November 17 is now out and is complete with a six page spread of Chapel-n-le-Frith Central http://www.pecopublications.co.uk/Railway-Modeller-November-2017.html We have two up and coming shows this year for anyone wanting to see it in the flesh so to speak Leeds MRS Show at The Grammar School at Leeds 28th and 29th October Warley National Show at the NEC, Stand B51, 25th and 26th November

Layout is no back up in the club rooms, Time to tackle that list of improvements before the next show at Leeds at the end of October http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/calendar/event/1715-leeds-model-railway-exhibition-70-years/

Also to supplement the non-arrival of the Hattons ICI hopper is a train or two of 21t Hoppers These are old Dapol hoppers with added handrails, steps and release levers from a Judith Edge etch, followed by a repaint and weathering Only another 9 to complete before our first outing to Steam at Swindon this coming weekend