peter220950

Not an expert on such matters, but whenever I have seen them on yards or in factories they are at the entrance, that way lorries can be weighed in and out without too much diversion, to establish the amount of material dropped or picked up. It also serves as a place for the yardman/security to keep an eye on movement in and out, while being the weighbridge operator as well. Similar placement seems to be used where there's a rail weighbridge on exchange sidings. Peter

There goes the Knighthood. Peter

If it's using JMRI surely it has a DCC signal through the track and a decoder in the loco, so it does need a DCC signal? Peter

Many thanks, will do, sadly it seems to be a one hit wonder, my only other offspring being a teacher. It's difficult to have conversations with him about 'work' as he keeps telling me he will have to kill me if he tells me what he's working on, so I'm none the wiser about what he actually does. Peter

Time to throw in my claim to fame, I am not a game player and prefer to make things. In 1983 I made, or helped to make, a young son, who now resides in Leeds, working for Rockstar as a programmer for the last 15 years. That's about as close as I can get to anything meaningful on the thread, but it gives me a little comfort that he might indirectly be keeping some of you entertained. Peter

The only problem with this is that it involves huge additional expense in administering and at the end of the day there's only one group of people who will foot the bill...... us. Any cost incurred by a Company ends up at our doorstep, so the gain will be the army of additional pen pushers that we will be paying for, - great idea. Peter P.S. and of course a new set of ambulance chasing leeches to ring us up looking for business.

I'm happy to say that thanks to Jim Snowdons initiative I now have what I believe to be a permanent solution to the problem. Yes they are six times the cost, but having already taken bogies apart twice it's a price I was happy to pay for the solution, and not unexpected for custom built gears. What was more satisfying to me was seeing someone with approriate knowledge actually doing something to solve a problem, far more powerful than the 'experts' that populate the Forum, and elsewhere, who seem to spend their time telling us what's wrong, and how they would do it better, but never do. Many thanks Jim, actions speak louder than words! Peter

Oh it happens all the time, He's not the Messiah, https://youtu.be/98OuEsk8WRs Peter

And finally a big thank you to Stu and the rest of the team that made it possible, I came as a visitor two years ago and was struck by the relaxed atmosphere, brought the layout last year and worked the kitchen this, it's still the highlight of the year. Peter

Just got back home, firstly a huge thank you to the cake and pasty suppliers, the catering sode of things has managed to pay for pie or pasties for around 20 Exhibitors and still turn a contribution of £132.00 for the Charity, many thanks it's much appreciated. Secondly some photo's I managed to get during a quiet spell, they will have to spread over a few posts, as I only seem to be able to load one at a time on the uploader when using a tablet, thanks to all the Exhibitors for another great Show.

Looks like it's o.k. We're open for business.

Its starting to look a bit more organised now, The cake has started to arrive but no sign of the main course yet, was it wise to let the Captain loose with a car full of pasties...... Peter

Two weeks on and the room is just about finished, the walls were painted and any minor blemishes tidied up. The flashings were a good find on Ebay, for £25 plus a trip up to Shrewsbury, and with a bit of metal Origami, have finished the roof. The guttering was completed and the water butt fitted, though I have just discovered it need an overflow, as with the current weather it's already full to overflowing. Advantage was taken of a couple of days decent weather to clear coat the skirting and architrave. And the roof to the store was trimmed to size, fixed, and fitted with flashings. The electric consumer unit has been fixed, and just awaits the lights and sockets to be installed. The garden store has had a shelf fitted, and the door has been put together and painted. Trims to the top of the walls were painted, and window surrounds were varnished and fitted, and I was almost there. The floor finish was something that I have been pondering on for a while. Ideally some sort of vinyl cushion floor or rubber matting would have been ideal, but after a visit to B&Q I decided that while laminate flooring was not ideal it was cheap, at around £5 a square metre. While looking around I noticed packs of damaged flooring for a fiver, three packs and a bit of underlay, saw me sorted for less than £30, plus a 10% OAP discount. Its not an ideal finish, and I suspect that it wont last long, but it tidies the room up. The skirtings have been screwed in, to allow for replacing the floor finish, and it has now turned from a construction site into the finished article. It just needs the electrics fitting and the door glazing and I'm there. Peter

And don't forget the only cake available will be the cake that Members bring! Peter

The brake van was a Triang one I had before I turned to the O gauge dark side, so it's getting on a bit now, like me. The wagon was a Wrenn one that I found in the depths of the roof, it's hard to believe that I painted the brake van over 40 years ago, where did the time go! Peter

Just dropped off at the Post Office, on their way, Peter

Will do, wasn't sure if you were doing it on the Sunday, I picked the address up from the SWAG PM, so will get something off to you tomorrow, Peter

Three weeks on from the last posting and I think I'm getting close to completion, I hadn't quite realised what had been done ‘till I looked back at the pictures. The first task was to move all the stored junk in the garage to access the Celotex for under the flooring, this was then cut into sections and fitted between the joists. Once completed I could order the plywood flooring, and while I was waiting I cut some Celotex to fit the triangular section at the top of the walls, under the roof. A filler piece of spare boarding was then cut to seal this area, I have left it loose at present as it seems to be an ideal cavity to run wiring to wall socket drops later. After tidying up the external boarding and joints it left one area where there was no weather protection, this was where the external tool store was to be located. The framework was put together in the shed, and a test fit of the mower was made, while the rain continued to fall, and a trial fit against the wall seemed to work. The store was then protected with polythene and breather membrane, and it was fixed to the main shed. Cladding had been pre-cut to fit and was fitted to the sides, and the whole thing was finally fixed and a temporary roof fitted. By now most of the timber had been used and the side access was almost usable, for the first time for months, just in time for the arrival of the plywood flooring. The three sheets were unloaded and stacked on the drive, but it soon became apparent that manhandling them on my own was not an option, cutting 200mm off the end, and 100mm off the length reduced the weight just enough to allow me to carry them around and fit them, making the room usable for the first time. Next job was to put up some guttering, to stop water splashing up the walls, final fitting out will be completed when I can finalise the position of a water butt. The guttering runs through the tool store where it forms a valley gutter between the two roofs. In order to protect the flooring from the monsoon like weather we have been suffering the only remaining weatherproofing was to hang the door, this has also made the room secure, so I could move tools out there and work in all weather. Having looked to get a suitable door to the tool store, and failed, I decided that I would have to make one, some t&g planking was purchased and the framework was laid out using leftover timbers, it hasn't been assembled yet, but can be built in an hour or so. The room walls were then lined with polythene to provide a vapour barrier, and the decision made on lining material. I have decided on plasterboard, rather than plywood, its not as durable, but I want to paint to walls white, and painted ply didn't do it for me somehow. The boards have been fixed, filled, and sanded, ready for paint and skirting boards, a bonus of the polythene being too long was that it has helped protect the floor from joint filler and dust. So that brings it back up to date, I have purchased some roof flashings on ebay, which will enable the roof to be completed, the water butt has arrived and will allow final fitting of the gutter, the store door needs assembling, and the walls need painting and skirting and architrave fitting. A small electrical consumer unit is on order and will allow lighting and power on a better supply than the 13a extension lead in use at present. Overall it seems to be working well as a workshop, the insulation is so good that just having a work light on means I can work in a tee shirt in the room, there seems to be adequate light from the three windows, and my fears about it not being big enough seem to be unfounded so far. Hopefully the warmer weather this next week should see further progress. Peter

Now is about the time to put out an appeal for cakes, whilst camaraderie, pasties and the bring and buy are the main events for Sunday, it wouldn't be a successful event without cake, so if anyone can offer to supply some please let us know. Otherwise there will be no sugar rush to get you through the day. Peter

Interesting to see different materials being used, I would guess gluing the aluminium pieces together is going to be one of the most difficult things, it's not a commonly used material. I suspect Hammerite spray will be too thick, I would try car primer. With regard to rivet details you could emboss the strapping by punching the back with a thin metal rod. I used to make strapping from thin brass shim this way, if you put it face down on a cutting mat, then tap the point of a scriber, or small diameter drill, into the appropriate place it should produce a dimple on the other side. You can get rivet transfers from Archer, but they might be a bit fiddly in this context, the other diy alternatives involve putting drops of pva glue on with a cocktail stick, or cutting slices from plastic rod and gluing them on, both will probably mean you lose the will to live. Look forward to seeing the project develop further. Peter

Interesting idea, but unfortunately I think the offcuts are too short to be of much use, though I will check it out when I'm back at home, as I mentioned if I had planned the cutting of the sheets better I could have left myself enough to spare, but it's a bit academic now. I might look at the same principle for the barge boards, as most of the flashings are 150mm wide, which is a bit too much for the top section that lies on the roof, but I will know more when I get a chance to visit the local(ish) clading man to get the ridge capping. The gussets are only 6mm ply either side of the cls timbers, again it's a bit unneccesary but it saved getting the gang nailed connectors that you see on full sized trusses, in reality I think one truss in the middle to support the ridge would probably have sufficed, but it fell in the middle of the door frame, so two went in above a pair of vertical studs either side. The secondary trusses only went in as a future proofing option to take timber storage and possibly an air filtration unit to remove sawdust from the air. Peter

Hi Ian, I had purchased a small drill attachment but it has a problem with the double skinned sheet with insulation bonded between it, the bottom of the nibbler gets stuck in the insulation. In the end the small angle grinder was fine, with a 1mm blade it cut nicely, although the 4 1/2" discs wear reasonably quickly, and you need a newish disc to get into the corners of the profiles. I only used 3 discs and at only 80p each it was the quickest and easiest way in the end. It has rained in the night, so I can't wait to go and see if its all working as it should do, it will be useful to check where the rain comes off the sheets in relation to the proposed gutter, I'm using Screwfix shed stuff, and its quite narrow at 76mm. Peter

Further advantage was taken of the improved weather to glue up the altered door and give it a coat of preservative, its not fitted properly yet but it now provides some protection from rain, Then it was onto fitting the roof trusses properly. The roof truss design was perhaps the least successful part of my design, I should probably have let them slope down over the edge of the panels with a birdsmouth notch onto the wall plate. The current design is fine at the two ends, where the wallplate provides continuous support along their length, but the intermediate trusses don’t really have much bearing on the wall, and are tapered to nothing over the bearing area. It's not really a major issue as it's all a bit over designed, and I have managed to hang from the individual trusses without any deflection, but I put some supplementary spreaders onto the ends of the trusses to help. It might not be technically very good, but having fitted the roof, and climbed on it, there isn't a lot of deflection and the whole structure has become very solid with the additional bracing to the walls. One of the reasons for keeping the roof tight to the wall was to allow for a small gutter without fouling the door, all of this bit of the build was fluid until I cut the roof sheets to size. After measuring up the roof sheets, and trying a panel out, I concluded that I only really needed 2 intermediate trusses, as the composite roof panels are very rigid. As I had already made 4 trusses I put an additional truss either side of the centre panel, this will provide support for some timber storage in the roof, accessed from the central area. Once fixed in position strips of foam rubber were put on top of the trusses to even up any irregularities in my woodwork. Now the weather has started to improve a bit I've had a chance to experiment with cutting the metal roof sheets, the initial cuts had been done with a large petrol disc cutter, but this made quite a mess as the plastic coating melted and looked pretty rough. (right hand side of the strip). Initial experiments with a small electric hand saw seemed to give much better finish (left hand side of the strip), but the saw blades didn’t last particularly well, so I have now resorted to a small angle grinder with a metal cutting disc, which is a cheaper alternative, and works well. Having cut the roof sheets into six pieces on site I didn't have any room for error with the cutting to size, as there were no spares. In hindsight I could have cut eight pieces, but at the time didn't know how long the sheets needed to be. So with a great deal of trepidation, and several measures, I cut the first panel and trial fitted it, fortunately it only needed about 20mm trimming off, and it allowed me to ascertain how much needed cutting from the bottom sheet, to clear the gutter and allow a closer fit at the ridge. Once I had one sheet cut it was only a matter of a couple of hours to cut the rest, making sure the overlapping edges worked correctly for the two sides. The panels were then cleaned up, and stacked in two sets, ready for fixing. As with the wall panels the actual fix was a bit of an anti-climax, the whole roof was fitted and screwed down in around three hours, I'm particularly pleased by the internal finish of powder coated steel, it bounces the light around well, and looks pretty nifty. It's another milestone, and justifying all the preparation works that took so long, bearing in mind that it's less than 3 weeks since I put the foundations down, and the weather has been pretty awful. All that's needed now to finish the roof, is to source some ridge and verge capping in similar coated steel, and then I can fit the timbers to support the guttering. At least with 99% sealed roof I can order and fit the flooring and hang the door. Peter

Bob, Have you looked at the strip LED's?, they are useful as they can be cut into lengths of 3 and run from 12v without any other work, alternatively the surface mount LED's can be unsoldered and re-used with new wires soldered on, but they are fiddly, they will also require current limiting resistors in this configuration. If you think they might be worth considering, and knowing you like to make things and re-cycle stuff, PM me with an address and I can send you a selection of the offcuts left after I fitted them to the kitchen to play with. Peter P.S. loving the thread!