peter220950

Thanks to Andy and the team for the most fantastic learning resource, source of entertainment, and the best advertisement for our hobby, Happy Birthday Peter

Peter

A quick update on progress, which has been hampered a bit by the weather, but considering it's now only 10 days since the walls went up I'm happy with the couple of days work I managed to get in. The room doesn't look a lot different, but I have completed a lot of the jobs that were needed to fix and seal the panels. The walls were put up in about six hours, though all except the wall adjacent to the fence needed additional bits of cladding top and bottom, and another coat of paint. Rain stopped play so I hurriedly fitted the end trusses and ridge to sling some polythene over as a temporary roof. Most normal builds put a base in, then the floor, and build off that, my ‘system' allows the walls and roof to go up without worrying about the flooring, this can then be fitted in the dry. It would also have been a massive job to get the plywood around the house if the wall panels were still in the way, and I would have needed marine ply to prevent water damage. A further advantage is being able to check the inside for any sign of moisture before the floor and wall insulation goes in, any leaks can be dealt with before they cause problems. The temporary roof proved a bit unreliable first time around, and the next day the room had a lot of water in it, so once it stopped raining I re fixed it. There was also a lot of ingress through the openings, so the windows were put in as a temporary fix. A curtain of Tyvek went over the door opening and seems to be keeping the rain and snow at bay at present. The lack of the bottom layer of cladding caused a minor problem as water ran down the cladding onto the foundation timbers and into the room. First job tackled was to actually fix the panels to the foundation, up to now self weight was all that was holding it down. Large coach bolt type screws were put into the bottom rails with some thin packing shims where necessary. I could then deal with the areas where water could be seen inside. The bottom row of cladding was fixed, and appears to have stopped any water getting in at low level. The gable end trusses were next for attention, they were removed, the missing strip of cladding inserted on the top of the walls, and the trusses were re-seated on a bed of clear silicone, while the mastic gun was out I also sealed the timber window surrounds into the wall cladding, and this now seems to have stopped any water ingress except at the panel joints, where a cover strip has yet to be fitted. So with a days work the room was starting to get sufficiently well sealed and stable to make a start on the next phases. Having dealt with the foundations and walls here are the details of the rest of the components I propose to use, to complete the envelope. Windows and Doors As mentioned earlier, I managed to get hold of some powder coated aluminium double glazed windows and timber sub frames from Ebay, for £75 a piece, and now they are in place there's another chunk of the build that's moved out of the house. Windows and doors seem to be expensive items to source for projects like this, and making your own without a lot of machinery is complex. The doorframe had already been purchased, and cut down to the panel height of the room walls (1.82m), after a bit of trawling on Ebay a suitable door was sourced, but also required 250mm taking off the height, not an easy task. Cutting substantial lumps from the top and bottom of a door leaves it very weak, so I took off the entire bottom rail, re-cut all the tenons on the intermediate uprights, and then slotted it all together again. All this was done on the bench at ‘Men in Sheds' where there's plenty of room and suitable machinery, as all mine is in store in the garage. Roof I thought long and hard about the roof, tiles are a bit overkill, and a bit heavy, ply and felt is O.K but needs insulating and has a limited life span, and coated steel is a nightmare to insulate without getting the interstitial condensation problems I mentioned earlier, as its hard to completely fill all the voids in the profiles of the sheeting. Because the under lining of the roof hides what may be happening inside it's difficult to see if there's a problem before it manifests itself in expensive damage. Polycarbonate sheeting was an option, the triple walled stuff gives reasonable insulation, but its expensive and I'm not a great fan. A trawl through Ebay over a month or so found two 7 metre lengths of insulated metal cladding down in Gloucestershire, this has a 40mm insulation bonded to the back of the cladding and an inside white coated steel lining. The cladding was olive green, which matched the cladding perfectly, and at £140 it was a cheap solution, requiring little support and no further internal insulation or ceiling treatment, the only problem was getting it home, fortunately the vendor had a disc cutter and we chopped it into six lengths, each one metre wide and two and a bit long. - It looked a bit like a house on top of the car, but arrived safely, now all I have to do is figure out how to trim it to size, and source some flashings and ridge capping to match. Back to the build on site, the next job was to start to fix the wall insulation that has been sitting at the top of the garden for six months, this seems to cut well with a carving knife, and wedges in between the studs, and even though the rain and snow have been making it hard to get any enthusiasm for going out into the cold, it's actually already getting quite pleasant to work out there. Fitting the roof and door has to be the next priority. A start was made on painting the door frame, but the weather stopped any further progress. Just got to wait for it to thaw a bit now. Peter

I wasn't going to go too deeply in to that as it's not really as substantial as I would like. I really should have a separate supply, but putting this back to the Consumer Unit will cause a lot of disruption in the house, so maybe that's something for another day. It is therefore fed from the existing ground floor ring main, It's not something I would encourage anyone else to do, and there's the question of current Regulations around wiring. I consider myself a 'Competent Person' when it comes to wiring, having put all the wiring and new Consumer Unit in when I extended the house, (and know my way around IEE Regs up to 17th edition) but it's very much a case of do as I say not as I do, and it's a moot point whether it's notifiable, I am using existing wiring put in back in the 1980's so in theory I'm just removing the socket and re-fixing. Most power tools will be fed via a shop vac which will switch on when the tool is activated, and the lighting is likely to be LED, so the only real grey area is whether re-wiring the lights from the old shed is new work or not. I may well get it signed off when completed so there's no insurance implication. There is currently still the original shed supply, buried under the black dpm membrane, it's fed from the rear of the garage through a 50mm pvc conduit underground, and will be exposed before the floor insulation goes in. Peter

Walls The wall construction mirrors modern timber frame house design, though slimmed down considerably. This should provide a moisture resistant and well insulated structure that will last better than the shed it replaced. Starting on the outside, 22mm tongued and grooved cladding has a 10mm air gap over most of its surface which is backed by a breathable membrane (Tyvek), which allows air to enter the structure but if any water happens to get past the cladding it won't go any further, instead it will run down the breathable membrane and out through a gap at the base of the panels onto gthe surrounding ground. This scenario is extremely unlikely, but belt and braces was always my way. Supporting the external cladding are cls timber studs 63mm x 38mm, the bottom plate being treated, despite being on a membrane and protected by the Tyvek, but best to be sure! The studs are relatively cheap, at around £2.50 for a 2.4m length, but still represented quite a big over spend, I ended up using 70 or 80 lengths in walls and roof. The walls went up in one day, and with a continuous timber along the head seem to form a pretty substantial structure already. The addition of the roof trusses will make it even stronger. One thing to be mindful of if adopting my method of individual panels is the discrepancy in size between different pieces of cladding. If you have a shed wall that just needs lengths nailing to it there's not a problem, but individual panels will highlight the differences at the joints, and being a bit OCD about these things I had to try to minimise the problem. The planks were nominally 85mm deep, but varied, so I bought 2.4m lengths for the ends, and 3.6m lengths for the sides, then cut them into the three panel widths and numbered them, trying to also match the widths of the adjacent lengths, it seems to have worked reasonably well, though I will still resort to cover strips to deceive the eye. Another issue is with differences in the fit and nailing, which means that even the same sequence of planks can be different on adjacent panels, so I started all cladding at the mid point and worked up and down from it to minimise the errors. The cladding was designed to overlap the timber base by about 50mm, hiding some of the bulk, though the fragility of having just timber cladding at the bottom of the panels meant I left the last plank off until the structure was up. Behind the Tyvek membrane is room for 40mm Celotex insulation which is finally backed with a waterproof barrier to seal the structure inside, either using aluminium tape onto the foil backed insulation or a layer of polythene. The jury is out on the internal lining, I originally planned to use 6mm plywood, but I could still use plasterboard, any input from those with experience of the options is welcome, I think the ply will be more resistant to damage, but white painted plasterboard would give a more professional feel and marginally better insulation. The science of all the above is to prevent condensation within the structure, often a problem with sheds that don't get the layers in the right order. Condensation occurs when air meets a cold surface and as the ability to carry moisture is diminished by the drop in temperature and moisture is deposited. If the polythene/foil barrier is on the cold side of the wall i.e. towards the outside, warm air from within seeps into the structure, cools and forms water within the wall, leading to mould and the prospect of rot setting in. The Tyvek allows cold air in but it doesn't get near the internal surfaces because of the insulation, and warm air inside can't penetrate the wall to get through to any cold surfaces. This ‘interstitial condensation' was a particular concern with the roof cladding, of which more later on. The individual wall panels are bolted together with a thin compressible strip between to keep out draughts, all bolts and nails for the cladding are stainless steel to prevent rust spots or difficulties with taking it apart. The cladding is treated timber but I wanted to paint the shed to tone it down a bit, one thing I have noticed with sheds, particularly with thin cladding, is that a coat of paint on the outside alone can lead to the timber distorting. Although I was using quite chunky timber I felt it wise to paint both sides of the cladding to equalise the stresses, and this brought up the problem that I couldn't access the back of the cladding, so painting had to be done prior to assembly. It took a while to realise that painting the back of the timbers obscured all the panel numbering, until I started to use a thick marker pen. Fortunately all of the painting to the cladding panels was completed when the weather was fine last summer, they will get a second coat, but it's not critical when it's done. At the corners, concealed by the overlapping cladding, are 70mm x 70mm treated fence posts to join the different elevations together. It was at this point that it started raining, so as a quick interim measure I bolted the gable end pieces on and put a temporary polythene roof to keep things dry. The gable trusses will have to be taken off again when it's dry, in order to finish the cladding at the top of the panels, and complete the weatherproofing. Peter

Ian, Digging in poses the same issues I have with the fence at the rear, namely the lack of access to maintain the shed and inability to get at anything that falls into the gap. For that reason if you have the room allow enough space to squeeze between any retaining wall and the room walls. The easiest thing to do is to halve the problem and dig down a bit and use the spoil to raise the ground at the other end, but it depends on your site, your preferences, and what foundations you use. As for security I am working on the assumption that the finished construction is almost as substantial as a house. The walls are almost 100mm thick and as I found to my cost the cladding once nailed is difficult to remove. Vulnerable points are usually windows and doors, I picked up a brand new 44mm oak door on Ebay yesterday for £50, which when its in the hardwood frame I have should be as good as the house door, a substantial lock or two should make that entry secure. The windows, again sourced from Ebay, are powder coated aluminium, with double glazed units and substantial timber sub-frames, so I'm hoping it will be secure enough, an alarm and security light is also on the cards, and it's close to the house which should help. I think the secret with security is to make it too much hard work to be worth the effort, the longer they spend trying to get in the more likely they will be discovered, so building solid and doubling up on things like locks is likely to be most succcesful. Peter

Then with all your ideals and enthusiasm why not start your own? Its much easier to criticise volunteers doing a job than actually doing it yourself. Peter (under 70, not a Facebook user as I understand from youth it's for old people)

The Logistics of DIY With the new room now having to be built on the site of the existing shed came a further complication, where to put all of the shed contents, plus the old shed, which was to be moved to a new home. This has stretched the goodwill for the project at times, the window cleaner hasn't been able to get around the back of the house for two months, and garden waste has had to go through the house because the side access is full of wall panels. Deliveries of cladding and timber caused further disruption to the house access, and while it seemed a good idea to put the 10mm Celotex on the car in the garage it was too good a surface not to load up with the old shed contents, little realising it would give me a problem in the future when I need to get the flooring sorted in the new room. Its taken getting on for a two years to get to the current position, (walls up and roof structure built), and I'm just starting to get some of the chaos sorted out. The build description is not the same as what has actually happened, as the panels were all built and pre-painted long before foundations commenced. The Tecchie bits With a background of 30 or 40 years in timber framed housing I felt confident enough to produce something that was going to be cosy, some of my decisions might seem a bit out of the ordinary (like putting the floor in after the building was built), but I think I have got most of the construction right. The Quantity Surveying also helped with planning the build down to the last nuts and bolts, and has proved remarkably accurate. With only the internal electrics to source I am about £90 under budget. The budget was set at £1892 plus a 10% contingency, meaning the whole thing should come on at a shade under £2000. This excludes travel costs to pick materials up, and tools that I bought along the way, such as the nail gun for the cladding, as I don't really class them as part of the build, just more toys. So at the risk of being a bit too descriptive here's a detailed explanation of the construction of the various elements, along with the science behind some of the construction. I start with the foundations, and will deal with walls roofing, windows and doors when they appear on the scene. Foundations As with all construction projects the best place to start is with the foundations. I had an existing slab base for the shed, and didn't really want to disrupt it, lifting the slabs just meant more stuff lying around the garden, and which couldn't be removed until the access was cleared. The remaining site was existing garden and a small bit of paving at a lower level, this was going to be brought up to one level until the kind offer of some decking supports meant I could work off the existing levels that were established and stable. I wanted the building to have as little heat loss as possible and the starting place was the floor, 100mm of insulation was thought to be a minimum, and this dictated the design of the foundation. The Actual Build – March 2018 That brings things pretty much up to date, all the pre-planning and fabrication off site meant that it only took one day to get the old shed taken down, the base was prepared over the next two days, with the plants moved from the border and some slabs put down to take the foundation timbers. I was a little worried when we had heavy snow the day after, and fully expecting to find the plants that had been re-planted to wither, but a week on they all seem to have survived. The base only took a couple of days to assemble, wrap, level, and foam fill. Bearing in mind these are old man days, which probably only means about 4 hours of work a day. To keep damp out of the support timbers a membrane of plastic sheeting was laid over the existing slabs, prior to this I had purchased 100 x 100 treated timber fence posts and cut halved joints to form a suitable support for the wall panels and flooring. The timbers were laid out, levelled with packers, and screwed together. Once the base had been checked for square the damp proof membrane was wrapped up the sides and fixed over the timbers, and expanding foam was squirted under any sections not in contact with the packers, to take out any bounce in the structure. Given that the timbers are treated, and are now wrapped in thick polythene, I'm not expecting to see any deterioration in my lifetime. The slightly unusual route of having a floor installed after the walls have been put up does mean that should there be any movement that makes the floor ‘bounce' I can lift the floor and insulation to gain access and carry out necessary packing and re-levelling with minimal disruption. Next task will be to seat the walls onto the timbers, I just hope the calculations have been correct and that it all fits together. Peter

Very true, which begs the question why you bother. Not really, it was fully explained at the time, and subsquently. As you note full accounts are published every year and circulated to members, the controlled reduction in the bank balance was achieved by giving members more for their money than they paid with things such as subsidised Exhibition entrance and bumper sized Gazette publication. It was a controlled reduction that the management undertook precisely because the reserves had built up. Again not really of any concern to non-members, or even ex-members with an axe to grind. Peter

Background Just in case anyone is considering building their own shed/railway room I thought I would share my latest diy project to maybe give some ideas, along with an idea of the sort of work and costs involved. It really isn't that difficult, the major downside being the time it takes and the disruption if you are tight for space to store things. I have always had a bog-standard 6 x 8 ft garden shed, but like many it was cold and damp, so of little use except to store garden tools etc. My chop saw and other woodworking tools were suffering and the shed had become useless except as a dumping ground. Usually about this time of year I would have a tidy up to find the mower and for a week or two the shed was of some use, but still cold and damp. After a bit of thought, and a chance remark from the boss about moving the top patio, I decided to build a ‘proper' shed that would see me out, and which would also give me a workshop and second railway room facility. It was agreed that I could up the size a bit and so planning started. As events turned out the boss changed her mind about the location so I had to compromise on size a bit to keep it on its existing plot, plus a bit of garden. By ‘proper shed' I mean a well insulated draught free, secure, dry workshop with room to stand up in, and which isn't full of garden clutter. So why build yourself rather than buy new? Put simply its a matter of cost, flexibility to build to the exact site available, and getting something closer to a garden room. A 7 x 9 garden shed will cost upwards of £500.00 but that would only give me the same damp draughty structure I already had, while a custom built garden room would be at least 10 or 20 times that. The other reason to do it was that I just like to make things, so it's partly just an extension of my hobbies. The design process had always been modular, so changes in size to fit the available space were quite easy and it has ended up with inside dimensions of 7ft 2 x 8ft 10, (2.2m x 2.7m), not massive, but with an attached bit to put the mower and garden tools in it was the best I was going to get away with, enough to give me a good work space, and room to put the layout up in. I am already fortunate to have a workroom in the house, so this is a luxury that will allow me to spray paint and saw wood in comfort. So for anyone contemplating such a build here are a few observations, lessons learned, and outright c*ck-ups that have occurred over the last couple of years while the preparation, prefabricating, and gathering of bits was taking place First and foremost is the chaos that such a build entails, particularly if like me you buy second hand and need to store bits because you buy them when they become available. The wall panels were designed to fit in my car, which dictated the wall panel height of 1.82 metres, the maximum I could fit behind the drivers seat with the tailgate shut. The reason for this was because I built the panels at my local ‘Men in Sheds’, like all good timber framed buildings, in a warm factory environment rather than on a workhorse in the garden. Panel widths were between 650mm and 950mm, depending on location. The aim was to pre-fabricate the panels to make the actual build quite fast, the downside was having 11 half finished panels lying around for weeks while they were being built. To add to the chaos I purchased 2 sheets of 100mm Celotex to go in the floor, two packs of 40mm Celotex for the walls, and metal roof sheeting with attached insulation, all of which had to be stored. Feel free to ask any questions, or criticise the construction, I probably won't be able to do a lot to change it now, but always happy to acknowledge failings. I will post details of the construction to date, and sourcing of bits over the next few days to bring the story up to date, where it's currently looking a bit like like a shed, with a polythene sheet for a roof and no windows or door, but I expect things to start moving a bit faster now the site is cleared and the walls are up. Peter

Another one for keeping the downstairs WC and fitting a basin if practical, it's useful to stop visitors tramping all over the house, good if you are ill and can't easily get upstairs. On a more mercenary note, I suspect the house is more saleable with the extra WC. As suggested above 'we' might be able to suggest alternatives with a plan, I put a downstairs WC in the back of my garage, and in current re-organisations am considering moving the washing machine and dryer out there as well. Peter

The other major difference is that with Leamington the minute a comment was made on the thread an informative report, detailing a sequence of decisions based on carefully considered thought processes, was forthcoming, and as such fully understood. In such circumstances communication is the key, the Guild seem to be reluctant to interact with the Membership. As a member of both mentioned organisations I received many e-mails from my Club keeping me up to date with unfolding events, - nothing from the Guild, website information that was sparse and out of date and getting updates seemed like pulling teeth. Both organisations are run by volunteers, I suspect both shows had similar financial implications, both have websites, both have mailing lists of members, and both faced almost identical problems in a similar geographical area, it's how you use the tools that are available. - I don't see pages of ranting about Leamington, and I hope and believe that all of the Members stand right behind the decision. The Guild seem to have left a lot of members, traders and 'free riders' quite unimpressed. Peter

The other problem is that it doesn't always work, the Leamington Show was moved to March from January because of the bad weather a couple of years ago! Fortunately prudent planning and Insurance mitigates the risk, and the cost of insuring is relatively small. Whatever decision is made is open to criticism, but in the case of Kettering they seem to have painted themselves into a corner by failing to Insure, putting them in a lose/lose situation, and will now pay the price. I hope that they carry cover for Telford, if there was ever a problem with that show the losses would be well into five figures. Peter

Subject to checking the fire output, ideally with a gas safe guy, one of these might at least mitigate the direct flow in of cold air on a windy day. https://www.screwfix.com/p/manthorpe-core-vent-brown-160-5mm-x-350mm/37873?tc=CA3&ds_kid=92700020239762825&ds_rl=1249481&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=Cj0KCQiA2snUBRDfARIsAIGfpqGA1io24_aU4mQKuVkOjeo8-8nxI_a6j5r4klsJQxPpPEkJJRhDHFwaAruqEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CMiy5a6WwdkCFcU4GwodFbMILQ They can also be fitted with a baffle to slow the air flow, but again you would need to check the fire output. In most cases I have a fairly cavalier attitude to Health and Safety, and Regulations, but in this case you can't take any chances as it's not always you that suffers the consequences of your actions, the regs really are there to keep you alive. And as an aside, get a carbon monoxide alarm in the room anyway, for about £20 it gives peace of mind, to my mind they're as essential as smoke alarms, as you can't tell if you're being poisoned until its too late. Peter

Hi Stu, The vents are usually there to ensure a suitable supply of air to a gas fire or boiler, is there such an appliance in the room, or close by? if so that's the reason, and it shouldn't be covered. The other possibility is to prevent mould growth, well insulated houses need some air circulation, you tend to find that you get mould behind large items of furniture etc. where condensation takes place. If it's been done for that reason you could try putting one of the sliding covers on, which can regulate the air flow, and then monitor whether you get any damp issues. You can get air circulation units that help reduce this risk, just fitted a couple that have solved condensation problem in some small chalets built in the 60's. Hope this helps, Peter

Thanks John, Robin e-mailed me yesterday and a start has already been made on an article for the Guild Gazette, it looks like the May edition is currently being sorted, so it might be next summer at the earliest before it sees the light of day. It was encouraging to receive positive comments from you, and other visitors, there's already one firm Exhibition invite landed in the in box, thanks again for stopping by and chatting. Peter

Wonder where the 'America First' loco was made....... Peter

Hard to add much to what has been said above, but for what it's worth here are my thoughts, if only to reinforce the previous advice. I would never spend money on RTR points, because I'm too mean! There's nothing wrong with them, but your summary almost confirms your unhappiness at the look of them. Building your own is by far the best option to fit the track exactly to your requirements, I have always struggled with Templot, but that's my deficiency, it's worth persevering if only to get templates, and if you get on well with it you can design the whole coherent track plan. Excuse the rust, I used steel rail and it's been in the roof a while, but I think it shows the benefit of doing it yourself. Rail is relatively cheap, that leaves chairs and sleepering, the Exactoscale chairs were, to my mind, the best, I'm unsure if you can get them at present, but C&L are perfectly good, although probably the most expensive bit of the build. For sleepering I use hardwood, cut to size by a local model boat supplier, batches of around 25 strips are selotaped into a block and chop sawed to length in bundles. The sleepers are around 6mm x 3mm Point timbering of around 8mm x 3mm was also purchased at the same time, and is quite cost effective, the sleepering is stained with wood dye prior to use. If you've built 00 points you should have no problem in O, and I would urge you to have a go, if experience tells me anything it's that compromise will cause you to be unhappy in the future, the cost of making one point isn't likely to break the bank and may well solve your dilemma. Peter P.S. as a final thought, you could try soldering up a point on pcb sleepering as a exercise in the mechanics of building a point, at very little cost. If you want any pcb sleepering drop me a p.m. I bought a load of rail at Bristol that came with loads of pcb that I will never use. The other thing to consider is burying the track in ash or concrete, leaving little showing and negating the need for chairs.

Wow, the last couple of days have seen some very kind words, much appreciated. I'm feeling rather chuffed, the layout and loco's performed well today, and it seems to have been well received. I printed half a dozen sets of information for Exhibition Managers, and by lunchtime they had all gone, and I had to resort to bits of notebook with scribbled details. There seem to be about 8 invites in the offing, and a bit of arm twisting for an article for the Guild Gazette, so all in all a good day. The mirrored end seems to go down well, and I think I convinced a couple of people that polished stainless steel is the future. Special thanks again for Mr Kleins excellent loco's, 6and Mr Chetters sounds, both make operating the layout a dream, not one finger poke all day, and only a couple of derailments, one from a junior visitor who had to try the switches on the control panel when I wasn't looking, and the other when I changed the points under a loco. A couple of gratuious photos, of the set up, though they are getting a bit samey now. Andy, it looks like it will be around a few shows over the next year or so, possibly Kettering next year and Warley hopefully, as well as half a dozen others I will have to think about. One day shows are nice, but '6 till '8 is a long day, and I'm still struggling to get set up and break down in less than a couple of hours - such are the problems of lots of buildings in separate boxes, maybe two bigger layout enclosures and permanently sited buildings, something to have a think about. Thanks once again for the kind comments, I will get it unpacked tomorrow and plan out some improvements and developments before its next trip out to Weston Super Mare in September, where it can hopefully catch up with Gordon and Maggie Gravett at last, being on his doorstep. First up will be some improvements to the hopper under the tippler, I fear that once again I left the Exhibition organisers with half a ton of nutty slack under the layout. And the experiment woth factory background sounds with MP3 players and speakers proved a total waste of time, there's too much background noise in an Exhibition. So the next experiment will be wafting the chocolate smell around, I have the smell, just need to get it blown around. Peter

Layout all checked out and cleaned, Just finished loading it into the car for its trip to Milton Keynes this afternoon, though everything is like wading through treacle at the moment, really glad it's only a one day Exhibition as the 'flu aftermath has pretty much wiped me out. If anyones going, drop by for a chat, I'm not infectious anymore! Peter

Just given Palins Yard a quick clean and once over, ready for loading tomorrow, should be over to set up around '5. Hope to see some of you, come and say hello. Peter

Most of this was written over week a go, but last Monday saw a decline into ‘flu, which means several days work time have been lost due to lying in bed, but here's an update, even if it's a bit disjointed. The trip to the Bristol O Gauge show was a double edged sword, seeing Gordon and Maggie Gravett’s Arun Quay highlighted the massive gulf in ability between my efforts and theirs, and a bit like other offerings on the Forum it treads a very fine line between disheartening me and inspiring me, fortunately I was in a good mood, so it has inspired. The other useful find was a Scammell, I have a more modern one for use when I get around to making it, but at £10 I couldn't let it go, it shows that I got the loading deck right, but only serves to highlight the gateway, which I always knew was too narrow, but I'll just have to keep the two apart. The layout has been put up to get some work done before Milton Keynes on the 10th, and the old magnets have all been taken out and the holes filled, new magnets have been installed in revised positions. Using latex for ballast adhesive has proved its worth, making the replacement works quite easy, it was also fortuitous that I kept a small pot of the ballast mix. Saturday also saw a disaster, one of the Minx Microdrive actuators jammed, so I removed the timber cover and cleared out stray ballast, tested, and glued the cover back, little realising that the cover now impeded the actuator throw, resulting in one dead actuator. The problem with this is that Minx ceased trading over a year ago, and no buyer was found for the business. A short term fix was to swap the actuator for the fiddle yard one, but it left me feeling very uneasy about Exhibitions, when I would want to be able to replace a failed component, and I didn't have a replacement. There were two options, replace all motors with servos or try to get replacement actuators. I had already decided to go back to servos, using MERG kit, but that wasn't going to happen in ten days, particularly when I wasn't feeling my best, I could put a servo on the fiddle yard, but it still leaves me vulnerable to failure in an Exhibition. A bit of research on the web showed the old Minx website was still active, (though it transpires the owner wasn't aware of this and hasn't paid the ISP for a year), this gave me an e-mail and ‘phone number, the e-mail got no response by Tuesday so I hit the ‘phone, Wednesday found John Arundel at home and he confirmed the actuators were still available, phew! Very helpfully he put me three in the post, so that was one less problem. By now we move on six days, to the first time I have felt able to do anything on the layout. The Scammel has had a couple of coats of paint, and is starting to blend in a bit better. Thanks to John at Minx the new actuators had arrived on Saturday and the fiddle yard point is now back in service, and I have a couple of spares. Surface mounting may have been a mistake, but I can swap a motor in about 2 minutes if there's ever a problem at an Exhibition. I have made a start on painting the Omen Miniatures figures I bought at Bristol, but the cat is the only one to make it onto the layout yet. And this afternoon was spent putting new canopy posts in, to get correct clearance for the vans, and dirtying it up a bit, as it was still in primer And finally a quick foam core lash up of a canopy was added to the far end of the loading deck as a short term fix. This now leaves me a couple of things to do in the next week, rolling stock needs expanding and weathering, and to this end I've made a start, and secondly I'm working my way across the layout sorting little scenic issues and bits of weathering to buildings. The layout still won't be finished, (are they ever?) but now I'm feeling a bit brighter I have a fighting chance it should be a lot closer. Peter

Quote from selling details for kingscalelivesteam.co.uk/brittania "The fully sprung brass tender contains the re-chargeable gas tank and also carries the water supply for the engine" So it's technically possible. Peter

Damn, I was going to Bristol, now I'm not sure I can afford it. Peter

The rules state it must fit in a cakebox, not that it has to remain in it to be displayed, my thoughts were a lightly sprung top part which would retract when the lid was closed, thus fitting in the box. I think the general sprit and point of the Competition is about modelling, not being too pedantic about rules. - Particularly with the sort of eccentric delight you are building! As with the best Formula 1 innovation and design, the first thing to do is take the regulations and see where the loopholes are. Peter