Only-Me

Taking advantage of a slow bank holiday afternoon, sees the ballast returned to more of a grey hue whilst keeping the sleepers grimy and the rust streaks intact.... Also made another attempt at a rock face on the cliffs using rolled up tin foil as a mould which seems to have produced far better results than my previous efforts... Painted undercoat version shown and the white is still wet, awaiting second foil indentaion Oh and just managed a full test and my Class 153 runs around perfectly on all tracks and in all directions... I was rather worried that the track may have been too close to the edge of the board but it seems I got away with it!!

Yesterday i found some time to fix some niggles and finish ballasting... I think I may have got carried away with the sleeper grime over the ballast though! Im sure there will be a way of toning the ballast down a bit, maybe a grey overspray with a fine airbrush nozzle will do the trick. Have also taken my Dremel to the track so the boards can come apart again now!

Another idea I have had is that a new piece of platform was added after the old double line closed, curving it round over the ballasted area to within a few metres of the tunnel

Morning all, a bit more ballasting last night, this time on board 1. Question for my avid readers, does it look better with the ballast laid to the old bricked up tunnel or should I leave it as in the picture above... Bear in mind the station is straight on that side and the track curves away to enter the old down line from where the end of the only remaining platform will be.....

Sorry about the picture, it was taken on my phone, however it's better than not having one at all... So heres the first of the ballasting (had a bit of an issue with spilling a jar of PVA mix everywhere, however I've mopped it up now and waiting for board 2 to dry before tackling board 1 The signal box will sit in the ballasted area between the old loco siding and the main line to the left of the picture...Note the double tunnel mouth currently in view all be it un loved at present A piece of track has been roughly placed to show where the funicular will begin to make an appearence at some point later in the year.. Obviously it's a little bright atm, it will be covered with another spray of Sleeper grime once both boards are ballasted....

Pull it out and post it to me please, even from the bin it'll be better than anything I can make

So now the track is down and i can run a gonk around I thought i'd start what i like best about modelling, the details!! Layed down an airbrush covering of sleeper grime from railmatch, let it dry and begun to rust the rails!! Once thats complete i will add ballast and another coat of sleeper grime to tone the rust down somewhat.... PS I am aware i havent added the sleepers for the gaps yet, thats a mistake oops!! Saw it when posting photos so a job for the weekend!!

Quick update. All wiring now complete back to d plugs to mimic panel, however i must have been on another planet though when i drew up the wiring to switches diagram as nothing matches !!!! Have to get out the multi meter tomorrow... Ho hum One day maybe i will be able to post something moving which isnt the spider that lives in my garage

Will hopefully have something running by the end of the week, just need to join the wiring to the d plugs now and buy four new seep motors... Its been a task that i thought would fly through however i was very wrong!! This is the left hand board... Needs a bit of tidying but you get the idea... Task was slowed somewhat by me using droppers which kept falling off so had to remove them all and wire to track directly

No pictures today I'm afraid, however 13 point motors are now fitted and wired, I need to purchase another 3 hopefully tomorrow at the Watford show. DRS class 20 20112 made an aborted attempt to travel the scenic section of the layout at 23:00 left the double slip, ran up the down line and down the up line satisfactorarily before a mysterious short appeared shutting down testing operations.... I'll try getting to the bottom of it at some point.. my guess is a crossed frog on a turnouth somewhere... ~ Thought for the day drinking beer on a bank holiday and having an ebay app on a phone is not clever.... Arrivals today included a GNER Class 91 with 5 coaches which doesn't suit my era or area of operations.... Can't even run it on HF either.... RULE 1 may have to take licence here....

I was beginning to have reservations of continuing as boredom had set in with this wiring lark!!! Anyway i slugged away at it again this evening, fitted 8 sets of points and wired up the whole of board 2..... Not as yet tested so if this becomes my final post you know I probably went pop with the layout!!! ......Onwards..... Well probably next week as Horseley Fields is in Watford Saturday for a show and i need to fix some parts on HF first!!

Hi all, a few more boring updates. But hey Im kind of using this thread as a build repository so heres a little bit more progress... I got bored with wiring so slapped some more cliffs onto the board.... DO NOT BUY WILKOS FILLER!!! Its taken two days to dry and im still not convinced.... Looks good though lol! So next back to the arduous task of under board wiring Notice ive become a little neater More boring stuff but we are getting there!!'

Apologies for a lack of updates, unfortunately the control panel became a touch complicated and had a bit of a rework.... Still heres a little hint of just how complicated it has been to wire and solder!!! As you can see the mimic board and control circuitry are now mounted over the fiddle yard. Reasoning for that was for easy access if an issue occurs and also we have issues with stock getting knocked over on Horseley firelds during operation, so I decided this was a better way of ensuring it stays on the tracks rather than the old method of reaching over all the stock to control the layout...!! 18 wires to go!! - The left side of the board you will see two voltage rectifiers (£5 each from ebay) which have a variable resistor pot, so you can set the exact voltage you require on the output side...essentially the whole mimic board, lighting, point control and the CDU are now powered by one old 19V DC Dell Laptop Supply rated 4.5A which I had kicking about.... Hopefully the wiring can be tidied up a bit with some more tie wraps when Evil Bay sends them!!!

This is taking longer than anticipated as I used bi directional Leds! The two pictures show only the top left section functional at the moment, if you look in picture one the points are straight. Picture two shows them in crossover mode but the centre led hasnt come out very well on the picture. Think i shall have to reduce the voltage a tad as i'm beginning to get Ark Eye!!

Hello all, heres todays update, My home made points control panel...made in Visio, laminated and then mounted on ply. You will notice holes for leds which will run the mimic panel using a pcb purchased from www.blocksignalling.co.uk so it knows last set point position

Hi Ben, I'ts a Brass kit so I've got to build it first .... So the basic instructions said it needs to be mounted onto a flat board at 45 Degrees... The flat piece of ply you see is angled at 45 degrees so hopefully it'll be ok on that in some form. I need to cut out a piece of the base board at the lower end of the flat ply, so when a car is at the bottom it is level with the base so a building can be scratch built around it. As for the top, I am toying with raising it up a little bit more to give it a longer run. the two cars run along code 55 track with a16mm gap between each track on a pulley system with motor and reed switches mounted behind in the void. I think we'll probably be best to get; as you say the basics done and keep the flat part clear until decisions on other scenic things have been made. I'll email you a copy of the funicular instruction sheet so you get an idea of what I hope it will do Also once it comes apart when the ballasting is complete and all the wiring is done I'll bring it up in the car for an idea gathering event!

I think the photo is a little confusing, hopefully ballasting and tidying the top will clear it up, but thats another episode

Bit more work over the last few days, a second layer of filler gloop added to the front cliffs, mixed in with a pot of black Tamiya acrylic (as no powder paints available!) to hide the white filler colour a touch. Smoothed over the wood base too as it needed slight levelling. Also started on the back river valley supports for the Funicular and the edging. Need to add some proper outcrops etc to the front cliffs and some cut up foam to the fine wire mesh of the river valley to form the sides before mod rocking it. Also now finished all the wiring droppers from track to under board level. Next is to finish the points in the station area and ballast the scenic section because I cannot split the boards apart now until I've cut through the track which in turn cannot be done until the track is ballasted properly!...

Thanks Ben. to be fair the mrs makes exceedingly good cakes The filler has dried more of a cream colour, however yes I do take your point, so not having any powder paint I wonder if I could throw in a bit of acrylic to give it colour...as that is plentiful in my modeling collection..hmmm.... at the moment, the layers are so thin that in places you can feel the foam still (which is why I do think I'm leaning to modrock as its less mess and only required one layer, then I used to cover it with watered down filler but I didn't get the rough finish I was looking for with modrock it was always very smooth (not good for cliffs!)... So I'll try some dark grey acrylic paint in the mix later on in the week and see what happens.. Added a better picture showing some work to remove ripples and runs as it was drying..

Gap in the middle? Oh yes, thats the board centres i need to cut and glue in some thinner foam here... This was more of a test to see what it comes out like being a first attempt so the foam is not fixed very well at the moment, howerver judging from the look of it this morning i will be fixing it securely with some mastic from behind and applying another coat of filler...