katwigan

Hi all, in typical fashion I have been working on various projects on Wallgate including,: Trying to cure some derailing problems at a particular diamond crossing, attempting to get another couple of locos chipped and running ( seperate issues! ) and on the building front working on the old WIgan Tech / now Town Hall. Last one first, Library street that the building is on isn't particularly wide so decent photos of the front facade are practically impossible from a 'straight on' view point and being quite tall ( 4 stories ) virtually any shot ends up quite distorted. However having spent around 32 hours playing around in GIMP with an assortment of pics sorting out perspective and colour issues I was reasonably happy with the result. Particularly as the building will be about as far away from a viewing point as it can be and that it will be peering over the top of several other rows of buildings I thought I should print something out to place in position to evaluate the finished size of the building. Anyway A few of the shots that I used to generate the finished product. The Front Entrance ( note the colour and cleanliness) The lower section of the Front R/h corner Both photos above are courtesy of Mr Google The next pic taken by Dave Green was the best pic of the upper detail on the corner sections, however please note we now have three different colours in play! Anyway the end ( almost ) result being after much cutting , pasting, correcting perspective issues etc etc I ended up with the depiction below. My original sizing of this produced something that I couldnt print out onto A4 paper being far too big, fortunately when I finished working the boss donated the A3 sized printer I used daily to my 'retirement fund' ( actually he said he could never figure out how to use the B thing ) The resultant printout indeed was far too large so more trial and error required . Then of course after all this work along comes this image! Now I am not sure what to do, other than printout appropriate sized photos and see which one looks better. Last photo is of the latter of the two versions sitting roughly in position, it is however smaller than I believe it should be, also there are several rooflines missing from between the photographer and the location. Much more to do! On the loco front I have been fitting a chip into an old Mainline Jubilee and trying to decide if I am wasting my time or not. The track issue may need what I should have done in the first place which was to build my own diamond crossing on a curve ( both lines ) instead of mutulating, bending, realigning, mutulating the existing Peco one. Ahh the holes we dig ourselves. Cheers Kevan

And here was me thinking it was where they put the oil in for their version of the Seuthe smoke generator,

Hi , I have been experimenting a bit with two other options, the first is 'Linka 'style mold cast in plaster ( hence all the blow holes) Using a better quality casting product would probably reduce that issue. Also I think the mold was marketed as a stone wall. The other method uses Das clay and a 3d printed roller set from shapeways, that will need a lot of trialling to get the joins right but they would work very well set into the tracks as shown, not sure if they do a wider roller tho. Ignore the double lines in a couple of areas, that was my inaccuracy in aligning the set up. Edit; The clearance grooves for the wheel flanges are on the roller that is made to do that part of the job. Kev

I have just posted some photos on my 'wigan wallgate ' layout thread of a water tank that contains Woodland Scenics Murky water product, yes there is an evident 'meniscus' however with the murky appearance of the water it isn't that obtrusive. I think it looks better than using some muddy water from a puddle and i shall certainly be using it in the canal (when i get to that bit ) The layer in the tank is 6 or 7mm deep not that you can really tell the murkiness however is still transparent to some degree. Kevan

Hadn't mentioned it before but the water depth is about 6mm, in real life you can see through it to the painted card insert that 'fills' up most of the tank, I would guess it depends upon what you are going to 'fill' Andy,a river bed shouldn't be an issue at all . Vertical sides, tanks,canals etc are where you have to hide / ignore the meniscus. Hey most of us put up with track gauge that is a mile out, whats a little meniscus between friends ? Kev

Hi Andy, I have tried to measure as best as I can from the top edge of the tank down until I 'hit' something against the tank wall, the meniscus appears to be around 1mm, however with the dark colouration of the water it is practically impossible to see, certainly when the tank is in pos'n as it will be approx 2' back from the front edge of the layout. I have tried taking a couple of close up shots with my SLR camera and it can be seen moreso in the corner between two sides than along the sides themselves. It does appear to be more evident around the two water pipes, again however, they are against the near side wall of the tank so it is not apparent. Hope this is of some help, certainly will use it for the canal lock and canal, may just need to disguise it a bit because of the relative location of the two. Cheers Kev

I have been carrying on with the water tank over the last few sessions, having found the rusty guitar strings ( not on the guitar I might add either, although that was next ! ) I had also found "Woodland Scenics Deep Pour Water - MURKY". So having sealed (hopefully ) the joint lines against leakage and given that area a wash of Brownish Grey paint and having decided against a couple of Vodka's to calm the nerves I started to pour the allocated mix! Nothing happened, no spillage, no leakage all down the front, no burst seems or joint lines just a layer of murky water that showed that the board the tank was sitting on obviously wasn't level, hence all the bits of cardboard in the first pic as I hastily tried to get the water level parallel to the side wall! ( the other way round actually ) After a tense 24 hours I checked for the umpteenth time that nothing had run out and was relieved to find a solidified layer of murky water with no blemishes and a highly reflective but still transparent surface. The guitar wire U bolts and the inlet valve handle are also evident in one or the other of those two photos. The next shot shows it in it's final resting place, although it is not secure there yet as I still need to do a bit more weathering. The last photo taken from above shows the reflection of the curtains and the window that are above the layout in this area while the colouration under the water of the rear wall of the tank is still evident. All in all I am very pleased with the result, the pour of 90ml was less than 1/4 of the contents leaving a good amount for when I get round to the canal and lock, which if memory serves was decidedly 'murky' the last time I saw it . So the whole job came in at approx $15.00 with about $10.00 of that being the water. I still have a few issues with track and wiring to sort out although I am able to send several trains off for a few laps around the layout without too much duress, As the lift up access flap is just behind my workdesk seat I get a lovely clickety click as each subsequent train passes over the currently largeish gap at each end of the flap. Unfortunately I had to trim the ends of the track and the flap off during the first summer after I had installed it due to leaving it in the closed position when a bout of hot weather came and I couldn't get it open even with the Air Cond. on. HAHA Right what to do next......mumble mumble.... Kev

That is all coming along a treat VB, however I can't quite make out if the sweet shop sells "Uncle Joe's Mintballs" .HaHa. I like the idea with the 'seperate ' boxes foer each shop interior, would make them easier to work on. Kevan

My Grandad was an engine driver based at Prescott st. during the war years, mum tells the story of him coming home in the early hours of the morning once soaking wet and covered in mud, when questioned about his appearance by my nan he explained that he had spent half the night " wit fireman n't guard sittin in't cut", Further questioning revealed that a stray Bomber had spotted the glow from their firebox and had followed them from Liverpool towards Wigan and that when the first lot of bombs rained down all around them they had taken the appropriate action of " large steps in the opposite direction" It turned out to be the second time that night that he had been rebuked with a terse "Typical !" Grandad always said at least the shed foreman didn't have to wash his uniform which added insult to injury as far as Nan was concerned. Kev

Ok, Anybody fancy a laugh?, as already mentioned I have been working on getting the trains running again, it has been over 18 months since anything ran so some fairly intensive cleaning was required in some areas . Well now in the process of cleaning the track and getting things moving amongst other things I have used RAIL-Zip 2, having used it very succesfully in the past letting the train spread the little spots of it around the track . Imagine my surprise when the train actually stopped after I had 'spotted ' some on the track in one of the lesser accesible areas under the main board. Now you will laugh, I didn't, nor did the wife or the dog, or the Spider hiding in the corner when I discovered that there is a marginal difference between the two bottles shown in the photo below! No prizes given for guessing which one had just been used on the track. The goodness that there are no points in the area!!!!! Whilst it didn't actually glue the train in position it certainly retarded it's progress / insulated it from the track quite well! Anyway the good news is that having recleaned the offending area and confining the bottle of non - RAIL ZIP 2 product to a secured cabinet during track maintenance I have now had two loco's and associated trains happily circulating. The Bachmann Ivatt 3mt with 5 carriages behind at about a scale 35mph took approx 6 minutes to complete 1 circuit, an actual run of about 220 - 230 feet, my maths may be off a little there, but a decent run leaving from Platform 2 and arriving back into Platform 2. If I can video the run without wobbling too much I will see if I can put it on Youtube. Have managed also to do a bit of tidying up in here so the place doesn't resemble a full scale Steptoe's yard. On the Water Tank I figured that if the steel beams could be wrapped in a rusty printout why not the supply and drain pipes. There would be no way I could reproduce the look of rusty pipes with a paint brush, just need to find,pain and fit the valve handle and some retaining straps to hold the pipes in place, Hmmmm I have some rusty guitar strings around here somewhere, I let you know how I get on. Kev

There are any number of videos on You Tube that have sound tracks of babbling brooks, thunderstorms, gentle rain, ducks quacking etc etc. Most of it can be found by searching for 'Relaxation....' Several programs capable of seperating the audio from the video quite easily and you don't even need to leave the comfort of your computer chair. Kevan

Tom , you can't get any farther away from home I would have thought, so unless it involves space travel I guess you will be closer to Wigan. Anyway I will hang onto anything I put together for the time being until you let me know one way or t'other. Anyway it is certainly good to be back in the harness so to speak, things are starting to progress, As I said earlier having got the Trains starting to run again is good, though I still have some cleaning and a bit of wiring to finish. All the Best Kev

Hi Nick, the platform base is made from 5mm thick foam core board which takes hot melt glue quite readily, is quite strong in the vertical plane but quite flexible in the horizontal as used. The flexibility enables the the vertical walls to be curved in an easy manner and glued down as you go. The platform surface is a 3mm version of the same stuff which will eventually have individual paving slabs glued on, ( in an effort to reproduce the cracked and uneven surface that I remember ) Hopefully that makes sense and also hopefully I will get around to finishing it off sometime soon. ( Situation normal then ) Kevan

Thanks Grahame, my missus keeps asking me where and when I am going to put all the grass and trees down, suffice to say her understanding and mine of the terminology 'Urban' seem to vary somewhat (Particularly in the centre of Wigan). I have allocated a couple of areas of grassy embankment to ease the tension a little on the subject. :agree:Oh and I guess the church grounds that will be at the back of the layout wouldn't really do it either as they will be mainly on the backdrop. DCM, about 10 cents I think and about 1/2 hour, I guess it is more of an adjusting tool rather than a gauge though. There appears to be any number of gauges but I would seem most folk resort to fingers and screwdrivers and misc. to then try and set the B to B. The only limitation would be you can't ensure that both wheels move the same amount but as they are out of position to start with and only need to move 0.4mm then are we that worried? Havent checked any of the loco wheels yet although the chassis would be in the way if you tried to use the same principle. Might try the idea of a handle screwed into the device to a) hold it by, b) do away with one of the spanners. Cheers for all the ticks guys. Kev

Well I have been sharing time between trying to get the trains running again, wiring up the new sidings and continuing the build of the Water Tank. Last first , the Water Tank. Eventually got it to stand to roughly the right height and got the support beams for the tank in place. I don't trust my painting capabilities so ended up wrapping the 'H' girders with some printed out 'rusty beams'. The next step is to fit the water supply and drain pipes in place before adding a few layers of PVA 'water' and as there is no roof in evidence perhaps a migrating duck. We will see how the first few layers look before commiting to the duck. Now in getting the trains running I had a couple of carriages behind the Bachmann Ivatt tank which led me to discover the frequent derailing of the carriages was nothing to do with my track laying but that the B to B was as low as 14.1mm on one set with an average of 14.25mm. All measurements done with my Digital Calipers as shown. Having recently purchased a number of sets of both 14mm dia carriage wheels and spoked wagon wheels of both Hornby and Bachmann I set about measuring some of them ! Yee Gods some of them were even worse straight out of an unopened packet! In reading a few posts on here it would seem that I am not alone in finding this out, It does make you wonder what method of assembling these parts do they use ? Anyway I spent some time then trying to find a tool to suitably reset the dimension, It would appear that there are many gauges available but not a lot of options in regard to a tool to enable easy resetting, unless I wanted to purchase a tool the equivalent cost of a rake of rolling stock! So a quick step back into my Maintenance Fitter days produced this. I don't know if I have subliminaly reproduced something that already exists or not but, a 6mm x1mm pitch screw provided the basis, I drilled a 2.5mm hole through the length of it and cut it to 14mm overall ,including the head. The next step was to cut a slot through from one side through the head, thread and a nut. This allows the whole thing to drop over the axle inbetween the offending wheels Two small 10mm a/f spanners allow adjustment then of the B to B at the rate of 0.25mm per 1/4 turn and I used it both on the replacement wheel sets and in place on the carriage as shown. The photo below shows I have gone slightly over setting so I guess I had better work on one to reduce the dimension now. Anyway, the end result is that the carriages now happily can be propelled through the previously impassable area, so Now all I have to do is measure / reset all the others ! Kevan

No Richard, it is a bit of a mixture of scalescenes brickwork ( I think ) and assorted bits blended with doors and bits from Mr Google's search results all attached to the shell built from 3 or 4 layers of card cut out on my silhouette cameo machine. If you're still with me after that mouthful, the whole design being as near as i could get to photographs of the actual buildings on the corner of Wallgate and King St West in Wigan. Indeed a number of the buildings on the layout are actually manipulated photos of the real buildings suitably revamped to take them back to the late 40's. I have a pdf version of some of the furniture that i used if you would like a copy, it would save you a bit of time. All the best Kev

Terrific row of shops VB, like the sweet jars idea particularly, I don't want to push in here but I'd like to see what you think of the interior of the furniture store I did on my Wigan Wallgate layout as a method more than anything. The furniture is merely suitable photos shrunk and printed in high resolution then stuck to pieces of clear acetate and positioned, it's location at the back of the layout, about 3' away from the front renders any bits of clear invisible anyway. I probably spent far more time trawling through Google for suitable furniture than anything else and yes I know it looks like Boris Karloff's Frankenstein's Monster trying out the lounge suite, noticed the similarity only after installation. Cheers Kevan

Thank you DCM ( if I may call you that) It has taken some while to get as far as I have, however the prospect of slightly early retirement will help me get along a bit ( after I get non-railway jobs out of the way !) In the mean time amongst other things I have been moving the Water Tank along a bit, I really don't know why it was a) so large in area. b) so high, but I have rechecked several times and if anything it is slightly small in area . Still needs assembling and weathering but I thought I should try it in place before I do that I also think we need to do a bit of a tidy up, ( it looks even messier the other way !) Cheers Kev

Hi Khris https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace/miniatures/scenery/?q=&sort=popularity&facet%5BpdcId%5D%5B%5D=550&facet%5BisCustomizable%5D=0&facet%5Bprice%5D%5Bmin%5D=1&facet%5Bprice%5D%5Bmax%5D=2500&facet%5Bprice%5D%5Bfrom%5D=1&facet%5Bprice%5D%5Bto%5D=2500 There are quite a selection of styles within the Track and Ground section of 'Scenery', they certainly appear to be quite robust and don't distort under quite firm pressure. Good luck Kevan

Cheers Ian, thats another good tip, doing that would probably save 30 - 40% of the DAS material. Still need to do some more trials before i get into laying setts in the yard also with getting the colouring right. Kevan

Good point beast, I had better get the soldering iron back out..

Hi all, I have been working on some of the wiring mods needed due to revised track layout adjacent to the exchange sidings and the bottom of the incline at Wallgate, so Apollo I am hoping to get some trains running sometime in the next week or so. Not sure if I am going to have more or less time to work on Wallgate since joining the ranks of the unemployed a week or so ago, unfortunately the engineering works I was working at part time is closing down, however SWMBO that I work for seemingly full time has ideas beyond my means! Anyway to more serious matters, the majority of the ground area around the exchange sidings ( see earlier pics) appear to be well covered in stone setts. a rough calculation says I need about 5sq feet of setts , they need to follow the curve of the sidings and will probably end up being covered in coal dust. A couple of options available to me include covering the area in DAS or similar and scratching about in it for days / weeks - Don't fancy doing that !!. Secondly using a Linka compatible mold that I think was sold as a stone wall but would make great setts, unfortunately all in a straight (ish) line - That's going to mean so much cutting and shutting - Don't think that would look too flash either. Thirdly I purchased a couple of rolling dies from Shapeways, one that will follow the line of the tracks and hopefully the other will fill in the areas between the tracks. I stuck a couple of bits of track down and had a go using Das and the rolling molds, then washed a bit of colour on, I think I could make this look ok and it certainly would be quicker ( and hopefully easier ) When I have finished wiring the sidings I will have a go at laying setts, stay tuned for an up date on the outcome Kevan

Err, I don't know where the attached Thumbnail came from, mine obviously but how it got there ??????? Kev

Well 2 updates in one day, amongst everything else I have been playing with the Silhouette Cameo, partly trying to remember how to use it and hopefully to stop it seizing up ( like me ) Any way success on both counts with success in drawing, cutting and assembling of the Water Tank that used to grace the far side of the tracks adjacent to Wallgate . First part of the job is to draw in a CAD program then send it to the Cameo ,( for much more info on this process have a look at " A Guide to using the Silhouette Cameo Cutter Started by JCL" in the Scenery, Structures & Transport Forum ) The rather poor looking cut out was me trying to cut something 0.8mm wide out of rather poor quality card. The second photo shows the second attempt using the better quality card that I normally use. The various layers laid on top of each other, prior to assembly The proverbial one I prepared earlier. Including dirtying it up a bit with some Charcoal etc This showing the long side of the tank, partly dirtied up. Tom that's a view of Westwood House sitting in the background in the last shot, as I said I must get it finished and send it to you, hopefully soon. I will post a few more shots of the tank as I get more of the assembly done, sooner rather than later hopefully. Cheers for now. Kev

Hello all, Finally I have got back into doing a bit of work on Wallgate in this case the Exchange sidings as some would know them between the North West Station and the lines going under Wallgate itself into Wallgate Station. This required a bit of carpentry and a fair bit of thinking / planning on my part trying to keep the elevation relationships correct as the main lines drop down under Wallgate and the sidings are roughly at a level with it. ( If that makes any sense ) This shot is looking from the siding throat area towards Wallgate, alas due to space limitations etc the number of sidings has had to be reduced significantly, they also, in following the main lines have had to turn into curved sidings . And a slightly more elevated view, showing the fact that I havent finished the outer siding as yet ( Ooops ) hence the misaligned rails A shot taken from above Wallgate showing some of the pristine P O wagons that in the late 40's should be looking anything but, I will need to find suitable weathering powders soon I think. The joint line in the baseboard section adjacent to the unfinished track laying is there to allow the board at this end to hinge upwards providing access to the return loops hiding underneath. A few ex LNER area PO wagons have snuck in, must have been on a detoured train heading for Liverpool or similar, allows for a bit of loco variation. It certainly feels good to get back into modelling after several months of feeling fed up with a complete lack of motivation towards practically everything, still havent got a taste for beer or chocolate back, although I am feeling much better now for having dropped all the weight that I did. Kev