Fastdax

Happy New Year to all! Lights and other electrics I installed a lighting switch panel under each of the two baseboards. This seemed easier than bringing the wires to the turnout-control panel on its flexible lead. It also allows independent power supplies with no need for a cross-board-joint connector. Each panel has a master switch (the big one labelled "3") connected to a 9V plug-in wall wart power supply and will supply power to the layout lighting. The smaller switches ("1" and "2") will be used to turn off individual lights which I may not want on all the time. A bit of solder tag strip is there to attach wires for the lamps. I will be using LEDs, not grain-of-wheat bulbs, because of their longevity. I also attached an NCE USB interface board under the front edge of the layout. This will allow me to operate the whole layout from my PC as one big USB peripheral. The arch fronts gained some nice brass floodlights (ebay, China) which use small warm-white LEDs. These are wired in parallel but via a small preset potentiometer on the back of the arch board to set the brightness. The garage scene in one of the arches was also lit with 3 hanging ceiling lamps, a light in the office, one in the anglepoise desk lamp and one in the loo. More preset pots allow me to twiddle individual brightnesses. There's a flickery blue LED in the inspection pit, as an arc-welding simulator. This is controlled by the "1" switch on its lighting panel so that it doesn't have to be on all the time. This scene needs completing and has returned with my brother Jim after Xmas for final assembly and detailing. That's a ModelU 3D print of Jim, in his Guard's Van pose!

Hi Simon, Where's this? Duncan

Another option which may be useful, although in a more limited situation, is to put a normal latch or a normal loop at *both* ends of your locos. This will work only if the rolling stock itself never gets turned and always presents the same type of coupling (latch or loop) to the same end of the layout (or, say, clockwise in a roundy-round). The locos can then be turned and still have the right coupling type to connect to the rolling stock. This option is useful only, as I say, in a limited situation. If you need a loco to run round its train of coaches or wagons and couple up to the other end, this approach will not work for you as you will end up with two latches or two loops facing each other. It would work on my end-to-end layout which always has the latch end on rolling stock facing to the right. If the locos had loops at both ends, they could be turned (off-stage as I don't have a turntable!) to give me the option of running them facing the other way for a change. Just a thought ... Duncan

Thanks for the great pictures Salty, I'll be following the Hymek conversion with interest. I'd like to do one myself when all the other locos, wagons and layout are done! Duncan

This will turnout nice, won't it?

... and you'll get a new set of saucepans and a handbag ;-)

I made my own, for Dinghams not Kadees, from El Cheapo Ebay electromagnets like these, with the core extended to be long enough to poke through the baseboard. Details here. They certainly have enough pull to operate the Dinghams reliably. Duncan

No fear of that, my friend. I come to this parish to get away from code reviews. Duncan

Delphi?

Track Weathering As per the Joey Ricard track weathering method mentioned previously, I started splodging a mix of ground-up chalks and isopropyl alcohol onto the rail sides and chairs. This is definitely the "clown makeup" stage! It was complicated a bit by the sections that I'd ballasted, but I was just a bit more careful round the finished bits. As a test, this picture shows the raw rusty chalk effect on the near rail, with the same thing but toned down with black chalk powder on the far rail. Not half so in-yer-face! Next will be painting the (unballasted) sleepers with a lighter shade, which will brighten them up and tidy up the messy edges of the rust mix. I need to hide the uncoupler electromagnet core a bit better as well. Perhaps a carelessly-dumped bucket of ash ... Duncan

I just ordered http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SHL-1-Litre-1000ml-Isopropanol-Isopropyl-Alcohol-99-9-IPA-CHILD-PROOF-CAP-/370553401624?hash=item5646b43118:g:IgsAAOSwyjBW20gP They do MEK and Acetone also - very useful for modellers. Duncan

Is that Redutex? Duncan

Hi Ed, I've just finished watching the DVD, including the M+M Mag-Clic couplers. I must say I wasn't convinced of their general usefulness either. The thing that immediately struck me was "how do you uncouple?". Even with 3-link, screw-link, tension-lock, S&W, Dinghams etc. there is a way of uncoupling (shunter's pole or electromagnet) without having to grab the vehicle and pull hard. I see potential for breaking off small details like coach door handles by repeated handing of the rolling stock when uncoupling. I can see a use in fixed rakes of wagons and, especially, coaches where it's hard to get a normal coupling done up. (I can hear people shouting "Kadees!" at this point though). I don't think a wagon will "push away" from a loco on a siding as these couplings attract each other, not repel. The wagon may well jump towards the loco though, especially if it's a light wagon. Duncan

Illuminated Buffer Stop Just for fun, I converted a solid-state Peco buffer stop to LED-illuminated. This uses a pre-wired tiny SMD red LED, which is plenty bright at 2V. The wires are so thin they can be routed discreetly round the back of the buffer stop and hardly show at all when it's all painted black. There is a tiny bit of light bleed through the back, so a bit more paint is obviously in order. If anyone's interested in how I did this, I can post some pictures of the next one I convert. I dry-brushed the horizontal rails white, but does anyone know what colour they would have been in reality? (BR Midland region, 1962). A bit of rusty weathering powder, followed by some black to tone it down, makes it look a bit more "lived-in". Duncan

Real Wood Sleepers As a diversion from ballasting, and while I was in the garage making wooden toys for kids' Xmases, I knocked up a tub of real wood sleepers for use in making lineside objects. I found an old drawer front, made from a mahogany-type hardwood, in my pile of "useful bits I'll save for later". A few passes through the planer-thicknesser got it down to 5.25mm (9" in 7mm scale). ... and produced a pile of nice brown shavings. I wonder what I can use these for ... ? I set the bandsaw up to take 3.5mm slices (6" in 7mm scale) off the edge of the blank. The slightly rough sawn edges were sanded. Finally, the strips were ganged together and passed under the chop-saw with a stop-block set to 60mm (8' 6" in 7mm scale), resulting in a fine pile of raw wood sleepers. The little offcuts may do to mount point rodding or levers on. Now I just have to find a use for them! Duncan

Ballasting Ballasting the goods yard with cinders is nearly complete. I didn't know exactly where the back edge of the ballast would be, so I knocked up a temporary loading dock from 5mm foamboard to give me an idea of where this will sit. It's as long as the straight part of the rearmost siding at 540mm, which is enough for 3 standard 10' wheelbase wagons plus a buffer stop.. The cinder mix started out as Carrs Ash Ballast (C1180) but I only had a small pot and it looked like it was going to run out. I topped it up a couple of times with a 50/50 mix of Woodland Scenics Fine Cinders (B76) and grey ash from the log-burner. This has given a varied surface which I quite like. Duncan

Track Colouring In the yard, the sleepers will be old and weathered. Whilst stuck in the YouTube zone one day (we've all been there ...), I chanced across Joey Ricard's tutorial on track weathering: http://youtu.be/DrHmPf62A_g?list=PLDxWql2l6eMK19t0yWstA4MTqvqMRn1UC This simple method seems to give a great effect of old, bleached but grimy wood sleepers, so that's what I'll try! After the basic matt back all-over base coat, the next step is to paint the sleepers with a light grey-brown colour, not being too careful about where it goes. Joey uses pre-mixed "suede" colour but I mixed it up from white, back and brown acrylics. The next step is to liberally brush on black weathering powder. I made some by grating up black artist's chalk sticks. It now looks a bit too black, but I can always rub off a bit of the black powder to reveal some more "clown makeup" (see the video above!) beige underneath. Spraying ballast glue around will change it as well. This picture also shows the 3mm ply board I'm going to use as the end wall of the goods yard. It's screwed onto small wood blocks glued to the edge of the baseboard. I'm also PVAing down more cardboard to act as a base for the cinder ballast. I haven't done the rusting step yet as I want to ballast the track and spray water diluted with iso-propyl alcohol around, which may wash off the rust powders. I did try the rust-coloured chalk in IPA mix on another section of trackwork though, just to see how it turns out. This is the dark orange rust mix, applied over matt black paint and toned down with a bit more black powder when dry. I think this is going to look OK. Duncan

More Cobbles I tried a dark grey wash of dilute emulsion paint, wiped off immediately but then sponged back over the more heavily-used parts. I think the colour is much better now. I'm also experimenting with grouting the setts with ash from the log-burner. This probably needs a bit more wiping-off to reduce the over-bright effect. The bit nearest the camera hasn't been ashed yet.

Thanks Kev. I'll try something along these lines for the more heavily-travelled areas (when I know where they will be!) Duncan

Thanks Kevin! I will take your tip about wear on the setts. In your experience, does this make the worn setts lighter or darker? And more to the brown or the grey side? Duncan

Colouring The Cobbles I washed over all the DAS-printed cobbles with a mid-brown wash of Colron Wood Dye (American Walnut). This is the new water-based stuff, not the old (and much better) spirit-based stuff which soaks into wood and DAS a lot more easily. Here are some before shots: During: And after: I made up a small retaining board for the edge of the cobbles at the far left-hand end, out of spare C&L plastic turnout timbers. They were painted black, dry-brushed light grey and set in with PVA. I think the setts are perhaps a bit too brown now. They are quite patchy as well. In one or two places (probably where I spilled some PVA!) the stain has not taken at all. I'll address all this with a second coat of something. Duncan

Thanks Gareth. Now they have a bit of colour on them, they look more realistic (see next post). Slower than Wills though. Definitely slower.

Trackside At bl**dy last the cobbling is complete! With ballasting in mind, I'm trying to get any ground-level items in place first. I extended the turnout timbers to 12 foot either side of the tiebar. I'll later put hand levers or cranks for rodding here. When blended with a bit of filler and paint, I think the joint won't be obvious. The ballast in the yard will be ash and cinders and will be almost level with the sleeper tops, so I'm sticking down card (1.5mm artist's mounting board, which is what I had to hand) to reduce the amount of ballast needed. I'm using PVA glue for this, as anything with VOCs in will eat the foam underlay! Duncan

Hi Rich, Have you considered one of these motion-activated flickering LED units from Train-Tech? Here's a quick video of one of their AL2 units which I got, intending to fit it into a brake van. As you see, it responds to movement/vibraton (it's quite sensitive enough to put in an item of rolling stock and have it activate when the unit moves off). It will run for a minute or so after motion ceases. It seems to have a "false alarm" feature where a single vibration/tap only activates it for a few seconds. It takes repeated or constant motion to trigger it for longer. The advantage for me is: no pickups required, no DCC decoder, no switch, no wiring of any kind if you can plug an LED straight into the unit. The LED in the video is a 2mm red tower LED, plugged into the "LO" outputs. The other 2 holes are "HI" which makes the LED brighter. It's still running on its original CR2032 button-cell battery a couple of years on, although this is not constant layout use. No connection with Train-Tech - just a happy customer. Duncan

Goods Yard It's been a while since my last post, but work has been moving slowly forwards. I have primed the goods yard trackwork black. This was a tester pot of "Liquorice" matt paint from Wickes, which is a useful dark grey rather a total black. I edged the run of cobbles in the inset track with some 4" square timbers (matchsticks), well creosoted (Jacobean dark oak wood stain). I started making a timbered crossing from the industrial under-arch units towards the goods shed. The bit in the centre of the track was already there, made from coffee stirrers. The ramp leading up to it is made of spare C&L plastic turnout timbers. They will be painted and weathered to match. Cobbling also continues slowly. It's just about as tedious as watching DAS dry.