Mick Bonwick

Not a small lump, no, Tony. When I said that I fixed it by leaning on it, I meant leaning on it. The fit of the right-angled flap end is an interference fit, deliberately. It always fits just right in the horizontal plane, it's only the vertical alignment that's not yet quite right every time.

The instructions on DCC Concepts website show you precisely how to turn off self-centring. I sugest you go and have a look. Follow the instructions and the problem will go away. I know this!

The other half of the lifting flap protection electrickery has been completed today. If the flap is lifted there is now a 2' section either side of the hole that has no electricity to it. I stood in the gap and waited for it to fail, just in case, but it didn't. A lot of movement of heavy boxes was required to achieve the work under the boards, and I was expecting the vertical alignment of the track join at the flap edges to be affected. It was! The first time the flap was lowered after wiring completion I found that there was a 1mm drop off the flap onto the main board. Leaning on the flap solved that, but it does show that things still move about a bit. One solution would be to use a bolt between flap and main board to locate the flap, but it would need to be totally accurate and I don't think drilling holes into wood can achieve that. I have some gizmos somewhere that were created by a fellow member of the East Hants Area Group of the Scalefour Society a long time ago, so when I find them I'll install them.

That is a splendid idea! I love gadgets, especially the ones that are actually useful. Just to avoid me having to go on the Internet and search for one myself, thus taking up more time than I have to spare (ahem!), would you be willing to share your source? I'd appreciate your views on the end result, too, so that I've got somebody to blame if it all goes wrong. Seriously, though, the fiddle yard is just behind where I will sit and operate once everything is finished. By the time that has happened I expect I will recognise locomotive numbers from the train content that is easily visible. Maybe.

I have a spare one if you'd like me to donate it. You could keep it in reserve, between the Shiraz and the Malbec.

Odd lumps have two main causes. Paint that has not been mixed completely and paint that has started to dry inside the airbrush. Even with cheap airbrushes it only needs there to be a minute speck of unmixed pigment to cause splattering. If you have a motorised mixer then that is probably the least laborious method of thoroughly mixing paint, if not then you'll need to spend a long time mixing. To be absolutely sure there are no lumps entering the airbrush you could filter the thinned paint through some muslin before putting it in the cup, but that can get messy. To minimise the paint drying inside the airbrush, flush through regularly with white sprirt (it's cheaper than Phoenix thinners). P.S. Turning the pressure down will introduce splattering rather than get rid of it.

Now that most of the track is working and not too many things fall off, I've cleared the decks and put boxes back under the baseboards. I've sorted them into a better order than they were in before, so now I'll spend much more time searching for things. More testing has been going on today, and I've discovered two points (turnouts) where the common crossing is not getting juice in a particular direction. This came about because I was running an 0-6-0T, deliberately, with a short wheelbase so that I would find the very problem that I did. One of them is being caused by the point motor (Cobalt) not quite reaching the end of its travel, so the contacts are not being made internally at one extremity, and the other is because there must be a break in the wire from the common crossing to the polarity switch on the Cobalt. The first will be corrected by removing and repositioning the Cobalt, and the other by soldering a new wire from the inside of the common crossing V (above the board) to the existing wiring loom connection under the board. JMRI has been put to the test today, as well (Sorry, Rob, the computer program that controls the track power), and seems to be doing all that it should and nothing that it shouldn't. I am using the 'portable' Digitrax system (smaller, lighter, fewer wires) for this testing because I still need to be moving around the layout while checking the progress of trains. I'm quite getting to like the control handle as a way of controlling the speed. What you can't see is the Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale sound emanating from the speakers.

In that case your comment should have been preceeded and followed with a whole string of laughing emojis, just for the avoidance of doubt. You really must buck your ideas up!

Actually, Kevin, that's a class J through freight train stopping at intermediate stations. Please try and get it right. Your public expects it of you.

You could simply get a pointed tip for this iron.

You have two problems, I think. The size of the tip and the wattage of the iron. The small tip needs plenty of heat in it to get both surfaces up to the required temperature to melt the solder and create the join, so you will need more than a 15W iron. I use a 25W iron for all my electronic soldering, especially with a small tip of the type required for surface mount components. I'm not an expert, but I do listen to those who are.

I should have expected nothing less from you, young man. I guess you're a straight DC man, if you know what I mean.

Thanks, Tony, that's a good suggestion, especially the bit about not gettting up. I do have a spreadsheet where train formations are set out, so I could do it using that.

No photograph(s) today, so go back to what you were doing just now if you wish. I won't be offended. When I first started this thread I chose to use the Modelling Real Locations as the most appropriate place. Now that I have read many other accounts of people's modelling of real locations, I'm not sure that this is the right place. I'm not going to change it now, though. It will still be some considerable time before anything is produced to prove that this is Easton, Isle of Portland. I now have the track laid and wired, a fiddle yard that will provide far more trains (of more than one vehicle) than I need and a JMRI panel that allows me to sit and change points without leaving my chair. What I don't have is enough memory to recall which locomotive is at the head of which train, so I still have to leave my chair to go and check before entering the DCC identity on the handset. And that leads me to the control system that will be used as things progress, and those that have been used in the process to date. I don't remember exactly when it was, just that it was a good few years ago, but I had been considering using DCC for locomotive control for a while when I went to a Scaleforum at Leatherhead and attended a presentation by Mick Moignard all about this DCC technology. This made up my mind for me and also resulted in an invitation to visit Mick at home and see it working first hand. I subsequently opted to use Digitrax equipment because it did everything that I decided I needed it to do and there was no other system available in this country, at that time, that could achieve all of that. This system was used to drive trains around one half of the railway built in the loft space of the Alton Model Centre (4 track main line with branch, extensive engine shed, mainline terminus and goods yard - it was featured in the 2020 edition of the Railway Modeller Annual) and could be switched out to normal DC operation by use of relays. Since then I have tried several other systems from Bachmann's original Dynamis through Hornby Elite, NCE Powercab and Gaugemaster Prodigy to establish suitability for other people's layouts, but still like my Super Chief. There are many other systems now available and some of them outperform what I have, but everything I want from a system is still provided by what I have, albeit upgraded from the original components. There came a point in time where I found out about JMRI and wanted to evaluate that, simply because it was technology for the sake of it. In order to keep it away from the main layout I invested in a Sprog (Mk 1) and proceeded to play with both it and the software to control a small removable part of the Alton layout that consisted of a small TMD. The ability to store all those CV values and load them to a decoder (I detest the use of the word 'chip', even though everybody else uses it) and change them, reload them, etc., from a keyboard was an amazing discovery. I was hooked and made the decision to use JMRI with the Digitrax equipment to control the whole of Easton. When South West Digital first introduced their Class 24 project on ESU LokSound decoders, I had to have one. Sound familiar (pun intended)? A class 37 installation followed that, and there have been a couple few more since. I have yet to hear a steam locomotive sound project that sounds convincing to my ears, but have to admit that I do have a couple of Hornby Schools class with it installed. They only do one circuit, from rest, with the sound turned on, though. There are now several people who are good at producing sound projects and I plan to try some of them out soon. I have obtained all that is necessary to fit a Paul Chetter project into a Hornby R&H 48DS, which might feature on here one day. I don't think one of those ever ran anywhere near the real location of Easton, but one of the stone quarries could well have used one and there is a spur off the track layout of my Easton that will be a stone quarry . . . . . . . . .

No you haven't. It's right next to the signal box and I can see that quite clearly.

I'm not familiar with a Gaugemaster DCC80, but I do use a Tam Valley Depot FrogJuicer, which has an LED to indicate that a change has taken place in the 'polarity' of the current sent to the frog. Have you been able to check with your non-working points that the current to the frog has actually been changed when the point setting has changed?

More than once. Usually because I've forgotten what I read previously.

There's space round the other side for more volumes.

Nice to see some different views. The viaduct really looks good, especially with a train on it.

Quite right, too.

Still working in the area of the infamous lifting flap. One of the aspects of this area is a bookcase to hold all the copies of MRJ and NG&IRMR that have accumulated over the years. The 2" x 1" and plywood that were used in the layout construction were originally ordered with a fair bit of excess for this very reason. The bookcase was constructed several years ago but has never fulfilled its original purpose, until today. Much sanding of top and base was done to ensure that the top of the bookcase would support the flap in the right places, the legs of the main board were screwed to the floor and the bookcase was screwed to the baseboard frame. Nothing now moves! Except the flap, of course.

One thing you're not likely to get on RMweb is consistency! Many modellers have tried many approaches to many problems and found solutions that work for them. That doesn't necessarily mean that those solutions will work for other modellers. I have mentioned the screw and solder approach to rails across baseboard joins here: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/151137-easton-isle-of-portland/&do=findComment&comment=3979571 To explain a bit further, the track is aligned and laid across the already perfected baseboard join without any form of fixing, and the places where the rails cross the join are marked on the board surface. The brass screws are then inserted far enough away from the board edge to not split the wood when they are screwed down. Pilot holes are drilled so that the positioning can be checked before drilling correct sized holes for the screws. Screws are inserted and screwed down to almost the height of the underneath of the rail. The track is then positioned again and the screw are incrementally screwed down until the top surface of the screw is fractionally below the rail under-surface. The rail is then cleaned and tinned where the screw will touch it and the screw heads are similarly cleaned and tinned. The screw head will act as a massive heatsink, so I use a 100w soldering iron to complete this bit. If your iron is less meaty then it will take longer for the solder to take on the screw head. The rail can now be accurately positioned and the two tinned surfaces joined quite easily just by touching the join with a 25w iron. Once everything is level and aligned the rail can be cut with a razor saw. If you really want to be neat and tidy the sides of the brass screws can be filed away to the same width as the rail, but that's not something I did on my second build. Too fiddly! I relied on paint and ballast to hide the screw heads the second time.

My approach to this has, in the past, been to lay track and wire up a pair of boards together. Start by making sure the pair of bards are accurately aligned. Test the alignment by separating and joining them several times. Once you're happy lay the track across the joins and fix it down. Where the track crosses the join fix it down by soldering the rails to screws set in the frame, or PCB sections attached at the board edge. Once the levels and alignment are perfect you can cut the rails at the join with a razor saw. Take one board into the house and you can then start on the remaining board and its other partner in the garage. I have done this twice, the second time more successfully than the first. The difference between my situation and yours is that the garage where they were built was a good few miles from the house where they were installed. It worked for me, but you may be able to alter and adapt the process for your own needs. Or disregard it altogether!

No you're not. Don't tell fibs.