Caley Jim

Fantastic Jim,

 

They all look superb, Can I ask how you do your lettering, lining and crests?

 

I was resigned to Photo reducing some 4mm transfers or are there 2mm versions available?

Thanks, Angus.

 

All my lettering and crests are done by hand with a fine sable brush, 000 or the like using thinned enamel paints.  Recently I've taken to using white artists acrylic for wagon lettering.  The lining on my early locos was done with a bow pen directly onto the model, but on the last 5 I've built, plus a repaint of No. 29, I've used the following method, which I've just described on the CRA forum:

 

1. Stick some strips of sellotape to a smooth tile so that they butt up against one another

2. paint a thick coat of gloss white enamel onto the sellotape and give it a good 24hrs+ to dry

3. with a bow pen draw a series of lines in black gloss paint or indian ink leaving a couple of mm between them and allow to dry

4. with a new No 15 scalpel blade, cut lightly either side of a black line, leaving a small edge of white

5. carefully lift the end of the strip of lining thus produced and gently peel it off the sellotape. This takes a bit of practice and some strips will break.

6. dip the strip in a 50/50 mix of varnish and thinners and then place in position on the model using a couple of cocktail sticks to align it

 

For curved lining, leave the strip in the varnish mix fr a little longer and it will soften sufficiently to allow you to bend it gently round with the cocktail sticks. The curves around cab and frame cut-outs etc. are a we bit too tight for this to work there, but I have got away with doing it with a few short straight bits. The lining has to be cut short of the corners and they are filled in with a fine brush.

 

There are no transfers available in 2mm as far as I am aware.  I'm embarrassed to say this, but the late Colin Brady showed one of my coaches to Fox Transfers at a Glagow show and asked if they could produce transfers for the crests.  The answer he got was 'Not as good as these'.    

 

Jim

For anyone who is interested, I've posted some photos of my locos at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/61066-scottish-locomotives/page-8&do=findComment&comment=1836754 .

 

Jim

A thread on the 2FS layout i currently have under construction is at the link in my signature.

 

Jim

Earlier I wrote: "I built one of these in 2fs some time ago using etches reduced from John Boyle's artwork. "

I should have mentioned that this loco can be seen emerging from under the bridge in the last post on my layout thread - link in the signature below.

Jim

In a bout of blatant self promotion I am intending to document a scratch build of a Caley 171 tank in 2mm over on the "Build a loco Challenge forum".

 

All advice, encouragement and criticism gratefully received, although I reserve the right to ignore the latter

I built one of these in 2fs some time ago using etches reduced from John Boyle's artwork. I'm away from home at the moment and don't have any photos of it on my tablet. It has a Branchlines minimotor (which I believe is no longer available), 2mmSA gears and disc bogie wheels kindly made for me by a now deceased member. I intend posting some photos on here of my CR 2fs Locos when I get home and have caught up on all that I have to do after a month away.

Jim

.......... There's something about chocolate and cream coaches that is irresistible .........

 

Jerry

But not as irrsistable as purple brown and white. :-)

 

Jim

Just found this thread and notice that it's dominated by 4mm motorised biscuit tins, so thought I'd balance things up a bit with a mention of my 1885-1915 period CR layout Kirkallanmuir. Thread at the link at the bottom of this. A couple of photos of track laying in progress.

Jim W

It would be a waste to use whisky, but whiskey might be acceptable!

Out of interest I notice that the leading tarpaulin'd wagon has a representation of ropes - I have and will want several wagons with tarpaulins over them, and am interested to know what you've used for the ropes - I considered very fine wire (I have some 0.003" stainless steel wire that I thought might be useful if I could colour it (probably by chemical blackening)).

 

Ian

I use fine sewing thread.  My wife has quite a selection of colours.  I think that one (which is a Graham Hughes GNoS open kit) was straw coloured thread, treated with some dilute brown acrylic colour to make it more 'rope' coloured.  This also helped to take the hairy look off the thread.  The thread is wrapped round the buffers and then secured with a spot of cyano.   On my CR wagons the tarps are tied down with pale blue thread as Caley ropes had a blue strand through them.

Jerry,

 

It's obviously bridge building season!!!  

 

I see you're even putting the stonework under the arch!     

 

I was severely criticised by the Forth and Clyde group's resident engineer because I hadn't put in the cross girders under mine!  

 

Jim

I thought the big tubular bit between the fire box and the smoke box was the 'steam generator', but what do I know?  

 

Jim

Phil has beaten me to it, but another tool to use is a strip of hardboard about an inch wide and 6-9 inches long. Taper one end to 1/2 inch wide and use the end to rub the track. This will polish the rail without causing any abrasion. Of course the track has to be free of any gross contamination first. To remove paint from the rail head after painting new track I made a scraper which I described in the magazine.

Jim

I think I should have read the instructions more than once and referred to them during building - rather than reading once, then losing the email again,  and building based on what I could remember and 'reading' the etch from a design perspective.

Richard, I've had a closer look at your build of the wagon and I notice a few other things you've missed as a result of not having the instructions.

1) The tops of the corner plates should be trimmed flush with the tops of the wagon sides.  Essentially, you've left part of the tags still attached.  This one had me worried at first as i thought the corner plates were located too high and i couldn't figure out how that could have happened!

2)  You haven't folded down the axlebox lids before you removed their 'handles'.  They should slope down from the back at 45°.  Should be easy to fix provided you haven't soldered them to the W-hangers!

3)  Once you've folded down the lids, you can then bend the top of the spring buckle back over the top of the spring.

This photo of a finished example should give you the idea.   Usual apologies for the crap lettering!

HTH.

Jim

Very nice, different and interesting as well, the outside w-irons and just one brake block. An early design I take it, or were outside w-irons common on CR stock?

 

Izzy

It's an early, pre-diagram book, wagon, based on a Ken Werrett drawing. Outside W-hangers were common until around the early 1880's.

Jim

I did manage to mix up the outer laminations on the chassis and didn't realise until late on. At this stage I decided to drill the solebar for the brake lever rather than try to reassemble small parts that had their handles and tabs removed.

 

Should there be a hanger for the brake cross shaft on both sides of the vehicle when there is only one brake shoe? I've resisted filing it off for now. I've just realised I haven't fitted the parts for attaching a horse - sorry!

No, Richard, the brake hanger is on one side only. A simple direct connection between the lever and the brake block hanger. Nothing at all on the other side. Do you feel that I should have made that clearer in the instructions?

Jim

Not heard of this supplier before. Is there a web site?

 

Mark A

I'll send you a list when I get home Mark, if you are interested.

Gratifying to see that someone else has been able to build it!

Jim

Glad folk are finding it of interest. I'm away from home most of this week, but will try and take some more up to date pictures next week end.

 

Jim

The scenic aspect of the layout was started by building the bridges carrying a minor road across the colliery end.  These span the main line and and the down headshunt, the colliery branch (forming the scenic break for both of these) and the throat of the interchange sidings.  I didn't want anything to grand for these and found this prototype, of which there are two examples still extant, over the trackbed of the former Symington, Biggar and Broughton Railway (latterly the Peebles branch of the CR).

 

 

The only way I could see of producing the girders and fenced parapets in anything like a neat and regular manner was to have them etched, so they went on a sheet along with the turntable sides.

 

The abutments are built with a shell of 40thou styrene clad in stone embossed sheet.  I tried several ways of producing 'bull faced' quoins, but none of them satisfied me, so I ended up making them plain using 20thou styrene and fitting the stonework around them.

 

The nearest abutment was built first and painted to check that I was going to be happy with the result.  The second pair of abutments have had the stone cladding added, while the two far ones are just the basic shell.  The decks are 60thou and slot into the top of the abutments so that they will be fairly easy to remove if access to any of the turnouts underneath is required.

 

Here the stonework has been completed, the sides have been attached to the decks and some basic scenic work has been started.  All the parts of the bridges are just sitting in place.

 

A rather cruel close up of the bridge over the colliery branch taken from the colliery side.

 

The finished bridges and associated retaining walls painted and fixed in place.  The roadway has a covering of card, with strips of paper across the joints with the decks.  A slurry of thinned down DAS has since been spread over this to form the road surface.  Should a deck need to be removed, it will be a simple matter to slit through the paper with a scalpel and then repair the DAS afterwards.

 

The scenic groundwork has been built up ready for texturing in this area, along with the area in front of the turntable.  At the back the road has been laid and the docks for the cattle landing and agricultural merchants warehouse are in place.

 

The structure in the right background is a rough mock-up of the warehouse building.

 

That was as far as things had got to when a move of house became imminent and the layout was boxed away for some 18 months.   Now that we have moved it has only recently restarted.  In the meantime I made inroads into my gloat box and spent time designing some more etched wagon kits. 

 

 

I remember they had home made W irons with a centre popped bearing. I followed the article and made some myself. I could never get them to work:-(

Thankfully I joined the Association and you could buy W irons and bearings:-)

 

Jerry

It was either home made or nothing in those days! ;-/   It was also a case of loose (disc) wagon wheels and cut and pin-point your own axles from hardened steel rod - not easy to do and get concentric when all I had was a Black and Decker drill!    It did take a bit of fine adjusting to get them to run freely without them dropping out.

I still have all of these wagons, except what Sir Eric Hutchinson's drawing called a '6-wheeled carriage truck', which in fact the Caley called a 'scenery truck' (Dia. 92 I now know thanks to the CR wagon book).  Its rather fragile styrene sides disintegrated eventually.  (Memo: must do the etch artwork for one of these).  They now all have etched W-hangers and some are compensated, though I've become convinced that that is not needed on 4 wheeled vehicles.    The little swivel wagon you mention currently does service as a runner for an open with an overhanging load of planks, but I intend to do an etch for a similar one and have a rake of them carrying a load of tree trunks or the like..

 

Thanks to Gareth and Don for their kind comments on 391.  She's rather a favourite of mine and is a type pretty much unique to the Caley.  They had several classes of them and found them useful for work in colliery etc. lines which had tight curves.

 

Jim

For a beginner, Jim, you're showing a lot of promise!

 

Tim

Hi Tim,

 

With a bit of 'practice'*, one of these days I might be nearly as good as you!

* Tim knows what I mean.  

 

Jim

The turnouts are connected to the actuators in their "Normal" position (i.e. the spring will return them to Normal), so the current draw only occurs when they are "Reversed".  I assume that you have yours connected in the same fashion.

 

Ian

Yes, they are and I make it my practice to return the turnouts to normal as soon as the movement is complete provided the turnout will not require to be reversed again for the next move.

 

Next installment:

 

The turntable is modelled on the 50ft Cowans-Sheldon 'table at Carstairs and is driven by a Clearbox motor from Rapid, mounted on a sub-base fixed under the baseboard so that it can be removed easily for maintenance if necessary.  The sub-base also has the well modelled on it.  As the table only has one track leading to it and so will always make 180° turns, it is worked from a dpdt switch in the Interchange sidings bank so that it rotates alternately clockwise and anticlockwise.   An arm on the shaft engages with a long-arm microswitch at each end of the throw which switches in a diode, cutting off the power, but setting it up ready to rotate in the opposite direction when the switch is reversed.  The radius of the arm is 100mm (the diameter of the 'table) and the micro switches are on adjustable bases.  this has resulted in very fine adjustment of the stopping positions being achieved such that it now stops reliably and accurately every time.

 

A couple of views of the arrangement under the baseboard.

 

Power is fed from the same supply as the turnout actuators, the speed being governed through a circuit on the Rapid website to which i was kindly directed by my consulting electronic engineer, the late Paul Martin.   It takes about 40 seconds to do a ½ revolution, which is a reasonable compromise between prototype and operating convenience!

 

Above decks, a perspex block is fixed to the shaft which has three holes in it.  the deck of the table is mounted on a further perspex block which fits over this and has three pins to engage in the holes.  The weight of the table is taken on two brass skids which ride on the rail in the well.  Not only do they control the height of the table, they also carry current from two sections of the well rail to the rails on the table, such that the latter are only energised when the table is aligned with the track and are the same polarity as the approach track.

 

The two perspex blocks, the pins and the skids can be seen in this view with the deck removed.

 

The 'table before painting.   The girders are etches of my own design.  Sorry about the track rubber in the well at the back.   It was propping up the deck for the last photo and I forgot to remove it.  ;-(

 

After painting and the addition of the walkway around the well.

 

391 on the table with the buffer stop in place and scenic base beginning to encroach on the left.

 

Finally, a shot from the operator's side with the, as yet unpainted, retaining wall sitting in its place.

 

Since these shots were taken the scenic base along the front of this middle board has been built up, but that is as far as this area hes got.

Hi Ian,

 

As you can tell, my actuators are on the crude side of stone age compared with yours!  As far as the electronics are concerned i am an ignoramus in that department - volts, amps and ohms I can cope with, after that I'm out of my depth!  ;-(

 

Jim