rdr

Rather than go down the usual wood frame baseboard construction and mess about with dowels and sockets to get the joints smack on, i remembered i had bought some aluminium bed frames from ikea years ago for £2 ish each. I bought eight which was all of them that were left, if for nothing more than the ally sectional framework thinking i could make some machine enclosures for my big mills. They measure 64" x 80" in old money, 1.6m x 2m in metric and are "L" shaped extrusions and have steel angle brackets for the corners. There are short legs that finish off the corners, which can be added too, to increase the length for a workable height. Here's a pic of the frames set out. Here's a close up of the corner posts

not for this situation i guess

I completely agree with your rant, some bidders assume that you will change your mind after the sale is done. Ebay are in the business of providing a sales platform and want that to be as effective a money earning platform as they can attain, so anything that upsets this will be filtered out. They will side with power sellers over the occasional buyer every time there's a dispute, even going to the depths of changing policies mid way through a dispute.

years ago the newsagents used to tear off a small section of the paper to prove they were not sold, and i guess they were refunded without having to return the papers.

Today the construction is starting, one board of the four to start off with to test all the parts. The cranes, traction motors, electronics, computers, software, movements of the containers from land and ship, and anything else i've not thought of.

i've not had any experience with a stay alive device, but surely they would be placed on the dc supply to the decoder after the dcc was separated from the supply. If you put it on the motor side it would keep the motor running when you decelerated. Again this is purely from an outside viewpoint as i've not used one, so please correct me if i'm wrong.

you could move the outer supports out and add small support plates fixed to the helix plates

you could buy a portable generator suitable for charging the car and run it in the boot with an exhaust directed out of the car. Saves on the ved.

omg, i'd rather go to maplins

sod maplins, i went round to my local Miss Millies (KFC alternative) last night and they've closed, i was nearly in tears. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO NOW.

Here's the answer to all ev's. why oh why are we worrying about the time it takes to charge and the cost of charging and where to get the car charged. The answer is extremely simple. As petrol/diesel car owners do we own a refinery, do we own a petrol station, of course we don't, we rely on this to be provided for us and we pay for it. Here's the answer, and it's so simple you'll kick yourself that you hadn't thought of it yourself. Manufacturers will have designed the cars so that the batteries are removable from the underside in a pack, you then drive into the original petrol stations that are now converted for ev's. Your near exhausted battery pack is removed and replaced in a short time and you pay for the power available in the replaced pack. I told you it was simple.

I managed to pick up a Hornby hst set with extra coaches for £25, sounds odd for an intermodal depot, but there will be a passing line so i need some eye candy.

That seems a better use for it, if Harrys happy for you to have it it's fine with us. Email him and have a chat.

a lot of Zeppelins early tracks were old blues songs. Have you heard this version

Possibly on a minor scale, but also i have a big workshop. I tend to keep electrical items for parts.

What usually happens with the cheap meters is the rotary switches start to gain resistance. So every time you use the meter the problem gets worse, but you don't realise this until you've made a mistake. I have a box of useless cheap digital meters, some i've hardly used that have still failed, some within warranty periods. Don't be confused by well wishing comments saying it'll be ok for most modellers use, because it won't. Well it may for a while, but then do you have the ability to recognise when it's not working right. You need that meter to show you what is being measured, that's its job, you need to trust it.

i've bought loads of aldi type cheapo meters that work well for a year or so then start giving bad readings. Then i bought a mid range fluke meter which i've had for over 7 years now and it's still an excellent meter. Buy a cheapo if that's all you need, but don't expect it to last. Mine is a 115 and it cost me about £120 ish, i've never regretted buying it

Let me know when you decide to let them go.

now if there was one twice the size for sub £1000 i'd have to buy it

looks great, what printer is it and what cost?

I've still got some old Hornby container wagons here with P4 wheelsets in them, but no i haven't seen the newer models close enough to evaluate them. I was looking at producing new bogies for whichever ones i decide to get, which would cure any problems that arise. The general idea is to have two or three large cranes that can unload and reload to the trains and possibly a small bit of lorry movement, but i see that a storage area will be needed so that's got to be worked in. I don't think modelling an existing depot will be practical, so the old modellers license will come to bear a bit.

Thanks SG, a very in depth reply. Yes i agree two smaller ships may be better than one large, and provide more interest. I have up to 36' length and 4' width to play with if i have to downsize where i am, way more at my workshop but i must keep within certain limits. I will be using several cranes that i'll build to suit the layout, and i will be visiting my local freightliner depot for a walkaround to get the feel of it. This has been brewing for quite a few years, so hopefully it'll start soon.

I don't intend to move the ship at all, so the trains would be timed to suit an imaginary timetable. I'll have at least three or four trains waiting for containers from the ship unloading sequence, and returning containers waiting to be reloaded to the ship. I'm happy to have an area where surplus or out of position containers will be stored, it all adds to the interest. If exhibited this would be blended in to keep the layout flowing and interesting.

I had planned for a ship around 2-3m long and was looking to make it myself, as i didn't manage to find anything when i searched. I only need a waterline model but that first one looks reasonable enough to have two of them, which would keep the depth of the layout a bit smaller. Well spotted. Although i'm producing this in P4 i'm no rivet counter, the reason for P4 is the track just looks so much better and that extra 2.4mm between wheels helps with the active traction motors. I'm no stranger to P4 having built and run a small station layout based on Cleobury Mortimer many years ago using C&L track parts and Exactoscale Lima bogie conversion kits. That was radio controlled and worked so well that i wouldn't consider having track power again. Now that DCC has taken such a stronghold there's scope for a major upgrade for DCC.

yes they are pretty big.