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Dave John

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  1. Dave John
    So its a model railway site, why blog about research? Well, research is half the fun of building a model and while doing it you find out about all sorts of interesting things. Even if you don’t end up building the model it is still an important part of the hobby as a whole.

    Anyway, I mentioned last week that I fancied building the elevated section across the window based on the L&D at Bowling Harbour. Research starts with maps, drawings, photos and descriptions. But if possible nothing beats actually going to see, measure and photograph the real thing. So myself and the Caledonian pup sallied forth to have a closer look.

    So, a bit of a general view. The swing bridge is under the big white cover, currently undergoing repairs and restoration. The whole section of the line is now a walkway / cycleroute, part of the route all the way along the north clyde, and well worth a day out.




     

    The viaduct was built in the early 1890s, so a first guess would be that it be built in the local red sandstone. A closer look shows that it is a mass concrete structure, with powdered sandstone used as a colouring. An excellent set of guides to historic buildings in Scotland is available at;

    https://www.historicenvironment.scot/archives-and-research/publications/?audience=7&publication_type=41&q=Short+guide

    Many are interesting in their own right, but the salient point is that Bowling Harbour viaduct would have been one of the earliest mass concrete railway works.

    So a closer look, thats 3 colours of concrete.



    A view of the underside of an arch, the “day joint” can be seen where water has seeped through.



    From the end, shows the concrete parapet. Just a selection of the 60 + pictures I took.



    So all I have to do now is build a model of it. Well based on it.

    All in all a good day out, goes to show that railway modelling is more than just sitting in the house making things.
  2. Dave John
    Well, I got a bit diverted again this week. A friend was in looking at the layout and asking what I was going to do with the curved bits across the window. I had thought about just doing a curved embankment, but my friend suggested that with a bit of geographic bending I could have a go at the mouth of the Kelvin. Back in the later CR days there were shipyards capable of building sizeable ships served by lines from the CR and NB, but there were quays and moorings of a more modest size before them. I also had a prototype, further down the clyde at bowling the CR lines ran very close to the river and were on a viaduct close to the harbour.

    Hmm, bit of a quart into a pint pot, but it might just work. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of a basic mockup. River kelvin, rails on a bridge over it, leading to a lowish viaduct along a quayside, land rising along the banks of the kelvin valley, which was fairly wide before the retaining walls were built. Just messing about with ideas really.



    From the other direction


     

    So opinions ? Does it look daft as an idea or do you think I might just get away with it?
     

    Oh , and I made a stand for the signals. No point in having plugin in signals unless you have a safe place to put them when they are unplugged. The 7mm blue thing next to them is a whole other story, as they say…..
     


  3. Dave John
    It has been good pup walking weather, but I have done a bit of modelling. The CR used a variety of point levers at different times and in different places, but in one photo of the area I think I can vaguely see a lever which I vaguely think is a McNee's pattern one. All a bit, er, vague, but sometimes period modelling is for want of a better word, vague.

    As it happens Southwark Bridge Models do an etch, though they label it Macnees point levers. Close enough given the passage of time. They are available from Roxey Mouldings.

    So etches made up. A bit fiddly, but they go together accurately.


     

    I added a tiny bit of iron plate to the bottom.


     

    Thats a 1mm magnet buried in the ground. Well, glueing things down just isn’t my way any more….



    The finished article ready for use. Although cosmetic the arms do swing over.


     

    Mind you, the contractor that fitted them will get shouted at for leaving his bogie up by the buffers.


  4. Dave John

    No. 583

    By Dave John,

    I was asked about No. 583 , so it seems like a good opportunity for some thorough cleaning and maintenance. It started life as a couple of secondhand DJH models bought second in a box of half built “parts” . Some of the tender and detail parts were usable, the rest is in effect a scratchbuild.

    So stripped down. The motor is from a cd player drawer mechanism, motor mount is bits of brass, I can’t remember where the worm and gear came from. Wheels and coupling rods are gibson, sprung hornblocks may well be too. The rest is just cobbled together. I use a fair amount of copperclad pcb board, strong and makes putting pickups in much simpler.




     

    And there we are, back in service. The polished condensing pipes may or may not be accurate, I have one pic in which they seem to be shiny. Either way CR drivers were noted for polishing up bits of engine, the go faster customisation of the day.


     


  5. Dave John
    I had access to good pictures of both wagons as built, but I wanted to have a go at giving them a slightly weathered in service look. Nothing as drastic as some stock, but the appearance of a few years of doing a job.

    Base coat is just rattle can. There are few sets of transfers for the CR, so I make my own with “crafty” transfer paper. It works, but tends to be difficult to blend into the side without leaving a bit of a ridge. I just use powders for weathering, easy to adjust if I get over enthusiastic.

    Anyway, harshly side on.
     




     


    Painting is not my top skill, so these have come out to a reasonable look. Like most of my attempts they look better from a distance……


  6. Dave John

    A tunnel signal.

    By Dave John,

    I have been building the plug in signals, but it is a slow job. Well, I'm slow at it. So here's one we prepared earlier as they say.

    Tunnel signals are a bit of an oddity modelling wise. How often do you see the inside of a tunnel modelled? You also don't see many photos, particularly of the early ones. Not surprising really, " Mr Victorian photographer, please go into that dark tunnel full of smoke and steam with all your gear and do a very long time exposure of a fairly boring looking signal " Hmm.

    I knew that quite a few railways had them, essentially a moving spectacle plate with a lamp. I also knew that the CR had them for the low level lines made by Stevens and Sons, but that was about it.

    Then along came the excellent "Signalling the Caledonian" by Jim Summers. No photo, but even better, a dimensioned drawing. Well, that was it. A dig through the boxes of scrap brass yielded the top of and old plug prong about the right size and I was off….

    The whole thing is made of bits of brass. A bit fiddly, but its the same methods that you would use to make any other sort of signal. Having photographed it close up I see it could do with some paintwork touching up.

    So a couple of pics.





    A dark one to show the lamp.


     

    All the gubbins including the servo are mounted on a bit of veroboard below the baseboard. Just apply 12 V and a high / low to move it . The white plastic thing is a coupler to focus the bi colour LED onto the fiber optic light guide.




     

    Which begs the question, having made it what do I do with it ? The down platform starter at partick central was about 20 yards beyond Benalder street bridge, with the actual tunnel descending towards the low level lines a few hundred yards beyond. Which in my case is just the other side of that brick wall. So I think I'll invoke my modellers license and put it towards the back under the bridge itself. Yes, I know it technically speaking wouldn't have been there, but it is a bit different and worth stretching a point for.
  7. Dave John
    I have managed to completely wreck two signals in my modelling career. On both occasions I caught the finial in the sleeve of a jumper and managed to bend them neatly over at 45 degrees. Trust me, lattice post signals do not bend back straight. As I age I realise that the more magnification you put on your head the less you know where your elbows are.

    So, at the back of my mind has always been the idea of making signals which plug-in easily so they can be removed when working on the layout.

    My list of requirements was thus. Firstly they should plug in and out without messing about with connections both electrical and mechanical under the board. Secondly I wanted them to have a small footprint, rather than them sitting on a plinth which could support a monumental statue of the Duke of Wellington. Thirdly I wanted both the signal and the lamp to work.

    I had intended to do some design work for the stairs from the station building to the platform this week, but events distracted me from that. Last Friday at the SECC I had a good chat with Jim Watt who has produced some exquisitely detailed work in 2 mm scale, and I was admiring his signals which are fully working and plug in and out of a small baseplate. Then on Monday I happened to be in B&Q, and was surprised to find that they sell brass section. I was even more surprised to find that it was real brass rather than rather than some odd alloy covered in brass paint. So back home with with a metre of six millimetre by six millimetre brass and some eight millimetre angle.

    Anyway, this is my Mark One plug-in Signal. The signal itself is an old one, just used here for the purposes of seeing whether the idea was at all feasible.

    This is a picture of what I ended up with. All bits go inside the channel section which is soldered to the base of the signal. The key here is that the coupling between the the servo and the signal is magnetic, an idea I borrowed from Jim. The whole assembly is 75 mm long and could realistically be made a bit shorter. There are two 2 mm Circular magnets in the post itself, and a 10 millimetre by 5 millimetre magnet glued to the servo arm. The servodrive module here was made by embedded Controls, who are no longer about, but many others are now available.



    The socket into which the signal fits is soldered up from brass Channel, the bit of copper clad and the nickel silver wire forms a contact for the led lamp. Since it is fitted from underneath the board and sits slightly shy of the top surface a layer of base scenic material can sit right under the signal.







    The servo can he mounted anyway that is convenient. I made this with the open section of the channel to the front of the signal, clearly it could be made anyway round to suit a particular layout location.

    Well, Here is a shot of what would be under the baseboard. The magnet on the servo arm does not actually touch the rear all the brass Channel, a gap of about a millimetre means that the signal can slide past the servo magnet easily.



    A general Picture of the Signal, showing the small footprint, and one of it lit up.



    The whole thing can simply be pulled out to prevent accidents with jumpers.


     

    Several modellers, including myself in the past have had problems with servos swinging wildly during the powering up phase. The torque produced by a servo is quite sufficient to damage a signal if it does. However one advantage of coupling the server to the signal magnetically is that the servo swing is not physically transmitted to the signal itself, so it can't damage it. Possibly a useful idea for coupling servos to mechanical devices in general.

    I think that gives me the confidence to use this method for the actual signals that am going to build. As ever, all comments and suggestions welcome.

    It was fun playing about on the bench again. Might sound silly, but getting in there with brass and solder is one of the most satisfying things I do.
  8. Dave John

    A bit of shunting

    By Dave John,

    I have been enjoying a bit of shunting. There are two reasons, firstly I enjoy driving the trains I make, and secondly the layout has been sprinkled with post it notes based on the proposed signal diagram. The idea is to check that the possible train movements could be properly controlled from the signals before actually making and fitting them. So while I was at I thought I would take a few snapshots of moving trains. Just for fun and to see how they turned out. The answer is a bit grainy and of dubious focus, but hopefully conveying a sense of movement.

    Here goes.

    No. 245 bring a coal train in westbound.



    Run past the trailing crossing ready to shunt back to the eastbound line. Shunting signals needed there.





    Across the crossover. Pulling 17 wagons half of which are whitemetal is one thing. Pushing them through pointwork is a stiffer test. Thats them on the eastbound line.





    Ok, time to split the train. Thats a bit of old rail with a 1mm magnet stuck to it attached to a cheap keyring torch. Seems to uncouple AJ s rather neatly.



    Off the main line and onto the headshunt. , I think that would be a ground signal on the siding at the trap, and possibly a dwarf the call the train back. Hmm.



    Half the train into the coal siding.



    Back for the other half, the brakevan uncoupled.



    All in the right place.



    And there we are, 245 and brakevan now running correctly eastbound, a distant just past the box interlocked to the storage sidings.



    Seems like it might just work…..

    Sorry if thats too many photos, I really should learn how to do videos.
  9. Dave John

    Of elbows and rodding.

    By Dave John,

    I spent Friday with my elbows metaphorically glued to the front of some very impressive layouts at at “Model Rail Scotland”. Hello to everyone I met and chatted to there.

    Then yesterday I actually managed to superglue my elbow to my own layout. Really, stop laughing. I have been putting in point rodding, an operation I can only do if I get close enough to see the damn stuff. Hence the elbow on the layout……
     

    Anyway, got there in the end. Parts are by MSE including the correct 0.4 mm ns rodding, thank goodness the CR boxed all the difficult bits in.

    A few pics of progress.





    (I will get this depth of field thing eventually)


     


    My main concern is expansion in the summer, does anyone have experience of problems ?
  10. Dave John

    A Wall.

    By Dave John,

    I suppose most folk would look at that title and think “ how boring, its just a wall “ . Well, to an extant it is, but it represents something new for me. You see I have always painted with enamels. I ( like a lot of modellers I expect) started off with Airfix kits and we painted them with little tins of enamel. Since it was what we knew we just kept doing it.

    But I looked at forums and I kept seeing rather good models painted with acrylics. In the back of my mind was a feeling that I really should have a go at that. So, over christmas I happened to wander past a local art shop who were doing a special offer, 48 tubes of acrylic and a pack of decent brushes for £22. You have to start somewhere. I refrained from buying an easel, a smock and a beret.

    Anyway, this bit of wall is my first go at painting things with acrylic. Might not be the best bit of wall painting, but it was real fun doing it. I like squeezing a selection of colours out and playing about mixing them up. Far easier to remove when you get it wrong than enamels too. All rather visceral, lots of putting paint on and smudging it with cotton buds.

    There we are, its not really a blog about a wall, its a blog about me learning something new.



    There is quite a lot of it.


     

    And heres the caley top brass turning up to inspect it all………


     

    Cheers.
  11. Dave John

    Knock down columns.

    By Dave John,

    Building a couple of wagons made pleasant change, so back to a bit of work on the layout itself. The way things have worked out I have ended up modelling 11 of the columns that hold up the bridge, a slight compromise since 3 more would be right at the backscene and just wouldn't fit. Of those modelled 7 were fabricated from riveted channel, the 4 on the platform were circular cast iron.

    No real problem then, the riveted ones from styrene section, the circular ones from brass tube with the fancy ends soldered up.

    Then I had a think. Even with the bridge removed I am going to have to stretch over there a bit to clean the track. At some point I am going to clonk one of them and break it. No doubt about it.

    So I made them up to the right height with a bit of transformer lamination glued to the foot. Get them all in position and mark out where the feet are going to sit. Then cut a 1 mm deep recess in the baseboard to suit the magnet, glue it in and stick a 10 thou plasticard cover over it.





    Ok, so with some cling film tightly wrapped round the foot of each column I messed about until I had them sitting on their magnetic plinths in just the right place. Lift the whole bridge off, then a base scenic mix of sand and ash very carefully working in round each one. Dilute PVA applied in the time honoured modelling tradition.


     

    Next day and the test; had it all just got stuck together with PVA? Much to my delight it hadn't , the columns just lifted of with a gentle pull, cling film removed and thats it. I have tried the knocking them over test, they do just knock over without taking any damage and can be put back into the magnetic socket with ease. In fact, with just a bit of a knock they spring back of their own accord.



    Finally a general pic of that end of the layout.


  12. Dave John
    I might have mentioned in the past that I don't like fixing roofs to things. Nowadays I now like to be able to get inside. I once cut a glued on roof off a brake van to get inside and change it only to discover a dead spider in there. Now I just find that having them come off easily makes painting or adding a bit more weight simpler. Previously I have tried press studs, bits of wire in tubes and cotton, all with variable success. This time I think I'll try something different.

    You might have noticed that a number of specialist firms are out there selling magnets. Exotic stuff, neodymium samarium cobalt and other lists of elements that would keep Tom Lehrer amused for ages. All in different sizes, and these days a lot cheaper than they used to be. So I ordered some to have a play with.

    Some messing about later I decided that 2 magnets , size 10 x 5 x 1mm held together far too strongly, the roof would pull apart before it came off. But a single magnet pulled to a soft iron plate with a satisfying click, didn't move when shaken and pulled apart with with no distortion to the roof. The soft iron plate is a bit of a 0.5 mm thick E lamination from a junk transformer.

    ( Just an aside. Old transformers from junk electronics are a good source of soft iron plate. The cheaper and nastier the better, quality transformers are varnish impregnated and the laminations are nigh on impossible to open, cheap ones aren't and come to bits easily. From the same electronics I always strip out the relays and break them up, the contacts are lovely springy brass, sometimes gold plated. I use them as pickups on locos. )

    So here we go. A van roof with silhouette cut formers, a 40 thou stiffener and magnets superglued on each end. The magnets I bought are self adhesive, but didn't want to stick well to styrene, hence the superglue.



    At each end of the body I glued a 20 mm square bit of copperclad, stiffens and straightens the ends and can be soldered to. The bit of iron is superglued to a strip of scrap etch, bent over and soldered well down at the bottom of the copperclad so as to act as a bit of a hold down spring.



    Tests showed this worked ok, so the internal bracers went in next, good thats looking all square.



    There we are, a van with a magnetic roof, ready for trimming. One that can be taken off and dropped back on hundreds of times with no damage or distortion.



    Now, you might all think that this is all a bit of a palaver for something as mundane as a van roof. But playing with things and learning techniques is a lot of the fun of modelmaking. And the whole point of a forum is to discuss ideas, I love reading about other modelmakers experiments.

    I enjoyed having a go and there is method in my madness. I now have the confidence to try other sizes of magnets for things like fixing cab roofs on locos or holding small scenic items down so if you accidentally knock them they move rather than breaking. Sitting in my unbuilt cupboard is a rake of Caley coaches kits for grampian corridor stock. Magnetic roofs on those for sure.
  13. Dave John
    I have a few quiet days, so I thought I’d have a go at a couple of wagons, in this case CR diagram 3 wagons from the “True lines Models “ kit. TLM kits are the result of a lot of good work by Tony Brenchley and Mike Williams, details of which can be found on the CRA forum. Produced in small batches cast in resin they are a one piece body together with some castings, as ever the modeller supplies the other parts to suit their own diverse requirements. At this point some folk would say “Usual disclaimer” . I am going to do exactly the opposite and say many thanks to Tony for producing these, and many thanks to all the CRA members who have produced a great magazine, first class books and a forum full of fascinating discussions.

    I think I’m going to build both of these as the CR version, though the design was shared through Drummond with the NB. Historical notes can be found in “ Caledonian Railway Wagons” by Mike Williams.

    Ok, so preamble over, lets have a look at the body.


     

    It has very fine detail, but like most thin sided resin sections shows a slight bowing inwards towards the top of the sides. Very light of course, and resin needs to be handled carefully. I have drilled out the handrail holes at the end and the solebars for the horse shunting loops. If you are fitting etched W irons then some packing is always required under the floor to establish the correct buffer height. My preference is to establish the thickness needed right at the start. I knew I was going to use a copperclad sub chassis, so I made up some 51 L pre-group W irons and cut some packing strips.



    There it is just sitting on the track next to my buffer height gauge. Now, its a home made one, 30 years old. It might even be reasonably accurate, but what matters is that everything I have built is gauged from it, so all my buffers buff.
    Anyway, 40 thou of packing needed to have things sat at the right height.
     



    These are the subchassis. I used 1mm single sided fibreglass copperclad. You can just stick all the stuff to the bottom of the floor, but the coppeclad gives it all strength and provides pads for soldering the W Irons and the AJ couplings. Far easier to get it square on the flat than between solebars. Note that I have cut through the copper to electrically isolate the different parts. Years ago I had a weird short circuit when certain wagons were coupled together, traced eventually to two different shorts between tyres and body, then a short through the AJs. Pre tinning them on the flat makes life easier later.

    One of the big advantages of copperclad is that it is easy to solder to the copper with not much heat, and the fibreglass is a good thermal insulator so the heat doesn’t get through to the plastic.

    I bet you thought I could get through a whole blog without mentioning the silhouette. Oh well. Whilst I was doing that it was happily cutting out all the internal bracing. The little square on the bottom edge is so they all get laminated the right way round.



    Roofs next.
  14. Dave John

    Some trackwork

    By Dave John,

    I have now got the trackwork up to a running standard, trains go all over it and don’t fall off or stall. The odd bump on pointwork, but I need to go back over the stock and check the wheels are true, they have a habit of shifting slightly over the years.

    Time for a sweeping generalisation; prior to the grouping the scottish companies mainly used 8’ 11 1/2 “ sleepers and laid them in an interleaved pattern. ( Now watch all the references to where they did otherwise emerge. ) CR practice was to board over all the cranks and locks, so that does make life a bit easier. "Signalling the Caledonian Railway" by Jim Summers has detail pictures and dimensioned drawings.

    Of course the only way to model such track is to build it yourself. Much as it would be nice if Peco suddenly produced interleaved sleeper 4 bolt chaired EM rtr I suspect that it is unlikely. The good news is that all the bits are available, I used C+L parts for mine. There are good threads on track construction on here and elsewhere, my methods are very similar to those.

    I know a lot of modellers are put off by the idea of trackbuilding, but it isn’t as hard as it looks. A decent set of gauges is half the battle, most folk would have all the other tools.

    Anyway, this is how it turned out, still needs some detail painting and ballast tidying.

    One of the c7 point at the crossing.


    The long curved crossing.


    A working catch point.



    All are driven by tortoise motors, so no excuse for not getting on with the signalling.
  15. Dave John
    About the beginning of December last year I was beginning to think about planning the layout. The flat was sorted out, the plaster had settled, the paint was dry and the new model railway room was ready and waiting for me to begin.

    Of course, the first stage is planning. Lots have been written about it over the years. So, like all other modellers I started with a new pad of paper and a sense of optimism. I was in many ways a bit ahead, I knew that I wanted EM, Caledonian Railway, Urban, West of Glasgow. I wanted a through station with a mixture of trains and stock and a not too extensive general goods and mineral yard, with a backdrop of traditional Glasgow buildings. That narrowed it down to the L&D, which was CR operated and integrated with the low level lines. I had lots of good information, the excellent articles by John Paton in “The True Line” , accurate period maps from the National Library of Scotland and many pictures of the line throughout its history along with my own photos and notes from having walked round as much of it as I could. ( Living 15 minutes walk away helps ) So, simple, choose a station and build it.

    My studies led to a decision. Partick Central. It met all my requirements and I was fond of the area. ( I was very annoyed when Tesco demolished the listed station building in January 2007, but thats a whole new story)

    So pencils to pads and start drawing layouts. Hmm. Did I mention compromise? The first part went well, I could have a good storage yard on the door wall, a sweeping double track curve,( minimum radius 5 foot ) across the newly installed window and onto two 8 foot by 2 foot six boards along the longer wall. Ok that looks good. Only one major compromise so far, in order to see the layout I would have to move the tenement backscene to the south and imagine the river Kelvin at the north front of the layout. I could live with that, otherwise I would’t be able to see the layout at all.

    Several sketches and some scaling of maps later I began to see a little local difficulty. I could get the station in, but no way could I have tight curves beyond it to a second storage yard. If I moved the staton platform ( an island platform so typical of the area) west towards those long curves I would have to compress it far too much to look even half way right. The sums just did not add up, no matter how much I sketched or drew things out on wallpaper taped to the floor.

    I did what most modellers do when faced with the layout planning compromise. I built a couple of wagon kits and ruminated.

    Then an idea came to me. I could get the whole length of platform in without any compromising curves. Benalder St bridge with the station building would form a scenic break and it would all look generously sized. Ok, I would lose the bit of platform to the east of the bridge, but, well, not a huge compromise for getting the west side looking right. The trains would run under the bridge and, er, straight into a wall. I poured a large whisky and kicked the wall.

    Kicking the wall did not make it move. Its only an internal wall with a dining area beyond, but let me explain the word wall. I live in a traditional west end tenement, built about 10 years before the period I model. That internal wall is the best part of 60 feet high through four flats, brick, heavily plastered so its 8 inches thick and supports all the ends of the joists. But it is only a wall.

    Time to throw compromise to the wind and do what any self respecting Victorian Railway Engineer would do. Dig a tunnel.



    So thats exactly what I did, remove some plaster, cut the mortar joint out to centreline one side, 3” x 1/2 inch steel lintel cemented in, do the same from the other side, cut the brick out under them, form a ply box tunnel and stick it in, replaster. A no compromise tunnel leading to a storage traverser. Who needs a dining area anyway.

    Now I’m happy with the plan I came up with. The mock up looks right, the station has the feel of Partick Central, some compromise but thats the modellers lot.


    Still it isn’t Partick Central. But it is next to the Kelvin. Glad I kept those Kelvinbank station signs.
  16. Dave John

    A bit of a scene.

    By Dave John,

    Sometimes its good to set up a scene, it reassures me that all is coming together as a concept and reminds me of what I am trying to make in the longer term. The bridge now looks a bit bridge like, so I decided to set it up with a few bits and take a couple of pics from the east, since when in place it won't be seen much. Of course it wont be fixed in place, It just clips into the abutments. The columns which hold it up on the station platform are circular with an egg and dart moulding at the top, I have no idea how I'm going to make them. I think I'll take a break from bridges and build a couple of wagons.
     

     

     

     
    This is roughly how it will look in situ.
     

     
     
     
     
     
    Again, sorry about the poor pictures, new camera one of these days.
  17. Dave John

    A station building

    By Dave John,

    Here are a few pics of the station building, based pretty closely on what was Partick Central. It is constructed from styrene sheet, and is my first go at a building of this size using styrene. Extensive use was made of the silhouette to cut out the parts, many thanks to all the folk who contributed to the thread on here and the CRA forums, their advice helped hugely to get me up and running with it. There are a few bits of paintwork that need tidying up, amazing what a photo shows up. I have also got to think up a way of adding the station name. The original was painted directly on the brickwork in "gold" paint; I chickened out.
     
    So, from the front. It will be difficult to view when on the layout, I might use the old mirror trick.
     

     
    This is the rear face, which is the one which will generally be seen. More interior detail is needed.
     

     
    More of an elevated view.
     

     
    I have put in this cruel close up to show the method of locating the building on the bridge. I eased the building up a bit to show them. At the bottom there are two gold pins, these are from multipin connectors with replaceable pins. They have a bit of a grip action, and also carry the lighting power. Being only 1 mm diameter they can virtually go within the wall thickness, so the internal wiring cannot be seen.
     

     
    One of these days someone is going to make 4mm cleaners. Hmm, actually 4mm figures that actually go into buildings and clean. But not in time for this christmas. So I have always disliked fixing the roof on a building, sooner or later you need to dust the inside. This time I used a pair of press studs, which not only clip the roof on neatly but also carry the power to the lighting. The parapet gutters are formed with the self adhesive "Lead" sold by fishing tackle shops for making flies.
     

     
    Lastly, this is me being a bit self indulgent. I have been messing about with lighting for a long time and I have never really got it right. Of course no matter what you do it will always be a compromise, for it to look right the room has to be in darkness which makes operating a layout rather tricky.( Can you imagine the response for an exhibition organiser if you wanted a bit of the room to be a total blackout ). I have seen several layouts which had a really good go at it but these tended to be modern image with far brighter lighting than would be right for the Edwardian era. Anyway, I had a go and this is my attempt at the soft subtle glow of gas lighting. Feel free to criticise.
     

  18. Dave John

    72000

    By Dave John,

    Ok, this is a quick cross reference, since someome asked me about the ratio kit of 72000
     
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dave_john/6158717900/in/photostream/
     
    The pics are all of Kelvinbank 1 , feel free to spot the mistakes....
  19. Dave John

    A goods shed.

    By Dave John,

    I did a bit of tidying up around the goods shed. It looks ok from a bit further back, closer up it seems a bit over enthusiastically pointed. Somewhere I have a set of doors for it. Somewhere.
     
    It is a bit smaller than it should be, I will perhaps have a go at a full scratchbuild later on .
     
    I pondered a bit about the inset track, then ended up using some old peco N gauge rail as the inner. Under the cobbles its soldered to some copperclad. To cope with any expansion the "sleepers" under the cobbles are just held down with a drawing pin every 6 " or so, time will tell if it works.
     

     
     
     
    This is a bit of an out of focus shot from the other direction, I was trying to get a long depth of field and failed miserably. However it does show how I have tried to give things a spacious feel. People needed space to unload all that stuff. Some etched brass drains are needed, otherwise they will be unloading in waders .
     

  20. Dave John
    I have made a start on parts for the canopy and building that sits on the long island platform. Basically the original was a narrow set of waiting rooms covered by an overall roof and cantilevered canopy.

    So, how to build it? Well, styrene would be my obvious choice since I have a silhouette cutter. Might be stiffer in brass, but that would probably mean a lot of custom etching or lots of soldering of brass strip. Like a lot of things in modelling you don’t know until you have tried, here is a first attempt at some cut out parts.


     

    Since those trusses define the profile I used the silhouette to create the parts for an assembly jig as well.
     



    Happy new year to everyone.
  21. Dave John
    I was asked for a description of the drive board shown for the tunnel signal, which I also use for ground signals. So I might as well put it on here. ( Sorry, bit of a rough sketch) It really is simple, it doesn't have any fancy speed or bounce settings. Nothing into the relay it sits at one position, 12V in, it sits at the other. The bi colour LED would change from red to green if needed. The two 5k pots adjust the positions. If you need to the relay 0v could be separate from the signal 0v , then it would be isolated input. It also works fine with just a single 5k pot as a general servo driver.
     

     
     
     
    Feel free to mess about.....
  22. Dave John

    Signal lamp PSU

    By Dave John,

    I haven't done a lot this week, busy with work and today was fine so I took the pup for a long walk up the Kelvin to examine the remains of the CR.
     
    However, I did note that when removing a plug in signal there is the potential for the lamp supply contact to touch the chassis, thus creating a momentary short circuit. Simple way round it, make a power supply that can withstand indefinite short circuits by limiting the current available.
     
    Here is the circuit diagram . Conventional enough, but the 82 ohm resistor makes it short proof, even if the 4k7 pot is up for max brightness.
     
    Might be useful for similar applications.
     

  23. Dave John
    Ok, buffers next. Giotto was said to be able to draw a perfect circle freehand. I’ll bet ye he couldn’t file a whitemetal buffer perfectly round. They just never are for me.

    I like my buffers to work. Opinions differ, but I do feel that wagons shunted with sprung buffers seem to move better, and are less prone to derailments. The method I use has been documented elsewhere over the years, but I can’t remember where I picked the idea up from. It is however simple and inexpensive, and seems to work for me.

    CR 3 bolt self contained buffers are available, but the prototype had long buffer shanks going to a lateral leaf spring about where the door hinges are. Also MJT heads and simple whitemetal buffers are a bit of a stock item for me. Sad but true.

    So first job, drill a 0.5 mm hole through the buffer casting. Sharp drill and take your time. Then open out about 5 mm from the face to 1mm. The buffer head and shank should now go through nicely.



    Next, I oil a drill bit and glue the buffer in place with the drill though it to aid alignment.



    So, the spring itself. I bend a bit of 0.3 mm phosphor bronze wire to have loops at the ends at the buffer spacing. Clean the paint off the buffer shanks and offer them through the castings. Loop the spring over them 1 mm or so from the headstock.

    The pretinned tab on the end of the subchassis makes it easy to solder the centre of the spring to. A bit of scrap etch bent in U holds the buffer head the right distance from the face of the buffer casting, and a fast spot of soldering attaches the spring to the shank.



    Repeat the other side, clean the flux off and thats it. Buffers that buff, I rarely get jamming on any I have made this way over the years


     


    Paint shop next.
  24. Dave John
    I previously explained that I ended up making a tunnel into what used to be a dining area. So, as I munch on this sandwich, I will describe what I did with it. Sized at about 8’ by 5’ I realised that I had an effective storage area of about 8’ by 2’. Again, out with the paper and pencils. The design aim was to provide storage for 6 trains of at least 20 wagons which works out at 6’ by 15” . No way I could fit in a fan of pointwork at each end of that, so my thinking moved towards a traverser. I had built a double entry double exit traverser way back; so I decided to have a go in EM. This is how it turned out.

    Firstly a general shot. Below and above are cupboards for general storage, the tunnel can be seen at the RH end.


     

    Three ball bearing heavy duty drawer slides support the structure, it requires surprisingly little force to move it.


     

    The locking mechanism is a spring loaded silver steel bar in linear ball bearings which engages with drilled plate. it is unlocked by a cam which is driven by a geared motor from a central heating motorised valve. Yes, its 240 V but if wiring is sheathed properly that is not a problem. The microswitch senses the unlocked state, power cannot be applied to the track until it is properly locked. I will add another locking mechanism at the other end, I get a bit of mispositioning there.


     


    The position of the traverser is detected by reed switches. These feed a relay panel so that the correct up or down feed is only fed to the right traverser lines. A repeater panel with a digital readout of the track selected and the lock status is located in the main layout room.
     



    The drive mechanism is a geared motor and a toothed rubber belt. A two speed controller allows for local or eventual remote operation, and it is interlocked so that the traverser has to be properly unlocked before it is moved.


     


    All the electronics and switching is in a pull out drawer under the traverser. Also contains a local cab controller so that trains can be shunted independently from the main layout.


     


    Finally, a view down the traverser towards the tunnel. Slightly wobbly track, it is just EM trackbase. I might ballast it all one day.


     


    I really should treat myself to a decent camera, sorry about the quality of the pics but I think they give a general impression of what is going on.
    Anyway, hope that is of interest. Back to a bit of styrene cutting.
  25. Dave John

    A bit of blue.

    By Dave John,

    A useful week, the station building progresses, and I think apart from a bit of paintwork the track is now generally runnable.
     
    Anyway a bit of blue. This is a 104 class posed against a couple of old bits of backscene. The driver is probably wondering how on earth he ended up north of the clyde since he set the route indicator for the cathcart circle.
     


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