Pikey

Yes, you're right, the servo would go in the other way round I think. Great idea

Setting everything out ready for assembly: Adding the motor, servo and steering assembly to the chassis: As it sits now: Time to start chopping up the standard chassis so that it fits inside the van body.

Parcel arrived this morning: The 3D printed chassis has a rough texture, sort of like it was made out of salt. The servo and tiny motor are a perfect interference fit. I'll have a go at putting the steering together tonight, I think I've got a screwdriver small enough..!

Here's the donor model before I hack it up. Four main components - a metal body, clear plastic windscreen and side windows moulding, black plastic interior moulding, and a plastic chassis loosely holding the axles, which is fixed to the metal body with 2 small screws. Initial plan is to bin everything but the metal body and screw the new chassis to it with the two screws. I suspect the servo will stick out through the windscreen though. Had confirmation (in English) that the parts have been dispatched today, within a few hours of ordering! Excellent

So I ordered some German stuff From mikromodellbau, here: http://www.mikromodellbau.de/Shop/artikelauswahl.php?kid=102 Should be everything I need minus the transmitter and the receiver (and the battery). Seems a good way to ease myself into the daunting subject of teeny weeny RC conversions. I've previously bought a cheap RC lorry and a 00 gauge Eddie Stobart diecast model, the aim being to create some kind of hybrid between the two - the end result was not pretty and certainly didnt work. Its in about 6 pieces in a box in the garage somewhere. I checked the wheelbase of an Oxford Diecast Ford Transit (SWB) I have, and its within a millimetre of the 38mm suggested by the new chassis, so I'm hoping I can make it fit. The only thing I'm slightly concerned about it whether the servo will fit under the windscreen/bonnet, as its mounted vertically and quite far forward. Ultimately, the goal is to have some working 00 gauge vehicles with some more interesting movements ie articulated lorries, tippers, diggers, cranes, forklifts etc - but lets start with a basic van first and see what's what.

Has anybody used this website for radio controlled equipment, or fully built models? http://leonka24.de/epages/22255.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/22255/Categories/Mikromodelle/%22RC%20Modelle%22 Obviously its German, but there is a translate option, and they ship worldwide. I'm particularly interested in the articulated tipper lorry and the front loader, thinking of making a ballast loading scene that actually works - so delivering the ballast to site by road in the tipper lorry, and loading it into the wagons using the loader

A couple of photos from the exhibition: And I do have a little video of the ground signals working, hopefully the quality hasnt been destroyed too much: https://youtu.be/MKCR4ukPtK4

Well, the show was a success I think We were approached by the organisers of both Cheltenham and Gloucester exhibitions, asking us if we'd like to do their shows - which was most unexpected! We only made a couple of mistakes, there were a few more derailments that I would have liked, and my Class 68 decided it was only going to play sound OR move (rather than the traditional method of both together) at the exact moment that a bunch of people were taking a particular interest in it - but apart from that it went pretty smoothly and seemed to be received well by most of the public. Some improvements for next time will have to include a traverser/sector plate or loco lift system for the fiddleyard, as it was quite labour-intensive to operate that end under show conditions. And a third person to help operate would allow both of us to actually go and look at the other exhibits, as between us we managed about 3 or 4 minutes away from our station during the whole 6 hour event.

I'm not totally pleased with how the station building has ended up, it will have to do for now though: So, that's the scenic work all finished barring a few final tweaks and sticking a few things down, maybe adding a couple more trees and people etc.

The allotment is now finished, with added people and a few more plants, shovel and rake leaning up against the shed, chicken wire fence, and a fox lurking behind the fence, probably after the chickens: Started the station building, plan on finishing this tonight and tomorrow, leaving Thursday and Friday for cleaning and operational practice. This is just the template, cut from a cereal packet, with Wills windows marked on. I'll cut out and stick the templates on from behind, and they come with brick arch lintels to stick on the front as well. I'll wrap this in a rendered wall texture download, add roof projections and we're almost there:

Emma's been working on the allotment all weekend:

Some much-needed station amenities have now been provided: (made from some left-over brick paper, image of coffee shop printed off from the internet, card from a cereal box and some plastruct pipe painted metallic silver)

Low relief warehouse building, from scalemodelscenery. Quite time consuming to put together, but relatively easy and looks really good. Still got the roof edging and drainpipes to put on: And a couple of pictures of the layout as it stands now. Looks pretty much finished, but there's still a lot left to do. 11 days to go

I did a couple of videos yesterday, I'll get them up soon Work over the weekend means we now have all the woodwork complete around the layout. I could just stick the nameplate to the front, but I think it would be better mounted above it at a slight angle, so I'll try and achieve that tonight along with the curtain around the front. We now have a block of flats, with a path and a garden with trees and a fence around it, and the beginnings of an allotment next door, with strawberries and cold frames, greenhouse and a shed. We also have ticket barriers and I've started marking out a low relief station building. And some more loads for the goods siding, with the new ratchet straps from scalemodelscenery.co.uk. The offcuts from the fence make quite good stacks of plywood:

I use a Lowmac wagon too, with a GoPro Session on it. Works well

18 days to go. We're nearly there, although the 'to do' list is still quite long (!) I've fitted and painted the front cover piece, and we have some brown felt type fabric to go on which we hope to make tonight. Hopefully some pictures of that later. I've got around halfway through making my 'drivers notes' for each loco - speeds, sound effects etc, and it surprised me how different they all are actually. It would be nice if I could standardise everything, so for example speed step 10 made each train go the same speed, instead of some needing to go at 20 and others needing to go at 4 to look 'about right'. Also all the sound effects are all on different function keys for different suppliers, and there doesnt seem to be an easy way to change it either. The only thing that doesnt vary is the engine start on F1 and horn on F2 - but even then some horns play as a two-tone sound automatically, and some require that you then press F3 to get the higher/lower tone. Olivias still have my class 08 for repair and I havent heard anything. Hope thats going ok.

Not great pictures, but here it is: The sounds are 'ok', they sound a bit like they've been recorded on a dictaphone, but the notch up and down appears to be infinitely variable which is quite good. Just a shame they put them on functions 14 and 15 which means I have to press 2 buttons rather than 1 to make the engine whirr up. The nameplates are slightly wonky and have visible glue around them, but overall it really is an absolutely spectacular model

Class 68 landed on my desk this morning - looks superb. Cant wait to test it out later Shoulder is getting back to normal now too

I'm going with rest and painkillers and see where I am in a few days. It seems fairly minor as an amount of strength and mobility has returned already, and the pain is manageable, but Monday evening was a bit worrying as I basically couldn't move my shoulder! As far as operating a model railway goes, as long as I can press buttons I should be ok

So over the Easter weekend we have done some good work on the layout, including making the nameplate. I picked up Hornby Class 67 'Cairn Gorm' with TTS sound from Hattons for a rather bargain-tastic price of £104, which I swapped with the body of my Arriva Trains Wales 67 as this had picked up an intermittent running problem where the whole thing would just cut out completely. In the process of swapping the bodies over, my old one appears to now be running fine with the Caledonian Sleeper liveried body on it, but we probably wont use it on the layout as obviously its from completely the wrong place. The TTS sounds are quite good actually, and I can run it in DVT first, leave it idling in the station, before accelerating off again. The blue is very very slightly different (the bottom bit of the body which stays attached to the chassis, and the removable part), from CS blue to ATW blue - which you cant see in this picture but you can see if you look up close in person. Its close enough to not warrant a repaint (I think): Here they are together (poor photo): We painted the backboards with some £1 paint from Hobbycraft, another bargain. It makes a big difference to the overall presentation. Not sure whether to add clouds or leave it as is (the paint is still drying in these pictures): And here's the nameplate: So a pretty productive weekend. Except I then went and fell off my little motocross bike on Monday afternoon and damaged my shoulder, rendering my right arm all but useless for the moment. Off to the hospital shortly to assess

Picked up a concrete footbridge at the weekend, to act as the scenic break. I had to raise it up (hence the steps) as its designed to go on a platform and the trains wouldnt go underneath it without the slight increase! Also added a dead-end road to give access to the car park, with a pavement each side. I'll most probably add low-relief houses or shops to the side of this road. Still loads to do before the Stow exhibition!

Had a strange response from Olivias this weekend, saying 'We now have all the recordings for the 68 and have sent them to our sound guy who will be putting the project together over the next few weeks' I thought I was buying a factory sound fitted loco? Obviously not

Been a while since I updated this - we've been working on our kit car, trying to get it ready for summer. Last night I added a wall around the back of the yard, and a barrier to the car park. I also moved the scenic break to extend the fiddleyard slightly, and ballasted up to it. Over the weekend, we had a practice run of taking the layout down, loading it into the van, driving over to my parents and setting it up again. The process (at each end) seemed to take about 20-25 minutes, it fits in the van really nicely, and nothing broke

My sound fitted one has been on order since January at Olivias Trains, so hopefully I will have one soon