deepfat

OK I'd suggest servicing locos e.g. replacing tyres, oil etc. longer locoes jumping points (so back to back issues) loco detection coupling and uncoupling with out the "hand of god" so ramps dcc & analog on board decouplers etc. oh and fixing different coupling standards and I'd hand out a mug or something if a readers suggestion is accepted. BTW all the blog post I write on here have hyperlinks to relevant stuff, but hey I am a software engineer and blogging is a hobby :-)

@Andy & Friends two suggestions For the digital edition of your magazine can you not link adverts to the atvertisers website so we can go there if we wish to. (this would also analytics for yourmarketing dept.) for the excellent how to videos and articles can we the audience make some suggestions on what we need help with? Otherwise loving your work & thanks for reading Andrew

All the Youtube videos I have seen on ballasting casually gloss over how to deal with points and specifically that hardest of all points, the double slip. My hypothesis is that it isn't the ballasting itself that is an issue, rather it is the pre-wetting of the ballast as that seems to disturb the ballast and that's the very thing we need to avoid around points. To set the scene - my peco 75 track is laid on DCC Concepts foam bed, not cork, and I have spent thousands converting the loft buying trains and dcc equipment so I was happy to splash the cash and use Deluxe Products Ballast Bond. It is pre mixed and dries matt, however even they suggest pre-wetting. So for my points I prewetted the track using an empty bottle of Ballast Bond filled with a strong solution of washing up liquid and dripped that on to the tracks first, to reduce movement of the ballast. If there was movement I carefully moved the offending bits before applying the glue and if I didn't like it I just let it dry again and redid the process. Here is my first go using a DCC Concepts club tub ( Steam era, brown & grey) of ballast. and here is another view now it has dried I think the result is OK, and although time consuming I feel the time and cost are worth it to properly set off my expensive train collection. A couple of other observations; Ballast Bond doesn't create the hard shell you get with PVA which should make the layout quieter to run. I can't say it does for sure but it is no louder than it was and I notice the track bed still flexes with ballast on top and when I had to pick out the odd mis placed stone I noticed that the bond was more rubbery than PVA It's theoretically possible to remove the ballast with hot water if needed but I have not tried this It only took overnight to dry off as my application of water was much more targeted and summer is a good time for this and this stuff must dry quicker

The easiest bit of my backscene is the sea to the west of my layout. It's inspired by the view from West St Leonards with Hastings seafront to the west and Beachy Head to the right. In my last post I showed how I set up my backscene and created the sky. For the sea behind my layout I cut a 100mm x 3000mm strip of lining paper and airbrushed that with a slightly varying dark teal colour and stuck that so that the top was completely level to simulate the horizon. For the NW corner of my layout I then added to more bits of lining paper one for the shingle beach and one for Beachy Head. The beach gradually curves from upright to horizontal to create the illusion of depth and I sprinkled sharp sand and scatter scenery to simulate the shingle beach I used yet another bit of lining paper to simulate Bexhill in the distance and then when that was done I could add grass, some scratch built beach huts and a tea room. There's more to do here like add figure benches etc. but you get the idea: The South West corner is inspired by Hastings Seafront fading to Fairlight in the distance. Again I used collage and painted the scene on lining paper and created a curving up beach to meet the sea and this scene. This looks a bit bent because it's the corner of the layout but it is square and mrs Deepfat likes it and that is good enough for me. I've added some more scratch bult beach hits and some foreshortened fishing boats like there are at Bulverhythe if you have ever been there I am no Canaletto but I this is good enough for me and now I have done the backscene, I am going to paint & ballast the track in front of it to test out how to do it and to get the look I want

My layout is in the attic and was designed when I was new to model railways and BRM. With hindsight and reading more I probably got the track to close to the edge of the layout (120mm in some places). To make matters worse the basic pyramid shape of my loft means that my backscene is only about 120mm high: Also the transition between the backscene and the roof is very obvious, even with both being painted with the same pale grey emulsion. This looks even worse/odd in the corners: To fix that obvious line and extend the scenery up the sloping roof I decided to create a paper mâché fillet between the two to create a smoother transition from one to the other. I then covered that with lining paper, but it was very fiddly to do and despite my best efforts it did bubble and wrinkle in some places. However it did look a lot better, again repainted in grey to highlight the flaws in it: After a couple more weekends cursing at my lack of wall papering skill I wacked in some lightweight filler to smooth things even more. I then painted the background sky using Dulux Nordic Sky at the top fading into First Dawn at the bottom: So looking better still but not great, and like me it looks worse in real life! Also the wallpaper came away a bit at the bottom in places so that meant more fun with pva and filler. Now for the clever bit - add clouds to camouflage the unevenness/ To do this I used white acrylic artist paint dabbed and smeared with cut up bits of sponge from an idea I saw on YouTube. This is my work so far this time in another corner and this is looking nice enough to impress Mrs Deepfat: There is still a bit of shadow but with the right lighting on that starts to disappear. To finish up a I put a batten painted in metallic gold along the top edge of the sky to frame it like a picture. And around my velux windows. Now I need to add something below the horizon to create an illusion of depth and set the context for each side of my layout with aim of making the layout appear to be bigger than it is: If you know Hastings you'll realise this is not accurate but my intention is to create an homage to where I grew up in an earlier age so it has all elements the I want in it but not necessarily in the right place! In my next post I'll show what the sea looks like and how I did that.

@Ravenser Since the demise of the loco lifts from Peco I have been looking for an affordable alternative and this might be it. Reviews like this take time to make so thanks for doing this.

I am also back in the loft thinking about scenery - I have stored my my APT-E in a hidden siding behind and embankment like you show as my normal list of trains is steam!

Well you could get the coronation scot to play the coronation scot but I expect the storage on the sound chip will limit how long the sound can be

@goldngreen Happy 2023! Photography is not my day job but I did study it to city & guilds level before we went digital so here are some tips, .. Focus - I am not sure what is behind your wide angle lens. I have canon systems and I can use the back screen to focus and more importantly zoom into to check focus. Depth of Field - To get the best from the depth of filed pick a point 1/3 into your scene, say the back edge of the coal bunker on the right of your scene. Lighting - I think the only thing letting down your lovely photo is some shadows on the back scene . So to try and get a bit of a wash of light onto it to reduce the shadow behind the tree and just to the left of the water tower. That'll give you a better illusion of depth. Composition - Possibly add a couple of figures in the grass foreground walker farmers etc. this should add more depth and create more of a story White Balance - The picture could maybe a bit warmer though it all looks a bit green. The right White balance can give you a nice period feel as well This might get your shot form 8/10 to 10/10 as it is already pretty good, so have fun and experiment

@mikeOxon I help run the web as I work on Azure for Microsoft in the UK we haven't lost data per se but user error is problem whether you are software engineer or a consumer. So I still keep my stuff on a qnap server and my blog posts are in OneNote.

I also fell foul of the great train photo robbery on here - so thanks for putting the effort in. I haven't done all of mine as I did a lot on railmaster and I have now moved onto iTrain but you have inspired me to get back into it

I have bought a few of these and to be honest I don't think they are fit for purpose as the flex across the width of the copper ails mean that fragile locos tip over in the cradle which just can't happen with the older design. So I'll be resigned to cutting my losses and selling my units as they are cheaper to swap out and damaging my locos

I am out Margate way in a couple of weeks - so is it worth popping into Hornby while I am there?

If I was designing a digital edition of a print magazine I'd support the advertisers by hyperlinking the ads to their sites just like on any web site. It's a bit annoying to open a new window, search and then find the organisation behind a product I am interested in

ah well you get a much longer delivery of solar during the day. I am a data science engineer by day and I can see my generation graphs that having solar that works best in the morning and evening when my demand is higher is a good thing

@2manyspams we both work form home with no electric car. we were quoted 17 year payback last summer so I can only imagine that'll be shorter plus if you are smart with energy use you get better than this. I may not get all the return myself but this is an investment which a future buyer of my house will want.

I have a 16KwH of panels with 10 KwH battery capacity for £10K from GivEnergy. Solar without batteries is like fish without chips and the only way you'll get a return in spring and autumnOne set of panels due east the other due west on a 40 degree roof it's more than enough to power my layout :-) Seriously we are loving it and given the crap resale rates back to the grid I am more likely to chuck an extension over the fence to my neighbour as at least I might get a beer occasionally from him

Note this post has been updated following the loss of photos on RMWeb There are some beautifully engineered baseboard on RMWeb, and even if I was working in an empty room my woodworking skills are not that good. My layout is built on existing loft ties about 1.5m off the floor as above those ties it's an empty void. I have had additional 100x50mm struts on which the baseboard can rest but this is an old house and the tops of these timbers are not level and have also twisted a bit. I want to avoid having a flat layout as Hastings is my inspiration and it's hilly. Add to this a desire for rakes of 6 coaches being pulled by a 4-4-0 Schools class and I need long shallow inclines. To do this I set sea level at the middle of the north section of my layout and made the south of the layout 50mm higher than that. This gave me a gentle incline at the two edges For the centre section I could climb from 50mm to 100mm over the centre section at a 1:50 incline to give height enough to cross the lower track and also have another track going from 50mm to 0 to complete the figure of 8.. To correct the uneven levels of the existing roof supports I used a 2.4m level and a laser level to determine the heights I wanted and then fiddled with shims of ply to get everything at those heights. In the photo below you can see I am following the plan above: To try and deaden sound resonating from the track all the ply is laid on floor underlay already stuck to the supporting bearers - you can see a this in the bottom left corner, however this hasn't really worked but. The ply was then held in place with a rubberized floor adhesive and a few screws driven just far enough to level up the edges of the ply with each other. Inclines The steeper inclines will be the 2% offerings from Woodland Scenics, and actually the shallowest they do. Here you can see I am starting to lay them: You can sort of see SCARM ( the software I designed the layout in) running on my tablet to check measurements. The raised area in the foreground is sheet of 25mm expanded polystyrene which I cut to shape with a hot wire. You can also see I am using Proses variable track gauges, Woodland Scenics Foam-Tack, DCC Concepts 3mm foam track-bed and of course coffee! The only problem with the ready-made inclines is that you have this sudden change in gradient which needs to be avoided by adding and removing some sort of fillet to graduate the increase / decrease in the incline: You also want to avoid changes in incline near points and actually the SCARM software doesn't allow points to be on an incline so my design took this sort of thing into account. You are entering a PVA and Cork free zone Cork beds don't bend round corners and have to be cut & chamfered . PVA is cheap but: It forms a hard shell that reflects sound really well and has no give. It is too strong especially when used to ballast so any repair work or modifications result in destruction of the track. So I have started using Woodlands Scenics Foam-Tack not just to fix the inclines but to fix the underlay and fix to tack the track down on the underlay instead of pins. This is great as mistakes can be undone by applying warm water and the main hold will come from the ballasting. On that note I'll be researching PVA free ballasting probably starting with Deluxe Materials Ballast Bond (more on that if I ever get round to ballasting). A look ahead This gives an idea of where I am going finishing off the edges of the layout in ply to match the level of the terrain and use of expanded polystryene to create hills and embankments much like any other layout, to keep the weight down. You can also see I have left a square hole so I can get into the tunnel: Next up Laying track

Loving the look and the subtle scenery. Also do you make your own buildings and so on

I am with @NCB _ am never going to be able to model locos and rolling stock to the standards of ready to run, so unless there is critical mass there it's not going to be mainstream. I Ddo think that modern manufacturing would make this very easy to rectify but it won't be Peco themselves - most of their catalogue was developed in the last millennium. Now if Hattons or Rails stuck their toe in the water I'd be tempted as it is a good compromise and as noted a proper scale

I really do hope Hornby watch this space, but I don't think they really analyse their own forum. Either way but they should be open about it. compare that to Rapido who are open about being on here and actually fit in as do other vendors.

@Skinnylinnywe are still friends, my mistake not yours and really excited to get this set when released. I think you guys should book a cinema in town and we get our sets having watched the film at launch

So I am feeling like a proper idiot now so thanks for sharing those interiors