Philou

Hello chums and chumesses,

Today was a learning day. I learnt that PVA does not dry within 24hours when sandwiched between sheets of polystyrene and that polystyrene is jolly hard to trim with any kind of toothed tool!

It all started when having cut my bridge abutments in ply, I decided I would chamfer the 'styrene to start landforming and the cutting through which runs the main line. A Japanese saw was to hand and for doing the 'original' landform (top of cutting and beyond) in nice shallow cuts, it was fine. Then asking it to cut at 45° (I know it should be 1:1.5 and not 1:1 - but y'know compression and all that) was a step too much. Out came a panel saw - nope - followed by a very coarse toothed plasterboard keyhole saw. That did the trick but cutting at an angle towards oneself at arm's length didn't give the angle I wanted and it was at that moment I discovered the PVA problem! I do have some repairing to do :(( .

In the end I used my hot knife literally shaving layers off. It ended up being faster than sawing! Any final shaping will done with the saw and top coating with PVA soaked kitchen towels and plaster. Lesson learnt. I shall pre-shape the edges with my hot knife as I build up the layers.

As @Re6/6 said above:

9 hours ago, Re6/6 said:

K.B.O. Phillip!

Every day is a school day!

More tomorrow and if there's something to show, I'll post up a picture :) .

Cheers,

Philip

Hello chaps and chapesses,

A bit of a bizarre day today. It started well enough by being up earlier than usual and out into the barn asap. It was quite cold but I managed to construct about half the hill (in the last photo of yesterday) before lunch. I decided that after lunch I would start the abutments and the deck for the road-overbridge and I just hit the buffers. I couldn't gather my thoughts and just managed to cut the road deck and mark out the abutment to the one side.

I think it's the new blood pressure medication that the heart specialist gave me - replaces all my previous medication, but apparently it'll take up to 15 days before the full effects start - goodness knows what they'll be if I feel crappy now :( . We'll wait and see. Tomorrow I must crack on!

At least there was some progress so it wasn't all doom and gloom :) .

More tomorrow,

Philip

Hello chums and chumesses,

The angle has finally arrived - not at home - but at a collection point nearby. It'll get picked up sometime.

Snow hit the railway room as I did some more landscaping this afternoon cutting more polystyrene. Another three hours flew by, though I felt I hadn't done as much as yesterday. I said I'd do some photos today, so here they are:

^ Here we have the end of Dymented station with the mainline above. The retaining wall just in picture upper side left is to be extended as far as the end of the piece of track and the land battered back thereafter. Going around the curve there is to be a low retaining wall with the land battered back above until it meets the upper surface.

^ Here is the cutting leading out of Pontrilas in the Hereford direction (under construction, natch). The land is simply battered back here. I do have an overbridge to thread through from the inside corner towards the dip above the tin on the left. I'll need to get the bridge in place tomorrow so that I can adapt the landform. The tins, by the way, are there to weigh down the polystyrene whilst the PVA sets, and more layers will be done once the roadbridge is in place.

Here, as with the other areas where there will be a lot of raised land, I'm trying out a hollowed hill construction, by building a 'crust' of 'styrene rather than having a solid mass. Polystyrene is no longer cheap!

The next step before leaving the area will be to carve the 'stryrene to shape. This I shall do the old fashioned way using a bread knife (no Sureform unfortunately) as there's too much for the hotknife.

There we have it - under way again!

Cheers everyone,

Philip

Hello chums and chumesses,

The angle STILL haven't arrived - they're arriving by Mondial Relay (not my choice). I shan't be recommending them to anyone as they should have been here on Wednesday or Thursday last week.

I felt a bit down as it seemed the project had stopped - so I had a sharp talking to myself and decided to go into the railway room and do some proper modelling and restarted the landscaping and I got another metre of polystyrene cut and shaped in the background. I was enjoying myself so much I didn't see the time go by and I was at it for three hours - at least I have something to show you tomorrow when I take a picture.

Cheers everyone and more tomorrow,

Philip

Hello chaps and chapesses,

Not a lot happened either yesterday or today unfortunately. Yesterday was a visit to the much bigger town (not big town) for an appointment with a cardiologist - just an MOT. Talk about stress! At nearly every junction was a HGV pulling out of a side turn and going in our direction and even though we left with a bit of a time margin that was being quickly eroded away. When we finally got to the heart clinic and parked up, we were told 'Oh, it's no longer here it's moved up the hill.' It wasn't far but the hill was steep and my pressure went up quite a bit by the time I got there. As we arrived spot-on the appointed time, there wasn't any time to sit down and calm down! Long story short - he doesn't want to see me for 4 - 5 years.

It wasn't all lost as I did find some spray matt varnish for my card models whilst in town and I also picked up some square LED ceiling lights to complement what I'd already put in place. Did them this afternoon so no more dangling wires or dark corners in the railway room.

Annoyingly, my angle still hasn't arrived as I could have finished the girders as well. I haven't assembled the baulks as yet as I can't find some nice hard-drawn brass wire which I bought eons ago that would now be useful to make the transoms between the baulks. I did however find some small tools that I'd mislaid AND some 2mm brass tube in a rather large crate. The finer wire must in there as well so I'll have that tipped out tomorrow and reorganise the contents (for the umpteenth time!). Failing that, I'll consider using some 1mm² copper wire (got loads of it) that I can strip down. I shall amuse myself trying to straighten it!

No modelling tomorrow as we're off out to lunch - again!

Enjoy the weekend,

Philip

Ta-raaaaa! Hello chums and chumesses, I'm back!

Not a lot happened over the Easter weekend due to to visitors, especially Mrs Philou's youngest granddaughter who kept us on our toes.

I did do bits here and there and more today until I ran out of angle. There is more on the way and should have been here today, but it hasn't arrived yet. For the last wo days, I've been with M. le Maire cutting trees that had fallen into the highway due to some very heavy rain we had recently (it's a road restricted to frontagers but no legislation enforcing it and as it's within our commune, the mayor is responsible for its maintenance). Oooh, and I have some pictures:

^ Here's a general view of the bridge dry-assembled. I've had to fudge the right-hand to get it all to fit in-situ. Fortunately it's on the non-viewing side and shan't be seen. I'll know it's there and so will you (but stay schtum). Otherwise I'm happy with it. You can see the cranks that I did on the left-hand side as they're waiting to be cut when absolutely gone-off. The left-hand side is now complete.

The centre girder needs about half of its cranks to be made up and that too will be finished.

The right-hand side needs just 14 cranks on the inside face and that will be that. I did the upper inside face of it today too and that's awaiting trimming.

I have a total of 46 cranks to complete and at the speed I'm now doing them, they'll be done in a couple of hours.

^ Just views of the nearly-completed article (ignore the background!). You can see the over-long cranks and once trimmed, they'll all be lightly sanded back to the edge of their respective webs (all three girders need doing).

What next? I'm now taking measurements and doing sketches for the fitting of the baulks on the decks. I think I have it cracked (at least in my head). As I'm now going to have the baulks on a straight line, I think I can fix the one set of chairs (plus rail) on the one baulk and the repeat for the the other three.  When dry, I can then fix one baulk on each deck and using a gauge the second one can be set at a distance parallel to give 16.5mm between the rails.

Is this a plan or have I missed something?

Cheers everyone - another weekend is just around the corner!

Philip

Hello chaps and chapesses,

No photo - boo, hiss. All you would see is a sea of white plastic with various bits of angle sticking out from it.

Both the longest and shortest girders are complete along the one side, including the cranks. Both have had their ribs attached on the other sides and await their cranks. The centre beam is all ribbed up and one set of cranks done - there are 8 sets of cranks altogether (4 per rib). I can do up to 12 cranks an hour but I have to stop to rest my eyes and stop breathing the MEK vapours (not that there is much smell - but you never know). Only another 166 cranks do - I'm getting there!

The rest of today is a no-go due to real life and visitors having arrived and I shan't get to restart until Monday at the earliest.

Have a good Easter break and speak soon,

Philip

We're moving, oh yes! No picture today as it's more of the same - I have all the plate girders ribbed save for the one side, and cranks galore - but lots remain to be done.

Visitors tomorrow for the weekend of Easter plus a few more days, so modelling activity will be restricted, but Mrs Philou says I can carry on for bit tomorrow and Saturday - what a good egg! She didn't really see the point of me 'wasting' my time with the cranks, but she does admire my patience :) .

Hopefully a photo tomorrow.

Cheer up everyone, the weekend is just around the corner!

Philip

On a roll today! I managed to get all the stiffeners and the vertical angles in place on the longest girder and also managed to do a quarter of the cranks too. I have a photo showing progress:

^ The stiffeners plus some the cranks in place. After having taken the photo, I finished the rest of the cranks on the side nearest the camera. Tomorrow, I'll shall do the opposite side and then come back to this side to do the cranks the other side of the rib and then finish off the opposite side after. Why all the shilly-shallying? It allows the MEK to go-off completely and the joint is set solid which I can the cut without tearing parts of the crank out of the joint - that happened yesterday, and I don't want a repeat. Patience is the word here.

^ Here's a close up of the crank. I'm quite pleased with the result and hence I don't want to tear it when I trim it back. My construction method was to make a sub-assembly of the stiffener and the two bits of angle, pre-cut at each end at an angle, and the three parts glued into place. The crank was an off-cut that was shaped at its end to match the profile of the already glued assembly (you can see the angled cut nearest the camera), a notch was then cut on the 'vertical' part of the angle approximately 2.5mm from the end, lightly bent and then using three hands (ha ha) a dab of MEK to hold it in place and then gently manoeuvring it into position with the back of a scalpel blade and another dab of MEK to finish it off. The excess will be trimmed after 24hrs and any bits longer than 15mm will be recycled into other cranks.

Buoyed up, I started on the central girder and managed to get some ribs in place before bad light stopped play.

I think I've cracked how to get it done as quick as reasonably possible, as I did all the above in about 4hrs - the cranks taking disproportionately longer than the ribs - but it's getting there - yay!

Cheers everyone,

More tomorrow,

Philip

Hello chums and chumesses,

I got stuck in this afternoon with my trusty glue and plasticard and I managed to complete all the ribbing along the one side. I think I'm having to order some more angled profile - where is it all going? I shall source it this side of the channel especially as it costs no more than in the UK and I shall avoid any VAT (TVA) surprises. I shall need to see what they're charging for post (and I'm avoiding any Ebay Global Shipping too).

Photos? You want photos? I have a photo .............

^ There we are. All the ribs in place and just waiting for the glue to go-off before cutting the excess and lightly sanding down.

Tomorrow, I shall re-start the longest piece and as it's modelling day, I should get half of it done. I had already made a start at the end of the afternoon by cutting out some more ribs.

Cheers everyone,

Philip

Thwarted!! Wood cutting WAS on the menu today though we hadn't actually agreed as such. I didn't do a stint this morning - it was all done in 45mins anyway. However, this afternoon some IMPORTANT WORK was done by cutting down two trees that had become dangerous at the bottom of our garden. The one had broken/loosened its roots and was leaning heavily against an adjoining one and had to come down in case it started to push against it. The other I - er - um - set fire to it about 5 years ago (not intentionally, you understand) and it's been decaying slowly ever since.

Anyway, today was the day that they were to come down. In fairness to M. le Maire with his tractor, a steel hawser and his trusty chain saw, both trees (20m tall acacias) were down and cut into 1m lengths, split using wedges and a sledgehammer, and carted to the front of the house in about 3 hours and no damage done in the garden or our neighbour's (with the exception of tyre marks in the grass).

Tomorrow morning, I will cut them into usable lengths for our wood-burner as they're both dry enough to burn straight away.

I did manage to do some ribbing this morning, but the finishing will have to held over until tomorrow afternoon - so there was some progress :).

Cheers everyone,

Philip

Hello chaps and chapesses,

Slow but steady. I got started this afternoon on the ribs and managed to get four of them in place - only another 50-odd to do ;) .

I have a photo showing how I tackled the angled angle:

^ All a bit Heath Robinson - I cut two pieces of angle of a correct length and glued them along two sides of the rib that too, had been pre-cut to length and notches cut to oversail the two horizontal angles along the top and bottom webs (draws breath). The rib, together with the two angles was then glued on the pencil line. 

Then taking the length of angle in the photo above, a notch was cut on just one part of the angle to allow it to bend. A tiniest drop of MEK was applied to the rib at the end of the pre-glued angle and the short piece of angle put into place - it didn't always work first time. By applying gentle pressure on the long piece of angle, the tiny piece was wedged against the first angle and then the long piece glued on the web.

This was repeated for the other three angles, though it became unwieldy once there was more than three long bits of angle wobbling about. The MEK had softened the plastic and I couldn't cut the excess straight away as intended. I modified this latter part by notching the angle and once happy that it would bend as required, I cut the piece off leaving about 10mm with which to hold and push into place. The short excess was cut off after a couple of hours (surprising how long it takes to go-off) and then sanded back using a fine grade nail sanding block (things you find in a make-up kit!).

This one side should be finished tomorrow, logging notwithstanding. As it rained copious amounts this pm, I doubt if we'll doing any wood for a day or two.

Cheers everyone and stay safe,

Philip

Evening all,

There wasn't anything to report yesterday as it was a day in the woods with M. le Maire splitting and piling those pesky logs. Just one tree left to do.

As there wasn't any wood to be done today, I thought I'd do some landscaping afer lunch - yah, real modelling with plaster and paper towels and water and PVA. Hands on job. That didn't happen as after doing the last of the decking, Mrs la Poste arrived with a very lightweight parcel that had no more than £30-worth of plastic angle in it asking for another tenner in VAT and collection fees - grrrr.

As it had turned wet anyway, I went into the barn and got the bridge bits out and started the angles again and I now have all the plate girders angled up and as there was a little time left, I also started to cut the ribs to length, so I'm under steam again! Huzzah!

More tomorrow and enjoy the weekend,

Philip

Modelling never happened yesterday as it was a lovely spring day, almost a barbecue day but we didn't have any sausages or other suitable grilling food. So, what happened? Gardening, that's what. I started off pressure-hosing our decking as it had gotten covered in a green slime that had become slippery when wet - 'elf'n'safety' and all that. So one half was done before lunch and then it was coup de grace in the afternoon. Mrs Philou was pleased.

This morning it was doing the other half - all done before lunch. I have another deck to do in the next couple of but not tomorrow as out in the woods again log splitting and piling - hey ho - never a dull moment.

It isn't all bad as I have a smile on my face - see > :) as this afternoon I tackled the awkward centre girder doing a cut'n'shut by taking 6mm off at the level of the deck-plate, working on the assumption that the angle will cover the cut line and re-inforce it as well. I've had a dry run with the rolling stock and the bodywork now oversails the top of the girder - I kept the curved top. The bonus is I can maintain the trackwork at 45mm centres throughout but I shan't be putting the baulks on a curve (24m radius - so a very flat curve anyway).

Here we go, a picture for you:

^ There you have it - 6mm sliced out and then re-glued. I can recycle the slice as a flange.

^ This is the slime we get in the winter - admittedly here is the worst place as it doesn't get much sun even in the summer and even then only late in the afternoon. Not helped by a flock of about forty sparrows that over-winter in the ivy just above. Comes up nice and clean, though I shall need to get some treatment down before it gets too hot - but that's for another day.

Cheers everyone,

Philip

Funnily enough, the surfacing as is, is crying out at some sort of waste land - informal parking area - why not. As BoD said, bushes, undergrowth, brambles. Otherwise, junk? Scrap? I doubt if I could get a surface like that if I tried! It's crying out for water-filled pot-holes and the like. Unloved but beautifully re-created with TLC.

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I hope your mojo doesn't head elsewhere in the meantime

Not only that, @Oldddudders, but real life gets in the way too! Yesterday was going to be some retaining wall work, but it ended up as being pressure-washing our decking yesterday morning, followed by a coup de grace in the afternoon. This morning, more pressure washing, though I might get to do a modelling afternoon. Tomorrow is out in the woods splitting logs and piling up ready for stockpiling as winter fuel for years 2024 AND 2025!

To add to my earlier comment, my boards are 900mm (a nadge under 3') and without the aid of a hop-up, I cannot reach the outer edge. I've even made the boards in the corners curved so to maintain a maximum stretch of 900mm. The fiddle yard is wider but as it's on a peninsula, it'll be accessible from both sides.

You might want to have a look at this layout (not mine) being constructed in an ex-chapel. It's big and yet despite the size of the building, they cannot get it all in - just to give some idea of the dimensions needed:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/128568-hills-of-the-north-the-last-great-project/page/

If you want to plough through 42 pages to see where I'm at, here's mine:

Good luck in whatever you decide to do - @Harlequin and others of the RMWeb cognoscenti will no doubt be able to give you helpful advice.

Philip

Go for it! BUT, do you have the space, time and money to see it through? I'm doing presently my one and only layout and for me it's big, but nowhere near as big as Pete Waterman's latest. I have a space of about 8.2m x 6.4m within which to build it. I'm into year three - well nearly four - started during Covid. One year ago, after building the room first, I started doing the boards and whilst they're done, I haven't yet started any track laying whatsoever. It takes FOREVER! I just hope that my biological clock isn't going to time me out first.

The upside is that I can have not one but two stations at prototypical lengths (there is a third one but that's my Rule 1 station). Both stations can accommodate full sized HSTs, but the one does have the last two coaches outside of the platforms - as per the prototype having grandfather rights.

You will need somewhere to park your stock, otherwise it'll be lift-on, lift-off with all the problems that follow.

Do think it through before you press the commit button!

Cheers,

Philip

C'mon Philou, stop messing about. What about this OH!! moment.

Well, you'll have to look at the photos below:

^ Not one train on a bridge, but two. There are baulks to go underneath and the whole of the track will raised by about 6mm. So? What's the problem - do get on with it .......

^ This is the problem - our friend clearance. There's less than 2mm freeboard between the coaches and the girders and they're not the widest stock that is intended to run through this bridge - that's why OH!!

I have options, quite a few:

• Give up. Well, that's not really an option and not really me either.
   
• Hard option. Cut the outer plate girders down to about 10mm above railhead and then crank each outwards by about 4mm. Quite doable but it'll mean an awful lot of fillets to be made up. Positively, they'll all be the same and I can incorporate them whilst doing the stiffeners.
   
• Easiest option (and this is why I didn't chuck it all in the bin) is to cut the central girder down to about 10mm above rail height so that the bodies of the rolling stock can clear the girder. The downside is I'll lose the curved top (or I could cut'n'shut and have the top of the curve no more than 10mm above). If I cut really carefully in the first sub-option, I may recover the laminated curve and flatten it. There is a photo of a flat topped central girder a few pages back.

Hey ho - a bit of a set back but nothing that a sharp scalpel and some glue can't fix.

I'm having a day off plasticard and going back to proper card to start dressing up the retaining wall in the  first photo just above.

Cheers everyone, more tomorrow,

Philip

Hello chums and chumesses,

After my message of yesterday, I did take some photos but I felt it was too late to be bashing the keyboard so they're up today.

Not much modelling happened but a lot of 'behind the scenes' was done. As the side and centre plates were done and so was the deck, I thought I ought to have a dry run and fit the bridge in the space intended on the layout. My first real afternoon in the railway room!

A palaver ensued as the plates were now longer than the 'ole and trimming of the trackbed followed - I had already foreseen that it was a probability. After much up'n'down the stairs, things were happening and finally everything fitted together - then I had an OH!! moment - but more of that further on below v.

The photos so far:

^ This is the stiffener to the inside face. The foot meets the deck plate. I did have a photo of the two but it was quite crap poor.

^ This is the stiffener on the outer edge of the girder. Looks OK and you can see all the angles that I mentioned yesterday. They're fine but it'll take a while to get them all cut then glued.

^ These are the girders in-situ without the bridge decking - some trimming of the plywood trackbed had been done to get this far.

^ A bit more trimming later and the deck together with the bridge deck fitted - can't say perfectly but the bridge isn't glued together yet and won't be until all the stiffeners are attached - just waiting to take delivery of the additional angle.

^ Here's an underside shot and looks much better than the one of last week. The grease bearings will need to be attached to the underside of the girders that'll raise them about 1mm off the abutments. Bits of concrete coloured paper will also need to be glued over the engineering bricks to imitate the pads under the bearings.

Now what about the OH!! ? Oh, there's no room for the next set of photos, so you'll have to wait with baited breath (just like in the pictures on a Saturday morning) until the next installment......................

Hello chums and chumesses,

No photos today as it was a bit of a mixed bag overall.

After posting up yesterday, I decided I'd tackle the ribbing (come to think of it, I think they're stiffeners) and I did the central one on the inner face by cutting some 0.5mm thick 'card (I didn't have any 0.3mm) into strips 3mm wide and re-cutting the one piece at the length required. I also cut a piece of my remaining angle to an appropriate length and then glued it alongside the pencil mark on the side girder. The rib was then placed against the angle and glued, followed by a second piece of angle on the other side of the rib forming a sandwich. Then the fun started cutting out some ever-so-tiny pieces of angle at an angle and then glueing them at an angle and horizontally against the top and bottom webs. I think a photo would have been more useful here - I'll do one tomorrow as it would have avoided all the 'angles'!

This one rib took an hour! Most of the time was spent glueing the tiny bits in place. I was however reasonably happy with the result.

This morning, as I still had just enough angle to do one more rib, I did the central one on the outer face. This time, having cut and fashioned the rib to length, I cut the angle slightly over-length allowing enough to do the 45° bends and horizontal bits. This was followed by cutting tiny bits out of the one part of the angle to allow it to bend. The long vertical part was glued to the rib and once set (it takes quite a few minutes) the 45° bends top and bottom were secured in place. It bent, but not quite as planned as the MEK weakened the angle where the cut had been made, leaving me with a tiny bit - the horizontal part - in my hand. I then had to glue that separately. Rinse and repeat at the bottom and then for the other side. Once all had 'gone off', the completed rib was then glued to the side plate.

This rib only took 45mins! I have another 62 to do and I don't want to be doing them for the next 62 hours. Now I've started of course I'll finish it but I must find away of speeding up the process.

This afternoon, I carried on with the other two plate girders. As I made mention above, they were slightly too short (why I have no idea as I'd already lengthened the card jigs - oh well!) and rather than re-cut two new ones, I decided to split them both and splice a new piece 20mm wide in each. I was really chuffed at the result as I had cut them slightly higher than the originals and then sanded them to size (on a curve) once set. I also lightly sanded down the surfaces along the glue joints and you could hardly see where the parts had been stitched together. Any marks will disappear once sprayed and painted.

I then spent what daylight time was left 'framing' the girders with the webs. I have the top web to finish tomorrow in good light and they too will be ready for their angles and ribs.

I was on a roll and a bit disappointed that bad light stopped play - it was time to eat anyway.

Not sure what progress I can make tomorrow as I may be out earning my woodsman's badge if the weather is dry.

Photos tomorrow and stay safe,

Cheers,

Philip

Hello chaps and chapesses,

I hope I find you all well. I have some more photos. Over the last few days when real life allowed it, I tackled the one plate girder side that was of a good length - funnily it's the longest piece that is correct.

I am amazed how much plasticard is munged through when building things. I have come to realise that my paltry six pieces of 1.2 x 1.2mm angle is nowhere near enough to do the one side, let alone all three! I need at least another 1.0m just to do the side stiffeners/ribs along the plate girder. It'll be rinse and repeat for the other side and the central girder - though less materials will be needed as they're shorter, much shorter than the long one.

Here we go:

^ This was the state of play at the end of the afternoon. The angle had been glued to the top of the girder that is curved and another section placed at 9.5mm from the bottom of the plate. This angle forms the join between the bridge deck and the plate girder. The pencil marks represent the joins of the plates and guides as to where the ribbing/strengtheners are to be placed. On this face, they will only reach as far as the deck itself and not go through. On the outer faces the ribs will go from top to bottom. Having seen the pictures of the collapsed bridge (further back ^) and the accident report, the bottom of the ribs/strengtheners are rivetted directly to the deck. I've added the angle as a guide (see below).

^ A dry run of the plate and deck together. Thanks to the angle and the flange (hidden by the deck) it all clips together. Once I've done those pesky ribs and sorted the alignment for the baulks, it can then be glued - subject to the central girder being finished first.

^ Here we have this afternoon's work. The top and bottom webs have been attached with additional strengthening plates as per the originals. I've also scored the deck along the line of the cross-member on the underside, to represent the deck plates. The pencils marks are an aid to locating the ribs with their respective heights - saves measuring everything again. The ribs will be cut from 0.3mm thick plasticard 3mm wide with a 1.5 x 1.5mm cut-out top and bottom to pass over the angles. Now comes the hard bit: I'll need to cut the angle to length, allowing for the 'nick' top and bottom and then two very small bits of angle to form the returns over the deck and under the top flange. Rinse and repeat for both sides of each rib - hence I need 1.0m just for this side plate.

^ Here's the outer edge where the ribs will go all the way from flange to flange. I'll need to order some RailTec rivets to finish it all off. You can see clearly in this shot the gradual thickening of the top and bottom flanges as they approach the centre of the side plate.

The deck is made from 3mm thick plasticard (I made mention of this already) with the side girders in 0.75mm thickness. The flanges are 0.5mm thick. The cross-members are 5mm square tube with flanges top and bottom, and 6.0mm channelling as closure at each end. You can just make out the strengthening plates mid-way on the flanges. There's also angle along both sides to allow more surface on which to glue.

Before I started glueing the flanges on, the side plate was very wibbly-wobbly and it is surprising (to me anyway) how it is now quite rigid with the flanges in place.

I'm a bit stuck at the moment without my angle - but more is on its way from the UK. There seems to be a bit of a shortage of 1.2 x 1.2mm angle. Is the whole world + dog building plate girder bridges at the moment :)) ?

I might have a go at doing the one rib as I have just enough angle left over, but that will be that for today otherwise.

Cheers everyone,

Philip

17 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Ranelagh Bridge

One of the Ranelagh's is on display at Lord and Butler's in Cardiff, if you're going thataway ...................... Very nice layout in a very small space.

On 14/03/2024 at 21:09, mike morley said:

A friend of mine has always wanted to model Pontrilas.

I'm not that friend, but I'm doing Pontrilas. I didn't know about Bucks Hill when I started off, and I wouldn't have thought to look at a name under anything else but Pontrilas. Too late now as the layout is well under construction ................................

Cheers,

Philip

PS: If anyone is interested look under 'Dymented'. Progress is slooooow at the moment but a bit is being done daily ..............

Hello chums and chumesses,

Busy, busy, busy - but not in a modelling sort of way, alas! Out in the woods again, spring clean in the barn as M. le Carpenter did come as he said he would and the barn door is now re-hung and opens up very sweetly. This morning it was emptying the trailer that was overflowing with stuff to go to the tip - er - recycling centre, sorting the rubbish - er - recyclable materials into groups and orf we went. that was the morning done (again) and in the afternoon more log splitting. We're doing M. le Maire's trees and the one, that has taken two days to split and pile, has given a volume of about 15m3 - say 12T of wood - just the one tree!

There wasn't a lot of time for modelling but the now two bridge decks are done including the angles that will connect with the side plate girders. I have the flanges to do this evening and that'll be the decks done. The fun will now be making the sides fit - two are too short so I'll have to redo them. The plasticard won't be wasted as they can be recut into strips as flanges to the side plate girders.

I have some pictures:

^ The decks placed temporarily in position. The side plate girders to be done next. There are also the baulks to do, but later.

^ An underside shot. On reflection, I was too cautious regarding the cross-members. I could have used something of a smaller section. The bottom flanges await to be done. They're all cut ready to be glued. I'll need to fabricate some grease bearings to go on the underside of each of the plate girders - just two small squares of plasticard each. I must also remember to add some coloured paper to the top of the bridge abutment to represent the concrete supports to the bearings.

That's all folks for this evening.

Cheers,

Philip