justin1985

Many thanks for all of the help and suggestions on wiring for DCC. I've now finished re-wiring the little crossover board for DCC/one engine in steam DC. I imagined this would just one or at most two evenings work - in the end it probably took about 4 or 5 evenings. The cold weather in the last week or so meant that I wasn't keen to spend more than an hour or two at a time in the garage though! It might be integral to the house, so theoretically gains heat from the rest of the house, and the door to the outside is now insulated with plenty of Celotex, but it isn't heated at all. It might never get real extremes of temperature, but it isn't entirely welcoming when its freezing outside! I went with a scheme of using 32/0.2 wire for the "bus" and from the controller sockets, 24/0.2 for most wiring within the board, and 16/0.2 for the feeds to the wire droppers. There are one or two droppers of even thinner wire left where they are basically impossible to get to to change without major surgery. But those are generally feeding only very short stretches of track, or are not the only feed to that length of track. My new wiring is not a patch on the neatness of Bill's, but at least I understand it now! I've temporarily fixed the bit of tag strip that is acting as the hub of the bus onto one of the bits of pine stripwood that forms the basis of the landscaping, but I'll move this onto the Tufnol board that houses the rest of the electronics once I'm happy with the interboard connections. I've got some of the pluggable choc-block type connectors to use as the bus connections, and will leave the 15-pin D-SUB connectors to deal with the accessory feeds and the one or two switched section feeds that run across the board joints. Once it was all wired up below, I turned my attention to belling through the track to test the connections. It turned out that the front turnout of the crossover didn't have any feed to its straight stock rail, as the tiny bit of brass wire acting as a "fishplate" from the end section of track, which had the feed, had a dry solder joint. I fixed this, but might also think about adding an additional feed at the other end of the stock rail as insurance. More puzzling to solve was the fact that the crossing of that front turnout wasn't getting a feed, despite it all being nicely soldered from a microswitch underneath. It turned out that the microswitch common was actually soldered to a dropper in the wrong location. I added a hole alongside one of the sleepers and soldered on a 0.4mm brass wire folded and filed to sit reasonably flat on top of the sleeper. Not as neat as it might have been, but I didn't fancy drilling through a sleeper and the thick ply its firmly stuck to directly, when everything else is in place. Testing with my J94 and some short wheelbase wagons revealed a few tight spots in that front turnout, but it was easy to ease out one knuckle of the crossing, which was a bit tight, and also one checkrail, which got tighter at one end. All runs beautifully now! Just only for about two feet, so far ... I find it interesting that Bill built these turnouts with pivoted, rather than flexing, switch rails. I'm guessing it was probably for reasons of durability? Next job will be to wire up the bridge board, which has the droppers attached but not wired in yet, but it is nice and simple - just two hidden through lines, one scenic through line, and a single siding. Hopefully I should be able to get trains running from the crossovers through to the train table within another week or so! J

Haha, yes I did get a bit of a shock when I realised normal white spirit didn't shift the button polish from the brush I used. Sorted in the end with different cleaner as you suggest, but now I see why the bottle recommends applying it with a rag! The button polish was the only thing that sealed the card, made it rigid, and didn't show any sign of lifting or swelling the softer textured card. I now want to just check how well it takes acrylic paint before I apply it to the kit. J

Thanks for the tips! I happened to be passing an old fashioned ironmongers type shop in Purley yesterday, noticed it while I was waiting to cross the road, and decided to pop in. They had some small bottles of Button Polish with the caption "only pure shellac", so I bought one at £7. I'll try and get around to testing this, and some of the other suggestions, on some of the scrap "fret" of the kit over the weekend. Its the fact that all the parts are card, rather than MDF etc, that makes me a little anxious about over-saturating with anything water based. Justin

I was pretty sure I had ordered one of these, but I logged in and it turned out that I hadn't. Two single packs ordered in the original and revised livery variants now When I logged in to trawl through previous orders I noticed a pending invoice for the class 92. I don't recall ever getting a notification that it was due! I think its fully paid now though. Its certainly less than obvious to navigate this invoicing\payment system ... I fear you could end up loosing a significant number of orders when people simply don't know to make a second or third payment. What happens to the initial payments if someone never logs in again? J

Amongst the boxes of parts and bits and pieces that came with Bill Blackburn's Long Melford layout I've found quite a few bodies of scratchbuilt wagons, many of which seem to be fish vans or related. They're beautifully built and I'd love to get roofs on them, chassis under them, and get them painted. However, not too sure about the identity of the exact types in order to match them to chassis and finish them. Some have got notes written on them, and others have a "PL xx" code written on which seems (but not always) to match the plates in the original Tatlow LNER wagons book. Any help with identifying them would be much appreciated! Pictures and some guesses based on browsing the Tatlow books below: Left to right Vented van - 9' wheelbase? Tatlow plate 96 - LNER refrigerator van. Based on GN design? Banana van - 9' wheelbase? Tatlow plate 97 "White Insulfish" written on bottom - 12' wheelbase with vacuum brake? Has PL83 written on it, but definitely doesn't match plate 83 of Tatlow Left to right North Eastern Road Van? Appears to be based on Poole Farish model, but split down the middle and narrowed or widened? Vented van - "PL94" = 1894 GNR refrigerator van, 10'6 wheelbase, needs ladders and upper footboards, roof hatch? Left to right "White black straps" written on bottom. 10' wb? "PL95" = GN ventilated refrigerator van, needs ladders etc? LNER standard 10 ton fish van, wb 12'? These two vans seem to be built from the John Grey kit, which I could only find references to as an "LNER fish van". It definitely looks pre-grouping though, and one has been fitted with a plastic PECO 9' wb chassis and painted and lettered as GN. From a casual flick through the newer Tatlow book, however, it looks like a GC 10 ton 18', 10' wheelbase fish van? Any corrections, confirmations, or suggestions (especially re: chassis) would be much appreciated! Justin

Hi Marlyn, Funnily enough I was just looking at your textures thread. I haven't started any of these kits yet, but I'm tempted to try the shellac method of sealing the card, as discussed on your thread too. I hadn't realised "knotting solution" was the same thing! I hadn't fancied mixing the old stuff up, so this is an attractive solution. Does anyone know if "knotting" is always just "knotting", or should I look for any particular formulation for this kind of use? I think the first step will be to try a few different things to seal the card on the waste areas of one of the kits. Planning to try knotting, Klear floor varnish, and enamel varnish (probably the ready thinned airbrush version?) Best J

Nothing wrong with that at all! Wasn't suggesting you needed to go whole hog with the bundled wire method, but perhaps just try and find a different plant that branches in a different way as the source of your twigs. You could even take inspiration from the wire method and combine different twigs from different plants to get and get a fuller shape - cover the joins in a "trunk" coating of mixed Pollyfilla and PVA. I seem to remember a thread where a load of people tried to grow the "sea moss" "forest in a box" plant from seeds at home as a low cost source! I think it needed a greenhouse to be successful though. EDIT - found the thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/71243-seafoam-im-growing-my-own/

These look good, and it sounds like a very interesting project! But I'd agree with Daddyman that while trees should be a lot taller than we often see them modelled, they seldom have such a long bare section of trunk and a canopy that starts so high up. I'd also associate the upward curving branches with smaller trees and branches - larger trees tend to have branches that are closer to horizontal. Scots Pine is the most obvious exception to this, in having tall bare sections before you reach the canopy. But the branches tend to be very much horizontal, or even downward sloping. It might be worth looking for another source of armatures for larger trees, and using the plant that supplied those mainly for smaller ones? Another recommendation for the Gordon Gravett's pair of books on modelling trees. The techniques are written for O gauge, but almost all can be adapted for N! J

Many thanks for all of the help and advice, much appreciated! A few more hours work this evening has got all of the tracks in the scenic section rewired to a simple set of red/black feeds, using the 24/0.2 wire. I'll get hold of some 32/0.2 for the main power bus and connections to the other boards. I actually found some of the plug-in choc-block type connectors in my electrical bits box, so I'll use those for the power bus connection between boards, and just keep the D-SUB connections for analogue point control, accessories etc. I've kept the beginning of the siding running towards the bridge switched separately as a manual isolating section. Nonetheless, I've still stripped out an awful lot of cable and switches. It all bells through as intended on a continuity test with no shorts. However, the vee section of one of the two turnouts doesn't seem to have any continuity with its microswitch. As the trackwork is tidied up and painted, it's very difficult to try and trace back where the connection is even meant to be on the top of the layout - it's very well disguised! I guess I'll have to take the paint off in that area and try and find it, or just drill through a new feed, maybe? I still need to tackle the hidden return tracks. Each of the rails is fed from no less than four feeds! AND it's linked end to end with additional wires underneath (Over a distance of only 75cm). I think a feed to each end of these tracks on this board, from a central bus, should be absolutely fine J

Thanks Ian, sorry I scanned to the bottom of the thread and read Don's post, but hadn't noticed yours when first replying. Thanks for the explanation of the risks associated with shorts. I was half aware of this, so your more detailed explanation is appreciated. Is the 5A booster you're referring to the MERG one? I guess I should work on the basis that any future booster is likely to be at least 5A. So 32/0.2 wire would be a sensible minimum for the bus, if not mains cable (still feel like I'd prefer the flexibility of multi-strand ...) Thanks for the pointer to the pluggable terminal connectors. I did have in mind something akin to a heavier duty version of the old computer Molex connector, but didn't know what to search for! It looks like the female sides of the connectors are only available as PCB mount, and don't have any additional means of fixing besides the solder joint. Do you find that they are robust enough? J

Many thanks for the advice. I just picked up some 24/0.2 from Maplin that is (suposedly) rated for 6A (the equivalent from Rapid etc seems to be 4.5A, so I suspect Maplin have been optimistic ...). I have got some mains cable sat around, but I don't really fancy wrestling solid core cable through the rather constrained space under the layout unless its absolutely necessary. The booster for the Roco DCC system I've got has a rating of 3.5A, so either way that should be within tolerance. I'm certainly not planning to run any solenoids or point motors from the same power bus. The point motors and uncouplers that are already on the layout are wired entirely separately, and I'll probably stick to that set up for the foreseeable future. I can't imagine ever having more than two or three locos 'live' at any one time on this layout, so current draw under normal circumstances shouldn't be a problem - mainly concerned about shorts etc? On the basis of Don's comments, I would have thought it would be OK to use the 24/0.2 for the bus, and the 16/0.2 for droppers and shorter runs to tag strips etc. Would it be acceptable practice to stick with the D-SUB connectors between boards, but double up the bus connections? Justin

I had a very busy with autumn with work, and didn't get the chance to do any modelling at all really. Since Christmas I've been easing myself back into it with a few other projects, but Long Melford has been sat next to the workbench, making me feel guilty. Yesterday I decided to grab the nettle and tackle the wiring. It seems such a shame to mess around with Bill's ultra neat wiring looms on the crossover board, but after thinking it over many times, I keep coming back to the conclusion of going for DCC. It took me long enough to get my head around the cab control wiring on the single board that was wired, I didn't rate my chances of being able to fault-find on it in future, or indeed of being able to wire up the remaining boards in a way that would work with Bill's scheme (nothing else was complete in terms of wiring). I don't currently have any 2mmFS locos that are chipped, but I've chipped enough normal N gauge locos for the process not to be too much of a concern. So, last night I started ripping out all of primary\secondary controller switching and associated cross-wiring, and the blue\white secondary track power feeds. I'm aiming to standardise all of the power feeds as normal red\black, at least in the main wiring runs, but leaving the actual droppers from the track as is. I'll leave isolating switches for the feeds for the sidings, and for the longer sections of hidden track approaching the train table (calling-on roads, I guess). This does raise a few questions. The main stock of wire that I have is 16\0.2 - is that going to be sufficient for the main power "bus" on a DCC 2mm layout of this size? This is definitely meatier than the normal "equipment wire" that Bill used for droppers, and seems about the same as the wire he used for the main feeds. Should I actually replace this with something even thicker? The inter-board connections that Bill used were 15-pin D-SUB connectors (surprisingly hard to find these days - anyone remember the old MIDI\Game socket on a PC in the 1990s?). Are these connectors going to be able to handle DCC voltages and current? Should I separate out the main DCC bus wiring onto some beefier connections? I have a small stock of the RC type two pin connectors used on KATO track feeds etc, which might do that job? Cheers for any thoughts! Justin

Sorry to hear you had trouble. There is definitely a knack to getting the right amount of solder on these small parts, but it doesn't take long to get the hang of it I'd be happy to sit down with you and help you tidy it up if it needs it, or help you run through another build? J

The MBZ range is really impressive, both in range, and in quality. The prices are enough to make you wince though! You can browse the kits without downloading the PDF here: http://www.mbz-modellbahnzubehoer.de/produkte/index.htm I suspect the PDF is more up to date though. All of the kits can be supplied in any scale. I've tried to draw up a Templot plan for the trackplan through the station area, using the Anyrail plan as a general guide to how it will join the hidden sectional track, and the overall radius. It might be a little clearer without the background plan: I'm far from being confident with Templot, in fact I find the interface and the peg snapping arrangements etc really counter-intuitive, but I struggled through. The outer track of the loop isn't going to have a platform, its simply a loop, so I let the transition curve flow as smoothly as I could, rather than attempting to straighten it out to be perfectly parallel. All of the turnouts are B6, so pretty sharp, but not as sharp as the Marklin ones! This project is about atmosphere and fun, rather than real prototype fidelity. Nonetheless, I've tried to capture something of the character of a small German wayside station like Posthalde, with the goods siding running closest to the station building, which will have had an abutting small goods loading bay. The ruler marked "22cm" indicates where the viaduct (a Faller product that I will detail and narrow down) will run across the valley. The mainline will disappear into tunnels just where the curves kick in at either end. The platform, and certainly the siding, will probably be so short that it will only be plausible to operate them with steam era stock - I suspect the 3 coach doppelstockwagen train would look ridiculous trying to stop in the platform! Still, I don't really want to expand the overall footprint much beyond the 120x50cm area - this is a "bit of fun" side project, after all! Any suggestions on optimising the track plan would be appreciated Justin

Interesting to see these pictures. They certainly look nice and fresh on the outside! When they were operating on GatEx/Southern services they were feeling really quite run down. I used to regularly get the Eastbourne to London Bridge service at East Croydon, which was one of their last few services with Southern. As well as the doors that were regularly out of service, my main memory was of the very poor ride quality. There was an awful amount of surging/snatching, like you tend to get with MK3 / Class 90 pushing sets on the Great Eastern. It felt like the braking through the train was never quite in sync! Class 455s seem to suffer from this a bit, but 321s much less so, which are the only other EMUs I've used regularly with the single motor coach "tractor" format. Presumably more modern EMUs are inherently smoother running because the traction motors are distributed more evenly throughout the train? Justin

Wonderful, thanks Alan. I particularly like the driver and stationmaster with pocket watches! I see what you mean about the station master and guards' hats - they look a little bit SNCF to me! I guess the British pre-grouping companies probably had such a wide range of uniform hats that it would be difficult to come up with one design that looks right in everyone's eyes. I'll definitely buy some in 2mm when they're ready. Edwardian passengers would also be very welcome indeed! Justin

I'd love to see a preview of the Edwardian figures! J

Hi, I just got around to it last night! http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/130528-h%C3%B6llentalbahn-in-z/&do=findComment&comment=3017459

I've posted one a few things in the handbuilt track forum about my experiments with "finer" Z gauge, and I'm pretty happy with the trackwork, so I'm moving on with the layout plan I have in mind for this. Z Gauge has caught my interest for quite some time, but I began to develop a more serious plan after a holiday hiking in the Black Forest in 2016. The combination of dramatic scenery and railways around the seemed quite hard to beat! Picture - my own copyright The line that had really caught my eye was the Höllentalbahn (literally "Hell Valley Railway"), a single electrified track branchline running from Freiburg to Neustadt (Schwarzwald), and then continues as a diesel only line, known as the Hintere (lower) Höllentalbahn to Donaueschingen (the source of the Danube). Picture - Creative Commons 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6llentalbahn_(Black_Forest)#/media/File:Doppelstockzug_auf_der_Fahrt_ins_H%C3%B6llental.jpg The really dramatic section is around Hinterzarten, where the line crosses the famous Ravenna Viaduct (in the first picture). Map - Wikipedia user Lencer - Creative Commons CC-BY https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6llentalbahn_(Black_Forest)#/media/File:Verlaufskarte_H%C3%B6llentalbahn_2.png The trip certainly gave me thoughts about modelling this kind of scenery in a scale that would allow me to make the most of it. When I realised that Märklin had released a track pack of the distinctive combination of Br143 bo-bo electric loco and double deck coaches, it wasn't long until my wallet took a hit. I gather that the Br143's have now been replaced, but their boxy old GDR styling quite appealed to me. Photo with the loco and two of the three coaches on my coffee table The obstacle to building a layout, for me though, was the fact that the track available from Märklin is pretty awful. Points are not only expensive, but look terrible, with one-piece pivoting switch rails, plastic vees, and strange sprung metal contacts through the crossing flangeways. Slightly better trackwork is now available from Japanese manufacturer Rokuhan, but this is moulded with solid ballast shoulders, like Kato Unitrack in N and HO. Not bad, but not really at the standards I'd like. Then I noticed that RMWeb user WillVale (who unfortunately doesn't seem to be active on the forum anymore) had had a similar idea, and modelled the Hirschsprung stretch of this line in Z. Intriguingly, I noticed that he had adapted the Z gauge flex track to look quite a bit better. The trick was to slide the existing rail (code 60 I think) out, and replace it with code 40 flatbottom rail, which, luck would have it, fits nicely in the existing chairs. A solution for finer looking Z gauge track! But what about points? Will's solution was to only have plain track in the scenic section and confine the points to the fiddle yard. I decided to experiment with using the same code 40 flatbottom rail with 2mm Scale Association narrow gauge PCB sleepers, and templates printed from Templot with the Z-NMRA settings. The process of arriving at something that worked is documented in this thread. The long and short of it is that I ended up with a standard based around accommodating the existing Märklin wheels boiling down to: track gauge: 6.6mm; check gauge: 5.9mm; crossing flangeway: 0.7mm; check span: 5.2mm. It works pretty nicely! So, for the actual plan. I'm aiming for a single track roundy-roundy that will allow for at least a little operational interest - a small station, more or less inspired by the now closed Posthalde, perhaps with a hint of the also closed Hirschsprung, with just a passing loop and single goods siding. This will allow two trains to pass, and potentially even a very small amount of shunting. I'm planning to experiment with Microtrains (Kaydee) couplings. I'm still working on finalising the details of track plan, and the actual trackwork through the station will be drawn in Templot, so the Anyrail plan here is just an approximation. It should give an idea of the concept though. I'm aiming to fit the whole thing in 120x50cm (the size of a sheet of pink insulation board). The ruling radius is 195cm, which is Märklin's second radius. I had tried the first radius (145cm) for the hidden sections, but the Doppelstockwagen are so long (real things are 26m) that they really struggle at that radius - the flanges rub against the bodywork! The other key features will be a significant viaduct crossing a central valley, and some suitably idyllic (OK, twee) Black Forest scenery - farmhouses, stables, maybe a watermill, and certainly a castle perched amongst the pines. I've just got hold of some Z scale versions of laser cut kits of Black Forest prototypes by Thomas Oswald of MBZ. The laser engraving is pretty much the finest I've ever seen! I think I now have everything I need to finalise the design, so hopefully making concrete progress soon! Any thoughts or suggestions much appreciated! Justin

Thanks - it certainly seems like something that seals against moisture is what's needed. I guess either varnish or traditional spray primer would do the job. I think the question is less about translation, and more the fact that the instructions in either language just refer to their specific proprietary paints etc. I was very reluctant to buy these as well, considering I've got a pretty good stock of other brands of these kinds of things. It's just knowing what type of paint etc would be best! It's good to see what the Halfords primer and enamels work fine Any experience with acrylics? J

Hi all, I've got some laser cut kits on order from MBZ in Germany, for a little Black Forest themed project I'm doing. By all accounts these kits are very fine quality - they're the ones created for Josef Brandl's famous Hochschwarzwald layout. They only have a minimal amount of info available in English, so I've been scratching together what I can understand with my schoolboy level German\Google Translate's attempts. I've never used a laser cut kit before - I'm more used to scratchbuilding with brick papers or plasticard etc. It looks like they recommend a rather odd painting method, so I'd be interested to hear how others paint laser cut card buildings in general? The method described in the official instructions (brief English version here) and a video from their American distributors, Reynolds Imports, shows first brushing the whole fret with their proprietary "primer", which looks like a clear varnish. Then the method recommended seems to be to make up a paste from their proprietary pigment powder and proprietary solution, and apply with a sponge. I'm guessing the "primer" is a form of artist's varnish, and the pigment and solution are equivalent to weathering powders and pigment fixer in the military armour weathering ranges (e.g. MIG)? Has anyone used that kind of process on card kits before? I'm guessing it would be equally possible to use conventional acrylic paints and then drybrush weathering on a card kit of this type? (after priming?) Cheers Justin

I made a second turnout using these standards and the bobbin gauge, this time with a gentle curve. It look a few tweaks to get the crossing just right, but overall much easier than attempting without a gauge! Once I had the two points I stuck them down on a (warped, it turns out) offcut of ply, and added some plain track created by pulling out the rail from a section of PECO Z gauge flex track and replacing it with the 2mm Association code 40 flatbottom. Pictured below with the Märklin stock switch again. I wired this up to test how they work with point motors, and with locos. One turnout has just been attached to a slide switch using some steel wire, and the other is fitted with a Conrad stall motor switch machine. I'm quite impressed with the Conrad point motor - pretty good value at £10.99, low profile, and easy to adjust. The only downside is that it is certainly not slow acting! It took a bit more adjustment of the crossings and the switch blades to get everything working nicely. It turned out that I'd let the gauge get a bit too wide over the switches, and the crossing wasn't aligned quite perfectly. I certainly appreciate the potential for tweaking that PCB sleepers give you. I got there and it all seems to work essentially flawlessly, at least as my eyes can detect. I've tested with locos from a 0-6-0 tank to a 4-6-2 pacific, and bo-bo diesels, and with wagons from short wheelbase four wheelers to exceptionally long modern double deck coaches. I'll create a new topic in the Layouts section soon with details of the rest of the layout project. Justin Edited - video added

I haven't noticed any problem with the running at the current height. I've tried testing it on both 1st and 2nd radius PECO set track, and it does still go around the 1st radius curve, albeit with a bit of a growl - although I'm not sure that is actually the bogie or wheels rubbing the body. It seems totally fine on the 2nd radius curves. The SMD LEDs arrived, but I'd mistaken the sizes - 1206 was much too large. I did try fitting one of them anyway, and it did work, but was much too bright. I've now re-ordered some 0603 LEDs to try again. I made a short video of testing on second radius curves with some of the sound functions. Justin Edit - video added. The board was on the floor and my cat wanders in to the shot half way through, thankfully he didn't attack the loco!

It's a real shame that the poll owner can't break down the responses. I suspect this would have cut off quite a few "I know best" pronouncements. As users can see their "blue star" responses, this means the forum software is saving responses individually. Is there any chance that Andy Y or the team could dump this data out from the MySQL table (I presume?) so that someone could have a play with some crosstab type analysis in SPSS or similar? J

I've been following these threads with interest - really fascinating prototypes - in-laws live just outside Merstham, so I travel that bit of line quite regularly. One scene is definitely more feasible than two, so how about a little selective adaptation of reality? Just up the road from Merstham is Whyteleafe, on the SER branch line to Caterham, literally just down the hill from Upper Warlingham on the LBSCR Oxted Line. They're certainly within sight of each other. Obviously the quarry line was built as an express cut off, but perhaps the Caterham\Oxted branch lines could serve as enough of a precedent for there having been a fictional "Upper Merstham" on the upper line. This would give you a bit more operational interest on both, even if not an excuse for SECR boat trains ... J