Artless Bodger

Hi. I should have started with welcome to RMweb, hope you find plenty to interest you here. As you worked at APM, perhaps this thread might interest you too? Very early stuff, photos of the first 2 paper machines being built. I remember smelly alley well, it was a short-cut from NH station to the old yard office where EM technical and Water and Effluent depts were housed. It could be a bit unpleasant on winter nights, few working lights and quite a bit of junk laying around. When 6 was working it was even worse as any wet end flooding inevitably ran out the back door, down the steps and festered between the rails.

Hello Dark One. Thank you, that is interesting information. I knew there had been considerable rebuilding done in east mill, including a much taller flood wall along the towpath, so it is nice to get some details of what was done. You wouldn't have any photos or drawings would you? I remember Hornblower and Bounty being craned on to lowloaders and taken away - probably for scrap, the scrap men had already cut up and removed all the old internal user coal wagons you used to be able to see south of the ballast pit and the steam crane too. The wagons were mainly ex wartime cupboard door type steel minerals, but mainly rust by the 80s. We used to put the empty plastic biocide barrels in them as several got blown into the ballast pit one very windy day! The last time I saw the ballast pit from a passing train it looked like it had been filled in, but perhaps it had just silted up and grown weeds. I borrowed the engineers' polaroid camera to take this photo as the locos were taken unexpectedly. I note that in the shot the conveyor gantries have already been removed, and the stothert and pitt crane used to unload clay wagons, but I cannot remember them being cut down - odd becasue I would have looked out on the gantries from the office.

Hi Sophia I've realised I pasted the wrong address for the Historic England photos, should have been: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/results/?searchType=HE+Archive+New&search=Aylesford+Paper+Mills NB. Some are of Colthrop near Thatcham, part of the Reed Group but clearly not the Kent mills.

No expert but FWIW: There are a few photos of the Tovil goods branch - see the Kentrail site, this shows vans behind an electro-diesel, and the covered loading area, not really a goods shed. Try the Historic England site: https://historicengland.org.uk/sitesearch?search=Aylesford+Paper+Mills You will need to wade through it but there are a couple of photos showing vans - normal goods vans as far as I can see. Dad took me round parts of the mill at weekends when I was young, I remember the SR eliptical roof vans in one stockroom loading bay, also opens (highfits? 5plank) with straw used as dunnage packing around wrapped webs (reels) of paper, then sheeted over before despatch - so similar protection against the weather as webs on lorries to Fleet St etc - note the photos on the HE website showing lorries delivering paper reels - they've taken the sheets off to show the paper, normally you would not see the individual reels (too vulnerable to damp), just the lumpy outline under the sheets. Vans would be used for palleted loads, e.g. packed reams, small counter reels of wrapping paper etc. The paper sacks were loaded in tied bundles as might box blanks (cut, glued, corrugated cases laid flat). That covers outbound traffic. Inbound could include any goods vans with bagged starch, bagged clay, dyes and pigments in sacks or drums, bagged rosin. Chlorine tankers of course (for a big mill, I dont think Tovil used it), maybe caustic soda (again not Tovil & Bridge to my knowledge, though Allnutt's and Hayle were rag mills and usually rags are boiled with caustic to soften and swell the fibre before breaking - Allnutt's had a rag boiler, but I didn't see one at Hayle on my one visit). Woodpulp arrived mainly by river in lighters. Coal. I'm not aware of any of the Reed Mills, or Allnutt's having any private owner wagons, but I only knew them in the 60s onwards. Oh, and if you fancy some special traffic - Allnutt's took delivery of a new Lancashire boiler sometime in the 20s or 30s, brought into Tovil goods by a C class (or an O1) and rolled off the wagon, down the embankment to road level where it was winched onto a solid tyred trailer and drawn round to the mill with a traction engine - Mum had a set of photos of the event, I've asked my brother if they were kept after she died, so I may be lucky.

Easter vac 1976, I was on a geology field course, based in Torquay. Crossing the railway line on the way to Paignton and beyond I saw a Gresley (?) catering vehicle on a train passing underneath, I recall nothing else about the train except it was in blue / grey and had the square paneling immediately making me think 'LNER'. Would this have been on an excursion train? Though I'm pretty sure this would have been mid-week, so at that time of year excursion seems a bit unlikely. No camera of course

Sorry, it's not meant to be proscriptive. Your railway, your rules! Other papermills are (were) available around Tovil.

What glue do you use to stick the cardboard together? PVA or hot melt? Thanks.

Hi. I've just found this (via your comments in Minories are made of this), a very nice concept. Though currently modelling in N, I've still got some OO, mainly SR, and hanker after some sort of layout. N probably wont be my final layout as my eyesight deteriorates, so OO will eventually become a necessity. Combining your ideas of corrugated cardboard, and Sophia NSE's use of foamboard, gives me something to factor into doodling ideas for the next one. Particularly as I'm still in the 2x1 and Sundeala age of baseboard carpentry and cannot saw / drill anything square. Plywood I cannot get on with at all, but anything I can cut with a Stanley knife or scalpel and straight edge I can cope with. Thanks for the ideas.

I've only visited Queen Street once or twice but it did give me the Minories feeling, with mainline stuff too.

Glad to hear you sorted the Q1. Reeds - owners of Upper Tovil and Bridge mills - had green locos with red rods, green wheels in some cases (Aylesford, Imperial and Empire mills).

Some photos of Unilever house under construction, April and July 1931. https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/unilever-house-under-construction-blackfriars-london-news-photo/3434654 https://www.alamy.com/unilever-house-blackfriars-in-course-of-construction-london-17-july-1931-image359629871.html Other views https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/unilever-house-de-keysers-royal-hotel-and-the-drinking-fountain-association/ Given the state of Unilever house in April 1931, the demolition of de Keysers was probably autumn 1930? Would fit the suggested dates above. It's amazing where perusing RMWeb will take you!

FWIW I'll chuck my hat in the ring on this one, having had a few electrical issues in the past. A while ago I bought a cheap multi meter on a stand at an exhibition and I find that useful, but not essential for fault finding. BTW you can download the service sheet on the Hornby website: https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/downloads/service-sheets/ , enter 14xx in the search box, it's number SS227G, shows an exploded diagram, and a spare parts list. In this case a few steps to try - my apologies if you've tried this already. 1. When you apply power with the loco on the track, or direct to the wheels, does it hum? If so it might be a mechanical problem stopping the motor turning, if it doesn't its probably the electrical connection somewhere. Assuming you don't get a dead short. 2. Can you turn the motor armature shaft with your finger tip and get the wheels to turn? If the wheels turn ok then there is no mechanical obstruction in the gear train. If there is an obstruction it might be a bit of loose ballast or similar in the gear teeth. 3. With a couple of wires connected to the controller, at low power apply the ends of the wires to the brush connections on the motor, if you can. They're probably in the white / clear plastic part at the opposite end of the motor to the worm in your photo. If the motor turns there's a break in the circuit between the wheels / pick ups and the motor. If the motor doesn't turn then the motor might be kaputt, or the brushes worn down and not in contact. If it's the brushes, you my be able to get spares - I've no experience with modern motors - X04 and GF Poole N motors are about my limit. Modern ones tend to be can type and not user serviceable but your 14xx chassis doesn't look like that. 4. Assuming the motor turns when current is applied direct to the brush connections, then move one wire back down the wiring path towards the pick ups and wheels step by step, wherever you can get contact. Once one side of the chassis is tested ok by this method move the other wire in a similar way back and you should be able to determine at what point in the circuit you have a break. Some things I've found: Sometimes over enthusiastic oiling or greasing can in itself build up an insulating layer on pickups, I've found a wadge of greasy fluff and dust displacing the wipers on my Minitrix cl27, and I don't run it one the carpet! I clean wheel rins and pick ups with IMS or surgical spirit on a piece of thin cloth (worn out handkerchiefs are good) held in fine tweezers. Carbon deposits on the commutator can also affect the motor by conducting across between windings, the old advice was to carefully clean armature slots with a fine pin or needle, BUT to take care not to scratch the commutator surface. I think though that carbon build up would cause a short. Hope this helps and good luck.

It has that Whitstable Crab look to it with the low boiler mountings. Nice, certainly looks better than the original cab.

1926 aerial view on Britain From Above: https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW015771 , with the Royal Hotel, 1934 aerial view: https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW045388 , Unilever building complete. I cannot make out the exact position of the tram shelter in either view as it is too grainy.

Looking at this photo, I'm thinking the river is on the right, the twin lamp standards on the right distance are on Blackfriars Bridge, so on the left should be the City of London School and other fairly tall buildings, the light bulbous object and the cigar shaped 'airship' are either parts of those buildings or artifacts of the long exposure - the background to the photo is not very uniform. I wonder if you would see much sky to the left?

I've just come across this thread, and am intrigued by the debate on the photo. If that is an airship in the sky, and the date as suggested, late 20s - early 30s, R101 passed over London on its last flight on the evening of October 4, 1930, to crash later on a hill outside Beauvais.

Or you could try spider's web. On a school visit to RGO at Herstmonceux Castle we were shown the transit telescope, and told that for cross wires in the eye piece they used spider silk as it was so fine and unaffected by temperature - fine metal wires bowed on expansion. Apparently you find the right spider, keep it in a matchbox until it calms down (so the silk isn't lumpy), let it spin a web and sample from that. Ideally of course you train the spider to spin the spokes in situ for you.

Not a lot has happened on New Hythe in the last couple of weeks, but that is typical for me, the previous layout was going for 6 years or more but never really took off. I've been mainly indulging in cardboard geology, it's cheap, and have also raided Head Gardener's horticultural grit sand (with permission) for some ballast material for the goods yard - I sieved it with the tea strainer and returned the grit bits. It's a nice slightly yellowish brown, hopefully like the shingle ballast the SECR and LBSCR were reputed to use. I've used 3mm foamboard inserts between the tracks in the goods yard - evident in the photos in the first post above, these have now been glued down after painting the edges, ballasting will proceed when I can get up the enthusiasm. This will be a useful experiment as I've not used loose ballast for a very long time; my experiences on the old Reed's OO layout were not great and earned me a lot of opprobrium since the dilute PVA managed to get down the wire in tube point control by capillary action, rusted the wires and the whole tube / wire / ballast in the area had to come up and be replaced. I didn't plan the scenery before settling the track plan (again shades of previous layout), I have a vague picture in my mind of what I want but making it work is something else. The high ground in the back corner was designed as a lift off panel for track cleaning, derailments etc, and was to have a basic retaining wall. However, I realised I had no credible goods yard access, and so spent some while scheming and cutting to get to the curved sloping road in cutting visible in the first post. Activity has been sporadic here, getting the gaps filled, trying to ensure the section that lifts out mates properly with the fixed lower part etc. OCC (old corrugated cases) are great as free material but susceptible to warping when using waterbased paints, glues etc. I've also had to apply quite a bit of packing of various thicknesses to get the retaining walls (Metcalfe red brick sheet) vertical - visible in the photos. There's quite a lot of cereal packets involved too. I think the church will eventually occupy the bit over the tunnels - to be decided.

Many thanks for the support Les, from someone with such modelling credentials as you, that's a big fillip. I've enjoyed reading about Hawthorn Dene. Looking at your new project gives me pangs as I sold the little bit of German N I had not that long ago, most of it dating from when I helped operate the Reeds Model Engineering Society's layout - I recall it was called "Furburgen and Erdenstadt", we took it to Gravesend and Deal. I've had a fascination for the altbau electric locos ever since, so the E94 and E44 fill me with longing - to be unfulfilled as Minitrix prices were beyond me even when still in employment.

The next stage was to cut a ring ob PS sheet to fit in the pit to represent the circumferential support rail, that done the bridge hole was opened out to fit a suitable long dome headed screw I had in the bits box, the pilot hole in the pit base disc also drilled through and through the baseboard. The screw was just long enough to take a washer and two locknuts underneath - much fiddling in the dark to get these on. This is where I found the deck was tight in places - pit wall not quite concentric, so a bit of filing on both ends of the deck ensured hitch free rotation. A segment of 30 thou fitted under each deck end, curved to fit inside the pit wall and rest on the support rail ensured a fairly level deck and once the inlet track was packed up with a strip of thin card, nearly level transition across the gap - as good as I was likely to get it. Fitting power contacts now proved to be difficult - the original idea was some sort of springy metal strip as a wiper, but I shied away from this and first tried two drawing pins. First issue - the pins are steel, brassed, so dont solder too well and are also too big, so needed cutting down to a D shape. Wires attached and pins pushed into predrilled holes, it didn't work - the pins were not level and the deck did not sit on them smoothly. Back to the spring wiper idea - sorting through the bits box, I found some small scraps of brass or phosphor bronze shim (recovered from our workshop at work years ago). One looked promising, it was soldered to a small scrap of strip-board also found lurking in the bits box. The diagram I think explains it better than I can in words. Close up photo of the contact springs in situ. Photo of turntable aligned with entry track. It works well enough, I can drive locos on and off it without finger poking, rotation is by big hand from the sky, but then all my points operate the same way too. I can isolate a loco on it by rotating away from the contacts should I want to. The two spur tracks are unpowered dummies. Finishing touches will be some plastic wagon wheels filed down to half and glued to the top of the segments either side of each girder to represent the support rollers, and finally painting. I shall probably paint the steelwork grey, some photos on the web show light and dark stone for a GWR table which this resembles, but many seem to be a single dark colour.

The rest of the construction of the turntable bridge was fairly straight forward PS sheet construction, with plank embossed strip for the walkways either side of the rails. I made one error in that I didn't allow enough clearance for the UM Dukedog crankpins at first and had to remove the side girders and re-glue them about 1-2 mm further apart. I tested the bridge by placing it on the track and putting a selection of locos on - power was conducted via the screw heads and the locos moved, so far so good, now for the pit. The pit was cut into the cork tiles using the compass cutter again, slightly uneven due to the size of the cork particles. The base disk inserted and the bridge fitted, with a pin or bent paperclip providing a pivot, rotation proved that the bridge and pit weren't quite concentric, and not enough gap for a low brick wall around the pit, so the cork was trimmed back using a 1/4" woodworking chisel and a chisel bladed craft knife. This is where the lights on the magnifier headset came into use as I'm working in my own light in many places on the layout. The compass cutter (plus some fettling with scalpels) provided an outer ring for ground level and narrow strips of brick embossed PS sheet were fitted for the pit walls, all liberally soaked into place with solvent.

Hi Richard. Thank you for your supportive response. I've been doing model building - railway, war-gaming (Napoleonic, WW2), military especially AFVs etc for a long time now and still don't seem to have learned very much, despite all the reading of magazines and websites, and don't have much to show for the time and money expended. But as you say I did enjoy it, and get a lot of satisfaction from overcoming obstacles (though quite a lot ended up in the 'too difficult' category).

Well, plans are one thing, application is another. Despite considering the best way to ensure everything was concentric etc, and measure twice, cut once approach I still managed to get the deck and rail alignment slightly off true. Incidentally I found the magnifier specs shown below to be an essential tool and they have been instrumental in keeping me modelling in N - they were a chance find in Hobbycraft, and at £15 (2019) with 5 different lenses and a built in LED light are indispensable to me now. Cutting the deck and base disc was done with a compass cutter (also Hobbycraft) - quite a simple tool but a bit flimsy if you try to take too big a cut at once it distorts and goes out of dimension. Having marked the deck and rail positions, I then drew in the diagonals of the rail positions and where they intersected drilled a small pilot hole, used this as centre for cutting the end radius. Before drilling the holes for the screw heads I cut these, filed the shank as flush as possible then soldered them to the rail flange - my lack of dexterity and soldering technique meant they were not quite exactly positioned. After several attempts, burned fingers, hot metal on the carpet and much swearing, I decided I could live with the inexact positions. Once cool and cleaned up the rails were measured and holes drilled on the rail centre lines to accept the screw heads. Problem - with a magnifier I can read / estimate to approx 0.1 mm on a steel rule (I had to do it in my job at one time), but I cannot accurately mark up, let alone cut, to better than 0.5 mm, so getting the 20 thou strip for the gauge precise was ultimately a bit fit and fiddle. Also seeing the pencil lines when the rails are actually to be positioned on top - not planned well! Finally though I got the rails superglued to the deck, gauging strip solvent welded in place and the capping strip glued over the flanges, as shown.

The basic structure was planned to be 40 thou turntable deck, with a 20 thou strip to set the rails to gauge, further 20 thou outside to hold them to gauge. On top in the 4 foot, another wider strip of 20 thou overlapping the flanges, and similar outside. Using code 80 rail this leaves 40 thou / 1 mm of rail proud as the running rail. The cardboard mock up proved this to be both sturdy enough to secure the rails and allow powered movement of the Union Mills locos. To connect electrically, I used brass domed screw heads, cut off and soldered to the base of the rails, these domes fitted into holes in the deck and protrude a bit below. Initial plan was for the domes to contact drawing pins in the well, with soldered wire feeds. Sketch attached shows some of these ideas schemed out, with approximate dimensions.

A turntable for New Hythe - part one. The original plan for this layout did have a turntable, though in subsequent re-hashings I deemed it unnecessary as the diverging lines from the terminus formed a reverse loop and I could easily turn locos by a trip around the layout (much as I had with the old layout). In any case I didn't have room for the PECO one, nor did I want to cut big holes in the baseboard top (it's wonky enough as it is). After re-hashing to the final (? - current) plan, using the reverse loop didn't seem such a good idea, and a turntable re-appeared. There was just enough room for a short one - scale 55' or 60', which would handle my tender engines, all 0-6-0s or 4-4-0s. So a circle was drawn on the baseboard and the track laid temporarily across it - and thus it stayed for months. The baseboard has a layer of 3mm cork floor tiles on top of the Sundeala - it at least means the PECO track pins don't project which was a source of gouged knuckles on the old layout. By using a through girder type I could get away with just removing the cork to provide the vestigial pit required. Now, how to build one that worked? By worked I mean just drive on drive off without finger assistance, so power connections required, rotation would be by direct manual assistance. Web searches, provided prototypes (mainly GWR, though Guildford had a through girder turntable SR ones otherwise seem to have been all deck types), ideas for power supply, drive etc. But how to construct it? I had time when walking to think up schemes; rails soldered to copperclad, power supply via the support rails soldered to a copperclad pit floor etc- all complete fantasy given the state of my soldering art. I knew from using the PECO one on BGP how that picked up and reversed polarity, but doubted my ability to fit in the springs and shims required in the few mm at my disposal, but the rail fixing on the PECO one seemed a place to start if I was to use PS sheet as my preferred construction material. Ideas for power pickups still evolving at this stage (crocodile clips?). Next I built a cardboard mock up to test the ideas and check the loco flanges would be accommodated, which was encouraging, I could secure the rails to gauge, and a loco would run on it. And there it rested until the coronavirus lockdown when I finally bit the bullet and began making it. (to be continued....)