Dr.Glum

It's a pity I had persevered for so long painting chairs with a No.0 brush, and then having to go round again painting the sides of the rails to cover the missed patches. Anyhoo, I have now chosen a bigger brush (a soft Daler No.4, because that's what I had) for the remedial work and noticed I was often recovering the chairs as I brushed sideways. So I had a go at a virgin stretch and found the brush would do both the rail sides and the chairs, without the paint going onto the sleepers. Sometimes the end of the chair would need a bit more paint with the tip of the brush, but how much quicker the whole process! Doh, I should have trusted my ability with a brush. The only downside is the amount of paint that gets onto the running surface. Wiping that off without removing the paint on the rail head side is a trick I havn't fully mastered yet.

I don't think you've done too badly about the sheep. I've been helping out on my friend's sheep farm the last two years. When we drive small groups within the farm, along tracks with grassy banks, when there's no dog involved they do spread out. When there is a dog (as in your model), they will pack closer, but some will always decide the grazing is much much better where they now are (it's a sheep thing). So you get separated sheep grazing, like you have modelled and like one of the B&W photos you show. In the town shots, those sheep are seriously unhappy at being where they are, so have bunched very tightly. If there's any niggle, your dog on the left is a bit too close. I'd expect the laggards to be running full tilt away from such close contact. Proper shepherds may well keep the dog behind them - the sheep know full well there is one about. Unless of course you want to model a stroppy ewe going face to face with the dog. Just rarely they'll feel so resistant that they'll attempt to head butt the dog! Lovely modelling, btw.

Please note that when I show what I do, I am not trying to tell anyone that that is how they should do it. I steal ideas from others and see what works for me! At the moment with this track ‘dressing’ stuff, I’m in totally new territory, and it’s a bit scary, but I’d say to anyone else in the same boat, “try it and see”. It’s all turning out a bit more of a job than I thought. Anyhoo, the first photo is painting the primed track with Humbrol track colour. My expensive wagon painting brushes are going nowhere near this job! I’ve bought a couple of packs of mixed shape bristle brushes in the Pound Shop. This brush has suffered a bit, but I later trimmed it and found there was more length to be pulled out of the ferrule. It’ll do another couple of yards. If you look between the sleepers (above) you should see hardly any brown. It’s almost dry brushing, just on the tops – I don’t particularly want to paint the sides brown. If they’re left primer grey, they’ll disappear into the ballast better. I never ever thought I’d bother painting every b------ chair! Oh well, in for a penny, etc. Humbrol rust paint and a No.0 brush. My refined technique is a) to try to be applying the brush at right angles to the track, b) get a generous bead of paint on the end of the brush, and c) dob a chair, don’t paint it. I find my beads will do about three chairs. As soon as the paint doesn’t automatically spread over the whole chair in one go, I withdraw and reload. (Early on I tried to use the brush conventionally and paint a chair – I found this a recipe for getting paint onto the sleeper.) There will probably be enough paint left on my brush to slide it along the rail sides between those chairs. If I bodge, I firmly push a small bit of kitchen paper along the sleeper, up to the chair. Edit to reflect further experience: this method of painting the rails and chairs with a No.0 brush (= small) does work and looks good from above, but coverage of the whole of the side of the rail is patchy. So I found a different way - see next post. I knew from past experience how time consuming it can be filling the missing sleepers at rail joints. So there was that to do, plus a couple of joints on the curve had a tiny dogleg. I applied the iron while applying a sideways push with the end of a screwdriver, and held while it cooled. I can see these things so much better in this room. The above shows another job that hadn’t mattered in the loft. Some holes for wiring are going to be too big for the Copydex and ballast. A small twist/tuft of kitchen paper is pushed into the hole with a screwdriver. In this view, two have been done (white blobs) and two haven’t. I apply a drop of cyano to set the tuft rigid. It has also dawned on me that I’ll have to have covered the grey primer along what will be the edges of the ballast. I’ve made a start with Humbrol earth colour. Lots more to do.

Thank you danstercivicman. My expectation when I have a big loco on the front is 9 to 13. With no gradients on the main running lines this was perfectly feasible on the old layout (follow link at the head of this thread; the videos are near the last page) and I hope to eventually be doing the same in future. (A future which is receding as I get stuck into making the track look prettier!)

Once I move the boards into their permanent position, it will be very difficult to do detailed work on the far side of the outer curves on Board 1 – a very long reach. In the past I have always said “my track is plain to the point of invisibility, in order to show off the rolling stock that is running round”. Well, in case I’m wrong I have trialled painting the track brown (Humbrol track colour) and the chairs and sides of the rails with rust (Humbrol). I did a trial yard; it was tedious and took a while, but not as long as I had feared. I am not looking at perfection – viewing distance is about 4 foot. Even if I decide I won’t bother elsewhere, it can do no harm to treat the track while I can. So having gone that far, what about ballasting? Never done any. Wasn’t ever gonna bother. Oh well. I remembered reading the posts of someone who was forever laying and ballasting exquisite track (only to take it all up later). So I turned to El Grande Guru Gordon, who posts so much ‘here’s how I do it material’. Thank you gordon s, and all you others who do the same. Gordon’s layout topic spawned a specific topic on ballasting, and the subject of deep-sleepered Peco track was included. Here’s the link to Gordon S’s crucial post #51 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/80480-ballasting-without-tearson-thin-sleeper-track/page-3 So I bought some Copydex (eventually tracked it down in Smiths) and I followed what he said. I unearthed an old ‘Dermic Oiler’ of my father, and had a go on a short length of unpainted track. I too found I could flood the area between the rails. To cut a short story even shorter, it worked. My first photo is a few minutes after pouring the ballast on. The shoulders are defined with masking tape which I removed after a couple of minutes. A few stringy bits came away too; next time I’ll have a scalpel ready. I left it overnight and nothing horrible seemed to have happened (next photo). I had concerns because I’d apparently failed to mix the Copydex/water/detergent drop uniformly, because some places bubbled a lot as I expelled the stuff from the syringe. I then brushed at the excess with the little red brush shown in the first photo (from some old shaver) and then rigged up some track power so that I could try out the suction feature of the Dapol track cleaner for the first time. Mixed results: it collected about 90% of the loose stuff between the tracks, but hardly anything at the sides. The last photo shows the cleaned up state. (Ignore the proud track pin in the middle.) The ballasting looks close enough to gordon s’s photo to satisfy me. That’ll do then.

Track relaid and functional for smooth reliable running. Outer Loop, Outer Main, Inner Main. No cosmetic work yet. I’ll admit it has all taken me far longer to reach this stage than anticipated. But there were a lot of joints to clean and remake, droppers to re-attach (or run from new) and the running surfaces were filthy. I even found some blobs of primer where they shouldn’t be – it’s a wonder I had good running in the past. A worry was the switches for the crossings: they depend on ex-GPO switches that must be at least 70 years old. No wurries! The 1F tank will now crawl through all pointwork. I took the opportunity to tweak the alignments. It is a wonderful change for me to be able to get really close to the work, and check the view from all angles. Don’t get me wrong: I cherish the fact that the previous loft allowed me to have a large layout, but there were severe construction limitations imposed by the sloping roof. Some years back, while I was still working in an office adjacent to a Drawing Office, I took the opportunity to draw curves for nominal centre-line of track radii between 24 inch and 60 inch. The outer line of each curve was an exact fit to the sleeper ends on the inside edge of Peco plain track width. I plotted them on an A0 plotter before I left. The 30 inch curve is visible in the next photo. I have been checking all track segments for tight spots as I go along, especially as 30 inch is my design minimum for running tracks. Progress has been hampered by yesterday badly gashing my left thumb and two fingers on a Fray Bentos pie tin that was resisting the can opener. However, work goes on (“no pain, no gain”) and the sunshine today led me to leave the trackwork for a while and cut off the unwanted width from the old Board 2. Shame I inevitably sawed through 2 droppers, but there you go. It will become the first lifting section attached to the newly built extension. I cannibalised a decrepit paste table for these hinges. I have some doubts about their ruggedness, or lack thereof. We’ll have to see how frightening it is when I attach the remains of Board 2 which is quite heavy.

Sweeping curves of Inner Main pinned in place. Just checking that there’s sufficient transition between the two curves, so that the carriages don’t get into any ‘ugly’ overhangs. The 2nd track is laid (Outer Main) and the photo below is unadulterated wishful thinking. It’ll be months before anything can run through like this mock-up. I havn’t even reconnected the wiring on these boards yet. Speaking of which, I’ve had to stop re-laying points and tracks so that I can check I’m not creating dead shorts. I can’t power up until I’ve isolated all dangling wire ends. It doesn’t help that I’ve discovered that I didn’t take enough photos underneath before dismantling, and that I failed to label up the feeds to the manually switched crossings. Bah! Time to go hunt through old notes – I recall having diagrams when I originally built the junction.

I meant to say I’m not recommending my construction methods to anybody, but at least, over the years, I’ve hardly bought any timber. Anyway, the photo below shows the finished extension. To celebrate, my mind turned to the scenic treatment. I want to imply that the natural lie of the land is rising from right to left in the photo; up towards the back of the board, towards the windows on the right. So I want a short tunnel, or failing that, the main running lines to be between retaining walls. The story is that a large chunk was taken out of the hillside when the land was cleared for the yard tracks on the left. There’s little enough space for development, so I mocked up a tunnel mouth and wing walls. (Thank you Scalescenes for the portal template.) It proved I don’t have enough space – I would never be able to detail the abrupt drop-off at the right hand side of the mouth. I have to be able to believe in the geometry of the geology! I won’t create a ‘table-top blob tunnel’ just to have one at all. So the curves will be more gentle when I lay them, and trains will stay in the open.

I’ve made a start on a new extension for the main running lines that now have to curve around and run down the side of Board 1. I’m now reaping the benefit of choosing 70x45mm timber to stiffen Board 1 when I first built it in May 2000 (because there was some long enough, left by the previous house owners). Although in the past I have cursed the weight, now I can confidently screw the cross-member supports (see photo) to those timbers. New supports are made from wood I acquired for nothing via Freegle five years ago. The surface board (the funny shaped white piece laying on top of the tracks) is made from the redundant Board 2, now stripped of all track and wiring. I felt the need to check that what the drawing was telling me was possible, so I laid out Board 5. A rough check showed it was going to fit, and that the cut to make this end (in the photo) into a lifting section to clear the door would leave the cross-over untouched on the main (fixed) part of the board.

Next I have erected and connected the next board (no.1) and that has allowed me to add on the long complicated sections that join alongside both boards. Next photo shows the junction under construction, using the original points and track (grey sprayed). It’s very pleasant work, because everything is pref-formed and fits back onto the original track pin holes. I’ve also started the new work arising from the need to fit the layout into a different shaped area. For example, the brand new LH point replaces the previous RH one, as the main running lines have to run in a different direction. But what joy to work standing (or sitting on the conservatory sill) and able to see what I’m doing, close up, without stretching to arms’ length. And there’s no overhead restriction applying tools. It was purgatory under the sloping roof sometimes in the old loft! I’ve done a lot today, but generally things are slow at the moment because I’m at the farm a lot – it’s lambing time!

You may think progress is slow. Well, it is, but I’ve done a lot that doesn’t show. and everything is finally moved to this house. Only taken exactly 3 years! (on 17th March) Two major decisions have been made. Datum, the level that the track sits on will be 36 inches above the floor. This is high enough to see the trains well (especially when sitting down), it is high enough to sit upright on the floor under (which I couldn’t do in the old loft), and it means tracks in the dining area will just clear under the serving hatch doors that open over the layout. That saves some difficult joinery and compromises. Secondly, once I’d put the end Board 6 up on trestles (after screwing some of the extensions on it) I realised that all the complicated trackwork was planned to be too near the wall for me to get next to it, and I would not be able to easily re-instate it. I looked again at the drawing and managed to get things to fit while providing access space on that side rather than the opposite one. (I won’t post another plan until I have put up several boards and proved the final positions. Board 6 up on temporary trestles (IKEA) with work clearance all around. I’ve started unsoldering remnants of cut track joiners, ready for re-laying removed track sections. Note the upsidedown pieces of cushion floor under the legs. I can easily pull the free ends of these to manoeuvre the boards because the materials’ surfaces slide with little resistance. This will be very important when I’m positioning the joined up boards in their final positions.

Bah! The translucent privacy fabric on the windows at the end of the room have all fallen off three times, over a period of three weeks. All are now secured with sellotape to stop them falling off, which is not a very durable solution. Mr.B and Mr.Q are going to get some earache when I can get round to it! Once the layout is in place, it will be very difficult to get at all of them.

Finally started a job I've been putting off. Have affixed two window panels of translucent covering as a privacy screen. (The right hand window yet to do.) I invested in 2 rolls of 'static d-c-fix' crystal design fabric. More expensive than sticky Fablon, but so much easier to position. Cut to size (the hardest bit), wet pre-cleaned window, put into position, spray again, squeegee bubbles and water out. If I ever want to sell up, it peels off with no residue. It has cost about £20 to do the end windows, which is why (for now) the side windows are obscured with sections of a big plastic dust sheet, £3.99 from B&M. (A chain of bargain stores.) Photo below shows that I could not resist putting Board 6 up on trestles. Not the right height, not in the right place, but it's a sign of intent!

Life seems to keep getting in the way of things. But now, a milestone! With help I lowered the remaining layout boards down from the loft of the old house, and with the help of 'a man with a van', everything was moved to home. Might not seem like much to read about, but boy oh boy, how significant psychologically. Photo below: the big boards have landed! Especially Board 1 on the left - so heavy, and the starting point for rebuilding.

I have done some more ‘what-if’ work in cad, to check whether the monolithic chunk of the layout would fit in either the living room (what I’ve called the lounge so far, on the right in the diagrams) or the dining area (the area running downwards in the diagrams). It’s too wide for the latter – I’d have to lose an outer loop and a lot of operational interest. In any case, in either location, it was just too darn intrusive. It is after all, a living room. Anyhoo, below I show a draft plan and although I’ve since discarded it, it was very important because it opened up my thinking about using areas in the house. And how much of the main line would have to be on easily demountable boards. Below: a draft plan later rejected. The next draft plan below shows the current thinking. It sketches how the main lines would run round the dining area before turning left into the conservatory. Both doors would have to be open for through running. There are reverse loops for both directions. One is flat, at datum level. It re-joins the inner main. The other uses an existing down gradient to reach at least -2.5”. It crosses under the lead to Board 12 yard and the running lines. It then rises at about 1 in 130 round the dining area, to re-join the outer main (back in the conservatory. I should stress that what I’m showing you here is ‘proof of concept’, and a lot of design work will have to be done on details and the flow of the curves. In any case, I have to start again in cad using a different version of the loft layout as a template, so that I bring across all the 40-odd layers with all the drawn elements of wiring, sub-structures, model light circuits, track feeds, incline info, scenery (such as walling), and so on. Below: the current thinking.

It is ‘right’ that today is January 1st; the start of a new year and a ‘new start’ for me. This thread will be about the rebuild of my loft running track which was a large roundy-roundy built specifically for the joy running long trains. To be brief, I like relaxing, watching the trains go by. The full ethos of the old layout is covered in http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/15813-eastfield-a-large-00-running-track-that-is-evolving-into-a-layout/ I moved from the house with the loft 32 months ago and last Wednesday was significant, in that during a dismantling session in that loft, I successfully separated the area of layout that had been the most difficult to build, in terms of track geometry and ultra-reliable running. I’d spent nearly a year taking down other areas of the layout, but had dithered for months over how to achieve removal of the junction that was mounted on several extension pieces. That area had grown ‘like Topsy’ through several rounds of ‘improvements’. During 2016 the urge to have a railway once again was getting stronger and stronger. Early in the year I designed a temporary running track to run around my conservatory on the low sill below the windows. Then I got engulfed by Lambing, and never built it. It would have all been new build, as the room wasn’t big enough for the core of the existing layout. As dismantling in the loft proceeded, I thought a lot about where I would re-erect the boards. I went round in circles, and my trains still didn’t. The choices that I could see boiled down to: Have a large wooden outbuilding in the back garden (there was space) Have the loft converted (it was big enough) Buy a converted and fitted shipping container and locate it on my lady friend’s farm Something else The first three options were all of comparable cost and I was unhappy at what it would do to my savings, and I had nothing for no.4 (except abandon all the interesting parts of the old layout). I was starting to bring boards home and I set one of these up in the dining room, just so that I could test locomotives. This re-kindled my interest in a semi-temporary track around the conservatory, and sent me back to the cad on the computer. This in turn made me accurately survey the conservatory and the part of the house that it opened from. I’m not one to think small, and having arrived at a stable basic design, I then set off on a long trail of “suppose it was extended through the doors into the house, and had this bit here and a yard there?” I became accustomed to the idea there might be portable tracks within the house. Then one night in November I had a Eureka! moment – if I was now apparently prepared to have a new half of the design in the lounge or dining area, the core of the old layout would fit in the conservatory! I stayed up very late on the computer that night! Are you bored yet? To cut a long story short, it will fit the conservatory (just), and the changes needed in the house are acceptable to me. I moved furniture before Christmas and proved it was workable by providing Christmas Lunch at the dining table. The last few days I have been giving the conservatory a deep clean, as a) I havn’t since I moved in and b) once the layout is in place, it won’t be possible to put up a step-ladder. Photo below: I'll have a railway room! More cleaning to do and privacy screening to chin-height needed on the windows: e.g.translucent Fablon, etc. Photo below: Looking into the doorway. The permanent part of the layout will end just short of the doors' opening reach, with hinged sections to drop down through the open doors. Inside, there will have to be some portable sections. I show below an image of the design with the old layout superimposed on the outline of the current room. This is the version produced on that first euphoric night. The tick marks on the outline are at 10 inch spacing. Tracks are red. You can see that Board 2 (top of diagram) can’t go in its original place, and there’s a lot of design work to be done to clear the doors. I am excited about it all.

That so called 'buzzy flying thingey' in IMG_2178 is living proof that we are being watched by aliens. You think it's controlled by a man in a yellow suit, but I know it is a detached part of the alien lander masquerading as a tamper on Dawlish Station (see earlier post). It's an Autonomous Alien Buzzy Flying Zig-Zaggy-in-the-Airey-Thingey', and we ain't safe. Line your plastic helmets with tin foil, guys!

Having been amused by some of the loose and friendly non-technical names applied to equipment and features in past posts about images shown, I am amused by IMG_1847.JPG above, which apparently shows an autonomous alien terrain explorer which has just happened to land on Dawlish down platform while all these works are going on. Firstly, what sort of report is it going to send back to it's indescribably ugly masters about the level of activity in human Society? and secondly, what do you think the proper name for this device ought to be? Pointy-legged walky thingey? Your choice.

At the risk of sending some of our web members to the great engine-shed in the sky, may I mention that in the program about a walk across iceland to Ayjafjollajokul volcano, Ms.Bradbury is seen in a bikini in a volcanic hot pool. (At the risk of highjacking this thread, I say, "Nice lady" about JS, and I understand the attraction, but there's a class of woman (IMHO) in a whole different league. Top of my Pops is Isobella Rossellini (see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga26YYPDBxg ). Remember her in the comedy with Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis and Glenn Close where she gives the ladies eternal life. Cool.) I think I need to go for a walk now. Now that's a surprise - rather than just show the link address, it has shown the video play image. New RM web feature?

Hello 43179, It may be me, or it may be the time of day, or it may be gremlins, but your two links to Photobucket come back with Photobucket browser exception window that says "The action your were trying to perform has failed", and no pictures. At the same time I can see the Photobucket sequences posted by SRman before you. Do they work for other people? Cheers (Apologies for the plain message: I am one of the 15% of ids that did not survive the crossing from the old web, so now I am floating around in electronic limbo, like someone in Dr.Who)