Chrislock

HI Lisa, thanks for your reply. Noone else was biting, obviously I think the idea is a good one, and a bit similar to laying easitrac directly onto double sided tape, and then pressing the ballast onto this; followed by a dribble of PVA to fix it more permanently. I used this on Glenfield, and it looks, well, OK, No more. With the canal layout, I wanted to try to emulate some of Chris Nevard's 4mm methods, which is why I tried it differently. Personally, and this is meant with no disrespect to the guys who designed easitrac, I think a slightly deeper sleeper base would have held the ballast better and allowed a natural edge. Either ways, the rule is "less is more" when ballasting easitrac.

Thanks for the suggestion Missy, but that texture was not exactly intended...! It does seem to resemble the Ozzie outback at present, but it is going to be largely concealed by overgrowth. I think where rock does show through I will use your idea though. Not sure how to get a realistic canal water finish. I recall canal water as being quite black and opaque, and highly refelctive, covered with leaves etc; which is why i've chosen a very dark blue- black initial base coat. Pictures to follow when RMW lets me.

A short and rather truncated clip of my 24 running through the three wayer. Also showing the browning of the land ready for scatters etc. . Next up though are the painting of the canal bed and making those canal bridges... wharfs end v3.wmv Chris

Nice looking result there Ian. You must be thrilled with the detail. Interested to see them undercoated, as it shows up the detail better than on that translucent plastic. One day I will watch someone use this software and understand the process better. In the meantime, it is indeed witchcraft! Regards, Mathew Hopkins

That is a beautiful piece of work by any standard Jerry. I can't imagine what it must be like to have the patience and skill to achieve that, there is so much of it too. Amazing. Well done, in the circumstances, seems more than a tad inadequate. I look forward to seeing some nice red engines simmering away under that roof before too long....

and with it time to complete the ballasting and adding some sculptamold to flat bits and slopey bits alike, with the opportunity of getting in some good quality drying time. Ballasting. Aaarrgg!! What IS it about Easitrac and getting effective ballasting! i know now, I've worked it out. The sleepers at an accurate 0.82mm are too shallow to hold the ballast well. By comparison, Code 55 is easy to get to look good., being a whopping overscale 1 foot 6 inches deep - and so holds the ballast well! In the past I have used dilute PVA + w/u liquid on N ballast; Copydex and w/u on ballast and ash; and finally I tried a spray of surgical spirit as a wetting agent followed by PVA, but using fine sand as the ballast, as it is supposed to sit better between the sleepers than the angular rock variety. This is the second layout where I think the track has looked worse rather than better after ballasting - and believe me I was careful. It's not just the colour - it has gone patchy in places. Indeed, I would say that Easitrac would lend itself well to a ballast patterned underlay, if one were available. I'll just have to hope that a few washes improves things and that it will be less obvious once landscape colour is applied. Sculptamold. What could go wrong? Used it before in some tricky situations, also gone on well. Well this time it has dried quite lumpy. This is not a major problem, but just another job to - sand smooth when dry. I do wonder if it was a result of sticking the board outside to dry in the sun? While adding the scupatamold, I took the opportunity of adding sites for TWO canal bridges!! I realised that a barge horse wouldn't in fact be able to cross the lock gates to access the tow path on the other side!! So a bridge by the lock is required, but that's ok cos I like bridges... Lock Keeper's Cottage. A quick search of t'net revealed that the old GF (?) cottage is no longer available, though I found oneon ebay for thirty quid! So, it was down to do it yourself once more. I spent an hour or so trying to find acottage on the Cromford, with no success. One ruined cottage, too run down to see much at all. So I had to widen my search and found this one near Wigan: and then this, location unknown, but looking pretty convincingly Derbyshire stone: So I decided to combine the two and came up with this: which is still in need of gutters, drainpipes and flashing - and of course, painting and weathering. I considered trying to locate some etched windows, but then using thin plasticard strips is not that gruelling, and I think the overall look ofthe windows is ok. There is no interior - I don't do interiors in 2mm - well only in railway buildings anyway. I hope that this time I do not lose all of this entry and have to type it out a third time!!! Regards, Chris

Greetings. Last night I installed two electromagnets and wired them to two push to make switches, which Have been added to the front switch plate. I have had these for a while in my box, and was looking for an opportunity to try them out. I also have an unused memory wire kit, so might have a play and use this for the signal. Installing the magnets was fairly straightforward - or it was until I realised I didn't need to drill right through the baseboard and sleepers to install them. As a result of this idiocy, I had to spend a further half hour filling in the resulting holes with DAS! Cuckoo! Still theyare wired in and working now, I just hope theyare powerful enough to work through 10mm of .mdf and 2 layers of foamboard! If not I shall replace with permanent magnets. I set up the DCC again tonight, because I had a nagging suspicion that all would not be great after applying the varous chemicals to the track. Sure enough, a good deal was required to get my 24 to run. Also one of the switch blades had comeloose I don't know how, so a bit more fettling was required. The next job is the ballasting of the track. I am going to follow Chris Nevards suggestions for this, namely to use surgical spirit as the wetting agent with diluted PVA. No more experiments with rubbery glue for me! I have aquired a jar of fine, clean sand for the ballast. I think that N scale ballast is too heavy in appearance, and sand being naturally eroded I hear sits around the sleepers better. I'm not sure whether to die the sand and dry it again before use; or to apply it then colour it afterwards. Pictures next time when/if there is something to see. Regards, Chris

That would be MIdgham on the Kennet and Avon? Some cracking photos of the old Whatstandwell goods yard for anyone who hasn't seen them before: http://www.crichparish.co.uk/webpages/whatstandwellstationhistory.html Note the portable loading ramp in the foreground - the subject of discussion on my old Little Midland thread. The article omits to mention that the tracks heading off to the top served a stone wharf loop. Quite a busy and unusual little station and worthy of a model sometime... The first map shws the bridge combo alluded to.

That would be a shame Pete. I prefer the look of the 25 to the 24 and I believe the rat was more numerous around our isle? I can't think but they'd sell a goodly number. I'd settle for a Dapol one though, Not fussed!

That looks fantastic Pete - your buildings modelling is as good as anything I've personally seen - in any scale. Can't wait to see what you do in *mm!! [ winky thing] We have just had 2 sunny days so fingers crossed it won't be too much of a trauma for you! Chris

Yes - a second bridge is an option. There is a situation a little like that at Whatstandwell, on the old MR mainline, as a matter of fact. I could then continue the landscape beyond the bridge into the FY area. Yes, I like that.

Well sculptamold - eventually! Work since last blog: - Levelling the area between the lowered level of the siding and the wharf area. There is still a slight gradient trackside, but not really obvious. I used polyfilla and have rough painted this with brown acrylic. - Adding a foamboard backscene, using formas and reverse knife cuts to curve it and glue-gunned it in place. - Infilling the siding with polyfilla to represent ash and clinker. Stippling lightly with a brush while still soft and again given a light grey/ brown wash for the time being. Nevard used DAS for this, but I tried it on a spare bit of track and found it difficult to and messy to work inbetween sleepers in this scale. - I did use redDAS on the station platform, however, as I also wanted a surface of paving and clinker/ash. It proved quite challenging as it had to be applied very thinly., Finishing involved washes, stippling greys and browns and dabbing with paper towel, and I am still not happy with the effect. I used a stone layer plasticard for the front edging and behind where the loading dock is. - Added some foamboard scraps to layout the shape of the banks. These will be infilled with newspaper screwed up, and then overlaid with sculptamold / polyfilla. Nothing exciting, I know, but this little project is at least edging forward gradually. I suppose that is an advantage of a microlayout - each part is manageable in an evening or so. Also had my 25 apart as when I ran it it was decidely rough, don't know why. Replaced two of the pickups and refastened the wires which attach by screw only to the chassis block halves, and hence to track. Haven't set up the DCC controller yet, so unsure of how much running is improved. Fingers crossed. ( I wonder if Bachmann have plans to retool the 25? ) Regards, Chris If you're wondering about the cutaway on the left end by the canal - so am I at this moment. I haven't quite fathomed how to make the canal disappear from the scene - I don't like it when they end abruptly at a flat wall!

HI. I thought I'd add a brief post and photo to show how this micro-layout is going. I suppose the annotation says it all at this stage. I am largely making this up as I go along - it's quite good fun, actually, after the rigorous research required by the Glenfield model.. Also I am following suggestions from Chris Nevard's articles- where I can. The foamboardin the construction has worked very well. Cheers, Chris

Evenin' all. I have been busy the past week wiring up the little layout board and installing connectors and switches. Even a simple , one turnout layout seems to involve a lot of wire stripping and soldering. Power is now running through the rails and 3-way - the latter after I traced a short down to a sleeper which was not quite cut through in one place.. However, and frustratingly,onto the loco used to test it out in DC ( both my blue diesels are DCC ready now), a Johnson class 2 0-6-0 with a Union Mills tender, avec turned down wheels. The association drivers pass quite easily through the three routes when pushed, but the tender wheels stick in places. I am hoping that when I connect my NCE cab and stick a diesel on, the association drop-ins will perform better, otherwise its back to that tedious filing and resoldering to make it traverse smoothly. Here is the wiring finally settled on - there are a few differences form the original plan ( which I still can't see much wrong with logically anyway!) Regards Chris

Sound advice, thanks. I have just got back an email confirming what you said and a phone number so I'll be ringing him tomorrow.

Thanks Pete. I think I tried there before but I'll email them again and double check. If not I'll keep an eye open on the Bay of E for the more expensive option of picking up a seconhand loco.

Hi. I have managed to do a little modelling this week on the micro layout. The buses, feed wires and point motors are connected up, and today I cycled over to Maplins for a couple of point switches, a 3.5 jack socket for the 12v supply ( I'll borrow the one off Glenfield) and a din plug for the DCC controller input. I have some aluminium sheet lying around and I am wondering what I would need to do to use these for fascia plates for the switches and sockets, as aluminium is a conductor? Yesterday my new Dremel 300 arrived, (and the little chuck and collets) for it, so I am keen to get to use it for something! It really feels like quality compared to the Rotocraft I've been putting up thus far. (One of my goals before I take early retirement is to update some of my tools.) Someone posted a decent diagram for wiring the 3-way, and it wasn't too far from my own workings-out, so I've gone with my own idea. Once the motors are connected to the power supply I can test it and find out if the logic is sound... . I also sat my modified 25 on the plain track and fed some power in just to keep the interest going! Unfortunately as I recorded some time ago, I managed to damage one of the bogies on this but I can't find a spare online or on ebay, so it has a slight wobble at present. It's a shame I had to butcher the plough to get the DG to fit, but I wanted to have it connecting at each end. I have one set left if I change my mind! I think it just about looks better as it is than it was without it.

True but I had to pick just one, so I went for the design classic which is the 4-2-2 Paris Exhibition of 1900 and all that. Personally I also rather like the Kirtley o/f 0-6-0 goods engines in their various forms. Red, black, green or brown, shiny or rusty doesn't make any difference to me! Great looking engines.

Thanks everyone for your condolences. I'm over it now ( I think), its just something that happens to you and you have to deal with it. It does take up a lot of time though and gives you a sense of perspective. It is nice to know though that there are followers of my blog out there, I would understand if not, it hasn't exactly been rivetting to read of late! Missy - I am in awe at what you are doing just now! I went over to view your blogs. I am still more taken with that little working ground signal though - that is exquisite! I have a question to PM you on by the way and I must get round to doing so. I feel I have lost touch a little with the association over the past year. I notice however, that the AGM is in Bedford this year.... Pete - you really are not actually responsible for the diesels - well only to the extent that I find your work intriguing and inspiring! Converting, detailing and dirtying the 25 was really a joy. Guy - thanks. It's tough but you have to get on with your life, don't you? You are right that diesels in 2mm are a breeze compared to steam - unless your name is Tim of course! Now I would love to be able to contract him to build me a loco.

I'm not sure who will still follow this blog as it has been sadly neglected for some time. This has been partly due to the death of my father and all that that entailed; but also down to a disappearing work ethic, then a number of side-tracking issues, ranging from Swiss mountain railways (!) to dabbling with that( lovely) OO Bachmann Robinson 04 - choo choo! Anyway, try as I might to readjust, the draw of 2mm is just too strong.. I like the "small club" feel of belonging to the 2mm association, I like the people I've met through it, I respect and admire the work they do and at the end of the day, once I began to have ideas about a 4mm Eastern layout, S-P-A-C-E reared its restrictive head! Thankfully, I have rediscovered the history research bug once more and also I can now at least move on to more or less complete Glenfield with my latest research information. Only one conundrum remains, and I may sometime in the future come across the answer to the layout and use of those buildings… However, as I write this, I have a small new tracked board standing on its end across the room. Let me explain: 1. On my shelf ( and I blame BCNPete entirely for this ) a blue class 25 and a class 24, fitted out with finescale wheels and with DCC on board; but with nowhere to go. They look completely out of place on the Glenfield board - and are wasted on the shelf ! 2. I have a 3 way point lying idle. It looks at me and says : “Oy, you made me, I work ( I think see below), now use me!†3. I have been inspired by the microlayouts of one Chris Nevard, and have long wanted to try some of his techniques at weathering etc. 4. I want a DCC based layout ( to use the NCE Cab I bought over a year ago). The new 1000 x 250 board is an attempt to combine these in the form of a shunting plank and has to be: -Self-contained - at least, I will allow myself a cassette on one end only. -Able to shunt without a loco disappearing off the main board(!), and with reasonable interest. -Allow me to have a go at modelling a canal with a lock. -Look like it is set in the Derbyshire Dales. - Be built to FS standards. . The baseboard is simply a 10mm mdf frame glued and then stapled together with a 10mm top, deep enough to comfortably take the 2 Cobalt point motors required. On top of this are glued 3 layers of 5mm foamboard, cut away in various places to provide slightly undulating ground and a cut out for the canal , the lower section of which sits on the baseboard itself. This is not a very big drop in water level I know, but I hope it will look alright. The canal will be based on a section of the cromford canal which I have some photos of, although I've probably made it wider than it should be, as I originally made it 3x the width of a Fleetline coal barge, which seemed reasonable until I looked up canal widths and discovered they are generally a lot narrower than I realised! A little bit of infil was required, but with lay-bys ( or whatever the nautical equivalent is) before and after the lock gates. The track plan itself is so very simple it's hardly worth drawing. The three way point allows an extra short siding to be introduced which should make shunting more interesting. A small halt platform +shelter, with a small loading bay at one end , with the longer siding sloping down slightly to a canal wharf. Soldered point combined with Easitrac as usual. I am following the Chris Nevard MR article quite closely as to how the track is painted and finished. It will be interesting to see if it looks anything as good as his 4mm work. I have still yet to fathom how to wire up the three way point. After conversations on my own and other posts on RMWeb, I’ll admit I am confused again. I have recently been categorically told that what I thought would work won't! Anyone who has wired up one of these could perhaps give me a diagram, including isolations on the sleepers? I can email a photo of the turnout showing existing isolation in sleepers etc if it helps. Fingers crossed. Now if this little layout is going to be set in the mid 1970s, I’m going to need a reason for occasional freight to work into this little halt, as the canal wharf will be long disused and overgrown! Still working on that one, although I have considered there being a modest stone quarry still working nearby from which wagons can be stored in the siding. I’m sure the local farmers might use the loading platform occasionally for their machinery items, as the roads in this part of the dales are narrow and twisting! It is tempting to look back on the 1970s as the modern world, but of course it was in reality much closer to the 1950s than the 1990s! Dirt and smog in cities was only just being regulated; a lot of old railway line lay untouched still. I’m guessing that rail had begun to price itself out of business as a goods transporting medium, as much was now delivered by road. Of course, this little project is going to involve making some wagons suitable for the period - can't really use the Midland ones... Now a few early photos. Nothing much to see really. Droppers have been soldered to the rails and tested, so that I could give the sleepers a primary spray of Halford paints. The point is just sitting in at the moment, until I know what I’m doing with the wiring and its tested. This is now partly holding up progress, although I’m also awaiting some new coloured wire from Gaugemaster. For the buses under the board, I am abandoning the ( brittle) copper Tape which I used on Glenfield, and which required a bit of patching up) , and resorting to two medium gauge plain guitar strings, pulled tautish and soldered to screws at either end for the + and – rails. I will update this from time to time as I do something worth showing and there is sufficient interest for yet another micro layout ( yawn) ! Regards, Chris J

That's easy. Midland Railway Johnson Single.

Pete is quite correct, in that I pretty well hollowed out 50% of a 1100mm Lack shelf for the station section of my Glenfield layout. This was to accomodate wiring and Cobalt point motors ( I did however have to raise the shelf on plywood sides to fit the motors in with sufficient clearance, which may well have added additionall strength.) I have not noticed any warping at all, so its a thumbs up so far to Pete's favourite baseboard!

G'Day. Since the resolution of certain pressing family matters back in March/ April, I have turned back to the renovation programme for the improvement of some of my Midland engines. First out was the little class 480 goods engine, which is now running reasonably well after some minor tweaks. Next up is the very first engine I built and described on the thread below, the Johnson bogie single, which on paper, should be the easiest of them to get runing well, as there is no quartering to worry about! However, there were aspects of this original make which have niggled since the beginning. This has resulted in a complete disassembly and chucking away of the original underframe/ chassis arrangement, and some quite brutal hacking about and desoldering in the process. Fortunately, I have managed to minimise the damage to the loco body above the running plate, apart from one blemish to the boiler which I can probably polish out. As a result of the hacking process I will need to rebuild a fair bit below running plate level. The slightly flared ends to the splashers I am going to live with, This photo shows the state of play as of this morning. The NBrass bogie takes the association bogie wheels and muffs very well and has been completed and is running smoothly. I intend to isolate this completely, as the easier option. The 15mm GE driver will be used within a new split chassis which will also house the trailing wheel. I also intend to see if I can spring both these wheels to enhance stability and electrical pickup. (For the time being I am keeping the Union Mills tender drive, although a future project will be to replace this with a heavily weighted scratchbuilt one). Regards, Chris

That is good news. Do you have a website URL for Ratio? I keep getting suppliers of the models when I search.

Jerry that little single box is exquisite. Those window etches are great on all the models - I assume they are no longer available? I am really looking forward to seeing this layout develop. Regards Chris