Jump to content
 

Dave Holt

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,069

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Dave Holt

  1. Dave Holt

    A bit more progress

    By Dave Holt,

    Still no actual track laid, but I am edging slowly towards it! To provide some strength to the track at board joints, and hopefully prevent rail end damage during assembly and disassembly of the layout, I'm fitting a couple pf ply sleepers where each track reaches the end of a board with brass panel pins driven into the board top rather than the usual rivets. This is now complete except for one end of one board. After that, I need to partially cover the turnout operating unit holes to just leave a slot for the actuating wires to pass through, locate the TOU's under the boards and then track laying can start. Here's 3 photos of recent progress.



     
    Dave.
  2. Dave Holt

    Delph push-pull trains

    By Dave Holt,

    I see Coachman has started this subject in his coach blog. Not to be outdone, here's a couple of photos of an ex-LNWR push-pull diagram M15 driving trailer with a BR conversion of an ex-LMS Period II open third and a Lees breadvan (Fowler 3MT 2-6-2 tank) in charge. By all accounts, the coaches might have done better on their own! The prototype photo is by H Casserley and the model photo by me. Can you spot which is which?
    The M15 is one of a series made for me by Coachman (and without which a realistic model of Delph would be virtually impossible), the Period II is by me from a modified Comet kit. Both beautifully painted by Coachman. Loco from a heavily modified Gibson kit, built by me and painted/lined by Ian Rathbone.
     

  3. Dave Holt
    I'm getting there! All the track in the station area except that across the coal drops is now in place. Still to do is application of cosmetic chairs on the pointwork, but I'll leave that till after wiring and trial running - so some time off, yet.
    On the coal drops, the track support beams are made and I've mounted the functional supports at the cell devider pillars. These will be clad in brickwork and the three sides of the whole arrangement in coarse stone, prior to fixing the track structure in place. Well, that's the plan!
     
    Latest progress photos:-
     

     

     

  4. Dave Holt
    Have laid the track across the coal drops for the layout. The deck beams are obeche strip spaced at 20 mm centre-lines. The track uses Exactoscale functional bridge chairs fixed to the wood using Plastic Weld solvent. For added security, there are brass locating pegs at three places along the length on which the chairs plug and the last two chair positions at the base-board joint are soldered to brass panel pins for strength. Had a minor setback when after all was fixed, I noticed I'd put one of the chairs on back-to-front, so the key was in the 4 foot! Luckily, it was on the rear track, so with a bit of scalpel work i managed to make the visible side look like an inner jaw and no-one will be able to see the lack of a key on the far side of the rail! I only found my mistake when I slid the track gauge along and it bumped over something!
     
    Final fixing will be left till I've added the decking, hand rails, etc and also done the cosmetic parts of the drops area and cell dividing walls/support pillars.
     

     
    View of the whole deck section with rails attached. The extension along the front edge supports the decking walk-way and hand rails.
×
×
  • Create New...