gordon s

You don’t get long at Chelsea. Lampard out and Tuchel in...... In all fairness to Frank, a very good player who possibly took one step too far with Chelsea. Of course Abramovich made his usual statement as to what a great guy Frank was.......... One assumes he got a few bob to soften the blow....

Just received a delivery from SMP of pcb strip and pre cut sleepers. The pre cut sleepers have always been excellent, but I am so pleased to see they have adopted the same manufacturing process for the pcb strips. I use the 1.2mm thick version and the edges of each strip are very clean with no burrs whatsoever. They are single sided glass fibre and break off very easily from the main sheet. There are 25 sleeper strips per main sheet and I have to say the quality is excellent. One happy punter......who needs some new garden furniture.....

Thanks Martin, that now makes sense.......I misunderstood the EMGS bit..... Like John, I certainly don’t want any comments to be construed as criticism, so try to tread carefully. I really want these to succeed as I have nothing but admiration for Wayne rising to this challenge and providing the product we have all waited for. Please take any comment as constructive/informative and certainly not critical. I assume both blades are isolated from each other and the frog switched to match polarity of the route. Is there any danger at all of a short from the back of any wheels at the close gap before the crossing? I tend to extend the crossing out to the ends of the check rail and make the cut further out to completely eliminate any risk of short at all.

Looks good, but just one minor comment that the gap between the switch rails and the common crossing doesn’t appear to be electrically isolated. Easily fixed, but I’d like to see a definite gap, particularly once the temperatures start to rise. Edit: Just looked at the pics again and is there a difference in the blades between the B6 and B7? The B7 blades appear one piece and the B6 loose heeled......Is that correct or has the design been updated?

Check the quality though as what I’ve seen in B & Q left a lot to be desired. Compromising quality of your baseboard to save a few bob at the front end really is asking for problems. Your baseboard is the foundation to everything. Get that wrong and you’ll forever have running issues, derailments and couplings coming apart.

The website is OK but not secure. Your link has https...... http://www.johnsonstimber.co.uk If it helps I get all my ply from Travis Perkins. I have a trade cash account and generally pay £28.30 inc VAT for 2440 x 1220 x12mm sheets. Quality is fine, but I can pick my own sheets in the yard.

You were right. Seems more to it...... https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/acton-bridge-a-station-with-local-strange-neighbours.185016/

You have to have Gold status to sell via the classifieds......

Funny how those who say let the old and vulnerable die are usually around 30 years younger than me....... Having worked for over 50 years and paid a lot in taxation and NHI contributions, I feel absolutely no guilt that I may need more care in the years to come.

Not me but this came up.....A bit of a long shot from the clues you gave.... https://www.cutmyplastic.co.uk/wood-sheets/ply/birch/3mm/ Very expensive for 12mm ply, but I guess it all comes down to quality/convenience and service. Don’t be fooled by the price on the screen. That’s a postage stamp size piece.......

I think you are being harsh here. The starting point was that you had forgotten an item and then expected Gaugemaster to accommodate your error. There are numerous companies I have dealt with including Amazon where it’s not possible to amend an order once placed and I suspect orders are batched and run overnight. Once raised the only way to add an item is to raise a new order. In your position I would reflect and say oh well, that’s down to me rather than expend time and effort mailing back and forth over such a small item. I’ve used Gaugemaster for years and never had a problem. Time to step back, take a deep breath and accept that you forgot an item rather than complaining publicly about such a minor issue. In these times we’re lucky to have suppliers who are still open and working, so cut them a little slack.....

Been running my iPad for a couple of hours now and no sign of the consent form after the reset. Fingers crossed.......

I can't answer for the OP, but would never reuse a cork trackbed, particularly if the track had been glued down and ballasted. Cork is not particularly expensive and the key to good running is always a perfectly flat set of rails. Any compromise from sanding and removing material is always going to reduce the rail height in a localised area and without refilling or packing it back to the correct height you are just introducing a problem where there is no need. Taking extra care when laying track will always reduce the chances of problems later, so why cut corners to save a few bob......

Spoke too soon. I was searching for pcb strip via Google and up came a thread that I had started years ago on RMweb. Clicked on the link via Google and blow me, the consent form came up on my iMac. Interesting that it came up when redirected to RMweb from an outside link, whereas I've not seen it all when going directly to RMweb.....Strange....

Without going back over numerous pages, I have both an iMac and iPad and haven't seen the issue on my iMac, only my iPad. Just to add another snippet, I did show the consent form to my wife and she has not seen it before on her iPad, but then she's not browsing RMweb.....

I have also used a flat wallpaper scraper once you are able to get underneath one of the edges. To make the surface good after scraping, I would use a flat sander, either a belt sander or one with a flat bed and orbital motion. The risk with an angle grinder or any rotary sanding device is that they have a habit of suddenly digging in and you can end up with an unwanted groove in the ply.

Morning all....Thanks for your best wishes. I really don't want this to become a health thread, but sadly we lost my BiL to liver cancer last night. As I said he had been unwell for months, so whilst we're sad for his family we all know he is now at peace and no longer suffering. Also heard this morning that my son was taken into hospital with Covid, so fingers crossed he'll be OK. 'Scuse me whilst I go outside and scream... I'm hoping to get stuck in again today. The paper plan has been overlaid and I can probably get away with the same sub board once stripped of all the track and underlay. Bit of a pain as it will mean no running for a week or two, but it has to be done. It's probable I won't be able to use the existing crossover as shunting it round the curve changes the radius. Oh to have standard Peco pointwork, where you could pick it up and plonk it down to your heart's content..... I will have to stay with turnouts as I now have the mimic panel finished and whilst I could probably incorporate a diamond, the benefits are not really there as the crossover in question has multiple options in terms of in and out of ET which would be negated with a crossing. Of course a slip could be an option, but then I'm back into changing the mimic panel, so I'll just accept the compromise at this stage. Several of you have suggested Marcway strip and I have used it in the past. At that time the width was inconsistent, but clearly things have improved, so may well be worth a try if cutting my own strip is still problematical in terms of width control and burrs. At least it's not all doom and gloom. Spurs have a chance to win the cup with a 1 in the year...

Afternoon all.....Had some reasonable news this morning in as much the biopsies I had came back clear, so whilst cancer is not ruled out, the swingometer has at least moved a fraction towards inflammation causing the problem. Loads more tests to do yet, but I'm in good hands. ET wise, I'm still sticking bits of paper together. This is the board across the stairwell which has deliberately been left in a lashed together format as I knew there would be some changes. The crossover you can see has to be moved back towards the right to generate the space to add another crossover between lines 2 & 3. I'm sure this will break every rule in the book, but I need the facility for anti clockwise trains to traverse the main lines out to the goods relief road or platform 6 in order to access the shed and lower level storage. Of course this won't happen continually, but without the option. it would mean numerous back and forth movements to gain access. Out came the sticky tape and A4 paper to create this drawing. I always knew the kitchen worktop was there for a reason.... The angles and photography mean the whole thing appears quite condensed, whereas the reality of this section is that it is around 10' long overall. I shall check it out this afternoon, but suspect the whole board will need to built again from scratch. At least it keeps me occupied during lockdown...... Keep smiling....

Thanks Brian, but fairly sure they only have 1.6mm thick and not the 1mm to 1.2mm I use.

A 60’ run to rise a minimum if 2’ is only a 1:30 gradient. Far to steep if you are considering steam locos, where even 1:50 would be hard. Diesel loco’s fare much better, but in view of your comment re heavy trains, you should be aiming for 1:50. All of the problems will be going up the gradient........and as soon as you add curves you increase the problems. There’s lot’s of info on helices here.......

Having sat and watched Crawley Town thrash Leeds 3-0, I hope that’s the only shock of the day, but who knows with the Cup. Love the house number story......

Morning lads....My whole life is on repeat right now. Another week gone. Another two round trips to Oxford. Another arm full of blood taken and still no biopsy results. I rang them Friday and apparently it can take 7-10 days to get meaningful results so I don't expect to hear anything until next week. Another Oxford trip planned this week, so hopefully the ducks will fall in line and I might get to know what's going on. Bile levels in my blood are now four times what they should be but no one seems particularly alarmed, so I'm taking my lead from them. I'm still fine but sadly my BiL is slowly slipping away and may not make the next seven days. His family have all been there for the last few days, so the house has been full of happy memories and a mix of laughter and tears. In between all this I've managed to do a bit of soldering and what should have been four hours work has taken the best part of a week as I've had to push myself to do a bit now and again with all that's going on. Having crossed over from the down fast to slow at one end of the layout, there was was always going to be a need to reverse that route at the other end and half an hour ago saw this lifted from my work board and dropped roughly into place. Of course, now I've run out of all my good C & L sleeper strip, so I'll probably have another go at cutting my own strip from 1mm PCB sheet. The quality of strip from C & L is always high, but with 5 packs of sleeper strip now costing the best part of a £100, I'm going to have to consider cutting my own again. Certainly not the fault of C & L as the price of the raw material has gone up dramatically. Thinking back, I'm fairly sure I was only paying £6 per pack around 8 years ago. With a large radius turnout using one pack of strips alone, plus the rail and solder etc, the new kits from Wayne are looking more attractive every day. So two more to do and then I can start finishing all the boards and make a start on retaining walls etc. There's a traverser to build plus the whole shed board, so the good money is on a completion date around 2030...... Had to look up Marine FC for the game this afternoon as I had no idea where they were. The web came back with Crosby, Merseyside, so I hope there won't be a cup upset this afternoon. Enjoyed watching Chorley play yesterday, so they'll do in the fourth round if we can get past the lads from 'oop north..... Covid appears to be getting worse and the NHS are under tremendous pressure. Saw this first hand last week as one appointment with respiratory was cancelled as they clearly needed all doctors to treat Covid patients. I really feel for these guys as they are working under enormous pressure and yet you still see people who seem to be completely oblivious to the whole thing. Just all keep safe and well or I'll be talking to myself.....

What a great first half from the youngsters of Villa, none of whom have played in first team before. The complete joy of the team when they equalised against a Liverpool first team was a joy to behold....... Of course there’s another 45 to go, but anything could happen.....

These were the two threads. The paper I referred to was available via eBay and is certainly different to anything I have seen before. It appears to be an embossed wallpaper, but the back of the sheet bears no relation to the front. It seems to sit between the Slaters and Wills offerings. One of the things I admired on Tetleys Mill was Dave’s use of Slaters 0 gauge dressed stone. It always looked great on his layout, but on ET it somehow looked slightly over scale, probably because Allan Downes buildings were predominantly brick, whereas as Tetley’s were stone throughout. I like the basics blocks of the Slaters sheets, whereas the Wills sheet looks more ornamental. I may order some of the 0 gauge block stone sheets to play around with as the H0 sheets look more like the Wills stone sheet. Early days, but worth a punt.......

I wonder if he means ‘arm’ or ‘arse’.........