gordon s

Gawd.....Collingwood gone now, 4 down...

Mrs S buys in mealworms for the birds and there are numerous small containers dotted about the house/garden.....not to mention those in the fridge. Never make a sandwich in our place if the light is poor, you don't know what you may put in it. So what started with feeding a couple of robins, has now become a major exercise. Several birds turn up at the back door and sing for their breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. Funny how these things turn round as she is now at their beck and call....

Jeez, it's nippy noo naa this morning... Think I'll stay inside in the warm. Now what can I do?... New Years resolution to clear up some of the mess and muddle no longer seems attractive..

In all fairness to SAF, he did say that Leeds deserved to win and were the better team on the day...but he did complain about the lack of added time. ITV showed the interview after the West Ham game ... http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/03012010/58/fa-cup-alex-ferguson-says-leeds-deserved-win-manchester-united.html

Don't worry, we'll sort them out in the next round.... When Fergie was shocked at the amount of extra time, I thought they were going to say two minutes, not five...How much did he expect? He carried on about added time is the post match interview...

Any red's out there?..... West Ham and Arsenal up next...

Done and dusted. 6-0 to Taylor....He really hung in there.. It's a long way back to Denbigh...particularly after having been hammered. Night boys. 11.45..

Seems you guys have the worst of it. It's cold and frosty here but not much else. Drive carefully guys if you're on the road.... Enjoying the darts with young Mr Taylor hanging in there. I see he's playing an even younger fella from up your way DD. Could go either way at the moment as it's early days. Good result for your boys BoD. Any win for Sunderland has to be good news. 4th round draw tomorrow, so here's hoping for an easy draw for you guys.....

Had a few hours spare today, so set about the redesign of a troublesome piece of pointwork that forms the access to my hidden reverse curve. My way of testing trackwork is to take a reasonable sample of my loco's and then run them at various speeds up to full whack. I'm looking for no derailments at any speeds and will adjust my trackwork until that can be achieved. One of the beauties of pcb track is that you can tweak various component parts of turnouts until you can get 100% reliability. Of course the other part of the equation is back to back measurements and I check all my stock before it is allowed on the layout. With a known B2B and check rails that are accurately set, you should be able to eliminate most issues. The other problem behind derailments is the transition from straight to curve track and that was the root cause behind this problem area on my layout. There was a 3' radius curve with an integral curved point with the inner road continuing that 3' curve. The other route was straight into an S curve and then onto a straight. This sudden change of direction was proving too much for certain locos, so I set about resolving the problem. First stage was to open my Templot plan and change the transition area. Having arrived at a much smoother transition, the templates were printed off and stuck to my 18mm baseboard. I always try to extend the basic turnout into the next piece of track, particularly on a curve, as the last thing you need is a rail join right in a transition area. I use 3mm SMP plain sleepers for plain track and C & L 4mm strip under turnouts. The plain sleepers are pre cut and I use an old Xuron track cutter to cut the strip to the correct length to suit. Once the plan is fixed firmly in place, I lay double sided tape on the plan to hold the sleepers in place. I always dab this with a dry tea towel to remove some of the adhesive strength and make it easier to remove the finished track from the plan. I picked up some point filing jigs from Scaleforum one year and these are invaluable for filing up the frog. Simply select the required crossing angle and file away. I have two jigs to cover 5,6,7,8 and 9,10,11 & 12 crossing angles. The rail is held in place and filed in the hardened steel block. You can also use the jig to solder up the frog, but I prefer to make them in situ. Once the rails are filed to the correct angle, I place them on the plan and hold them in position with Blutac. I tend to fill the join with solder and then carefully file the frog flat once it is held in position. The first crossing rails can now be cut to length, bent to shape and soldered in position. I use a 1mm shim to set the gaps and once again, Blutack to hold it. Once you are happy with that one, the second rail can be soldered in place using exactly the same method. Now, there are several ways of making pcb track and this is the one that works for me. I'm not suggesting that this is the right way and it's not intended as a teaching exercise. I said at the beginning that the critical part of a turnout in my experience is the check rail distance from the crossing and not the actual track gauge. When I first started making my own track, I was gauging the outer rails from the crossing and then setting the check rails from the outer rails. Having now read a lot more about track issues, I changed my assembly method to set the check rails first, so the next thing is to cut and form the check rails and then gauge them from the crossing rails. The next stage for me is to now add the outer rails. The important thing for me is the smooth flowing lines of any trackwork and whilst Templot is very good, I also use my own eyes to check that the rails are in a nice flowing curve and do not have any minor kinks. I only tack solder every few sleepers at this point in case something is not quite right. So that just leaves the point blades to be filed. These are done by hand using a needle file. Once formed and cut to the correct length, these are gauged from the outer rails. To simplify things, particularly on hidden turnouts, I just use PCB strip as a tie bar, replacing one of the normal sleepers. The ends of the blades are carefully gapped using the 1mm shim and then soldered to the tie bar. .....and basically that's it. A custom built curved turnout that cost a fraction of a RTR one and took less than 3 hours to build. The last job is to check all is OK and then solder the rest of the sleeper/rail joins and lighly cut through the copper strip with a slitting disc to isolate both rails. Making pcb track is not that difficult once you have the right tools. A set of gauges, a decent soldering iron and a bit of patience is all that is required. It's a great way to spend a few hours and very rewarding once you have finished.....Add to that the cost savings that can be had and the freedom it gives in layout design and it scores all round. Go on, give it a try....

Morning all.... ..and a very Happy New Year to one and all. Hope the hangovers are not too bad.. Hefty frost last night, but the moon was magnificent. Certainly the brightest I can recall in my lifetime....but then I don't recall what I had for lunch yesterday...

Are you kidding?... Just got to wait 16 weeks delivery time for the wheels...

Two things Don. The problem was caused by the wheels on my Fiatrians 10000, where the wheel profile and lack of sideplay was causing the derailment. The flow of that particular point wasn't helping either. I've ordered a new set of wheels from Ultrascale and am in the process of realigning and rebuilding the curve and curved point with a better transition. Hopefully that will cure the problem. It's only one loco, but one of my favourites, so I shall want it to run faultlessly..... This will be the year of the train.....and not the shed, garden or any other project that may get in the way... Famous last words.. http://www.rmweb.co....__fromsearch__1

.....and the same to you Don. Just struggled out with eight bin bags, enough for a small landfill and double our normal count. Thank goodness that's all over. Tonight will be at home with the dogs and sitting up just to comfort them through the inevitable fireworks that will welcome the New Year. If it wasn't for them, we'd be in bed by 10.... At least the decorations will be down tomorrow and life will get back to normal I know, I'm a miserable old b*gger...

The fire will really roar if it's overdrawn......Sorry guys, best I could do this morning. Yes, a cubic metre. You have to be a little careful though. 3 cubic metres is the size of our guys tipper, so he fills it to overflowing. Sad puppy that I am, after we had neatly stacked the pile of logs, I calculated the true volume without the spaces that are inevitable when you just throw them in the back of a lorry. The true volume was probably around 2.4m, but I guess that will be the same wherever you go....

Spot on Don! How did you guess that?... Mike, our main room is 26' x 16' and we have the Vision 500 plus a hood. This is the one of the smaller models and it will heat the room easily. No draughts and no smell of smoke at all. We just leave it burning at night and go to bed without the risk of fire. If you want it to run the next day, you can open the primary vent, wait a few minutes for the ash to glow and just add a few small logs and it's up and running in minutes. Lighting from cold is just a few pieces of newspaper and some kindling. It really is so easy and very quick to get a decent heat. As I said to DD, I empty the ash pan every three or four days of full running and just spread it on the garden. There are versions that will do hot water as well but our fireplace was a long way away from our hot water tank. The glass stays clean unlike many others, so you do have the open fire appearance. We are burning Ash and Beech and 1m of logs will cost between ??50 and ??70 down this way. No doubt it will be cheaper in rural areas. Depending on your heat demands and hours of usage, 3m of logs will last between 2-3 months. The big plus for us though is that the heating stat has been turned down by 3 degrees C, so we will save considerably on gas consumption. The whole house is much warmer as the draughts and cold areas have gone. Happy to answer any questions you may have....and I have no connection to Clearview whatsoever.

Good grief Don, what a terrible start to the day....Hopefully some more information will follow. Cleaning out the ashes DD, is an every three of four day task and takes all of a minute or two. Hardly demanding, even for me.....The thing is the amount of ash is very small and is only a grey powder as the burn heat is high. Can't recommend one highly enough.....and they are not so far from you. Clearview

Some you win, some you lose....

Kids and old people everywhere.... Can't move for tripping over new pairs of slippers and bath gel. Kitchen worktop looks like an explosion in a chemists. Conversation is up about 10 decibels as various hearing aids have been left upstairs.... Eh.....? Seems to be the word for today... Managed to escape the breakfast melee for a few minutes. Second wave will arrive today and third tomorrow....Keep smiling.

Happy Christmas. Seasons greetings and best wishes to all..... Good health and happiness for 2010.

Sorry Scott I can't really help you, as I didn't build them. As I said earlier they were originally built by Alan Downes for Great Northern's layout, Peterborough. They are mostly card construction with a few pieces of brass etches/thin mdf or ply. All use brick paper, rather than embossed plastic card. I guess they must be several years old by now, but have stood the test of time well. The station building is based on Sleaford. Even though it meant replanning my terminus design, they really were to good to miss and miles better than anything I could make at this stage of my modelling life. To be honest I'm not sure I could ever get to that standard and would rather spend my time on carpentry/electrics and track laying. I'll be happy to provide some further close up shots if it will help.

No I'm with you Mick. As a young lad, just as soon as the snow was down, I was off to the local deserted car park to thrash round in the snow with handbrake turns and rear end power slides. May have been a hooligan, but it has stood me in good stead to deal with adverse driving conditions. Also picking up Mum and MiL tomorrow. I have an idea the roads will be pretty hectic today and sitting in queues all day is not my idea of fun. Just done the last minute bread/milk/beer run at Tescos. Had everything I needed and relatively quiet. Job done. If we haven't got it now, we'll do without....

Morning all. Bins out and it's gently raining. Temperature is up a few degrees and the snow is disappearing from the drive, so should be gone later today. A friend of ours left Wokingham at 1.30 yesterday to go home to Dundee. Thought she was bonkers based on the news reports, but finally arrived at midnight last night. So a trip of 450 miles in just over 10 hours including stops. Doesn't sound too bad considering the weather conditions as reported on TV. Maybe they've glammed it up to make a good story... Have a good Christmas Eve, whatever you are up to..... Piece of useless info: Just remembered that the Danes celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, so if you're Danish, a very Merry Christmas....

Your welcome Mark. Just noticed this could be a spot the difference competition. The last pic shows the second version of the panel. I cocked up the first one on two counts. Firstly I brought the wires out the wrong side and secondly, drilled the hole too big for the DIN connector, hence the mdf patch..... It was really buggin' me and had to make a new frame, which is shown in the last pic, so hardly that professional....

I have actually been working on the layout over the past few weeks on a succession of projects. I was concerned about the size of the power bus as the length of run over each level was approaching the 30' recommended maximum in each direction. I also found that relying on fish plates for electrical continuity was really not a good thing, particularly in areas which are hidden from view and not easily accessed. The decision was made and each section of board was removed one at a time and droppers added to every piece of track. I also took the opportunity to increase the bus size from 1.5mm to 4mm and wired in the reverse loop module and the first of three circuit breakers. Having experienced a few shorts in the past, I know that tracing a short can be very time consuming, particularly on such a large layout. Each level now has its own breaker and the length of track is split into 3m sections, each of which has its own isolating switch. Locating a short is now a simple process, with the circuit breaker kicking in first and then by switching out/in each section, the locality of the short can now be limited to a specific 3m section. I have never built a control panel before, so took the opportunity to build a small panel for the lower level return loop, which has a a pair of power supplies giving +12v/0v/-12v. The 0v rail goes to one side of the Tortoise motor and the +12v and -12v to a SPDT switch, with the output going to the other side of the Tortoise. LED's are then fed in parallel across the switch to give route indication. This means just one wire per point motor going between the control panel and the layout. The panel was made up from some odd bits of ply and mdf that were left over from earlier layouts. I printed the plan out using WinRail and then laminated this with some clear plastic sheet. Holes were drilled for the switches and LED's and the whole thing wired up. Had a few minor mishaps, but they were soon corrected and everything now works. The panel now sits on a small shelving unit with the NCE Pro Cab and a short length of programming track. This has been a worthwhile exercise and I will follow a similar mode of construction for the main terminus panel. That will probably be 600-900mm long with over 30 switches and I guess, 100+ LEDs for route indication... Happy days....

Oh how I wish! Sadly the years have caught up with me and whilst I still love fast cars, I have lost the ability to get in and out of a small, low slung two seater, without virtually falling out onto the pavement. Comfort seems to have taken over from raw thrills... .....and not being able to afford one was another reason. The M12 was one of my dream supercars and it was made in Britain....