eldavo

Of course! I saw all three of our ships down in Bournemouth last week. On second thoughts one was a support ship and another was some sort of coastal protection vessel. Does one destroyer constitute a navy? Hope Ian is hanging on in there. Cheers Dave

Can't think of anything meaningful to say. Look after yourself Ian. Cheers Dave

Stay strong Ian.

That's a tough one Ian. All I can do is send another bunch of positive waves from this end to help Deb with the fight. Cheers Dave

Must've been tricky getting 'em all in a Ferrari... Cheers Dave

Well that's alright then. At least it isn't her gymslip. Cheers Dave (Fetching coat even though it's too warm for one)

Morning All, Not sure why but haven't been posting much on ERs of late though I have been watching and see the gang is all here. Our neighbour has a cockerpoo and it's a nice enough dog though if anything a bit boring. Very soft and gentle but lacking a little something. We were dogsitting for 4 days last week and having two puppies was a tad frantic. They were running each other to a standstill. Normal service has now been resumed with only one (very) small mongrel puppy charging about the place. Our kitchen floor looked something akin to the view from Mike's shed yesterday. A compression joint on the outside tap isolation valve had been quietly failing hidden nicely behind the sink. First sign of trouble was (nearly) all the kitchen unit kickboards starting to crack. Initially I thought it was over enthusiasm with the floor mop on the part of the cleaner but then this week they started splitting bit time. Found the leak on Wednesday by which time the flow was like an open tap. Water everywhere underneath the vinyl flooring. Insurance claim time and now the garage contains a collection of waterlogged chipboard and smelly floor coverings. SWMBO has been dispatched to collect a dehumidifier to try and dry things out. Yuk! I'll leave her to the disaster for the weekend and go and play trains with Mr. H oop Narth. Well Derby way anyhow. Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Very pleased with my EWS 56 though I'm disappointed that it has got dirty quite so quickly! Cheers Dave

Manky cameraphone shot but 56018 is now available in grubby! Pretty impressed with this model. Still running nicely and hauling reasonable sized trains without the slightest problem right down to crawling speed and it's quiet. Cheers Dave

It's Grrrrrrrid time! It was probably long out of service by 2010 when the layout is supposed to be set but there was never really any doubt I would have to have one. Runs rather nicely too. Time for the dirty brush I think... Cheers Dave

Channel section rather than rail. Intriguing. Morning All, Been absent without leave for a while mostly due to the Olympics. Not that I've been competing or anything just been away to North Yorkshire for a while to avoid them. The plan failed, they have television even that far North! Off to Pendon today for my first day of volunteering. As the new boy I get to make the tea quite literally I suspect! Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

I'm getting all manner of images here but I must not respond... My experiences of radio construction used to be mostly dry joints! It doesn't appear to be raining but then again I haven't started the lawnmower yet. Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, For some reason Monday golf didn't seem too attractive today. Not because it's raining but because it's chucking it down! I blame the water companies and I'll convey my opinions to the visiting member of the local company shortly. Still at least I had a free morning to do some baseboard bashing. Have a good (if damp) one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, Lots of oktas in place though currently not leaking. Hope it all goes well Gordon. It's easy to know when to do your bit, listen for "Who's the poor schmuck who has to pay for all this?". Off to Pendon and Didcot on a Railway club outing today. Far too much Generally Wet and Rusty but should be fun nonetheless. Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

I wonder how many people have pay as you go phones in readiness for an emergency who, if they are unfortunate enough to have a problem, will find the phone doesn't work? Most of the major operators now deactivate any number that hasn't made a phone call within a 6 month period. Receiving calls is not enough th keep the number active. Also some operators now require the phone to be "topped up" with a minimum £5 every so many months otherwise the credit is considered to be zero. Nice little gotchas. Cheers Dave

Good to see you've brought MM over Nick. It may be Generally Wet and Rusty but it's top-notch modelling. Cheers Dave

Why do you need the bus to be dry?

Morning All, The sky was blue and the sun was out..... ...then I got the lawnmower out and guess what? It's persisting down again! Have a good (if damp one) all. Cheers Dave

The majority of the pointwork on the layout is fairly simple and so many turnouts have been built individually which is nice an conveniemt for sharing out the work. There are a couple of crossovers that have been built as a combined unit but the only big chunk that really needed building as one piece is the double junction with the Romsey branch. The trackwork here is flat-bottom rail and as it has to match with the rest of the mainline run it has been built using the Colin Craig etched chairs. Lots of them! It's been a fairly tedious job for one of our members to keep up a steady supply of assembled chairs so we could build this in a reasonable time. Just to add interest the junction includes a switched diamond crossing just like the real Redbridge. This little lot will need 4 Tortoise motors to drive it as the short blades on the diamond preclude the use of a single motor and cranks. Here's the track assembled and waiting for a good bath to remove it from the Templot template and remove the flux residue. It was assembled on a sheet of plate glass to try and help get it as flat as possible. After it's bath it will be checked electrically then some of the bits will be chemically blackened (well at least turned a mucky brown) and the whole thing will be given a coat of primer. Cheers Dave

Morning All, It's not raining here (yet). Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Morning All, There and you lot thought golf was a game for softie Southerners. It's a dangerous sport I tell you. Not that the weather has been conducive to playing this week. I'm getting withdrawal symptoms and yet again it's raining. Lee Trevino was once asked in an interview what he did if he was caught out on the course in a thunderstorm. His answer was "I take a 1 iron. Not even God can hit a 1 iron". Archie the puppy has had his first set of jabs and is due for his first puppy training class on Friday. Currently he's asleep on my feet and is going to get a nasty shock in a minute when I wander down to the shed in the rain. He's not keen on the rain but is quite happy to curl up and go to sleep on the dog bed down in my shed (no the bed was not intended for me even if I do spend a lot of time in the doghouse). Have a good one all. Cheers Dave

Currently work is still on-going on the baseboards with the causeway board to complete and several daughter boards to build. In parallel with baseboard work the team have been working on trackwork. One of our initial aims was to have better appearance and better running than we had with the existing Peco code 100 set-up. The exisiting layout was built at a time when the majority of the 00 gauge group had large collections of older stock including Lima models with pancake flanges. Code 100 may have been the right choice then but by todays standards it looks a bit course. As the team has changed dramatically, as have the sort of models we run, and we want to exhibit the final product we wanted something much better. Much discussion ensued about the merits of various track systems but several of the group were keen on building our own track to get exactly what we wanted rather than compromise (except on gauge of course!). A lot of the team had never attempted trackwork construction before but were up for a challenge so handbuilt was the final decision. To add to the challenges we opted to use 00-SF standards in the pointwork to help further improve the appearance and running. Of course that's not the end of it and there are many flavours of handbuilt. We decided to set the layout in around 1966-67 so that we could have 3rd rail but potentially run the odd bit of steam and green diesels. The line through Redbridge looks to have been flat-bottom rail at this time although the yard and sidings would be (and to some extent still are) bullhead. The layout depicts a track manufacturing plant after all so plenty of track variety would be nice. We opted to build the mainline track with concrete sleepers on the up line and wooden on the down. For the concrete track we have used C&L sleeper bases so that bit is easy peasy. The wooden sleepered down line track, along with a crossover and the Romsey junction, is built using copperclad sleepers and Colin Craig etched brass chairs. The latter allow for some very tasty looking track but they are a route to madness. To say they are fiddly to assemble (two etched parts per chair) and use is understating it in the extreme! Here is a shot of part of the Romsey junction under construction. It looks pretty messy with solder and flux staining but you can just about make out the etched chairs. The spring clip representations have not yet been bent over to meet the rail. For slide chairs, check rail chairs etc. we have used plain brass strip under the rail and etched chairs will be cut in half and added later. Once completed the wooded sleepered track is cleaned, sprayed with a red oxide primer then the sleepers are individually painted and some variation of "rust" colour is added to the chairs and rails. For the trackwork in the yard we are using bullhead rail threaded on to SMP track bases (cheaper than buying it ready assembled) and pointwork built using basic rail soldered to copperclad sleepers. Most of the track in the yard will be buried under various crud so adding chairs would be a bit of a waste of time. Using the simpler construction method has also meant that pretty much all the team have built at least one point so there's been plenty of new skills learnt. Here's a pic of three of the 4 main boards laid out in the clubroom. It gives an idea of the sweep of the mainline across the rear of the layout but also highlights one of our day to day problems, space. The only place we can put together more than 2 boards is on top of the fiddleyard of the existing 00 layout. This has to be a temporary measure as we have members who regularly run the old layout during the week. Hence the reason for really lightweight baseboards. Cheers Dave

Of course life would be easy if all the baseboards were nice simple rectangles but they aren't. At the lefthand (Bournemouth) end of the layout we intend to model a length of the causeway over the mouth of the river Test which means a large part of the baseboard will be substantially below trackbed level. This needed a bit of creativity as our initial foam construction would not accomodate it. Our solution was to build a much shallower 'U' section in 25mm foam then add a section of 75mm foam to form the causeway and the banks of the river. As was mentioned earlier we will use scenic extension boards at the front to extend the width but these give us more problems in areas where we are modelling water. Long board joins will be almost impossible to hide or disguise. For the causeway and wharf area we have decided to have the extension/daughter boards overlap parts of the main boards so that the join can be hidden under the causeway or along the edge of the wharf. This further complicates the shape of the boards and means we have had to construct a support framework out of 3mm ply as part of two of the main scenic boards. Here is a pic of the causeway board under construction showing the very shallow 'U' shape and the way the diagonal braces form part of the daughter board support frame. Looking at the top side some of the 75mm foam that makes up the causeway under the Bournemouth line and riverbank under the Romsey branch is visible. The sloping edge of the causeway will be built on the daughter board so that the board join will run along the edge of the trackbed and hopefully be almost invisble from normal viewing distances. Cheers Dave

A few notes on our chosen baseboard construction techniques. None of these are new simply rehashes of work done by others many of whom are on RMweb. During our initial discussions the team identified a couple of challenges, the fact that the layout would not be able to be erected permanently in the clubrooms and the fact that we wanted to transport it for exhibition use. Both of these meant that whatever we constructed would need to be easily shiftable by a bunch of old duffers! Baseboard units needed to be of a manageable size and as light as possible while remaining strong and durable. Some of the club's other efforts have certainly proved to be strong and durable but have used fairly hefty section ply and/or MDF meaning that more than one set of hands is needed to move a baseboard. After searching the interweb, trawling magazines and peering at other peoples layouts the team decided to try their hand at building the main scenic baseboards using high density foam. A well-known example of a layout that has used this technique that is on the exhibition circuit is Pempoul. Those who have a had a close look at it will attest that the system works well and the boards look to be holding up extremely well to being lifted and shifted on a regular basis. Magazine articles on the use of foam were duly perused, an order for several 1220x600mm sheets of 25mm foam was placed with Trylon and a member dispatched to a local timber merchant to acquire sheets of 3mm and 6mm birch ply. Our boards for the scenic section use a core of 25mm thick foam which is 1220x760mm and forms the top surface of the board. This is glued to two side pieces of 25mm foam 100mm deep forming a 'U' section. As the sheets only come in 600mm width there is a join along the length of the top surface and to help align and strengthen this a biscuit cutter is used and 2mm ply biscuits inserted. We have also used biscuits in the joins betwen the top and side pieces. All joins are glued using solvent-free grip fill adhesive, the cheapest available from Screwfix. The 'U' shaped foam core is then clad in ply. Two layers of 6mm ply at each end, one butt jointed to the end of the foam and the other sitting inside the 'U' forming a support step at the end. The sides are then finished with a 125mm deep strip of 3mm ply simply to protect the foam from damage. Diagonal bracing is then added underneath the board from 3mm ply. Here's a pic of our first effort. One of the first challenges we came across with this was locating where the diagonal braces should go. From the pic above you can see various holes and square markings. We pasted the Templot trackplan to the top of the board, poked holes through where the point actuator wire would need to go then marked the position of the Tortoise motor underneath. A bit messy but it allowed us to see where we could add bracing. With the 2nd board wee got a we bit smarter. Again we pasted the Templot plan to the top... ...and also a mirror image to the bottom so we could fit the bracing without poking holes all over the place. It seemed a good idea to retrofit the plan to the underside of the first board as well to aid with the identification of wiring and point motors at a later date. Here's a view of the underside of the first two boards: Along the way we discovered a few things: 1) PVA glue will not stick a paper template to Trylon model foam! To get PVA to stick you first need to size/prime/coat the foam in something. Surprisingly acrylic varnish (PVA-based) works well as a primer. 2) Almost all glues known to mankind disolve foam. At least all the common, Evostick, UHU, etc. ones will distort if not disolve the stuff. There are specialsed but expensive glues available if there is a situation where you cannot use a solvent-free grip fill or PVA. 3) Without diagonal bracing the boards are useless and twist all over the place. With the bracing in place they are amazingly light and amazingly rigid. 4) Using a biscuit cutter on foam will guarantee that you will be extracting bits of foam from every orifice for days! Cheers Dave

As far as we can make out it's a compromise. It's a low speed area but needs to protect against trains/stock exiting to the main running line. The rollingstock will indeed try and pinch the track but using a conventional trap the stock would either be routed towards the run round loop to the right or towards the back of the platform to the left. With this device there is more chance of an escaped vehicle stopping pretty much on line even if there is the possibility of some line damage. Cheers Dave