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GWMark

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Blog Entries posted by GWMark

  1. GWMark
    I wanted a little project to do during that time between Christmas and the New Year, it had to be a small project as time would be an issue - it isn't fair to lock yourself away from the family for too long at this time of the year after all! But I wanted something I could look back on in these depressing first days back at work and think - 'I actually did achieve something during the holidays'.
     
    I decided my long mothballed GT3 project would fit the bill, no major jobs, just lots of finishing touches to do, or so I thought.
     
     
    The tender had been painted already, and glazed, it just needed the round grill painting and the pickups adding - this ought to be a nice little job to get me started. So day one of the project saw the pickups added to the outer axles of the tender and the drawbar coupling arrange sorted to allow current to be feed to the loco using the original Hornby drawbar and a custom built arrangement on the tender. Also the buffers were added to the tender, round sprung buffers have been used, GT3 had round buffers on the tender and oval on the loco.
     

     
    The next day, and several days after that, were spent on the loco itself. The paint surface was still not right, so a little more time with fine wet and dry and a fibre glass brush was followed by a good wash and dry. In a break form the winter rain time was found to spray the loco body with the Halfords Rover Russet colour (probably not the right choice in hindsight). Once dry, the next day, Humbrol Metal Cote Silver was used to paint the window frames and the handrails. The interior of the cab was painted with a white acrylic, just to brighten it up before adding detail. the top grills got a coat of Chaos `black as did the steps on the front buffer beam.
     
    The brake gear was laminated, from Ian MacDonalds etch, and the front bogie guards bent up and soldered. I also added a section across the from of the bogie frames to fill in the gap between the resin fake frames. These brass and plasticard parts where then primed and painted with a Matt black Halfords spray can. The headcode discs similarly primed but painted with the same white acrylic used for the cab interior. Them came the job of assembling these parts, added the front buffer beam assembly, the oval sprung buffers at the front, inserting the front grill and starting to build up the loco.
     

     
    It is not finished yet, I still need to add the side grills, however I am not happy with the paint job of these, and it is easier to paint them before attaching to the loco. Also cab detailing and glazing is needed, transfers, lining and some more painting. Also, looking at these photos it is clear that a lot of the paint on the handrails has come off with handling and there is a bit of a droop in the front buffer beam area that needs to be sorted. I also have some fibre optics to add to illuminate the headcode disks.
     
    My quick little project for Christmas, with the satisfaction of "finishing" something before going back to work has not really succeeded, but I have a least made some noticeable progress. Maybe it will not take me another 18 months before I get GT3 out again to work on. In fact I will probably take it up to our clubroom tomorrow to give it an outing on the test track - the clearance between the tender and cab is a little tight, so I want to see if it will go around curves and negotiate pointwork, I may need to readdress the loco/tender coupling arrangement.
  2. GWMark
    In order to keep up some momentum in the project and whilst waiting for the plywood to arrive, I have built the first couple of CBUS modules, a USB computer interface and the DCC command station. Both went together without problem, very well designed kits, and worked first time. The result is that I now am about to drive trains using these modules, albeit a little bit of a convoluted route.
     
    I have JMRI Panel Pro running on an old PC talking to the USB CBUS interface with the DCC command station attached on a very small bus. From JMRI I can use the on screen throttle or via Engine Driver from my phone. Maybe not the most exciting progress to anybody else, but is a small step forwards in the number of tasks to get a small layout that actually runs.
  3. GWMark
    Despite having a long list of other things that I really should have been doing I stole a little time this afternoon and evening to work on the Duke - at least this time I know I will have done something on it between Missenden weekends!
     

     
    Not much has been done to the locomotive itself, I have added two overlays below the footplate that run the length of the valances and provides a row of rivets. Also some back-head detail has been done. The next major job is to do the springs, but I didn't fancy that, so I made a start on the tender. Th main structure has been completed, it needs the wrapper and details to be added and the rather daunting - since it will be a first for me, flare on the tender to be done.
     
    A wash with "Shinny Sinks" and it is back in the box until I can steel some more time to work on it. I can also use the excuse that I want to get some nice brass casting for the boiler fittings and also that I need some tender springs, there are only 4 in the box.
  4. GWMark
    Having just returned from another weekend of modelling at Missenden Abbey I intended to write up my progress on my workbench thread, then, last night I looked at it and realised I have not made an entry since the last time I was at Missenden, back in the Spring. This got me thinking, my plan had been to show off the progress with the model I had taken and talk about the events of the weekend, but I soon began to think that this gap in my workbench was more indicative of something else, at was at that point that domestic duties overtook me and the updated was curtailed.
     
    It is not true to say that I have not done any railway modelling since the spring, I have a layout thread that proves otherwise, baseboard building, track building and laying, electronics construction etc. It is true that since the summer started all I have managed is to build an RFID CBus interface and do a new point control board for the panel of Fisherton Sarum, so not a lot and not what many people would recognise as modelling.
     
    This this made me think, is the reason I enjoy these Missenden weekends the fact that I get almost an entire weekend of nothing but time to build my models or do I get more from it?
     
    It is certainly true that if I would try to sit down on Friday evening at home, spread all my tools around the kitchen table that I use as a workbench, and concentrate on nothing but my models until Sunday afternoon, only stopping for meals and to sleep, I would very soon find that I was either deeply unpopular or worst within the house - in reality it would never happen. Also I would feel guilty about it and stop, clear-up and generally not concentrate on the modelling tasks. So from that point of view Missenden offers me something I could not get at home. But is this the only thing that makes me go back again and again?
     
    In the feedback session at the end of the weekend Chris Langdon came up with a quote that is rather apt, "Missenden is like a country club" - it is true that the surroundings in the Buckinghamshire countryside are rather nice - the Sunday morning coffee break on the lawn watching the red kites soar around in the crisp autumn sun was rather pleasant. There is also the fact, that as a serial attendee it is a time to renew friendships with others that you see maybe twice a year.
     
    The other thing about Missenden, and perhaps the one that is most obvious, is that you have experts tutors on-hand to take your problems to or ask questions of. This year was no exception, but saw a slight change around and was perhaps all the better for it. I always do the same thing at Missenden, and have done for a number of years now, 4mm locomotive construction. When I first went, it was Tony Wright that was the tutor for this session, after the well known and sad events in his private life. He was followed by Tim Shackleton for the last few years, this bought a new perspective on some aspects and was an interesting change. This Autumn, the 4mm and the 7mm locomotive construction took place in one large room, this meant we had two tutors on hand instead of the usual one per subject. The 7mm group was nominally tutored by Kevin Wilson and the 4mm by Barry Norman - in reality these two where shared between the two groups. Kevin was a new name to me, and I had to say was excellent at what he did and showed a lot of patience with Daniel, my now 16 year old son, who is also a serial Missenden attendee. Barry was better known to me for his scenic work, but this weekend proved to me that there is a lot more the Barry than the scenery side of things - his skill and advice proved to be my saviour when I discovered that the cab I has attached to my Duke back in the Spring was not square.
     
    When I reached one of those despair moments at the thought of having to dismantle the whole thing Barry stepped in with some help and advice and we managed to square it up without having to restore to major deconstruction work. The result is pleasing and allowed me to progress a little more with the Duke.
     

     
    I also replaced the gearbox with one that would not intrude into the cab of the loco, this also turned out to be a little harder than expected and took the entire Friday evening and spread into the Saturday morning. Progress on the Duke may not look spectacular, but I turned a bit of a corner with it, and can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.
     
    The other aspect of the weekend, and one that I hinted to above, was the attendance of my son Daniel. Although we share the hobby, and go to exhibitions and clubnights together it is rare that we sit down next to each other for an entire weekend and work side by side and talk without the usual teenage issues - I know he will hate me for saying that! He also progressed on a new project, a High Level 14xx chassis kit. He made of lot of use of Kevin time, so much so that he became known within the group as "Kevin's shadow' by the Sunday morning.
     

     
     
    I think that for a still relatively novice modeller he did a pretty good job of what is a complex kit to build, I will leave that to others to decide however since I am probably slightly bias.
     
    So what are the most precious things from the weekend that I refer to in the title of this post? Probably not the part complete model I walked away with, although that is important, but more the time away from all the pressures of "normal" life, the "quality" time spent with my son, the friendships of Missenden and the ability to call on some quite extraordinary talent and experience within the hobby.
     
    I really enjoy my weekends at Missenden and hope they can continue for years to come - I realise of course that a time will come when these are solitary outings for me, but I want to make the most of sharing these experiences with my son while I can. A big thank you to those that organise the event, I would encourage any of you who are maybe thinking about taking part in this or similar weekends to take the plunge - I know I was unsure at the first one, but now look forward to the next one every time.
  5. GWMark
    Finally, after yet more distractions and life in general getting in the way I have got the major part of the wiring of the layout done. Last night saw the first train movements across all lines and points on this rather small layout (5ft x 2ft). There is still work to be done, the uncoupling magnets are not wired up, the wiring needs to be tied back and labelled and I need to build a control panel.
     
    Although this is a small layout I wanted to use it to try out a number of ideas, so there is rather a lot of electronics in a small space. The control system is MERG CBus and the trains are driven by DCC. There is block occupancy detection, with 6 blocks, one for the point ladder and one each for the 3 sidings, the headshunt and the feeder line. The picture below shows a general view of the underside of the layout and the "spaghetti" that I have just finished installing.
     

     
    The grey box in front houses the transformer and thermal cutouts that provide two 16V AC feeds to the layout via the thick black wire that plugs into the lefthand side of the board. These two 16V AC circuits feed out from the power socket onto some tag strip from which the 16v circuits go out to the general boards around the layout. Both the grey box and the tag strip have indicator LEDs for each 16V AC circuit, so that I can tell if there is an AC fault in the transformer box or the feeder cable. Also on the shelf with the power socket is a board that produces 5Volt and 12Volt supplies, each at one amp, again each of these supplies also has an indicator LED. From here the 12Volt and 5Volt supplies go to a number of supply distribution boards, again with LEDs. It is to these distribution boards that each circuit board is connected. The idea being that the supply can be checked at various points and that each board has its own connector on the block it get its power from. In the lefthand section there is also a track occupancy detector, a couple of electro-magnets, a servo for the point in this section and a DCC distribution board.
     
    Colour coding of the wiring is important in my scheme, any pair of wires that are made up of red and black wires are always DCC bus or dropper wires. A single green wire is connected to a frog. Blue and green twisted pairs are the CBus, Orange and Grey pairs are 5Volt supplies, White and Violet pairs - 12 volt supply wires. Green and yellow pairs are for occupancy detectors. A pair of red wires indicates a 16V AC feed. Servos are always connected by 3 wire cables, unfortunately the extension servo cables I have are a different colour coding to the cables attached to the servos, but the servo cables are very obvious.
     
    The middle section of the board is the really busy one, this contains the shelf with all the CBUS boards on it, including the DCC command station, the USB computer interface, the board that will control the electro-magnets (when I finally wire them up), the board that connects the occupancy sensors to the CBus and the servo control board. The picture below shows a closer view of this section.
     

     
    As well as the shelf with the CBus boards on it, there are also a number of boards mounted on blocks of wood that I have glued to the underside of the 4mm ply baseboard. Immediately below the CBus shelf are a pair of power distribution boards, a 5 volt and a 12 volt. It is possible to see that the LEDs are lit on both, so we know power is getting this far up the baseboard. There are three MERG occupancy detectors (DTC8s) that detect the DCC current flowing by using small transformers. This means there is no voltage drop in the detector circuit and yo get very sensitive detection for no lose of traction power. One of these detectors has a small stripboard next to it that is used to join the stock rails on each of the points. The point ladder acts as a single section, but detectors are fitted to each stock rail. This means that a single conducting wheel on any part of the points should trigger the detector, but it also means that the frog is not used for detection. This is important as the frog are switched using frog juicers, so current detection would not work currently across the frog juicer.
     
    The other boards that can be seen, one of them attached to the side beam, are frog juicers - a dual juicer and a mono juicer. A lot of dropper wires also come through the baseboard in this section, and each pair is feed through a cable tie base to act as strain relief and hopefully prevent the wires being pulled off the rails if snagged. The three droppers from one of the points can be seen just to the right of the servo.
     
    The DCC bus can be seen running down the left side rail, this is made up of heavy duty wire and is feed to a set of DCC distribution boards that are mounted on the opposite side of the board to the CBus shelf. It was done this way to keep the DCC as far away as possible from all the signal electronics (and I don't mean railway signals, I mean low voltage electrical signals). This means all the red and black dropper wires run down the picture to the DCC distribution board that is just out of shot. Again the DCC distribution boards have LEDs so I can check the status of the DCC bus at each board.
     
    The final section, on the right of the top picture, contains just a single servo, uncoupling magnet, and DCC distribution board. I have however included a close-up of the servo to show the way it is attached.
     

     
    I bought some very cheap mounts on ebay that allowed me to fix the motors side on the the baseboard below the boards. I then ran a thin piece of piano wire through the tie-bar, looped it around the servo horn, across the other side of the horn and bent it at right angles. This means the piano wire pivots around the centre of the servo horn, so a very small movement of the servo is needed to change the points. It gives a very direct and simple to install mechanism, but due to the small degree of movement int he servo, less than 10% of the entire movement, it becomes hard to accurately set the end stops on the servo. I am considering replacing this simple mechanism with something that uses more of the servo's throw and should be easier to set up correctly. As it stands it does work, but the servos sometimes chatter, and this can not be good for them.
     
    So having wired this little lot up, I connected a computer to the USB interface, configured all the CBus modules (I'm using FLiM mode for those that know about CBus) and built a JMRI panel to drive the points and display the track occupancy. To my great surprise I only had two real problems; a bad connection to one of the frog juicers which was resolved by reseating a wire, and a dead sport caused by paint on the track. I was able to run a loco across all the points and siding within 5 minutes of first completing the panel design. There are a few rough spots on the hand-built track that will need a little tweak; one joint has somehow managed to loose it;s fishplate and the ends of on of the switch blades is causing a wheel to ride up. Otherwise I am pretty please with my first hand-built track-work and more than happy with the CBus control system.
     
    It was not long before I had a sound loco running and switched to using an iPhone to drive the loco. I have since added route controls to the JMRI panel - which makes it really easy to also set the points via the phone, and made it so the point control gets automatically disabled if a loco is in the point ladder at the time you try to change them.
     
    So is it worth all this complication, especially on such a small layout?
     
    Well, yes in my mind. I would probably not add so much if I was just building a shunting puzzle, I might do away with the block detection, but for anything bigger I would not. As a vehicle for testing out things it is really paying dividends. I would rather learn on this small layout then try things out and have my dream layout go badly wrong.
     
    It will soon be time to start on the scenic side of things, but some housekeeping jobs need to be done with the wiring first - like mounting the CBus RJ22 connectors, wiring the uncoupling magnets, building the DCC handset and maybe even a hardware panel. Another thing I want to try is to connect my RFID stuff up to the CBus, again not really needed on a shunting puzzle, but it gives me enjoyment and a place to try out the ideas.
     
    Now, where did I leave that labelling machine....
  6. GWMark
    Progress has once again been slowed due to a combination of work, domestic and revision issues. One of the reason for doing this layout was as a joint project with my teenage son, sadly he is in mid-GCSE season, so is unable to do anything other than revise at the moment. So I am restricted to doing things he has no interest in and sympathising over the revision. Hence no scenic work has taken place and I have spent a little bit of time assembling the electronics that are going to run the layout.
     
    In my original plan for the layout I wanted to use it as a means to try out some different ways of doing things, so it will have a control system rather more complex than is really needed for a simple shunting puzzle. Partly I feel justified in trying things out on a small layout rather than jumping in with some big project and then deciding I had taken the wrong approach or simply wasting large amount of time and money. However it is also a case that I enjoy the electronics side of things anyhow and want to have a use for some of the neat ideas that are around.
     
    The trains are definitely going to be driven via DCC, but all the accessories and the interface to the DCC is going to be handled by the MERG CBus system. With such a small layout I don't really get or need, some of the advantages of having a layout control bus, but I still think it is simpler longer term. For those that do no know, CBus offers a way of sending messages between bit of electronics on the layout. This means that using the same pair of wires you can send a message to control some item on the layout, and also get status back from other items. You may think you have heard this before, when people preach the "DCC - two wires is all you need" message. But this does something different, it works both ways, allowing feedback as well as control. It does not replace DCC on the actual tracks however.
     
    The picture below shows the things I have built already...
     

     
    Starting at the back left, I have 4 block occupancy detectors, each one will support detection in 2 blocks, so this gives me 8 detection blocks. They are actually a MERG kit, DTC8, with the original circuit board cut up to give me four separate pairs. They are not CBus kits, but will provide input to a CBus module.
     
    To the right of these are a pair of DCC distribution boards I have built. These are basically terminal blocks mounted on stripboard. The DCC bus is connected at the two ends, one for bus in and the other for bus out. This is then connected to a pair of four way terminal blocks. this allows for 4 dropper pairs to connect to the DCC bus. There is also an LED and resistor on the board, this allows an indication that the DCC bus is functional to as far as this distribution board. I have done it this way as I do like like the idea of bare wires to run the DCC bus, once is one way I have seen people tap onto the bus. The other approach I have seen, using scotch-lock connectors also seems a little hit and miss to me - other may get on with it, but I personally am not keen. Therefore I am wiring by DCC bus through a set of distribution boards that allow be to connect droppers in a "hub style" network. The LED is part of my obsession with having diagnostic aids for when things go wrong.
     
    The next pair of boards to the right are a couple of MERG kits, CAN-ACE8 to be precise. These are general purpose input boards that will taken inputs from the block occupancy detectors and other sources and send them along the layout control bus - the CBus. This will let be sense things like point settings, train detection and possibly also switches on the front of the layout that viewers can operate. Each board allows 8 things to be sensed and will translate the state of these 8 items and send CBus messages whenever they change - e.g. a train enters or leaves a section. Other CBus modules can then act on this information.
     
    Below these boards are a collection of RJ22 interface boards that will be used to plug the control panel and the handheld controller into the CBUS. I have yet to build the MERG hand-held, this is the most daunting kit as it requires surface mount soldering.
     
    To the left is the MERG DCC command station, this is one of the few that I have tested out, and it works brilliantly. It is driven from the CBus and connects to the track with an inbuilt 1A booster. I have not yet got the external booster kit, I need to wait for MERG to get the kit back in stock. However I will probably not need more than the 1A from the command station anyway - this is only a shunting puzzle.
     
    To the left of the command station, and connected to it via CBus, is a USB interface - this is how I tested the command station, I sent CBus commands over USB from JMRI - using an iPhone as a throttle, to the command station and hence drove trains from the iPhone. This will be attached to the layout to allow JMRI panels to be provided for point control and mimic diagrams etc. Also I will probably have the JMRI setup for driving trains with an iPhone as well as the dedicated handheld controller. One thought is to have a touchscreen and display the mimic diagram on that and hence set points etc directly from the touch screen.
     
    The next board along is an LED driver - this will go into the dedicated panel and provide all the indications as to what is happening on the layout. Again connected by CBus, so just 4 wires have to go to the panel. This board is capable of driving far more LED's that I will need for such a small layout.
     
    Next we have a simple power supply board that will give me a source of both 5 volts DC and 12 volts DC - I need to produce a few more of these, since this on will only give me 1Amp of each voltage. I need a 12 Volt DC source of 1.5 Amps to drive the uncoupling magnets. I also need an interface between the CBus output module and these magnets - so yet more circuits to design and build. Although this should be fairly simple.
     
    To the left and below the power supply board is a CANSERVO8 board - this connects to CBus and allows 8 RC servos to be controlled. Three of the servos will be used to change the points whilst the others will be used for animation effects on the layout. I already have a setup for an animated figure and am looking into putting a moving crane of some sort on the quayside.
     
    The last two boards to the right of the servo controller are a panel switch board and an auxiliary output board. The panel switch board, along with the LED driver, will be inside the mimic panel and will take all the inputs form the push buttons and send them out as messages on the CBus, thus forming the other part of the panel.
     
    The aux. output board allows 8 accessories to be driven by the CBus, messages from any device on the bus can thus cause things to turn on or off on the layout. Five of these outputs will be used to control the uncoupling magnets, whilst the rest will perform functions like controlling the lights on the layout or operating other accessories.
     
    As well as these boards I have also been building the mains power supply, it will delivery 2 x 16V AC circuits to the layout and is in a separate plastic box, well insulated with short circuit protection and supply status indication built into it. The idea is that the mains stays on the floor in an isolated box and never comes anywhere near the layout itself.
     
    I also have some ready made frog juicers that I will use to switch frog polarity, these really are a bit of a luxury, since looking at the CBus way of doing things it would have been a lot cheaper to switch the frogs via relays that are triggered by the same CBus events that trigger the point motors (servos). However I wanted to try these out, and with only three points it is not a huge expense.
     
    One things I have to look at is how the frog juicers will interact with the block occupancy detection, I may have to live without detection on the frog, which is a little bit of a shame.
     
    I still have a few more circuits to build, the hand held controller, uncoupling magnet interface and probably another CBus output module. Then it is a case of wiring the layout up with this lo, once I have mounted all the boards, and building the control panel. I think the GCSE's will be over before I have done all of that and I will be chased up by Daniel to get a move on - oh well there never is enough time in this world.
  7. GWMark
    After the start with the beams last weekend, this weekend saw the assembly stage, the beams where glued and screwed together to form a framework and the trackbed baseboard glued and stapled to the structure.
     

     
    It wasn't laying very flat, so I came up with a different way to use the workmate, a cast iron patio umbrella base and some floor tiles. Not how these items were designed to be used, but it gave me plenty of weight to hold it down. It will at least be as flat as the block paved section of the back garden. It was left like this for the rest of the day for the glue to dry and hopefully hold it in this position.
     
    Next day, with the glue dry I had a flat, reasonably stiff structure. Today (Sunday) it was just a case of adding the riverbed board, some diagonal beams to help stiffen it more and the river edge strip. The diagonal members are a single piece of 4mm ply glued at the ends and along the length, one is attached between the end beams and the next beam in. The centre section will get a diagonal as soon as I am sure it will not get in the way of the servos I will be using as point motors.
     
    The last thing to attach was a strip of 4mm ply to form the river bank, or at least the base for the wharf and the scenic section.
     
    The picture below is what it looks like this morning with the glue dry and the masking tape that held it together removed.
     

     
    There is still a little bit of flexing in the board, but some of the joints need a little more glue and there is an extra diagonal to add. I think it is going to be good enough for my purposes, and above all it is still very light. Just what I need to lift it up into the loft. I tried to weigh it, but the bathroom scales would not register it, which means it is less than 1Kg (2.2 lbs to you and me). Today will see a trial run to make sure I measured things correctly and it will actually fit. I am sure my wife will be glad to be rid of it in the kitchen!
  8. GWMark
    This weekend saw a start on the baseboard building process and a realisation. The baseboards are going to be built using the Barry Norman technique of constructing beams from two lengths of 4mm ply (5 foot long and 70mm tall) with 18mm block of 70mm square blocks of softwood sandwiched between them.
     
    To start with progress was a little shaky, with some uncertainty as to whether this would be strong enough. The first 5 foot beam was made up, with a block at each end, two equally spaced blocks for cross members and three smaller packing pieces to prevent the unsupported lengths from flexing too much. The blocks are glued and stapled to one length of ply, and then the other length of ply is glued and stapled to the other side. The whole thing seemed a little flexible and not all that straight, so the first beam was weighted down on the kitchen floor and the glue allowed to dry over night on Friday. The idea to see what it would be like when dry before committing to making the other beams. I should not have worried, by the morning it was dry, reasonably straight and more rigid that I would have ever thought. Above all it was very light, just what I need for lifting the finished board up through the loft hatch. The last thing I want is to heave some heavy weight board 8 feet into the air every time I want to get it up or down through the loft hatch.
     

     
    I learnt from this, and the other 5 foot beam and the 4 cross beams were clamped into the workmate to make sure they were straight before stapling. Saturday morning saw all the other beams made up and the top cut to allow for the two levels. At this point work stopped to allow the glue to cure before cutting out the drop in the side beams that will accomodate the river bed.
     
    It was at this point that a realisation occurred, the proportions of the board, laid out in the garden, did not look remotely like the drawing I had - something had gone wrong. Going back to the computer it very quickly became evident that I hade made a stupid mistake. When doing the track placing I had been playing with how to cut up an 8x4 sheet and had accidentally left the length set to 8 feet and not 5. At this point I felt rather stupid and rejigged everything for the smaller size, sadly it looks less generous and open now, but I think it will still provide some entertainment.
     
    Nothing was done on Sunday, apart from the purchase of many assorted bits and pieces to put on the layout - we spent the day in Alexander Palace! The evening did allow some time to complete some CBUS modules and also to start the building of a turntable controller, although that is for a different layout and is to repay a debt.
  9. GWMark
    Like many, no doubt I have been thinking up ideas for layouts for years without actually getting as far as making a real start on any before moving on to the next idea. Until now I have satisfied my desire to run stock by making use of layouts at my railway club or using the "test track" that I have constructed in the loft at home. Originally this "test track" was meant to be a layout, but a combination of mistakes and over ambition has consigned it to being a 24 foot by 10 foot double line oval with storage sidings and a few other features, but nothing that would make it a layout. The time has come to tackle something less ambitions on which I can try out some of the things I have been wanting to do for a while now. Therefore the thought of a little shunting puzzle style layout was born. The idea is that Daniel (my son) and I will build it together and both use it to increase our skills and test out ideas.
     
    We have a few constraints, the only real storage location at home is in the loft, so the baseboards must fit through the loft hatch. So 2 foot is about the maximum width of a board, fortunately height in the loft is not an issue, so the length can be more generous, but I want something that will go in an estate car with relative ease. The boards also need to be light enough to be lifted into the loft. Therefore this first board is going to be 5 feet by 2 feet, actually 1524mm by 610mm as far as the wood yard are concerned.
     
    Plans have been drawn up, based on an ignlenock design with an added headshunt.

    The concept is a set of sidings alongside a wharf, with the line entering from the left though a wooded area. The land to the left of the wharf will slope gently down into the river, whilst the wharf itself will have a section dropped down to accommodate a barge or similar alongside. I want to avoid a totally flat layout, but equally I not not intend to set it in a mountainous location.
     
    The things I want to try out on this little layout are:
    Hand built points - I have made one so far and it looks ok, but only time will tell on the running side.
    Servo motors for point motors - again I have experimented and they seem to work fine.
    Use of the MERG CBUS system for control
    I want to ply with JMRI for a panel, and may even go as far as a touch screen
    Mimic diagrams with track occupancy detection fee back
    [*]Creating some scenery, and making use of my static grass machine. So far I have concentrated on rolling stock and electronics for club layouts, so I would like to branch out a bit.
    [*]Add some working accessory, such as a small crane powered by some of the servos


    This weekend the wood has been ordered, in fact I have ordered two sets so that I can have a second baseboard ready for when we want to move on to the next project. The baseboards themselves will be built using the Barry Norman technique of 4mm plywood top and beams made of 4mm ply sandwiches. There is enough in an 8 by 4 sheet of 4mm ply to allow me to build a flat top 3 foot board to act as a simple fiddle yard - probably cassette based. Whilst not big this would allow a few small goods trains to be made up off scene and then driven in to be shunted.
     
    As for a name, I think we will name it after the source of the little wooden coffee stirrers we plan to use to face the wharf. These came from the coffee shop on board Independence Of The Seas, so we think we might christian the layout "Independence Wharf".
  10. GWMark
    Tonight was going to be the night I got my 72xx to a runnable state, buffers, plates, a little paint touching up, coal, crew and transfers, Not too much to ask.
     

     
    It went fairly well, I had the buffers in place, the plates attached, the cab interior finished, except for crew and the transfer went on well. The I noticed my mistake, I had spaced the lettering differently on the two sides. Looking at my picture in Russell of 7240 I decided it was the side with the most spread out lettering that was wrong, the R was too far forward.
     
    No problem, the transfers have only just gone on, a little spot of transfix and I can probably get them off and use a couple of new letters. So on went some transfer, wait a minute and use a blunt cocktail stick to see if the W would move.
     
    Well the transfer letter didn't but the paint did, right down to bare metal. So now I have a loco with plates etc attached but in need of some respraying. I was not happy, I can tell you...
     

     
    ...new words may have been learnt if it wasn't for the fact I was alone in the house at the time.
     
    The paint sequence was Precision Spray Etch Primer, from a can, two coats. Followed by Lifecolor acrylic, several coats. Is this a combination known to give problems? I was a little surprised it went right down to bear metal.
     
    So now I have to think how best to repair the damage. I don't really want to strip the model completely if I can avoid it. Although I suspect I will as a minimum have to repaint the entire tank side, maybe from the cab door to the front of the tank. If not I suspect the join between the old and new paint will show up badly.
     

     
    Any comments, suggestions etc would be gratefully received. Unfortunately I am going away for work tomorrow, so will have to leave the loco like this for a while. I don't know if that is good or bad. Plenty of time to keep kicking myself for being so stupid as to get the transfer spacing different on the two sides. Looking at the photos here I am not sure now if I was right in my assessment of which is wrong either.
     
    The undamaged size looks too close, but the looking at 7240 the R should not be under the tank filler. I was using the rivet lines on the tanks a guidance, maybe they are not right?
     
    We learn best by our mistakes, but I would rather have no learnt this particular lesson at this time. I had hoped to take this loco to Doncaster with me, but I don't see that happening now. It will take more than one night to sort this out.
  11. GWMark
    Having now applied another coat of the Lifecolor acrylic loco green to my 72xx and brush painting the buffer beams and safety valve/whistles, I couldn't resist putting it back together to see how it looked.
     

     
    The black is Halfords Matt black car spray, the green is Lifecolor as already mentioned, the buffer beams Phoenix Precission enamel, the safety value/whistles are Humbrol enamel. All on a base of two coats of precision etch primer. So quite a mix of paints on this one.
     
    There are a few issues;
    My masking was not too good. I made the same mistake I have made before and sprayed the black first up to the edge of where the colour was needed and then tried to mask that off and spray the green up to the same line. There are inevitable small gaps that have crept in that show primer through.
    My surface preparation was not good enough, there are places that could have done with better sanding/filing. Some bits of the fibre glass brush have appeared in the paint; even after several attempts at washing the model before painting.
    I wish I had not used the whitemetal safety valve bonnet, the raw brass for the chimney cap looks so much better than the painted safety valve.
    I need to improve my method of holding the cab roof down, it shows up a gap in this closeup picture.
    I need to do something about the white metal crosshead/piston rod - do people paint (spray?) these successfully?

    I think I have hurried this final stage a little too much, I wanted the model "finished" to take along to the next Missenden weekend. If I had perhaps been a bit more critical during the preparation stage I would have something that looked better now. Still, I think I will complete it from here, as much as anything it gives me some practice. At least that way I can have mine done before Hornby bring out the RTR one later this year. If this ends up on the club layout we are just starting it would need a repaint into 1960's condition anyway, so that would be a good opportunity to strip it and sort out some of the issues. Also, if you view it from more than about 6 inches away it looks alright even with these problems.
     
    So now it is a case of touching up the paint, another coat on the buffer beams, transfers, plates, crew and coal. Then do I try my hand at weathering it? Most likely the answer to that is yes.
  12. GWMark
    After a small interlude to try my hand at building pointwork it is back to the long term project of the 72xx. More track work will follow, but that will have to wait until after Doncaster now - I'll pick up some more C&L components there.
     
    My PDK 72xx has moved on a bit, the lamp refuge and the lance cock have been added, it was given two coats of etch primer, from a spray can and the footplate and smokebox have been spray with Halfords matt black. So the project for Sunday was to spray the main body.
     
    I happened to have a can of Phoenix Precision GWR green, so I thought this would be the quickest route to getting the main body colour on and I could put off still further breaking out that new airbrush I had for Christmas in 2010!
     
    I duly masked off the model, spent what seemed like an age shaking the spray can, that had been stored outside down, I did a test spray onto newspaper. The can spluttered and splattered paint, not a good start. Off with the nozzle and a good clean, still no better, and then it stopped all together. The can was empty, now what?
     
    My excuse for not using the airbrush is the lack of a spray booth, and given it is too cold outside at the moment to think of sitting patiently with an airbrush, I decided to take the easy approach, pack up and have a cup of coffee instead.
     
    I did decide to use the time to spray over the railbus with Testors Dullcoat, in order to try to blend the very shinny transfers in. I can't say that has worked however, they are still as prominent.
     
    After consuming said cup of coffee I decided this was a feeble approach, and I remembered that I had some acrylics that I had purchased at Warley, the British Railway colours pack, so I might give those a try. But would the finish be good enough for my prized model that I have spent 2 years building? I also have a number of Parkside wagons, that received a coat of primer about 6 months ago, I could practice on those. The acrylics would not smell like enamels, so I could get away with using a corner of the kitchen.
     
    So out came the compressor and new airbrush; problem number 1, the hose on the compressor was the wrong fit for the airbrush. Plus I have a mini-regulator I have never fitted. So out come an assortment of connectors and hoses in an attempt to get the airbrush connected to the compressor. After much fiddling and a little bit of vocabulary extending, I had a setup that appeared to work. A quick check on here for topics on spraying acrylics, Lifecolor in this case, I had a 50/0 mix of paint the Lifecolor thinners, a low air pressure and the moment had arrived. There was nothing more that to press that button and start the air flow.
     
    A quick spray onto some newspaper revealed to me just how controllable my new Iwata airbrush was, but also how translucent the paint was as well. Never mind, I had read this was he case and that it would need several coats. So in I went and sprayed two wagons, it didn't take long and was was duly cleaning the airbrush, running first thinners and then airbrush cleaner through it.
     
    A couple of hours later I repeated the procedure, and now I have two wagons with a passable interpretation of bauxite. They still need at least one more coat, the grey of the primer - yes, I know, it would have been better to use red oxide - still shows through in places. A very matt finish, great for a goods wagon, but I will need to do something about transfers if they are going to stick well.
     
    As for my 72xx, well it has masking tape on it, but still no green paint, maybe later this week.
  13. GWMark
    Obviously I don't have enough unfinished, or un-started, projects, so this weekend I decided to try something I have bean meaning to have a go at for a while - making my own track. To be precise A C&L B6 turnout kit that I have had on the top of the cupboard for nearly 2 years. Why did I choose now? I have no idea, other than I had to wait for some paint to dry on my 72xx, you know what they say about paint drying!
     
    Anyway, after 2 evening, about 8 hours, I now have this....
     

     
    One more switch blade and the check rails to go. However it is rather pleasing that I managed to push a wagon through this with no derailing or binding. It is not the best looking effort ever, but it may actually work and that is a lot better than I had hoped for on my first attempt. Of course it will probably fall apart when I take it off the template - a case of it really being held together with sticky tape maybe!
     
    Mark
  14. GWMark
    In the last few days I have returned to a stalled project, my Dapol Railbus. The interior has been painted, and some passenger have been painted and added.
     

     
    I have also painted the lining on the doors and the kick plates. Glazing has been added and the Railbus put back together in the hope I might get to run it at the club open day tomorrow. Unfortunately I have yet to find a crew that will fit in the rather confined cabs, so it has host drivers at the moment. Also I need to add windscreen wipers and the control desks.
     
    I need to varnish it yet, hopefully that will loose some of the shine on the transfers. It has a slight bend on it, made to look worse in the photos, hopefully when the roof is on that will keep it square and get rid of the bow in the floor.
     

     
    As is obvious in the pictures, the roof is only placed on, I will need to find a better way to attach it, but still be able to remove it to get to the inside, especially when I need to convert it to DCC. The roof itself is still in primer, so needs work.
     
    It is a Dapol plastic kit, with Branchlines motorising and interior kit, the half dozen passengers are from Langley, I went for white metal figures to try to add a bit of weight to it. It runs reasonably now it has a bit more weight, but is rather a lot of noise for such a small thing. I suspect something is rubbing, since I had to slacken the screw that holds the bogie to the body slightly to make it run.
  15. GWMark
    Last weekend saw the Autumn railway modellers weekend at Missenden Abbey, this also coincided with Daniel's 15th birthday a few days before, therefore we both got the weekend of modelling as a birthday present for Daniel and an early Christmas present for me. So the workbench was relocated from the kitchen table to a seminar room in Missenden Abbey. This is the 5th time of going to these events for me, and the 3rd for Daniel, the chance to have a complete weekend, Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, of modelling without any distractions or pressures to do anything else is just great. Add to that the benefits of have not just the tutors to call on, but also the other modellers assembled in the various rooms, and it is a great environment to make some real progress on those difficult projects you have in mind.
     
    This year we had a collection of items to work on, we took the pair of 72xx models, I had a Mallard Models Duke kit to start and Daniel his GEM Prince of Wales, the chassis of which he built at the spring weekend - with some aid from Tim Shackleton.
     
    Daniel wanted some advice on the running of his 72xx, it turns out that the verdict was it was pretty good and just a few tweaks would probably get it as good as could be expected. My 72xx has presented me with a problem, the refuge for the rear lamp bracket, often mentioned as an omission in the PDK kit. It turns out that there is a mystery white metal casting that comes with the kit, the idea being to cut out the bunker back and fit this casting. My problem with this was two fold, how to do it without making a mess of the bunker back, and would the casting look right? This never really got resolved, as expected almost everybody had a different opinion on this one!
     

     
    Daniel had a issue with the running of the Prince of Wales chassis, it would lock up when going backwards but was really fine going forwards. A number of people looked at it, it ran smoothly with the motor removed, so maybe it was a gearbox issue. Bob Alderman eventually found the problem, the back and forth play in the motor shaft was such that the work would move enough for the collar and grub-screw on the work gear foul the gearbox, moving the worm slightly on the shaft and it ran fine. A 30 second fix that took 30 minutes of other peoples time to find!
     
    My Duke kit gave me an opportunity to play with my newest purchase, an Avonside chassis jig, a little bit of overkill for the drivers on an 4-4-0, but it did a great job of keeping everything square and it has to have been the quickest, most problem free chassis construction have done. A really nice kit for it's vintage, lots of Nickel-Silver and multiple overlays. I spent a very therapeutic time adding all the rivets on the footplate and soldering the overlays on footplate and cab. I was particularly pleased with the way the splasher turned out, after playing with my mini-rollers.
     

     
    As for Daniel, he made spectacular progress with his Prince of Wales, getting the wheels on, motor running and much of the superstructure of the loco body built. It needs a fair bit more detailing and fettling before he builds the tender and gets himself a good looking loco.
     

     
    As to the Missenden weekend, clearly we are hooked after all these visits. The question I have been asked is how worthwhile are they, well, the fact I have been so many times says a lot. Sure I don't learn huge amounts of new things each time, but it does mean I get a solid weekend of model making and having experts on hand is a great bonus when it comes to tackling things you have not tried before, when you need a second opinion or reassurance.
  16. GWMark
    Well, it was forecast to be a wet weekend, at least on the Sunday, and with the looming return to school this week Daniel and I decided to make Sunday a modelling day. The idea was to setup on Saturday evening and then spend the entire day on Sunday making progress with our various projects.
     
    My aims being to get my 72xx to a state in which it could be painted, to get the GT3 to the same point, the finish the interior of my Railbus and maybe to drop my 802 in boiling water and sort out the warped footplate.
     
    Daniel on the other hand wanted to rebuild his E2 body, finish and paint the chassis for the said E2 and sort out some of the issues with the secondhand 72xx he bought as an unfinished kit.
     
    We had varying degrees of success, the E2 chassis was taken to the point of painting, and painted. The E2 body was dropped in water and a second, more successful attempt at building the body was completed. I on the other hand got all but 1 detail fitted to me 72xx, mainly because I couldn't find the lance cock casting and painted the slide bars/cylinders assembly. I also sorted out the cab roof and fitted the wheel balance weights. I lined the tank sides with lead to stop the wheel slip I observed when it took 68 loaded wagons on the curve of Hinton Parva. My GT3 body filler was sanded, and I as about to think about painting it when the promised rain arrived and put pay to that. The rest of my day was then spent working on the slide bars and cylinders of Daniel's 72xx for him - funny how I got conned into that one. The difference between my modern 72xx kit from PDK and Daniels Cotswold kit really shows up with the motion, the PDK one went together so much easier and was a much better fit.
     

     
    Here are the two 72xx's as they appear now. The piston rods on the Cotswold kit where too long, so some delicate surgery was required to shorten them and prevent the motion seizing. It's still not the smoothest runner, and work is going to be needed to ease the rods to make it run well.
     
    The important thing however was that we both had a good day, despite the frustrations when things didn't go to plan. There are still lots of projects to go, so hopefully we will be repeating the day again soon, it is nice to still be spending time with my teenage son like this.
  17. GWMark
    I've done a bit more work on my 72xx, steps have been added, vacuum pipes, smoke box door and a coupling loop. So I thought it was time to see if it would pull anything. So it went back to Hinton Parva tonight, I borrowed the coal rake normally pulled by one of the two Garretts at exhibition and off it went.
     
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqXNVKTKNzM
     
     
    It seemed to manage with the 68 loaded coal trucks, but did have a bit of wheel slip if not driven with care. Still a bit more work to do before it is ready for painting, but it is getting closer.
  18. GWMark
    As promised I did a little video last night of the 72xx moving on Hinton Parva. It's not the best video ever and it is a little short, but it does show it moving.
     
    http://youtu.be/xWOIUcAB2Fo
     
     
    Later I had it doing circuits of the club test track, it was taking 10 minutes to do one circuit, I'm not sure of the size of the test track, but I think it is about 20 feet by 10 feet. Now all I need to do is finish it, there's that word again, "finish", I must look it up some time, something to do with Scandinavians I think
     
    Mark
  19. GWMark
    The 72xx that have have been building for quite some time now has progressed a little more since my last posting here. For some reason I only ever seem to work on this when I go to the Missenden Weekends, so one or two weekends a year makes for slow progress.
     
    The job tackled this year was to get the chassis moving under power - this took somewhat longer than expected, mostly because it turned out that not all my insulated wheels were! I'm sure you can guess how I discovered that one. A lot of time was also spent in fine tuning the chassis, effort that was well worth it. It now runs so smoothly and slowly that I'm really pleased, I measured it at a scale 3 miles per hour without any stalling, on clean track. I've also done some trimming of the rear of the cylinders to allow it to take the curves on the club layout, Hinton Parva. I've had it circulating the 32 foot layout, but at slow speed it takes several minutes to do so, it moves at a real crawl. It helps that it has pickup on 8 wheels, a big motor (Mashima 1632), a 50:1 gearbox and no shortage of weight.
     

     
     
    It also proved it power when I sent it down the wrong road and it pushed 6 Bachmann collets and the mogul on the front out of the siding - the mogul was unpowered at the time! I really should have keep an eye on it, but it was taking so long to get around I got distracted. The chassis has been painted, at least behind the wheels, and the brake gear added. Unfortunately the sand box casting where such a mess I decided not to use them. Thankfully a quick email to PDK has got some replacements, so I need to simply add them and the missing rear guard irons and then that is the chassis done. Then it is some final detailing of the body and time to paint it. Maybe it will get a coat of paint before the summer is out
  20. GWMark
    Tonight's little triumph on the work bench was to finally work out what I got wrong with my XpressNet computer interface I was building. The result a fully functional interface between an ageing laptop and my low-end DCC kit (a Lenz Compact), however this gives me access to do things over Xpressnet, and if I every do get around to upgrading the compact I will be able to control lots more.
     
    The immediate gratification came in setting up WiThrottle and driving a sound equipped loco from my Android phone - plus I get access to more functions than are available on the Lenz controller itself - still not enough for sound really, but it's a small step forwards.
     
    This is really a stepping stone in a set of experiments I want to do to build (or at least prove the concept of), a bespoke control system to be considered for a future project. The idea is for a layout that will require 8 plus operators, the layout will run to a sequence and the locos will be DCC controlled. Now the issue is how to make sure the right locos get passed around the different operators, especially when the operator maybe 15 feet away from a loco - probably can't read the loco number to get the DCC address.
     
    The idea, have a computer that knows the sequence of operations for each operator, connect the DCC command station to the computer. Each operator has a throttle, not DCC, but connected to the computer, probably wirelessly. As the sequence progresses the computer sends a message to the throttle that is displayed to the driver. The message says what the next operation for that driver is, in effect it rosters the movements out to the drivers. Since the computer knows the loco involved, it sets the DCC address for that throttle. As the driver turns up the speed control, the data is sent to the computer, which simply passes this on to the DCC command station.
     
    The computer is not driving the trains, it is merely dispatching sequence information, assigning locos and being a bridge between the throttle network and the DCC system. So I now have the first bit in place, a link between a computer and a DCC command station. Next it's the throttles and the computer to throttle link. The throttles themselves seem simple, and as for the link, I'm thinking about using bluetooth modules - gives you wireless that is legal to use in this country and computers already have interfaces for it. Plus bluetooth stuff is available so cheaply now it's not worth spending time or money on anything else.
  21. GWMark
    As a bit of a diversion I also built this back in March.....
     

     
     
    I purchased it as a used kit at Astrolat, the "chassis" had been built and I just had to finish it and build the interior and body. These went together very quickly, most unlike me. Unfortunately the wheelset was P4 - how did I not notice that one! So I ended up cutting the axles, big mistake, one is now too short and the back to back is a little too small - need to replace the axles some time.
     
    True to form, I may have got to this stage in about 2 weeks, but then I left if or 2 months before getting it out to photograph and starting to think about finishing it - don't panic - I've found another diversion now so the danger of actually finishing something is passing again.
  22. GWMark
    Some time ago I made a Dean Sidings Neath and Brecon Tank loco, which I managed to mess up the spraying of. I finally took the plunge and stripped the resin body, using Phoenix Paint Super Strip. My initial concern was what it might do to the resin, but I need not have worried - it was fine. The only casualty of the stripping was one lamp iron that was easily replaced.
     
    The loco now sports a respray - using aerosol cans this time, Phoenix GWR Green and Halfords Matt black. The result is much more pleasing. The cab detailing still needs some work, and I have not put any transfers on or crew in it yet.
     

     
     
    This picture unfortunately shows up some areas where there is not enough paint coverage, but that shouldn't be too hard to fix, probably a brush wash over rather than an other spray coat. Plus it could do with a little weathering. It is amazing how you notice things in close up pictures that you fail to spot when you look at the actual model.
  23. GWMark
    In talking with St. Simon on Wednesday at the HWDMRS club night I realised it has been a while since I put anything on my workbench thread - checking back here I find it has been more than a year - how time flies!
     
    So, the latest thing I have been playing with is RC servos. This came about because we are looking at building a new club layout and need about 100 slow acting point motors - now that's a lot of motors and a lot of money for the likes of Cobalts etc. So I looked into servo - I used to fly RC helicopters, so knew a bit about them.
     
    First step, get hold of some servos. I found 4 servos on ebay, brand new, micro sized (9g) for a stunning £6.07 for 4 of them shipped to the UK - what a bargain. So 4 were purchased, and a MERG servo controller board that I already had sitting on the top of a cupboard (for about 4 years) was built.
     
    In order to test the servos I decided to build a simple board with a point, and an old ratio signal I had laying around from an aborted project about 10 years ago. The servos worked great, using the MERG software on a PC to adjust the speed and travel of the servo meant there was no need for any complex mechanical linkages, just as well because I probably would not be able to get them to work.
     
     
    I had removed the over-centre spring from the Peco point, to make it more link the hand-built points we are hoping for on our final layout, and added an omega loop in the brass wire I used to link the point to the servo.

     
    The servo was adjusted to hold the point blades firmly against the stock rails and all worked fine. I had the means to control 4 points and it had cost me about £12 in total. This looked very promising.
     
    The next issue was DCC control. We will probably be using DCC for the new layout, the MERG unit I had uses switches for the servo control - how to make it DCC. You can just add the DCC accessory decoder from MERG, but that means two boards and more expense, so I looked around and came across a site by a chap in Canada that some of you may know, Paco's Official Site. He had a simple PIC based servo DCC decoder, so I built it, and it worked first time. A very simple and cheap (there's that word again) solution. Problem is it had no opto isolation and the programming of CV's was not reliable on my Lenz Compact that I use to play with DCC things. O this is still a work in progress - I have a lot of "works in progress"
  24. GWMark
    I think Horsetan is right, there is not enough slope to cylinders, this view shows them better.
     

     
     
    A little more progress last night, I really ought to get on with the chassis however.
  25. GWMark
    I attended the Amersham model railway show on Saturday with my teenage son, and he came away with a purchase. A part finished Cotswold kit of a 72XX! Now, I wonder, is he trying to outdo Dad here!
     
    Anyway, the upshot is that my planned day of working on the PDK 72XX got highjacked, first by household jobs like fixing a leaking tap, but then by aiding Daniel get his 72XX chassis working. By Sunday evening I had lost my work area and tools to Daniel who was busy soldering whitemetal steps to his new 72XX kit.
     

     
     
    Now with school term starting again in the morning, maybe I'll get to build while he is doing his homework. Still I guess he could be doing worse things at thirteen than soldering whitemetal together.
     
    Mark
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