Jon Fitness

A beautiful frame Sir! Looking forward to seeing the instruments! Jon F.

First and Last Well… this is the first blog entry of 2011 and will also be the last, as for various reasons I will shortly be starting a Saltney thread. Steve has got stuck in with the upper level station details and is using all sorts of bits and pieces of printed brickwork and ex Talacre structures to see what works. Some may stay in place and some may be swapped for better bits. An old ex Talacre signalbox has been put on a gantry over the tracks (due to the usual space constraints) and awaits steps, walkways and bog extention. The view up and down the high level station area is starting to get “something†about it now. Steve’s also hand painted a “Beecham’s Pills†advert on the end of the houses by the GW Junction. A visiting retired Ex Chester loco driver just mentioned about the surviving house end Beechams adverts by Shotton Station and Steve obliged! I’ve now finished the ballasting at Astley Bridge and am now cracking on with an L&Y style canopy. The framework is from 80 thou square plastic strip and the etched brass valance is from D&S. I think it was etched for “Inkerman Street†and was left over as there was only 4 bits available! The rest was the nearest match I could find which was Slaters MR valance (plastic!) The stanchions and brackets are L&Y style whitemetal ones from Skytrex. There’s still loads to do on it but I’ve done a couple of “trial fittings†to see how its going to look. Don’t worry, the pegs won’t be a permanent fixture!

Cheers, I'll be re-opening this thread when I do the signals for Astley Bridge on the Saltney layout JF

Well, here we go. It’s been ages since the last update, and quite frankly I’ve lost track of what’s been done since the last one. I’ve attached a little gallery as a bit of a “catch-up†http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/gallery/album/7179/1299-saltney-railway-catch-up/ but far more pics are available at http://thesaltneyrailway.fotopic.net/ Things we’ve done that come to mind (not necessarily in date order!) are.. 1. New roof on the loco shed. It dated from Talacre days and was a bit …flat. Smoke hoods will be fitted once a simple way of making so many of them has been found. 2. The L&Y signal cabin has been installed at Astley Bridge. 3. Extra lead off the turntable. Needed more space for Steve’s expanding loco collection… 4. Saltney Ferry station has a covered footbridge. Sort of LNW style, fitted with lights and a nice little feature entrance. 5. LNW style coal hole on the loco shed head-shunt. A large cast concrete buffer stop by it is a test piece for Steve’s (pat pending) method of representing a weathered concrete surface. 6. 80% of signals are now servo operated, all new ones fitted will be servo’d. 7. All of Astley Bridge’s track is now ballasted. 8. Major backscene project is now underway up at Upper Mill station and the approaches to it. 9. An ex Talacre signalbox is now on a gantry over the tracks at Upper Mill 10. In build at the moment is an L&Y style canopy and wooden platform buildings for Astley Bridge (no pics yet, sorry). We’ve also gained a few locos and had lots of visiting ones out to stretch their wheels. I was thinking of stopping the blog and going over to a thread as I found the format very clunky and awkward to use, and a bit weird to view as well. Since the format has been tidied up and is now in a list form, I’ll carry on a bit longer and give it a chance.

Jim Jones Revue, "Burning down your House"....... Played loud, very loud...Just the job while I'm bashing the rust off my bus chassis...B)

Just a quick re-opening of this thread. I'm building a batch of 12 GW lower quads at the moment. As my interest lies more in the upper quad department, and I'd completed 3 of them, I decided I needed a break from them and to do a quick U/Q to lift the spirits! I've wanted to do an LMS BFB (broad flanged beam) bracket for the layout for a while, but wasn't able to find a "H" beam of the right proportions ( a scale 9" X 9" roughly). I bit the bullet and soldered one up from 3 pieces of K&S ¼"strip. It's a tad overscale but I think it looks a reasonable representation of the BFB stem. The signal will be almost against the backscene when on the layout so I could run the wire for the lights down the back of the beam and the support brackets were soldered up from some brass angle I've had in stock for a while.Lamp staging is wooden coffee stirrers. I found some nice thin ones on a market coffee stall. (yes I had a coffee!) BFB posts were introduced by the LMS as a replacement for the lattice stem. They were certainly cheaper to make and maintain but were rather flimsy and needed a lot of guying. Once the larger tubular posts were introduced during WW2 no more BFB's were used. The model shows the same flimsyness but I won't be fitting guy wires (too many ham fisted track cleaners!) Oh well, back to the lower quads! !

Two fish in a tank.... one says to the other, "Who's driving this thing?....."

Thanks all!. I've learned a lot from contributions while doing this thread and if it's helped a few people to get started building signals, then job well done. Cheers. Jon F

Well, that's this fellow finished now. It was painted in the same way as I described earlier in the thread, just with more white on the post. I think I've managed to hide 95% of the wiring and after a little scare when the distant lamp failed to light up after I sprayed it which was traced to a dry joint on the back of the LED (phew!) it I think the wiring is OK. That, I think, is just about that for this thread as I'm now off to build 14 Gas Works Railway signals and we all know the arms go the wrong way on those.... I'll start a new thread when I get some interesting new etched bits from Pete Harvey (Did someone mention gantries??) See you in a couple of months..... JF

Steve’s finished the footbridge over the lower yard and I think it’s blended in well and adds a bit of interest. Still in the lower yard, some of the sidings have been partly buried in plaster to represent the ash and general waste material that was traditionally used to ballast the track in sidings during the steam era. Still a lot of work to do on it with bits of grass and weeds etc. The goods shed looks a little more “planted†now as well. I’ve now fitted a couple of illuminated buffer stops at Slugworth station and will be fitting a third now I’ve run the wires through the platform structure. Due to space restrictions, when the track was laid at the GW station, the layout only allowed arrival at one of the 2 platforms. This has been rectified by the simple expedient of……moving the platform across! (No track was harmed during this process………………..) During last winter, 3 bonsai trees were inadvertently left outside in the garden at my place. Needless to say none of them showed signs of life but they were given a chance until summer. Not wishing to waste them, I gave them to Steve who planted them on the layout. After a bit of treatment with the glue and lumpy green stuff I think they look quite presentable..

Had a good bash at the wooden posted signal last night. Work done included rubbing down the filler over where the wires are fitted. When flatting down, keep a look out for any wires that may have sneaked to the surface, so that you don't sand through them. (Yes I've done that before.) Most of the wiring (not all of it!) is now hidden and whatever's still above the surface will look less conspicuous once the paint's on. I made up the lampman's stagings, from bits of scrap etch and 0.7mm wire for the handrails. These were then glued and pinned to the signal post in a similar way to the lamp/pivot assemblies, and the ladder aligned to these and soldered wherever it touched metal! A couple of ladder supports were then added further down the post for extra strength. A dummy weightbar/slot arrangement was fitted 4' from the base from MSE etched parts, again glued and pinned. I'll have a last check round for odd bits that need trimming/ cleaning up and then its paint time. I'll still be using Halfords White car primer for this, but I'll spray quite a bit more on it from slightly farther away, so that it builds. The wood tends to soak up the paint for the first 2 coats, so a couple of thin coats to seal it, then progressive coats to build thickness with a light rubbing down before a final blast. More soon .

As lamps are being fitted to this signal, as much of the wiring as possible needs to be concealed. The post is solid wood and the wiring can't run through it so a channel can be (carefully) hacked machined to accept them. This will eventually be filled and smoothed once the wires are in place In this case I've used a cutting disc in the mini-drill to make the slot. Usual warnings about goggles and masks apply here! The top wiring (from the lamps to just below them) is to be done with very fine wrapping wire (the reddy-brown enamelled sort that is used in motor windings and transformers). This will then join to slightly thicker normally insulated wire just below the lamps and will exit beneath the baseplate. The wrapping wire is supposed to be self fluxing but I've never had much luck with that. When soldering it to anything, I scrape a little of the insulation off (it's quite robust stuff) and use a liquid flux to help it along. When joining the wrapping wire to the thicker wires, make sure the joins are staggered so they don't touch each other when they are buried in the machined slot. Don't worry about the wrapping wires touching as the insulation (as previously stated) is quite robust. As each joint is completed, test as you go so that the job doesn't need pulling apart later to fix a little wiring fault. (Obviously you wouldn't risk it..unless you're like me, daft!) When all is connected up, have a test before packing the wiring into the machined channel and securing in a couple of places with a few drops of superglue, making sure all wires are below the surface of the post. Have a final test before applying some filler to the groove that contains the wires. I have used Squadron green putty in this case. Don't worry if things look a little tatty at this stage. Once the filler is smoothed and a good coat of white paint goes on, it will look ok. If you get to look at a real wooden signal post , there were usually wires exiting from various bits and pieces (lamp repeaters, switch housings etc) so it will all blend in. Back soon.

Ok, so it's not possible to solder the pivot and lamp to the wooden post so for simplicity and robustness, solder them to a carrier. Tin a length of brass strip (about 2½" in this case) with 188°solder. Solder the pivot tube with 188° about 1.5mm from the end of the strip and the lamp case with 145° so that the lens is in line with the red lens on the arm. Cut the carrier strip about 1.5mm from the bottom of the lamp bracket and round off the corners of the strip with a file. The carriers are going to be glued and pinned to the post using 0.7mm wire, so drill 0.7mm holes top and bottom of the strip. Use these holes as a guide and drill right through the post. Whilst holding the carrier in place, pass short lengths of the wire through the carrier and the post, leaving about 1mm showing at the carrier. A quick touch of the soldering iron should secure the wire in the carrier. Once this has cooled, lift the carrier slightly away from the post, apply some good superglue and press back in position. This will hold the lamp/pivot unit very securely. Trim the wires back to about 0.5mm each end and tidy any soldering you aren't happy with.

[quote/ John, For securing the pivots to the post, especially as you are building in 7 mm, you could do worse than follow the prototype. The pivot was a single casting with a bearing housing and a flat base, which was bolted through the post. So a rectangular piece of .010" brass or nickel silver to which is soldered the pivot. Drill each corner of the baseplate (0.5 mm?) and use this to mark the post. Then drill four holes through the post, slightly more than .5 mm to allow the wires to pass through more easily. Solder a length of wire (.5 mm) into each corner of the baseplate, long enough to pass through the post and leaving a couple of mm protruding, and leave about .5 mm proud to simulate the bolt at the baseplate end. Pass the wires through the post and either glue them, or solder a small bolt at the back (14 BA) and trim off the wires to size. The whole lot shouldn't then move on the post. Just a thought. Cheers Mike Not far off what I'd planned Mike! Being a lazy so and so, I have soldered both pivot and lamp casing to a strip of brass for each arm, drilled 0.5mm hole top and bottom and will glue and pin through the post. Similar process, same effect. The wires for the lamps will be soldered to the baseplate and LED and run in a recess down the post. Pics will follow, just waiting for camera batteries to re-charge! Jon F.