Jon Fitness

Cheers. Literally had about 3-4 mins before the sun moved round and the t/table was in shade. JF

After an evening on the lash in a big city, 3 blokes are looking for a place to sleep for the night. The only B&B with a room available has only a double room to let, so they all fall drunkenly onto the bed and sleep off the nights excesses. In the morning, with the bloke in the middle still fast asleep, the ones on either side of him wake up looking at each other. “That must have been a hell of a night out†says one. “I ended up dreaming that I was being pleasured by that blonde I was chatting up†“ Same here but with the redhead I was dancing with earlier†says the other. “What about you?†he said, shaking the one in the middle to wake him up. “What did you dream about last night? “Er, I think it was that ski-ing holiday I had last year……….. Coat’s already on…..

Well, it’s been a while since the last update and we’ve been busy with a lot of things, not all of them layout related. The signal gantry seems to be behaving itself and has settled in well. I think I’ll eventually convert most of the signals to servo operation as the operation of them makes things like basic interlocking and route selection much easier to install (when I get round to it!). Steve has laid and wired up the rest of the track in the high level station and made up & labelled the control panel. It is now possible to send trains from station to station without using the main line control panel. Passing trains between us using the block instruments is quite therapeutic and has brought a new interest to the operations. The goods shed has tested my somewhat limited modelling skills but is finally now reaching completion. I broke a sacred rule of not making a model of a model but it seems be turning out reasonably well. I’ll have to tell Steve; next time I offer to build something like this tell me to stick to signals. They’re a bit easier!! After painting the stone work, I called in to check that the goods shed still fits in the hole I carved for it and after a few minor adjustments, in it went. There’s still lots of painting jobs and there’s the roof, guttering, downpipes, office door/window/chimney and signs etc to do. I will be fitting lights in the building and it also needs an internal wall mounted crane and the office fitting out. Just as I arrived, I noticed 42663 sat on the turntable in a rather fine shaft of sunlight. It was a nice photo op, but I only had 4 minutes to take a snap or 2 before the light moved. Mooody!

Hi Andy, Sorry for the slow response; holidays intervened. I've generally gone for a good bright light as most of the signals I've built have been for outdoor railways. Having said that, indoor layouts are usually fairly well lit at exhibitions so a brightish light shows off the extra work that goes into lighting the signals! I'll still experiment with higher values as you suggest. It may work for me and I welcome all these ideas. Keep them coming. Cheers JF

Hi Andy, I use a 1k resistor for indoor signals and a 470 ohm for outdoor signals (so they can be seen in daylight!) What do you use? Jon F.

Cheers! I'll have to adjust them though. Looking at them like that will "do me 'ed in" Thanks, that's also a nice signal you've done there. I will be doing some ER signals shortly and I agree the warm white LED does look a bit better (see below) .I've just received a batch from Rapid Online and I like the look of them. Ok Jonte, looking forward to seeing the results. Here's a comparison of the white LED against a warm white LED Much better I think and thanks to those who made me think about it! The part number for warm white LEDs at Rapid online is 55-0074 Jon F

I've installed the gantry on the layout now and left it with the resident "tester" who'll give it a good playing with over the next week or so. Luckily I didn't need to re-set any of the servos with the box but the signal itself may need a few tweaks as the structure has "adjusted" itself as I've tightened the fixing screws. (You can see the small shunt arms are standing slightly off) I have about 14volts going into it at the moment from a controller but I may reduce this later I have also connected the feed to the signals LEDs to the same feed (with a 1k resistor on it) and there is no trace of flicker while the servos move. Each activation of the signals brings on a very slight buzzing and twitching in the ranks but this seems to settle to silence after about 15 secs. All in all, very satisfying project after a shaky start (all down to my tripping over the learning curve a bit) Ready to do a few more now. Jon F.

Fitted the gantry at the LM Jc today, with it's associated servo gubbins. Wired up to 12vdc, lit up and operative via on/off switches it twitched and grumbled into life, settling down to relative silence about 15 seconds after each activation. As you can see there is still a little bit of "stand off" on the 2 miniature arms but this is mechanical rather than anything to do with the servo action. A little adjustment will be required. Still a bit buzzy sometimes but nothing serious. Very satisfying. Steves County class 4-6-0 does the honours as the first train past it with the route set towards the fierce incline up to the GW station. More soon Jon F.

Cheers Martyn! Once I'd mounted the servos on the bracket I offered it up to the signal rig. First mistake; right hand servos too far over. I kinked the drive rods over by about ¼inch and had another go and it all just about lined up. This had the lucky benefit of making more space around the servo arms and making it easier to couple it all up. I have to bear in mind that when the signal is installed and I have to install the servo assembly, I'll be grubbing about under a baseboard, not sat at a workbench! The bracket was clamped in place under the rig, and all the drive rods fed through the connections on the servo arms. I tentatively connected a servo to the driver board and powered it up. Second mistake:- I had presumed I had correctly found the central position of the servos when I remounted the arms, but the servo board disagreed and tried it's best to bend things! When you first power up the driver board it sets all connected servos to the centre position, so.. off with the arms again, power them all up and re-set the arms where the servo board wants me to set them. Once all that was done and driver board screwed to the bracket, all 4 servos were re-connected electrically to the board and the board programmed up with the setting box. This device tells each servo connection:- 1.Where the ON position is 2. Where the OFF position is 3. How fast to rotate from ON to OFF 4. How fast to rotate from OFF back to ON Sadly there is no bounce option with the setting box but I believe there is the provision to program it in if you use a computer with the appropriate software. Once it was all set up, a test was carried out on each signal and there seemed to be quite a bit of buzz and chatter in the ranks and this was found to be due to odd movements in the mechanics as things found their positions. This caused the servos in one or two cases to be pushing the mechanisms against the mechanical stops. The buzzing was the servos straining to reach their programmed positions but being mechanically prevented A bit of fine tuning was required to sort this out and all 4 settled down to perform well over about 10 minutes of random testing, all using nothing more than a 9v PP3 battery for now. The MERG instructions recommend using 10-15vdc so further testing will take place at a voltage available at the layout. More soon JF

Dug out all my Supergrass Albums. Doing a bit of revision before attending the farewell gig in June...

Jonte Thanks for all that but I welcome all comments of any type as long as they are "on subject" of course and I construed the comments as constructive and valid. (Wouldn't be on here otherwise) That rather long winded tutorial was intended for anyone to extract anything from as they need it. It's not a definitive lesson, just shows how I go about things. Carry on .... Jon F.

Thanks John On the layout where the signal is going to be installed there is insufficient room to take a chunk of the board out and make a complete "drop in" unit. The servos will therefore be mounted on a bracket, the signal drive rods fed through a small hole below the main post and the servo bracket with all the gubbins on "offered up". Obviously mucho bench testing will take place first with the signal on its rig but as long as the baseboard and the rig board are the same thickness, there shouldn't be too many mechanical problems . Half an hour in the garage with a few bits of 9mm ply and a drill&bandsaw produced this. The servos on the right had to be set back a bit to line up with the drive rods (one slightly less than the other) but I still have a range of adjustment forwards/backwards of about 6-7mm. Hopefully that will be enough for it all to line up. The servos are quite a tight fit in the slots and don't seem to move when the arms are moved manually. I'll have to dig up some tiny screws if they do work loose! More soon Jon F.

Hmm. Thanks but no thanks. Personal preference for LEDs. Bulbs; too big, too hot, too likely to go pop in my experience. (Yes I've tried them before) Still waiting for my first LED to go. JF

Finally got back to the servo project after a few distractions so here we go. The signal itself is a bit of a lash up. It used to be a bracket on the old Talacre railway but is now a gantry, supported on one side by a retaining wall. The main post is tubular instead of "H" section girder but we'll gloss over that. I just hate wasting previous work I guess and it fitted the bill in it's new position. There are 4 arms to operate and my old method of operation would have been solenoids. I liked them as I could leave the signals "on" or "off" without them requiring any constant power but the downsides were:- 1. Too violent for delicate mechanisms. 2. Too fast a movement, very jerky. 3. Quite bulky under the baseboard. Once I started learning about using R/C type servos and the progress made in miniaturisation I decided to try these out. I purchased the bits (see previous posts) and made a start. First job is to make a rig to stand the signal on, emulating the position it's going to be installed in. I've made sure the baseboard is the same thickness as the layout. I then held the servos roughly in position to establish the best way to set them. I took off the servo arms and moved them round on the splined shafts to a more suitable position All seems to be in order and I'm using these to attach the drive rods to the servo arms. More soon

Pete Fair point, but yellow LEDs tend to be too yellow, affecting the red and turning it orange. I should try the "warm" white LEDs but they are not as easy to come by or as cheap(most important) as the 3mm white ones. (Unless someone knows differently) Cheers JF. PS. whats involved in getting a 7mm scale Pratt Truss LMS gantry etched?

Where were we? Ah yes, time to splash a bit of paint on this signal. Mask the LED off in the lamp casing with either a little square of tape or a blob of Maskol. The signal arms can be set into a stick using the axle shafts or bolts so they can be painted without having to handle them. Give the arms and the post several good coats of white primer. I use Halfords white spray primer as this tends to bond well to both brass and whitemetal. It then becomes the topcoat for the white bits and a good undercoat for any other colour you need (especially red!) Set these aside to dry for a good 24 hours as you will be applying masking tape next and you need the paint to be hard. Paint the black areas front and back on the spectacle plate. (The little black oval is to cover the red spec on the calling on arm. Forgot to fit it before painting!) The white stripes on LMS upper quadrants are 5mm wide and set in 7mm from the end of the arm. Mask that area off with a good quality tape (I use Tamiya) and paint the blade or arm red. Taking off the tape before the red paint is fully dry should leave a nice clean white stripe. When the paint has set you can fit the coloured lenses. If using LEDs to illuminate things, true red and green coloured lenses should be used. If grain of wheat bulbs are used then a bluey-green lens should be used for green. These can be cut easily from a sheet with a hole punch (just right for full size U/Q arms) or a leather punch as size dictates. These can then be fastened behind the appropriate openings on the signal with a small amount of superglue. The black stripes can be painted on by masking either side of the area (same size and position as the front) and the tape removed as the paint starts to dry. Carefully mask the post as shown, including a little bit behind the lamp. This will make it easier to paint the lamp without getting black where you don't need it Back blinders are fitted on the other end of the signal shaft. Their function (on the real thing) is to cover the little light at the back of the lamp when the signal is up or even slightly up. The signalman observing the signal at night can then see if the signal has gone back to danger when he replaces the lever in the frame. If the light shows, all is ok, if no light is seen he must presume the signal has not gone back to danger (or the lamp's gone out!). It should now be time for the final re-assembly of the now painted parts. Thread the drive rod through the signal arm then down through the baseplate while pushing the spindle through the bearing on the arm. With the arm at danger postion the back blinder as shown and secure with a little EvoStick so that, if necessary, it can be dismantled for repairs or maintenance at a later date. Should be just about finished now! All that remains to be done is to solder a couple of short lengths of tube to the drive rods underneath the base-plate to limit upward movement. Methods of operation are many, ranging from manual to DCC controlled slow action point motors and I’ll leave you to choose your own but... I have been tinkering with R/C servos and a control board from MERG which I will pick up on next. Go build..

Jonte, If it is a wooden post, no, not accurately as the post will be square in section and taper gently towards the top. Scale Signal Supply and MSE both do kits for this type of signal so no problem with parts. And no problem with asking questions and sharing info either as that's (as I see it) what we're all on RMWeb for . Cheers Jon F.

Hi Jonte, Seen the picture you have mentioned and I think it may be an older wooden post with an upper quadrant signal fitted to it. Cheers Jon F

Ok, ladders. I am using etched nickel-silver ladders from Scale Signal supply on these signals which are of a fine section but only equivalent to about 20' in height. Normally for anything taller I would use the brass ladders from D&S but as the person I am building for didn't mind a join I lengthened an SSS one (only a little bit!!) with a bit left over from a previous job. Trim the ladder to be joined and the chosen extension so the pitch is constant between rungs when placed in line. Cut another small piece that can overlap the join and carefully align all 3 pieces. Clamp them together with one of the previously mentioned mini pegs (told you they were useful!) Apply liquid flux and solder them with a little 188° solder and re-check for straightness. The ladder stands off from the post and is attached about 3mm down from the top using a U shaped stay. This can be bent up in pliers so that it matches the width of the ladder. The stand off must be sufficient to allow the backblinder to swing behind the lamp casing without fouling lamp or ladder. Carefully solder the ladder stay to the post with 145° solder but don't linger with the iron or you may disturb the solder on the pivot tube. Set the prepared ladder against the base and the ladder stay at the top. The actual inclination of the ladder is 1 in 12 but bear in mind that you need space for the weight bar to swing at the bottom. Once you are happy with the alignment and checking the ladder is not bowed, solder it to the stays at the top and base-plate using 145° solder and plenty of flux. The ladder will need extra supports halfway down so use a short piece of 0.7mm wire or those offcuts from the LEDs mentioned earlier and provide 1 each side of the post. You can align them against the post and to the inside edge of the ladder for ease of location whilst soldering. I solder using 188° at the ladder end and 145° against the post. Trim any excess off. At the same position I have added the "Diamond" sign to the post. This sign on a signal indicates to the traincrew that the presence of their train is indicated electrically in the signalbox and is fitted where appropriate to the location. At the top of the ladder is a loop. This for the safety of the maintenance staff when attending to the lamp or other fittings and is position in line with the back of the lamp. It is about a scale 20" diameter or about 11mm. With the SSS ladders is enough etched strip to make about 6 of these so snip a 30mm length of and bend it round a pen or tube of about 10mm diameter. Pinch the ends together as shown in the picture then open the loop out slightly so that it will clip into the sides of the ladder. Solder the loop to the ladder in line with the lamp. (it should be horizontal) and trim off any excess from the back of the ladder. You can now have a little "Topping out" ceremony by way of a post cap. I use either the ones from MSE or SSS depending which ones I have in stock. This week I will be mostly using SSS post caps! (With apologies to fans of the Fast Show on TV) Almost there now. ( Did I hear a collective sigh of relief?) Painting and final assembly next . More soon Jon F.

You’ll have realised by now that the photos in this signal building ramble are of 2 different signals. They are probably slightly out of sequence as well. I remembered things on one that should have been photographed and took later pictures that illustrated a particular bit a little better!. You know what I mean, I'm sure! We have a post, an arm and a lamp, so it's time for a linkage or drive rod to work the thing. Drill a hole about 0.8mm in the base-plate, roughly in line with the little operating arm on the signal. I use some steel wire about 24swg (it's actually guide wire from a Faller Roadway set) but 0.7mm N/S wire is fine for the job. Cut a 2-3mm length of tube that will fit over the wire (you could some of the pivot tube from earlier) and put to one side while you shape the wire as shown. Couple the wire to the signal arm, thread the piece of tube onto the wire and feed the wire down through the base-plate. Position the signal arm in its pivot and set to the "up" position so that the LED is in line with what will be the green aspect. Allow the little bit of tube to rest on the baseplate and carefully solder the tube to the wire (not to the base-plate, like I do sometimes!) You now have a limiter that will stop the signal being damaged by rising too high. At a later stage a similar one will be soldered under the base-plate so that the drive rod won't bow out if pushed upwards too hard by the mechanism you choose to operate it with. Generally, a real signal will need a weight bar or balance weight to help it return to danger. In model form, unless your engineering is of a very high quality, a weight bar is of little use other than to simply be there for correct appearance. Being a lazy sort I tend to make them non working as they just add another place where mechanical "play" can occur. On these signals I have made them moveable but will bypass them for the sake of mechanical simplicity (cue sharp intake of breath from purists!!) In etched brass kits they usually have to be soldered in layers to build sufficient thickness to look right. Tin both sides of the weight bar with a thin layer of solder and clamp the layers together or hold them down on a bit of scrap wood. I have used some mini wooden pegs of the sort used to hang up Christmas cards on string. I got these from a Well Known Pound Shop. Very useful little things for this sort of work. The weightbar is positioned a scale 4" above rail level and you will need to drill a 1mm hole (at 90° to the signal pivot) right through the post taking care not to damage the wire inside the post! If you are making a signal from a kit you'll probably have a pivot bracket for the weight bar but if not, make up a small angle bracket from a short length of 2-3mm wide brass as shown in the pictures and drill 1mm for a pivot pin. Assemble the weight bar and bracket with a bolt or pin through the post and solder the bracket to the post. If you can, solder a nut to the post so you can pass a bolt through everything. It makes maintenance or repairs easier. Check that the weightbar doesn't foul the operating rod when all re-assembled. Ladders Next! More soon Jon F.

Hmm, I can provide you with drawings for most LMS U/Q stuff but you may have to ask around for Midland . Meanwhile have a look in any books you have covering the MR area. Once you start building signals, pictures you previously saw rolling stock on, mysteriously start sprouting signals you hadn't seen before. Jon F.

Cheers Jonte, and thanks for the compliments . Nice to know it's worthwhile. Most of what I do in 7mm is the same as 4mm as the etched kits are scaled up or down from the same artwork! For some seriously spectacular signal building check ou Mikemegs "Hessle Haven" signals thread (I'd put a link in but I'm not sure how to!) Have a go at some signals and post up the results, it might encourage others to have a go1 Jon F.

With an arm now on the signal, you'll be needing a lamp behind it. I like to have working lamps in my signals and I have had a request to show how I fit these so here goes. I use my own cast whitemetal combined lamp/bracket that has a 3mm hole for an LED to be fitted from the back but similar products are available from MSE or SSS. Some of these are designed to have a bulb fitted from underneath but the basic idea is the same. Looking at the back of the lamp casting, drill a 0.8mm through hole in the lower left corner. Bend the shorter leg of the LED (the "negative" terminal) back on itself as per the photo and thread it through the drilled hole. The body of the LED should locate in the larger hole (DO not glue it in!) Where the short leg fits in the little hole, apply a bit of flux and secure it with a quick dab of 145°solder. This will be enough to hold it in position and enable you to change the LED should it ever fail without destroying the lamp casting. At this stage, trim the protruding leg of the LED from the front of the lamp case but leave the other one until the wire is attached later. Keep the cut off LED leg as you can use it as a ladder stay later! With the arm in position, make a mark on the back of the post just below arm level and drill a 0.8 mm hole in the post. This is for the lamp wire. I use some very fine equipment wire I got from All Components which is thin enough not to show up too much but strong enough for the job. With the signal post secured so it won't move (in a vice preferably) and the arm set to danger, offer up the lamp case to the post and align the LED with the arm. This the fiddly bit! Apply a bit of liquid flux to the joint and while holding the lamp case in correct alignment, carefully solder it to the post with 145° solder. I use a 13watt Antex soldering iron for this job. When cooled, check that the arm clears the lamp when it swings up and down and the LED aligns correctly with spectacle holes on the signal in both positions. Cut a length of wire off about 3" longer than the signal and bare about 7mm off one end. Thread the plain end into the hole in the post until it appears at the 'ole at the bottom. Pull it through, leaving just enough to allow you to solder the wire to the long leg of the LED. Wrap the bared section around the long leg, tuck it as close to the back of the LED as possible and check it's not touching the other leg. Carefully solder this on with electricians solder. Trim the long leg off the LED as close to the wire as you dare and retain the offcut. These make useful ladder stays! To complete the electrical circuit, solder an earth or negative wire to any convenient metal part (I usually drill a hole in the baseplate near the bottom of the post and fasten the bared end of the earth wire to it ) so that it will run next to the live wire from the LED. These 2 wires can then be taped together o run a sleeve of heatshrink tube over them. Solder a 1000 ohm resistor to the positive lead, bare a little bit of the earth wire and you are ready to test the lamp. The 1000 ohm (1k) resistor enables you to connect up 12v dc from your model railway supply or even a 9v battery. Let there be light! More soon Jon F.

OK, lets put an arm on this signal. Although I use my own cast whitemetal arms, the methods for etched brass arms are much the same. Choose your arm and solder a spindle to it I have a preference for using 14BA bolts as spindles as you can lock everything up with a nut on the back while you fix everything else on to the post that needs aligning with the arm. One of the advantages of a whitemetal arm is that I can screw the bolt into it and undo it anytime should I need to. Set the arm to the On or Danger position (horizontal) and make a mark on the post, just above the little operating arm. This will be for the arm stop, so that the arm cannot droop below horizontal. (Nowt worse than a bit of droop!.) Drill a 0.8mm hole right through the post and insert a length of 0.8mm wire through just far enough so that the signal arm rests against it in the correct "on"position. Remove the arm from the signal, snip the excess wire off the back of the post, and solder both sides using a lower temperature solder such as Carrs 145°. This should avoid melting the solder on the pivot tube (hopefully!) When cooled, clean up excess solder, stand the post up, place the arm in the pivot and you should have the startings of a presentable signal. Lamp, LED and associated wiring next. More soon.. JF.

I was offered a right bargain today.. 42 inch plasma TV, HD ready, built in DVD player, almost brand new, but only £50 as the volume control wasn't working.....Well I couldn't turn it down............... I'll get me coat......