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Fen End Pit

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Blog Entries posted by Fen End Pit

  1. Fen End Pit
    It's taken a few months to make much progress on the level crossing. I made some gates but hit a problem as I tried to mount them on the stepper motors but needed to make them removable. This meant that there was a bit of slop introduced and that allowed the dreaded backlash to rear its ugly head. It took sometime to adapt the code to deal with this as I had to make the stepper motors 'take up the slack' every time the gates change direction.
     
    Here is a little video.
     
    David

  2. Fen End Pit
    Blog postings have been a bit lacking over the last months as the house becomes a building site. We have now got walls, a roof and windows and things start to progress on 'first fit'. I can see the size of the railway room, as well as the other bits like new master bedroom and study for my wife. It is all quite exciting but taking a long time! Still we are making progress and at least have use of some of the house even if the kitchen has no ceiling and the kids have nowhere to sleep if they come back from college. This has made modelling a bit difficult and limited to the armchair variety, (or would be if the armchairs weren't covered in cardboard boxes full of stuff).
     

     
    The resulting space is about 19'6" x 9' so lots of possibilities!
     
    David
  3. Fen End Pit
    A bit of standard gauge for a change. I took delivery of a couple of the new Bachmann grain wagons which have been on order with Hattons for what seems like years. I've got a P4 wheel set in it now and replaced the coupling with Alex Jacksons. I can (just) remember seeing these being loaded at Sandy on the occasions when I used to cycle over there to watch some proper main-line trains in the later '70s. By then they were in a 'rust based livery' but I think they had been going that way for some years.
     
    As usual Paul Bartlett's site comes to the rescue with some suitable pictures.
     
    So I had a go at dry brushing on some rust and also added a bit of weathering power. I still need to give the underframe a quick dusting on Rail Match frame dirt.
     
    So, my question to the jury is, 'Have I overdone it?'
     

     
    David
  4. Fen End Pit
    Over the last couple of weeks I got to pretty much finish off the LBT, the most noticeable change being to clean off the etched builders plates. I then went on to make some changes to the drawings based on what I'd learnt putting it together and then laser cut the body work for the LAT. There are a few subtle changes to the frames (the LBT has a hole near the front which the LAT doesn't have) and the bonnet (which has a different shaped grill for the radiator and the sandbox fillers). The LAT had a different engine to the LBT so I had to draw, sorry 'model' (got to get used to this 3D terminology) a different shape for the engine block. It is quite distinctive with a fly-wheel with an angle edge to the fly-wheel. My etching had parts for both the LAT and LBT on it so that makes progress easier.
     

     
     
    Progress was slightly delayed by a wonderful week in the lake district. Of course this had to include the usual trip to Thelkeld and a ride up into the quarry behind Sir Tom while admiring the finest collection of drag lines and other plant in the country. A particular pleasure was being able to record a 10-RB working, I'll try to edit the sound and then use it on the MP3 player that I sometimes put under the layout.
     

     
    The Makerbot had some pretty bright green ABS in it but it will be fine once painted. I'm hoping to get the LAT finished for a outing of Fen End Pit on 30th May.
     

     
    Hope you like them.
     
    David
  5. Fen End Pit
    As I mentioned in my previous entry, one of the issues with a stepper motor is that you can only tell it to step! You can't get it to go to a certain position unless you have some mechanism to set a 'datum' point first. This often means that you have some kind of limit switch which you can run the motor against so you 'know' you have reached the limit of travel, and therefore, know that if you move a certain number of steps you will also be at a known position.
     
    The practical issue with my first test rig was that if someone turned the power off while the gates were in anything other than the 'normal' position then on powering up the unit would think it was in the normal position even though it wasn't. This could mean that you then drive the linkage further than it should be driven.
     
    To fix this I have laser cut a little unit which holds a micro-switch against a cam on the motor drive. The coding on the arduino now looks at start up to see if the micro-switch is on or off and runs the motor until it changes. The result is that now the unit resets the gates to a datum point on start up.
     

     
    I have a base plate and some gates drawn up now so hope to have something that actually looks like a level crossing soon.
     
    David
  6. Fen End Pit
    Our modelling day in Sawston today gave the Ruston LBT its first outing on Fen End Pit. I was really pleased with how it looked and performed. We had an excellent day meeting up with old friends and making new ones, everything this hobby should be about!
     

     
    Now I still to remember who does a decent 16mm scale driver to put in it.
     

     
    and finally one of the dragline.
     

     
    David
  7. Fen End Pit
    Please forgive the shameless plug and cross-posting from Middlepeak's blog.
     
    Our regular group of 'Friday Nighters' here in darkest Cambridgeshire are putting together one of their 'mini-exhibitions', this time to give some financial support to the activities of St Mary's Church in Sawston. This will be a very informal affair - just a collection of layouts and modelling displays from our group across a range of scales from 2mmFS to Gauge 3! Among the exhibits will be -
     
    Alex Duckworth, a frequent contributor to MRJ and Greystar Publications with some of his 2mmFS models running on a small test track, including some stock he is building for a future 'Woodhead' project.
     

     
     
    Brian Page, with 'Oxenbridge', a superb rendition of the Keighley and Worth Valley terminus in the 1960s in P4
     

     
    Alan Browning will be showing a section of his 'Isle of Dhoon' system in 009, recently featured in Railway Modeller
     
    Geraint Hughes and Ian Thomson will be playing trains on Obbekaer (Danish P87)
     

     
    and I'll be there with Fen End Pit.
     
    The venue is St Mary's Church Hall, Church Lane, Sawston, near Cambridge, CB22 3JR. Doors will be open from 1030 to 1600 and a small contribution for entry will go towards the work of the church in the community.
     
    We hope to see you there!
     
    David
  8. Fen End Pit
    I realized that I needed to get some better photographs of the engine of the Ruston LAT that I'm trying to build and, as the one which was at the Threlkeld quarry museum had moved, I decided a trip to the North Ings Farm Museum http://www.northingsfarmmuseum.co.uk/museum/ was required. My family refer to this particular organization, very unfairly, as 'The chicken sh*t farm' because the line was originally installed to move 'waste product' from poultry sheds. Don't be put off by the sound of it, the line goes around a landscaped field with an amazing selection of narrow gauge and industrial equipment to see.
     
    I arrived this afternoon and on inquiring if they still had a Ruston LAT was immediately welcomed in and told that they would get it out of the shed for me and take the side panels of the engine so I could take some pictures. The locomotive was started up and brought out into the sunshine. I'd taken general photos a few years back so this was about getting all those details I'd missed.
     

     

    I've now got no excuses for not getting things right!
     
    I had a couple of runs around the line behind the Hudson Hunslet which was on duty. Then we were dropped at the far end of the field while the train ran as a 'photographic charter' so I could get some more pictures.

     
    There are a couple of Simplexes in the shed, including one owned by the Talyllyn railway who use North Ings as a location to let their young volunteers drive with out getting in the way of service trains.
     

     
    The other simplex is in a slightly more 'work worn' condition.
     

     
    As I said North Ings has an amazing collection of bits of industrial railway to see. I was particularly taken by this pressed steel turnplate which was used to divert wagons from a running line onto a temporary siding.
     

     
    Also I rather likes the tank wagon which I think will need modelling at some point.
     

     
    So, there you have it, a great afternoon out, a friendly welcome, a decent cup of tea all for £3 (Tea extra!). I thoroughly recommend making the trip to darkest Lincolnshire.
     

     
    The North Ings Farm Museum - No Chicken Sh*t in sight!
     
    David
  9. Fen End Pit
    The 1.5mm MDF I ordered arrived today, the 1mm was out of stock. 1.5mm is the same thickness as the width of a header in 4mm so this allows me to interlock the walls on the header joint. I deliberately drew the 'tab' of the header .2mm over length to get around the problem I had previously that the 'tab' was not quite long enough to lie flush with the 'slot' when the wall was put together.
     

     
    I also cut a piece of the MDF to be a sanding jig. By putting the wall through the jig I could lightly sand the ends of the 'tabs' to remove the charring from the MDF and get them exactly the right length for thickness of wall. All that is needed is a couple of strokes over some sandpaper. Obviously the MDF jig gets a bit thinner each time but I'll cut another one for the next building so it only has to be used 8 times before it is discarded.
     

     
    The resulting edge doesn't then show up as a wildly different colour to the main walls which I hope will make painting easier.
     

     
    A piece of 3mm MDF was cut to form a central core for the building. I'm hoping that 2 laminations rather than 3 won't be a problem given the sizes involved.
     

     
    Again the building slotted together perfectly and sat down into its base. This picture is without any glue holding it together which is why the tops of the walls have a slight gap.
     

     
    The 3mm inner core is cut with some larger rebates around the windows so that I can fit some glazing in later.
     

     
    Now to glue it up and paint it, must be more patient this time and apply more, thinner, layers of primer and let them harden properly before trying to get the mortar layer on with the acrylic. Mind you, it doesn't look like the weather for being in the garage with an aerosol.
     
    David
  10. Fen End Pit
    I've spent this afternoon trying to draw up a plan for the new layout. I'm waiting for PPD to come back with an etch for the narrow gauge Ruston and felt like an afternoon in front of the PC. Having received the structural engineers report which means that hopefully we should soon get a quote from the builder I hope this isn't tempting fate.
     
    I started off taking a scan of the OS map into Templot and then trying to draw track over it. This is an interesting task as I'm sure that what you think must be the positions of railway features, particularly things like the ends of points aren't always easy (or possible) to spot. It seemed a much better plan to generate the overall lines of the track and then try to fill them in getting Templot to sort of the geometry. The result is a track plan, over a map with some kind of theoretical baseboard edge around it.
     

     
    I've curved the line so that it will go around the room, planning to use the over-bridge as a scenic break on the right hand side. At the left hand end the line curves over the bridge and then I intend to put a level crossing in. There was one just off the map which made for some interesting signalling as the gates had a lever frame which slotted the distance signal and the starter at that end of the station.
     

     
    I've also made a few bits of 'selective compression', I've twisted the goods yard slightly and also pulled the little stream on the right hand side a little closer to the station to try and keep it relative to where it crossed the tracks. I'm also trying to work out how to get a little siding down to a fictitious mill. The plan being that it will give me a 'flight of fancy' whereas the rest of the layout can be firmly based on Clare.
     
    I had a question for the prototype experts on the Stour valley line.
     
    Clare had a coal siding (originally a couple with more than one merchant). How was coal dealt with? I've not seen any pictures of mineral trains on the line so was the coal just brought in and shunted with the pickup goods? (talking early 50's)
     
    Finally - in other shocking news
     

     
    I had fun putting together a Rumney models underframe. This is the clasp brake version which I thought would go nicely under a Parkside shocvan. Trouble was that all the photographs I could find on Paul Barlett's site showed that the clasp brake versions were all on BR Plywood bodied vans, while the Parkside model is a planked version. Cue lots of fun with filler, scrapers and fibre-glass brushes. The chassis is so nice that I'm not quite convinced the body does it justice. Still I'll try adding rain-strips and transfers and see how the body looks when it is suitably weathered. One thing I did notice from the photographs was that the vertical stripes indicating the shock absorbing were rarely anything other than hand painted.
     
    David
  11. Fen End Pit
    So we've now had three major purchases for my Ruston project.
     
    As usual the final drive to the axles will be delrin chain and the actual gearbox is being positioned in the same place as the prototype, central between the two axles and driving to one from the left and the other from the right hand side. I need a gear box with enclosed gears (owing the large amount of sand moved around on Fen End Pit) which ruled out my usual options from High Level. I remembered using on enclosed box on my J39 many moons ago so got back in contact with Branchlines to see if they still did them. The lack of a website (just an arcane out of date blog) doesn't make them the easiest folk to track down online, but the effort was well worth it and a catalogue emailed immediately in response to my inquiry.The Northyard box was still available but also there was the option of a combined gearbox, Mashima 14x motor and a flywheel. Also Branchlines stock delrin chain components so I could stock up on these too. The box is 36:1 but there will also be a reduction of 8:10 in the chain drive so a final reduction of 45:1 (if my maths is right). The box went together easily with the axle and gear held on to the shafts with loctite 601.
     
    Then there was an order to DCC supplies for a Lenz Gold and Power-1. Yes I know you can do 'keep alive' for less but the Lenz is in my mind the Rolls-Royce and all of the rest of Fen End Pit's locos have this combination. As ever goods shipped on day of order and delivered two days later.
     
    Finally comes the complex one. I wanted to fit some sound in the Ruston. Using the Lenz chip gives the option of using a 'piggyback' chip connected via the SUSI interface. I'd used one of these before so again contacted Glendale Junction who are the UK agent for Dietz who make these chips. They are used to selling 'Big Stuff' LGB etc but happily will program up the Micro-XS with the desired sound.
     
    Putting all this lot together was MUCH less painful than last time because Lenz now include a socket on the Gold for SUSI so you only have to solder on the wires for the Power-1. I've also hooked up a 8Ohm 40x20mm speaker from DCCSupplies and it all worked first time.
     

     
    At the back from left to right, the loud speaker, the Lenz Gold decoder and the Mashima motor and gearbox. In the front on the left is the DIETZ sound chip and on the right the Lenz Power-1 keep alive.
     
     
    On the count of 3
    1 - 2 - 3 dugga dugga dugga dugga
     
     
    David
  12. Fen End Pit
    As the scalefour layout takes a rest while waiting for major house redevelopment I've been working on stock. Given that the E4 and various other coaches are complete I thought it was time for 'something different'.
     
    Until this point Fen End Pit has been an all Simplex affair (ok, apart from the Lister) but given the Ruston and Bucyrus dragline it seemed only a matter of time before the Ruston locomotive salesman came calling for business.
     
    I've always liked the LAT and LBT ever since I build the original Roy Link 7mm versions for Adit 2 more years ago than I came to remember (it was BC, Before Children). They always looked such neat locomotives.
     

     
    The Review had some good plans back in volume 5 so I blew these up from 7mm to 16mm. So far I've cut the bodywork and chassis out of .7mm Acrylic/ABS mix on the lasercutter and laminated various layers together to make the frames, body and cab sides. I'm expecting to have several goes at this so its not perfect yet. I know I cut the bonnet to be the correct length and forgot that it actually fits into the cab, which is why things are a little too long at the moment and the bodywork overhangs the ends of the chassis by 3mm.
     

     

     
    I've also finally got my brain around 3D CAD and using my copy of SolidEdge have draw up (sorry 'modelled', we're dealing with 3D here) the buffer beam castings, gear box unit and an attempt at the engine. I've printed these in ABS on the Makerbot replicator in Makespace in Cambridge. The results are probably at the extreme end of what you can get away with on a Makerbot, the banding inherent with the ABS extrusion type 3D printers can just about be dealt with by a mix of filing, filling and gentle brushing with solvent to smooth the 'ribbles'. I'm currently trying to sort Makespace out with an SLA printer but that is another story.
     

     

     
    I've also started to work on an etch to produce the grills, logos and various cab fitments.
     
    The nice thing about these locomotives is that there was quite a bit of commonality between the LAT and LBT but also quite a bit of 'after market' variation (AKA botching) in later life. This means that I should be able to make the majority of bits to make multiple locomotives.
     
    Progress won't necessarily be rapid, but I'm planning on ending up with 'a number' of Rustons.
     
    David
  13. Fen End Pit
    I finally got around to fitting the buffers, crew and coal to my E4. I also converted the bogies on my second Hornby Gresley to make a nice short branch passenger train.
     

     
    I'd be tempted by the 3rd coach, possibly seeing if there is something suitable in the Ian Kirk/Cooper craft range may be an LNER 51' Non-Corridor Full Third ?
     
    I'm not sure what the typical make up of train down the Stour Valley might have been.
     

     
    I'm rather pleased with the way this kit went together, I've now pretty much completed the must have GER locos just in time for Hornby to introduce them all!
     
    David
  14. Fen End Pit
    After several evenings of fun, and I guess something about 20 hours work in total I have now got to the point of getting the replacement Penbits bogies under my Class 24. The initial 'rolling test' where you leave out the gears so you can just roll the locomotive along was great fun! I had used Black Beetle wheels in the original conversion and these went back into the bogies with no problems. Being insulated on one side only they made opting for what some people call 'the American System' of pick up. (I think this means too lazy to make pick-ups to the rest of us!). Having ensured that the insulated wheels where on same side on each bogie and that the bogies were the opposite way around I was able to connect up the power again just by soldering the wires to a washer on the bolt which forms the pivot point.
     

     
    I've uploaded a video to Youtube link
     

     
    I've been very impressed with the kit, the quality of the etching was excellent and the designer had clearly assembled several before writing the instructions. The loco is shown running through my single slip and over a deliberately widened baseboard joint to show how it goes. I have most of the work on the modifications to the side frames done so once my outing to the Epping Railway Circle show at Theydon Bois with Fen End Pit is out of the way I'll get those finished.
     
    If you find yourself in deepest Essex on Saturday do come and say 'Hi'.
     
     
    David
  15. Fen End Pit
    I was keen to try and find a way to make a slate roof that would give some texture better than just printed paper. The Scalescenes paper I used before looked very good, but I couldn't face the idea of trying to cut all the lines between the slates.
     
    What I've tried here is to laser cut strips of slates onto large A4 size postage labels. The slates are about 3.5mm across and the strips are 10mm deep.
     

     

     
    Laying these strips is a little fiddly and I found with the hipped roof that you must get the bottom row correct all the way around the hip before starting to move up the roof. (yes I did work that out the hard way!) The bottom row is over lapped by a row immediately on top of it before moving up the roof. So far I have only put a single code of slate grey over the top and a wash of matt black which brings out the gaps in the slates. This picture is roughly 3 times actual size.
     

     
    I originally thought that the ridges were covered by lead, but actually it appears to be a tile fired to be the same colour as the slates. I've had a go at representing these using a strip of sticky paper with some very thin strips added to represent the joints between the tiles. I had to line these up by eye and made a bit of a mess of them. I think in future I might cut a 'ladder' shape of paper, stick it over the ridge so the 'rungs' form the joints and stay at a constant distance apart, and then trim off the sides of the ladder (if that makes any sense at all as a description!)
     

     
    The resulting roof doesn't look too bad, I need to work on the colouring, there are some unpleasant glossy bits where I was impatient with the paint mixing and there are some little bumps where I applied a dob of superglue to fasten some of the tiny strips of paper on the ridges down (I think I've worked out how to do lichen). The timber around the roof line looks a bit odd at the moment but bear in mind this will have a gutter attached in due course.
     

     
    Please let me know what you think.
     
    David
  16. Fen End Pit
    One of the things about keeping a blog is that it makes you photograph your models and one of the things about photographing your models is that every time you do you just can't avoid seeing the faults in the results - things that somehow the eye only picks up when blown up on the screen when you look at the photograph.
     
    So, here is the current state of the E4. I had to go back once and clean off around the dome which I didn't really pick up until I took some pictures last night. Tonight I can see boiler isn't quite fitted properly and I've not put the valve cover in place.
     
    Still, it is the right colour, not covered in the dreaded 'orange peel' and it runs smoothly. I had to attack the inside of the tender side-frames with insulation tape just to make sure the wheels didn't short on the frames.
     
    I think locos always look a bit weird before you get the numbers and crests in place and a bit of light weathering will make a big difference.
     

     
    David
  17. Fen End Pit
    A few months back I was tempted by a pair of Hornby coaches while in Model Junction in Bury St. Edmunds. I had a rake of 3 old Bachmann suburban coaches in BR Blue but these weren't really suitable for my period and move to a less urban setting.
     
    I was prepared to re-use the Bill Bedford sprung bogies from the Bachmann set to go under the Gresleys. The shape isn't quite right but you can't really tell. While wandering around Scaleforum I had looked to see if anyone had any Gresley bogie sideframe casting, but I couldn't find anything anywhere near as good as the Hornby plastic mouldings. On Friday night, with some trepidation, I took a piecing saw to the bogies and was able to cut the frames off without too much damage. The foot steps are very fragile but I managed to only break one off which I was able to reattach. I had to take a burr to the back of the moulding to make space for the pinpoint bearing to move up and down.
     
    The moulding was stuck onto the bogie unit with Evostik and the complete bogie repainted. I was able to fill the rather large hole in the coach floor with various plastic tubes and some epoxy prior to screwing the bogies back to the body.
     

     
    Given the quality of these coaches there really isn't a great deal more to do with them. I'll give it some slight weathering at some point but I'm very pleased with the results so far. The second Lavatory Composite will get converted over the next few months. It looks rather nice with the J15 and the rake will look very suitable behind the E4 once that is finished.
     

     
    The E4 is currently in the paint shop. The primer has gone on and so far so good.
     
    David
  18. Fen End Pit
    I had assembled the tender chassis originally using the Alan Gibson hornblocks supplied in the kit. This were the units with a tiny spring which provides some downward force but where the hornblock itself is designed to sit on the end of a bolt which passes through the top of the horn guide. The theory is that you can adjust the bolts to get the ride height for each axle correct. From my experience I find this very difficult and the resulting ride is very 'hard' and it is too easy to have one axle have either too much or too little load.
     
    Techniques have moved on and these days people rave about the simplicity of 'continuous springy beams'. This is basically a posh way to describe a piece of wire which supports all the bearing. The clever bit is in the positioning of the pivot points for the wire but helpfully there is a spreadsheet available which make this simple. For this tender I purchased some High Level kits hornblocks and spring support tags together with Alan Gibson 'shoulderless' handrail knobs which make the pivots for the wire. Rebuilding the chassis only took an evening and the resulting transformation in the ride quality was remarkable. This picture clearly shows the spring wire, the handrail knob pivots and the socket which is used to connect the motor power from the DCC chip in the tender.
     

     
    The construction of the body has come on too. I was able to purchase from Alan Gibson a lost wax casting for the front springs which I used instead of the white metal one originally supplied in the kit. This has meant that I could drill holes in the foot plate and solder the spring in place rather than try to stick white metal to the foot plate. These springs are situation in a position where I could just see them get knocked off with handling.
     

     
    Obviously the motor isn't usually at that angle so the next picture has a little bit of wood just to hold the motor at the correct angle!
     
    Friday evening also saw the lamp irons go on the front of the foot plate and then yesterday I made the pipe run down the foot plate and fitted the pipes and coupling to the buffer beam. At this point I was looking through photographs in various books and realized that the combination I have modelled with the side window cab also had a different arrangement of safety valves. This meant adding an extra casting and reattaching the valves. This has the benefit of meaning the locomotive now has a slightly different boiler in terms of its look to my existing Gibson built J15. It also means I have tied it down to a specific locomotive 62781 which is handy as this is one of the smokebox door numbers supplied in the kit!
     

     
    This evening has been spent giving the body work a good clean with fibre-glass brush, Cif and a paintbrush. The downside is bits of fibreglass in the fingers but on the positive side no bits fell off in the process.
     

     
    So I'll let it dry out now and take some pictures of it all assembled tomorrow.
     
    David
  19. Fen End Pit
    I had a go at cutting the building again, this time in the more conventional 3mm MDF, using .7mm ply for the quions. The result fitted together quite nicely, though I probably shouldn't have turned the 'corner power' down so far on the ply as I had to resort to a scalpel to get some of the parts free.
     


     
    Before discussing painting here is a picture of Clare station to give you some idea of the colouring. I'm not convinced that four decades of no trains and possible cleaning haven't changed the colour a bit.
     

     
    I painted the building with an acrylic varnish to seal it, and then fairly crudely painted the walls in Humbrol brick red (Matt 70) and the quions in light stone (Matt 121).
     

     
    When dry I applied ModelMates Brick joint filler, This is an interesting material as you are meant to paint it on, leave it to dry and then wipe off with a damp cloth (or in my case cotton buds)

     
    The problem I have is that the filler also tones down the colour of the bricks making them too pale and I'm not sure that the mortar would really be that white.
     
    I've tried dealing with that by applying some earth weathering powder and then washing most of it off the brickwork. I'd appreciate your views on the result. Worth putting a roof on?
     

     
    thanks
    David
  20. Fen End Pit
    Over the last few weeks I've been drawing up a laser cutting drawing for a Great Eastern Railway '1865' style building. These were built on several lines including the Stour valley line, conveniently these came in three sizes, small, medium and large. The Great Eastern Railway society publish some plans of the small version Takeley and an ancient April 1986 copy of Practical Model Railways has drawings of the Medium taken from Lavenham.
     
    I've decided to try this as an experiment on cutting using Acrylic rather than MDF. I had some white 3mm Acrylic and I obtain some .7mm Acrylic/ABS mix from HPC laser.
     

     
    Just the base here cut from 3mm Acrylic. It worked ok and the joints seem very strong with Plastic Weld. I've tried using a mitre joint on the small shed end of the building using the sanding disk in Makespace. I had to use a little model filler on the corners but I think the corners might look better than the 'interlocking' method but we'll see once it is painted.
     

     
    The building has brick adornments on the corners and around the windows and here I've tried using the .7mm material from HPC laser. This isn't listed on their website but you can ask for it if you ring them. The material cuts a lot better than pure ABS and I can see that it has potential.
     

     
    Once I stuck the quoins onto the base it does begin to look like an 1865 station building.
     
    I think I need to practice a bit with some of the strengths/speeds of the laser to get the brick engraving and cutting better but as an experiment in what the materials can do I'm happy so far.
     
    David
  21. Fen End Pit
    Fen End Pit had a very enjoyable day out at the Leighton Buzzard narrow gauge railway, making an exhibition of ourselves in the locomotive shed at Page's Park. The stand next to us from the Darjeeling railway society probably felt at home with the morning monsoon but the roof on the shed didn't leak and we had an appreciative crowd who enjoyed playing 'spot the Leighton Buzzard locomotive' on Fen End Pit. (It isn't difficult as the answer is 'most of them!')
     

     
    Additional sound effects were not required with the wonderful sounds of the Baldwin rushing the bank out of Page's Park, the first run of the morning needing a second attempt due to slippy rails.
     

     
    Thanks to the Leighton Buzzard folks for the invitation.
     
    David
  22. Fen End Pit
    A few weeks work and progress can definitely be seen on the E4. I'd been concentrating on the body but today was the day to try and get some wheels in place. The loan of a GW wheel quartering jig from Middlepeak Tool Hire made this so much smoother. Being original Alan Gibson wheels these had the hole already drilled for the crank pins, another help when putting things together. You'll see from the photograph of the underside that the chassis is built using 'continuous springy beams' with High Level kits horn blocks and spring carriers. I did some tweaking this morning before putting it all together to get the handrail knobs that support the beam on the chassis better in line with the holes in the spring carriers. The result is that the spring is now straight in the horizontal plane which I think will help the springing, certainly it avoids the spring introducing pressure on the hornblocks to bow 'in or out' at the bottom.
     
    Having constructed the chassis and fitted the hornblocks using the coupling rods as a jig is was very satisfying that the rods fitted on the wheels first time and rotated without any binding at all. I haven't had to introduce any 'slop' additional clearance into any of the crank pin holes at all. The bearings are a good sliding fit with very little movement front to back which helps.
     

     
    The beams aren't completely continuous as being a 2-4-0 there is a considerable height difference between the axle of the front wheel and driving wheels. I've put a separate spring beam over the front axle while the drivers have the springs under the axle (actually just like the prototype!). I'm treating the chassis a bit like an 0-6-0 though from the point of view of side play on the wheels, The front and rear axles don't have very much at all with just a little introduced onto the centre axle but removing the plastic boss on the back of the Gibson wheel to give about .5mm.
     

     
    The superstructure is being built in two parts to allow the motor and gear train to be well hidden. The boiler is designed to slide onto the front of the cab and then get bolted onto the footplate. This has taken a bit of fiddling but I think it is going to work. The High Level gearbox helpfully allows you to remove the motor without having to take the worm gear off the shaft.
     

     
    I did have one of the 'oh $%1t' moments this morning when I found that the cab floor had pushed the inside of the cab too far apart so that there wasn't really enough clearance for the back-to-back of the rear wheels. Unfortunately there was nothing for it but to take the floor out, file it a little narrower and then refit pulling the inside of the cab lockers in slightly, It only needed about .75mm to give some clearance. In the process some of the soldering around the cab sides came apart which is why there is more solder showing around the footplate. This will get cleaned up later.
     

     
    When I said 'Rolling Chassis' I meant it, You can actually push the loco along with you finger now and it is free enough to roll with the rods not binding.
     

     
    The reversing lever is fitted to the footplate as will the Westinghouse pump which is on the right hand side of the loco. This side also has a pair of handrail knobs on the smokebox while the other side has only one. This is because the handrail concealed a rod to drive a little crank (sorry to be so technical).
     

     
     
    Getting dangerously close to fitting the motor and trying to apply some power. For now I'll quit while I'm ahead.
     
    David
  23. Fen End Pit
    Today I rewheeled and chipped my Heljan Railbus which was given to me at Christmas. It was a bit of a fiddle, why manufacturers make it so difficult to dismantle their stock to put chips in I'll never know. Having to remove the horns to get at the bolts and then prise the top off with a scalpel isn't my idea of fun. At least I'd purchased a 21-pin chip that just slotted in (once I got it the right way up). Rewheeling was fun too. The masak casting that forms the chassis (actually it is so heavy I think it might be depleted uranium) had slots in to take the wheels. However these were extremely tight once you had P4 wheels to fit and they needed a bit of widening with a burr in a mini-drill. The gear comes off the original OO axle with relative ease and slid back over the 2mm axle of the P4 profile 'black beetle' wheels I'd purchased from DC Kits. After a fair bit of fiddling and the addition of some teflon grease it runs quite smoothly.
     

     
    Still left to do is to re-attach the handrails and put on the additional footsteps. Unfortunately I'll probably also want to take the top off again to add some crew and passengers.
     
    David
  24. Fen End Pit
    Pleasure...
     
    I spent most of Saturday playing trains. I intended to 'do some work' on the layout, but having built the sidings and got the double-slip working I just seemed to let the afternoon slip by shunting trains in and out. I can see I'm going to have fun trying to 'think like the real railway staff'. Things like trying to work out how the pick-up goods would have been marshalled to make shunting at each station more straightforward or see how you would swap empty and full wagons out of the coal siding and 'spot' vehicles in the yard at suitable positions for loading and unloading. Add to that the requirement to keep the main line as clear as possible for through services and extra 'operational requirements' such as trying to shunt without requiring the level crossing to be closed and you have great potential to lose a few hours.
     
    Most things worked pretty well with issues generally tracked down to problems with specific pieces of rolling stock, back-to-backs and even wheels so covered in 'cack' that there wasn't much flange left.
     
    So by way of penance on Sunday I decided to do something that was a pain!
     
    I decided to try and fit some point rodding. Now I can't say much about the Brassmaster's etches because I was responsible for the original artwork. That does mean that I can't blame anyone else when they are fiddly, but at least they aren't designed for 'S' gauge like the new Wills ones. The hardest part though is trying to thread them on the square .5mm brass wire which has been coiled up tightly and has a mind of its own. Still I'm quite pleased with the results.
     

     
    Working out the rodding routes meant trying to think like a signal engineer and find ways to getting the rodding between the sleepers. As I couldn't find a simple route through from the switch at the yard entrance direct to the main rodding run at the behind the loop this run goes to the front of line and then picks up the far end of the double slip. The switch at the near end of the slip would have been controlled by a hand lever but I think for ease of operation I'm probably going to use a lever in the frame just to avoid having 'an odd lever' on the front of the layout.
     

     
    I thought fitting the rodding before painting the track and ballasting would probably be easier than trying to scrape away ballast to plant the rodding stools later.
     
    Probably the scariest moment was spotting that I did the artwork for these in 1993. Boy does that seem a long time ago!
     
    David
  25. Fen End Pit
    The small yard on Empire mill is entered by a trailing point from the down-line. This had been built while I was building the continuous run around the room. However the yard itself needed a asymmetric double slip to give access to the two sidings and the cattle-dock. the crossings are all 1:8 but one of the curved sides is quite a bit tighter that the other. As with the rest of the track Templot was used to draw it out. The crossings, both standard and obtuse were made as separate units soldered up to some nickel silver strip.
     

     
    Ignore the large hole in the baseboard, this was originally going to be were the lever frame was going to fit, but I've had a change of plan now and a separate box is going to be built to hold the frame which will then fit roughly where it is on the photograph. The slip has taken a fair bit of tweaking, but I can now reverse trains in and shunt between the sidings at speeds faster than scale.
     

     
    Typically the photograph points out a couple of missing chairs so I'd better go and fix that.
     
    Friday night was spend continuing to make up another 5 levers of Shropshire and Herefordshire Area Group (spelt in full to avoid the web censor!) lever frame as Empire Mill needs more levers than Empire Basin.
     
    David
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