Greengiant

The main road overbridge has had some initial colour applied... ...along with the addition of walkway railings. Martin

A test section of platform was made to try out painting techniques. While trials progressed the main platforms were masked up ready for spraying. Martin

Station canopies have now been given a coat of primer Platforms have also had a coat of primer and houses have started to appear. We used the excellent Scalescenes downloadable kit files, these are a very good resemblance to the house in Swanley. To save building time, we recreated the window files as two layers and cut these with a laser in card, then laminated and painted them before finally affixing acetate to the rear. We also made an assembly jig to ensure accurate assembly. Martin

This Saturday The Yard will be at the Chelmsford show along with a number of other narrow gauge layouts. We have been working on solving a problem we were starting to have with the gantry crane hook twisting as it was lowered, this started to make loading a bit of a challenge and took the fun out of operating. Several sizes of snake chain were tried but none would bend small enough to go around the hook pulley. I have quite a selection of small chains, collected over the years as and when I saw them at shows. By chance one of them worked very well and reduced the twisting to a very small amount, but still not spot on. Looking at the whole assembly it was thought the current loop of wire and acetate guides were doing the job, nearly, but were hit and miss on adjustment, so in an effort to improve this a new guide was designed which had a much more precise adjustment facility. New upper and lower guides were 3D printed, these had radiused slots to guide the chain and four holes to enable mounting with lengths of 8BA threaded rod. The new guides assembled and ready for mounting in the crane chassis. To enable the small amount of adjustment we required the lower guide rod mounting holes were elongated on a radius so the plate can rotate around the centre. This is then clamped in position on the rod with nuts and washers. This is the MK1 version when we did not have the elongated holes, we thought this would have worked, which it did, but not exactly enough so hence the adjustable bottom plate was then 3D printed. When mounted in the crane it is barely noticeable. In an effort to reduce the number of packages we need to take to exhibitions and the safety of the removable bits and pieces, we have fitted out some flight cases to hold these items. The crane is now packed in it's own case along with the charger and lifting loads, as well as spare chains should one break! Another case has three of the handsets, the third case has the the three lorries, the fourth controller and chargers. If you go to the Chelmsford show, do pop by and say hello. Martin

Thank you, silly mistake but with a lot of things going on it did not spring to mind about the support height. Having said that I have yet to find where you set the vertical zero point for the E2, the workaround I have done is effectively added 15mm to the material thickness in the library. Of course I could be incredibly thick and missed the blindingly obvious which would not surprise me these days! Martin

Update and a warning about using the 3D printed brackets. If like me you completely forget the support blocks are 15mm taller than the supplied cutting mats, when you run the machine damage will occur, mine broke a rail mounting bracket, so all my cutting plans are now on hold. I have raised a support ticket so hopefully can get a replacement and suggested a note be included in the original guide for people like me that when using the support blocks instead of cutting mat that height settings will need to be changed. Martin

I have 3D printed some magnetic material support blocks for my E2 using the Darkly Labs files, this enables me to hold even small or odd shaped pieces precisely, also it helps flatten large bowed sheets, they are the same height as the supplied cutting mats so my settings stay the same. There are two types, one with a large head bolt for clamping around the edge of the material and a pointed block set to support in the middle underneath. Martin

That is looking lovely Giles. Martin

We had trouble with a number of our ones not switching properly. A friend of mine stripped and cleaned the switches and treated them to a special grease which has transformed reliabiliy. I will find out what he used and report back. Martin

Work has started on preparing the signals, of which there are three semaphore and two ground signals. Construction will be by etched brass, 3D printing, milling and hand cutting, whichever process suits each component best. Etch artwork has been started and a trial set of parts was laser cut from the artwork in 300gsm card to test the concept and highlight any potential construction issues , plus they could be positioned on the layout like the rough buildings. Some of the base artwork cut out. Rough assembled platform starter signal. A waft of white primer and positioned on the layout. The bases the signals are mounted on will be deep and sunk into sockets in the scenery, these bases will contain the operating servos so this will make setting them up on the workbench easier. The speakers will probably mounted behind the fascia, unless we can find a way to bury and disguise them in the landscape. I was going to laser cut the base boxes and sockets and coat them in DAS and carve that, but I have been inspired by the great work done by Niki Wilkes with PVC Foamex, so have now got a pile of 1mm, 2mm, 3mm, and 5mm to play with. I have also been watching a series of YouTube videos of someone using this material for making the buildings for his garden railway, so will us it for that as well. Made a start carving the top surface from 3mm Foamex, which comes out about right for a 1/19th scale paving block brick. I have been using cake decorators tools for the embossing, I got a large bundle of various sizes off eBay for about £6.00! It was not until I sanded the surface did I find out one side has a peelable protective clear sheet applied! I will know now for next time. Martin

This time of year a couple of us get involved with our classic cars and the layout takes a bit of a back seat, so to generate some enthusiasm to get on with things, we made some rough colour mock-ups of the three buildings on the layout and position them in place to get a feel for composition. The run round end of Stony Shaw station. The approach end of the station. Signal box with the station in the background, a very difficult view point on the real thing unless you had a very tall step ladder! Finally the goods shed. A view of the first four scenic boards. The plywood at the top was for helping us decide fascia height, we have now set this at 21 inches from underside of fascia to the bottom of the baseboard, which is a lot lower than this picture shows. Martin

Latest update on progress, all be it slow! We have now made a storage box for the RotaYard, this was a multi-part requirement, one, to store it so it takes up less room than it's component parts spread all over the workshop, two, to protect and keep it clean and three, so it can be easily moved for when it will shortly be off for the final fitment of the drive system and associated detectors and electronics. The combined box and RotaYard is a heavy old lump to carry, we shall probably make some form of trolley when the time comes to exhibit. Martin

Sounds like a short some were or the controller lead disconnecting, the clips on the leads are not the best, I changed all mine for Cat5 leads. Something else you can do to stop the system shutting down on a short is wire a 12v, 21watt car bulb into one of the two power feed wires from the main unit. I did this on Whiteoak Light Railway and it tranformed the running against accidental shorts. When you get a short, the bulb lights and takes the strain off the main unit and gives you a goid indication of a short. There are more technical versions of this, I just kept it simple. Martin

This week we put up the first four scenic boards in readiness for starting work on the landscape. View from the goods yard towards Stony Shaw station in the background. Low level view from the mainline up to the goods shed. Component parts for the first of two points that make up the crossing by the signal box. From the opposite direction. Stony Shaw station end. Two card coach mock ups at Stony Shaw station. All of the stock and infrastructure has to be scratch built, so everything has to be drawn first, a start has been made on a number of items. Wormshill the Hudwell diesel. One of the coach pairs. Some of the signals. Martin

We got them from Hesketh Scale Models as complete motor/gearbox/axle units. From memory I don’t think they were listed on the site, just by contact. Worth a try they may just do the skew gear. Martin

Hi Giles, thank you. Yes I removed the glazing, drilled out the rivets, even then they needed a slight lever under the roof to get them to release, they are also a snug fit in the apertures, but it is doable. I completely stripped the paint, the factory paint on our one was quite thick and reduced some of the moulded detail of the body. I need to repaint it, in some places it has since flaked! I probably should have left the primer a few more days, next time will use an etch primer first, but not before SWING. Also on the list is to scratch build mirrors and wipers, somewhere along the line we have mislaid all but one wiper. Will be good to see you at SWING, how about the J9, have not seen that in the flesh in action? Would also like to have a good look underneath of both. Martin

Thank you, we took our inspiration from the work done by Giles converting his vehicles. They certainly add a new dimension to operating the railway. Martin

Sorry only just seen your post, thank you, very kind of you to say so, glad you enjoyed it. Martin

The TK eventually got a new coat of paint and lines up with the other two lorries. All was going fine until the worm on the rear axle broke free, it appears the knurling was not up to scratch, so no option but to hack out the Milliput to get the motor, gearbox and axle out! Some would say it ended up looking like a drugs bust. I ended up soldering the worm gear, shouldn't slip now. A short video of a test run. Martin

Pleased to say the layout performed well all weekend at the Epsom show with only a few issues, a detached point blade in one of the factory loops on the Saturday hampered some of the shunting, but was able to be worked around until a repair could be made on the Sunday morning. Found a comprehensive video of the whole show on YouTube, our layout appears at 27 minutes in for about 7 minutes. Martin

We enjoyed ourselves exhibiting Theobald’s Yard, thank you for inviting us, we will be back next year with our latest layout The Yard. Found this video on YouTube which gives a good comprehensive coverage of the show. Martin

In the meantime the electrics have now been completed on the Morris. An underside view showing the 3D printed rocking steering mechanism, battery plug and charger socket unit, on/off switch and N20 motor power unit, above the motor and rear axle is the battery. A short video of the lorry on the workbench. Martin

An update on the artic, the tractor unit rear mudguards needed new brackets fabricated. The half round section above the light pod needs to be removed and flattened to the mudguard itself. Some suitable size brass rod was tack soldered to brass bar, this ensures it can be held firm in a vice and ensure the ability to file a parallel level flat the width of the mudguard at each end. One of the finished brackets. Both brackets glued in place, next stop the paint shop. Martin

We also had a Morris Commercial spare that was ripe for conversion. So steering, motor, lighting and RC where rigged up for testing. This worked well, so now all the bits had to be accommodated in the body and chassis. We had a nice large battery for this one, to install while keeping the same bed height, the chassis and back of rear mudguards were filed away to make room. A plastic bearing block was glued in to stop the crown wheel moving along the axle. A new lighting beam was made and mounted onto the chassis with the original light boards removed from the cast bed moulding. This enables all wiring to be contained on the chassis and none on the bodywork. A pin system on the back of the cab locates the front of the bed, while the bed floor clamps it and the battery down with one of the original mounting screws at the rear. The new lighting beam with the bed in place. All fixed in place with the two battery leads ready to be routed to the front of the chassis. Lorry now with Neale to do the electrics, install lights, on/off switch and charging socket. Then it will be back for the final painting, this will then give us three lorries for operating on The Yard. Martin

With the SWING show fast approaching on the 18 May, attention has turned to building a Bedford TK artic. We have been very fortunate in Giles kindly loaning us his lorry for a number of shows, but we really do need to produce our own one. A Bedford was acquired and a start made on scratch building a flat bed trailer. The bed and under tray was laser cut from 1.5mm ply, this will give us a pocket to house the battery, mounting system and wire runs. Brass angle and channel was cut and taped to an assembly jig which was laser cut from 2mm MDF. When soldered the framework was removed from the jig, quite a fragile structure so had to be handled with care for the time being. The battery housing recess was laminated from two parts, they also encapsulate a chassis mounting bolt which was superglued in place, to stop the bolt breaking loose in the future a short section of wire was glued in a recess and groove in the bolt head. A new rear light housing beam was made from brass channel and drilled to accept LEDs. Then soldered to the rear of the trailer along with a lower protection bar, or whatever they are called. Next I fitted the trailer socket, but stupidly had not allowed for the trailer swing when in use! So rather than try and unsolder the beam and risk the whole front coming undone, a patch was made for the old hole and a new central hole was cut for the socket. The trailer bed now located with the chassis, held in place by the captive bolt behind the back axle and a clamp and captive bolt near the front. The chassis was filed down on top of the rails to give the final amount of space for the battery. Trailer framework has been painted dark green, the cab will be to when alterations have been competed and the bed itself has been painted and weathered. The trailer was passed to Neale who did the battery install and wiring. Here you can see the battery sandwiched between bed and chassis, on top of the battery and between the chassis rails is a 3D printed tray which houses the charging socket and on/off switch, this has tabs that rest on the chassis rails, clamped in place by the battery and bed. Wiring for the LED lights is in place, the thicker shrink wrapped cable at the front goes through a groove near the fifth wheel swivel and to the central socket which is itself in it's own 3D printed mount which allows the socket to be slightly recessed into the front beam. This means the trailer contains the bulk of the electrics, easily separated from the tractor unit with one plug. Now the tractor unit. We got hold of a batch of motor gearbox units with a simple diff unit with rear axle. This was fixed in place with Milliput, the piece of ply clamped to the chassis is holding the motor unit level until the top application of Milliput cures. A view from underneath with the lower application of Milliput. Unfortunately the knurling for the worm on the axle was not that good and eventually released losing drive, so the whole lot had to be stripped back to parts to get the motor and gearbox out so better fixing of the worm could be carried out. I increased the knurling quite crudely then fixed the worm back in place with the aid of some super glue. Back to a pile of bits! Here can also be seen the 3D printed front axle unit and bearings Neale 3D printed after some development collaboration with Giles. Also in the wheels can be seen 3D printed bearing holders that clip into the rear recess of the wheels. On finally assembly the carriers will have a very small amount of cyano wicked in to hold them firmly. The tractor unit also needs working lights on the rear mudguards, so the old lights needed to be removed, a hole created over which a small light mounting plate will be added. Here the righthand light pod has been cut out. Small Nickel silver plates have been made to mount the LEDs, these have also now been chemically blackened. To give an idea of size the holes are 1.8mm diameter. While the main tractor unit has gone off to Neale for wring and final RC install, I need to make new mudguard brackets that clear the motor gearbox unit, these will be fabricated from brass rod. Once the tractor comes back to me, final painting in corporate two tone green will take place along with some light weathering. Martin