richbrummitt

I see Nick has got the second stage rocket boosters onto that bar now; raising it up again. Once the working lamps (with connectors integrated into the lamp irons so the headcode can be changed) geostationary orbit of aforementioned bar will have been accomplished.

Nice drawers I’m more likely to leave the bottle top off the plastic weld than knock it over. It seems to evaporate at about a bottle a day so there is none left to knock over by the time I realise. The air mixture that is created makes your throat sore and head ache. Not recommended.

Didn't spot the bolt head profile but the fit of the headstocks (and they taper - outer to inner face - from the mould process) gave it away to me. Some filler prior to painting would have made it a much harder pick.

Is the lack of interior more or less apparent in those pictures compared with the examples in my drawer that you cannot see through due to black lumpiness and red wiring? I bought them because I too grew up with them (kind of - it was more likely to be a a 143 or 144 I think) and I have not looked closely enough to see the shape issues. I already have all of those except the 158, which is of no interest. I will probably pass on these but I would like something appropriate for SYPTE Metro livery along similar lines. That is if someone would like to take it on.

Eventually I admitted defeat, remeasured the space for the microswitches, and ordered new spacers. These fitted much more easily and quickly than shortening my cut down efforts. The lever frame has wires fitted and tails attached with the plugs for the mega points board. The circuit tester was out at this point for a check and checking again as I made each soldered connection. I put in what I think will be plenty of cable for the time being. This little board is starting to get a little unwieldy now with wires to the lever frame and wires with a plug to supply power for the servos and so on. It needs some temporary legs or something at least. My doubt now is that it will ever be possible to fit it into the shell of the baseboard that I planned it to go in due to the shape and the growing quantity of protrusions. As such I’m considering my options here for both how to house this bit of track, and what to do with Meeth. It’s finally ready for a track clean and test though, which is a major milestone. Oh, and I found the turnings for the lever frame in a little jam jar. Some surface rust that I’m hoping a dip in some phosphoric acid and a polish will cure.

Sheets should be folded loosely and stood on end. I wouldn’t have thought of doing it like that. It would be good to know a little more about how to load a wagon of sheets being returned. It would make something interesting and different, but clearly usual in the pre-pooling era.

If you are talking of JB model world then I believe he uses closed cell foam (based on conversations I had with him about the packing). I’ve had some of these for enough years to lose count and not suffered. They are all blue boxes that I have rather than the ‘really useful’ type in Julia’s image. He does use these too, but only for larger scales.

I think you had all that was useful from my rummage box of coach parts @Nig H?

Wondering if I can justify such a wagon in the early 20’s somewhere - as yet undecided - between Reading and Westbury...

I normally go until my battery almost dies. This morning it did well, maybe because it was only 15degC in the workshop, and I got called in to sort lunch first.

I think posters for movie releases date things quite well if the observer knows when that particular movie was released. When I first spotted the Aliens poster on P4 New Street a date was immediately made clear to me.

Everything that falls out of the tweezers magically spawns this device and activates it in the act of landing. Even if I see where it lands I cannot find it when it has landed.

Memory? I think you are aware that -missy- is most definitely not ‘he’. Presumably a typo?

Notice also in your prototype photo that the crane has the hook caught onto a fixed point to stow it when not in use.

we’re going to need a bigger printer

More progress: All seems to be working as it should. I’m not sure that the mega points board will stay exactly as located but it is sensible to screw it on, at least for the time being. Nearest the camera is the hole where two more servos will go for the catches and furthest away is the temporary plug arrangement for track power. As input to the control switches are required. I have been repurposing a Scalefour Society lever frame. For the modelled area 4 levers are needed - 2 for switches and 2 for signals. The frames come in groups of 5 levers so one will be a spare. This spare is currently blue because its prior destiny was as a FPL. One of the points (in the yard) was not worked from the ‘box but it makes sense to have it here for the model. Reordering the levers from how they were previously arranged was not difficult. The numbering is no longer sequential but I only ever really fixed the numbers in place to give an area to affix some proper representations of the lever brasses. I had to refit the switches and that took rather more effort. The spacers did not seem to fit back in so I bought some plastic PCB type spacers that turned out to be the wrong length. Fortunately too long and I assumed that it would be a simple job to shorten them a bit. Cutting them square proved to be a challenge. Eventually I found that I could reliably hold them to shorten and keep the ends square enough in an X-Acto knife handle. Somewhere I have the turned steel handles to finish off the levers. Something else to add to the list of items to hunt for.

Version 3 of the OK F axlebox is working out reasonably well. The first version required the holes drilling through the initial layers, which was a pain. Version 2 lifted off the bed and tried to orient in a way that facilitated cleaning/clearing of the hole. It failed due to holes in the print, being difficult to remove from the bed and the separation point not being obvious enough to see and find. The hole was still often not defined or obvious due to the over processing required for the initial layers. Now the lift part of the print has an obvious step to cut into (achieved easily with a JLC saw as recommended by Ian M) and the initial hole size is much larger allowing the cleaner to do it’s thing and the hole is clear from the off. It takes 18mins to print 3 dozen axle boxes. The border aids removal from the plate and prevents them falling through the basket in the wash machine. Each box takes about a minute to separate with the aforementioned saw.

Please don’t stick it in the oven with the roast: The temperature that a roast goes in at similar to the temperature you would take plastic up to make it all gooey for injection moulding. My Dad once tried to ‘line bend’ some plastic in the oven over a former for something to do with his PhD. It really smelled bad and almost caught fire. Fortunately the kitchen was next to the front door and the offending article could be dispatched to the garden promptly. Somehow the smell subsided sufficiently that my Mum didn’t notice when she arrived home and he got away with it in that respect.

You mean like the Z Corp machines that have been around for a decade already: Example Z-Corp review

Adhesives are available that would fix the thinner brass cranks to the axles without the soldering issues, if you can get past the appearance in your mind. Seem to quite commonly available from helicopter and drone hobby suppliers for fixing props/gears to motor shafts (so similar applications). If not that or the suggestion in the previous comment then you are talking yourself into replacing the (over width?) outside frames.

That’s default 3D CAD views for you. I’ve got dumb to it after 10+ years in several similar software tools. I assume they all do it unless you turn the perspective setting (where available)

The mounting of the gate to the post.

This assumes a K factor of, I think, 0.5. Ever sheet metal shop seems to have their own ideas on this for the same materials. What matters is that this works for us. On a 180° bend I use a longer tag with a 'hourglass' shape (narrower right in the middle) that encourages the bend in the centre of the tag such that the part alignment is close to begin with. I also put them on the opposite side to a 90° bend, which Chris and you both do iirc.

Less time available in this ‘lockdown’ than at any time in the past year. In addition the evenings are cold and wet so I am less inclined to get to the workshop. I had a tidy up of some items on the workbench into the unbuilt kits and bits storage units and a very little time on some other projects that have not been progressed much further. I ordered and received a few more Dingo servo mounts; sufficient for the other switches and the two signals that will appear in the scenic modelled area. I also had one of the infrequent but seemingly regular needs to actually attend work premises that gave me an opportunity to use a filament printer to create a few more of the discs and spacers for the servos to adapt the travel of the mounts. Now I have the parts to progress. Much fiddling during the last ZAG call got one of the servo mounts aligned centrally to the stretcher bar movement. (Honestly, I was not waving the board around in the front of the camera frantically until Laurie commented on it!) I have since done the other one that is already attached. Not especially photogenic. This shows the modification to the servo horn. Holes drilled out for 4 pegs of 2mm diameter. The larger the peg on the 3DP component the stronger it is. More pegs hopefully share the load. This another view showing how it fits in. The spacers are not obvious. This one needed two sets though. The filament has changed colour. Whoever orders the filament gets to choose the colour so it changes every time the reel is exhausted (yellow ones were printed more recently than the green) Now I must pluck up the courage to attach the Megapoints board and get these two set up and working. That and some track plus wheel cleaning is preventing playing trains. Ahem, I mean testing.

Now this is exciting. Two things I have learnt about worm mesh during the rebuild of a pannier tank (still not finished though it was started some time ago when you were at the beginning of the scrap tank build) is that it could be helpful to paint the inside of that fold up worm 'box' a very light colour so that the mesh is quite visible when looking into what might otherwise be darkness behind and the mesh can be adjusted a tiny amount by bending the upright between the main part of the frame and the 'box'.