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Peter & Seth

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  1. Peter & Seth
    Where does the time go? Been far too busy with other things, e.g., work, children, DIY, etc., to make much progress, but in an attempt to build and maintain momentum I have joined the Farnham & District Model Railway Club! F&DMRC have a great N-gauge group and a fantastic exhibition layout in the form of Basingstoke. Looking forward to learning lots, meeting nice like-minded people and hopefully contributing something to the new N-gauge layout, Warwick.
     
    Other than that I have finally cut, fitted and pinned all the track in place. Next job is to solder dropper wires onto the straight sections (I've already done the DCC dropper-link conversions on all 10 points) and then straight connecting things up to some sort of bus main.
     
    Whilst I await delivery of my Octopus III from Tam Valley Depot in San Diego, CA., I started thinking about where I'm going to put all the buttons and indicators for controlling the points. This naturally lead to some armchair modelling on the laptop to create a control panel overlay. As I know next to nothing about how real railways work it's guesswork coupled with artistic licence. Well, it makes sense to me!
     

  2. Peter & Seth
    It's been so long since my last post. All hope of entering, let alone winning, the Challenge 2010 competition has been lost! Still, I've managed to get back into modelling again now that family life has settled down a bit. By leaving my layout and tools neatly to the side of the dining room I've been able to do the odd hour or two most evenings recently.
     
    I'm really pleased with the trackwork so far. Taking my time to get it neat and doing it properly, such as modify points with frog-switching. I even bought a Dremel clone to cut, grind and file rails!
     
    All that's left is the odd looking long road at the back of the layout (this is to be my main hidden re-railing / fiddle-yard / DCC-programming track) and the two short roads into the shed but these will have to wait till I've built a pair of Scalescenes.com R002c Inspection Pits.
     

  3. Peter & Seth
    Work on the Harpers Road baseboard continues apace. I'm quite into it now and feel motivated after successfully overcoming the first hurdle of building a decent baseboard.
     
    Yesterday I set to work by filling the screw heads, sanding and applying a coat of Japlac Primer & Undercoat in Off-White:
     

     
     
    Today I managed to do both coats of Rustins Matt Black:
     

     
     

     
    Not quite sure what I should next? Probably using more plywood to create the foundation of the dividing walls between scene and fiddle yard. I'm also debating whether or not to install a cork trackbed underlay?
  4. Peter & Seth
    After a 5 month hiatus post Banana Terror and as indicated in #7 Rethink I am back in construction mode having completed the new baseboard.
     

    Probably a weird way of going about it but I have used a simple glued'n'screwed butt joint because I wanted to have a 3mm "lip" all the way around the edge. I've seen this on other layouts and think it looks very neat. I bet it's a great way to stop ballast and grass from falling off during construction.
     

    Lots and lots and lots of "Stronger Than The Wood Itself" applied along the seam as well as inbetween the joint.
     

    One of the side plates. Bomb-proof screwing!
     

    Close-up of the 3mm "lip".
     

    The complete baseboard.
     

    Current state of the baseboard. This shot was taken just after I finished glueing the life-size XTrkCad plans on using a 50:50 mix of EVO-STIK Wood Adhesive and water.
     
    The next TO-DO items are to fill-in the screw heads, sand and paint. Can't make my mind up between common black or some very nice Country Cream self-undercoating exterior matt?
  5. Peter & Seth
    The baseboard is born!
     
    We have finally overcome the first, and I'm sure many would agree, hardest hurdle when building a model railway: actually doing something in the real world instead of pouring over magazines, catalogues, the internet or endlessly designing your layout on paper.
     
    As Harpers Road is only 48" wide and 9" deep it was never going to take long to do baseboard, around about an hour or two (in-between Seth's constant stream of questions about the tools in my workshop). The top was a straight cut to take 9" off the long edge of a small 1200x600mm sheet of 9mm MDF. The frame is made from two short and two long lengths of 28x44mm round-edged planed spruce. All the wood was surplus to the loft conversion I did at home. I didn't quite have enough to to two full-length strips front and back hence why the joints are the opposite way around on either side.
     
    The joints are simple butt joints held together with 50mm chipboard screws (through countersunk pilot holes) and lots of Bostik PVA Wood Glue. The top was glue to the frame with more PVA and held in place with a few panel pins.
     

     

     

     

     
    Once every thing was dry we then printed our revised v3 XTrkCad plans at 1:1, trimmed them down and glued them onto the top using PVA wood glue. Air bubbles were removed using a hard lino cut inking roller.
     

     

     

     
    So far, so good. Next step will be to add some MDF strips to provide the foundation of the retaining wall and bridge in front of the fiddle yard.
     
    Regards,
     
    Peter & Seth
  6. Peter & Seth
    Oh, dear! The best-laid plans of mice and men, and all that...
     
    My spanking new baseboard has suffered a terrible setback due to a terrible shortfall in planning on my part. The problem? Acclimatisation.
     
    Basically, the wood (MDF sheet and spruce) has been sat in my unheated workshop all winter. I made the baseboard out in the workshop in the cold - it only took and hour or two, so no need to put the heater on. After spending a few days tucked up all cosy and warm in my understairs cupboard the MDF and spruce reached room temperature, probably dried out a little and have most definitely expanded or contracted at different rates.
     
    The result? I now have a banana shaped baseboard that was originally absolutely, perfectly flat.
     

     

     
    Oh well, back to square one. For Mk.II I'll bring the wood indoors for a few days and then build the baseboard.
  7. Peter & Seth
    Scalescenes.com Low Relief Warehouse
     
    We've built several N-gauge Metcalfe kits but now that we have decided to model a modern diesel-era scene we don't have much use for a period country station or goods shed (shame, I was rather pleased with the finished results but my wife thinks they looks great on the mantelpiece).
     
    We like card modelling and have scratchbuilt other non-railway models such as space rockets, satellites and famous landmarks. After a little Googling we discovered Scalescenes.com. Whilst not strictly scratchbuilding in its purest form the flexibility of the kits and wide range of extra textures and accessories make creating unique models very easy.
     
    As a tester/taster we downloaded the free Low Relief Warehouse R002b in TX07 Aged Brown Brick and hastily printed it out on cheap copier paper using the office colour laser printer. Construction was very straight forward as the instructions are very well presented (the owner of Scalescenes.com is a graphic designer by trade) and clearly a lot of thought and experimentation has gone into the design. There were some very good tips, such as using a glue-stick for large flat areas and then rollering to remove air bubbles.
     
    What we like most about these kits though is the careful use of real photographic textures. They have been applied with care such that there is no discernible pattern repeat.
     
    So here is the result of two short evenings of work with scalpel, ruler, cutting mat and Roket Card Glue:
     

     

     
    The only problem we had was cracking of the printed surface when wrapped back on itself around thin edges. The solution we found was to use liberal amounts of PVA to soften the paper for a few minutes before fixing in place, much like the effect paste has on wallpaper.
     
    Peter & Seth
  8. Peter & Seth
    After considering the helpful comments on previous posts we have revised the layout for Harpers Road so that we can include an engine shed without the need for a set of 3-way points.
     
    Our first attempt to jiggle things around was a complete disaster in over-complication so the v2 plans were consigned to the bin. Hence the new plan is referred to as v3:
     

     
    The right-hand front siding has been doubled by using an extra left-hand curved point. The two tracks will lead into the engine shed which can now be located on the extreme right-hand front of the layout (marked blue on the plan). As the layout is only 9" wide the hidden fiddle yard has been reduced from 5 lanes to 4 (we don't have that much rolling stock yet).
     
    The back-wallon the left half has been pushed back to create a large clear area. After a lazy train journey from Ash to Wokingham last week I noticed all sorts of light industrial scenes that could be modelled in this area including a waterworks, gas towers, industrial units, ISO container self-storage, scrap yard, car dealer, permanent way ballast yard (as seen adjacent to Woking station). The list is almost endless and I really enjoy the modelling part of railway modelling.
     
    As a final enhancement just to spice things up the entire layout has been rotated as much as possible to prevent any rails from running parallel to the baseboard.
     
    Peter & Seth
  9. Peter & Seth
    As described in our first post our bookshelf N-gauge layout is going to be closely based on the excellent OO Dudley Road by Pete Harvey. We have attempted to recreate the plan using Peco Code 55 in XTrkCad.
     
    One problem we have encountered so far seems to be the lack of 3-way points in N-gauge let alone a set with Code 55 rail. We've looked at offerings from Fleischmann, Trix and Arnold but they look so different they'd really stick out like a sore thumb. Rumour has it that Peco are due to release an asymmetric 3-way point in 2010 but according to the first comment on our first blog entry it's not likely until Q4 2010!
     
    We may have to have a little re-think concerning the location of the engine shed in the back-left corner. One possible solution would be to extend the baseboard by 6-12" so that an extra 2-way could be used to get the additional split. The drawback is that I'd have to buy a larger piece of MDF when I already have some 1200mm x 600mm sheets. Another option, as suggested by James Hilton, would be to use the rear track for a station. Nothing is set in stone at this point so we'll see what comes about.
     
    In the mean time we have printed a 1:1 copy of the layout and affixed it to the uncut baseboard to get a feel for the general size by placing a few engines on it:
     

     
    Also visible on the baseboard are many of our N-gauge items chosen by Seth over the last few years (hence the very random selection!) during visits to The Watercress Line, The Warley Show, Didcot Parkway, Alton Models, Antics (Guildford), Models of Distinction (Farnham) and many others:
    Farish Class 04 in BR blue
    Farish Class 08 in Railfreight Distribution livery
    Peco SL-E392F left-hand points
    Gaugemaster dual controller
    A complete loop with sidings in Peco Setrack
    3 x Roco flatbeds (one with set of pipes)
    Various Dapol, Peco and Farish trucks/wagons
    Peco re-railer
    Metcalfe N-gauge station and goods shed
    Scalescenes.com Low Relief Warehouse (more about that later...)
    Japanese 1:160 scale people carrier
    Expo razor saw + handle
    A few odd trees

    We're really getting into this now. See you soon in post #3.
     
     
    Peter & Seth
  10. Peter & Seth
    This layout blog is about the design and construction of the model railway that I am building for my 6-year old son, Seth. It is also the first model railway we have built.
     
    Because we live in a tiny Victorian terrace there is no room for grand schemes and we have decided that for our first effort we will stick to a compact book-shelf layout and so that we can fit in as much as possible it will be N-gauge. We don't know much about trains other than we like watching and riding on them (we live a few hundred yards across a field from a small village station), and that we like playing with model trains, particularly modern diesels and EMUs.
     
    As we don't know much about trains or tracks I thought it would best to follow someone else's lead and use an existing layout as the basis for our own. After much Googling I found a superb modern-image diesel layout listed on this very site, Dudley Road. I contacted its creator, Pete Harvey, to ask if he would mind if we used his plan as the basis for our layout. He has very kindly consented. Thank you, Pete.
     
    Dudley Road is OO and 8' long by 1' wide. As we will modelling in N-gauge this roughly reduces to 4' long by 6" wide. We're going to maintain the 4' length as I have several pre-cut 1200mm x 600mm MDF sheets but I will make it a deeper at around 8-9" so that I can add a little more scenic architecture along the back edge than Dudley Road. A plan has been put together using XTrkCad and, as I would like to be as detailed as possible, I will be using Peco Streamline Code 55 track. The only problem is finding a 3-way point in Code 55 - I hear rumour that Peco are releasing an asymmetric point in 2010 but no news about as yet.
     

     
    The next step will be to build the baseboard. Hopefully another update will follow soon.
     
    Peter & Seth
  11. Peter & Seth

    Rethink

    By Peter & Seth,

    After my disaster with the Mk.I baseboard I've had time to reflect upon the plans for my layout. It's really difficult deciding what to model when a) you've never done it before, B) don't want to make expensive mistakes and c) are conscious of the fact that you don't really know that much about trains. I'm still going to stick with the idea of basing my layout on something that has gone before me so I know at least I'm heading in the roughly the right direction. But the layouts I like the most are those with plenty of scenery, particularly industrial and city. To that end I've decided to widen my N-gauge layout from 9" to 1' and rotate the whole track-plan as much as possible. This has created plenty of space along the front-side and left-hand rear. I may even enclose the rear behind the wall and model a full upper-level scene too.
     

  12. Peter & Seth
    Just put together the main structure of an N-gauge R002c Inspection Pit from Scalescenes.com. I used unbleached grease-proof paper for the lighting cutouts rather than tracing paper as it is already a nice grubby brown.
     
    Yet to add rail and top paving.
     

  13. Peter & Seth
    Really enjoying getting back into modelling and making good progress on Harpers Road. I thought I'd just post an overview photo showing the layout standing on it's relatively new mini-legs. These are made from eased-edge construction timber (100mm x 47mm I think) and are attached with a 10mm carriage bolt. The idea is that different size legs for different uses: shorties whilst modelling at home, long ones if I ever get to a club or exhibition.
     

     
    Because my house is a tiddly little Victorian terrace (no complaints, it's beautiful, I love it and will probably never leave it) I have to keep my "workshop" compact. By lucky hap' the layout fits exactly over the hearth of the unused fireplace in the dining room and all my tools and modelling bits'n'bobs fit neatly underneath
     

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