chaz

Passed an important milestone for Dock Green this morning, I hooked up the Lenz DCC system (in its box - see above) to the TR150 (AC PSU). Plugged in a handset and put a loco on the track. I selected the locos address (2018) and pressed F1 - it started up. I drove it up and down a few times (you have to) but a more thorough test will have to wait for tomorrow's full assembly and shake down test. My wife, Sue, took a snap to mark the moment. baseboards not curved in reality - Canon compact effect! Chaz

As you can see from the last picture the only part of the canal and its cutting that you can see in detail is the front section. Obviously I have to put brickwork etc into the "hidden" section, which can be seen if you crouch down and look underneath the bridges, but it's not worth spending much time on this. I spent some time yesterday re-routing some wiring. The DCC bus wires and the power wires for the point servos were clipped to the underside of the plywood baseboard top but they could be seen by crouching down, even though I had pulled them snug so that there were no hanging loops. I had hoped that the part of the girders which projected below the ply' would mask them. I unsoldered one end of each in turn and took them under the "water", where they are out of sight, and remade the connections. Another discovery yesterday concerns the rails. The tops of these were quite dull. Painting and ballasting had left residues and the water spray used during ballasting had caused some discolouration. After some experimentation I decided on grit 2500 wet and dry - very effective - wrapped around a cork block this restored the bright shine and got that steel-like colour back rather than the yellowish tint that nickel silver goes when neglected. There will be no further progress with the scenic side of the layout until we have got the operation sorted and made provision for transporting Dock Green safely. Frustrating for me as I am really enjoying making it look good but it must be working well for Wimborne. We can live with bits of incomplete scenery (the layout does go as a "work in progress") but if the trains don't run properly..... Chaz

I have painted the canal bridge girders and fitted them in place. These are very simple bridges which wouldn’t get a second glance on the prototype. The next task is to detail the towpath and the cutting walls (yet more brickwork - I seem to have spent most of the last few months painting, cutting and fitting brick sheets). I put the girder in the retaining wall at the back low down so that the fish-back girder of the bridge in front of it would overlap it and there would be no large gap there. We don't want bits of the operator's anatomy passing behind to show. I must also do something about the surface of the baseboard which is rather a mess, before Peter starts more ballasting. Chaz

Experiments might well continue Alan, but I'm a bit stuck for a supply of ash (no barbie)....

Sounds good, but too late for Dock Green, I'm afraid. However the fine sand is probably going to come to the rescue (see posting #161 above).

One of the advantages of being retired Pete. Thanks for the encouraging comments. Crunch time is Wednesday when Dock Green gets assembled complete and we give it a shake-down test. I have my fingers crossed that we don't find too many problems. Chaz

Thanks for the reassurance Peter. My own memory of canals in London was that they were all that colour (or something very like it) and totally opaque. Of course there would have been very little current to refresh the water.

I spent today making girders for the canal bridges and this evening I did a trial fit.The photo below shows the nearer bridge with two rectangular girders in place. I fitted one of the fish-back girders to the further bridge but the second girder can’t be put in until some woodwork is cut away. However this gives me a good idea of how the canal will look. A picture from a lower viewpoint..... Two strips of foamboard added to show, on the right, the width of the towpath, and on the left, a narrow ledge which will separate the canal from the brick cutting wall. Chaz

Thanks, Dave, you are quite right to say "too mainline", definitely ECML - however it may well have to serve as-is for this first show. It was a friend of mine, who is doing the S&DJR in 7mm who suggested the addition of sand, an idea that he has used on his sidings. My one reservation is that the acrylic paint I used has allowed the colour of the sand to show through here and there. I think a larger test on a section of one of the sidings will tell me if I need a more opaque paint (possibly matte enamel) although I think the touches of lighter sandy colour here and there may be a plus. Chaz

Thank you Alan, much appreciated. I am much encouraged by all the positive comments people have added to my postings. Chaz

Thank you Stephen. I doubt if there will be time to do this before Dock Green's first outing but after the Wimborne Show we will probably do this. Weeds? Oh, yes, lots of them, but again I may not have the time this side of October 21st - more important to get everything running nicely! Chaz

Ballasting at baseboard joins When ballasting track some care has to be taken at baseboard joints, it would obviously be quite possible to glue the baseboards together. When Peter ballasted the track on Dock Green he stopped at the baseboard joins, leaving the gap between the sleepers that was divided between two baseboards to be done later. Once the ballast glue (50:50 PVA and water) had dried we prepared the join. A polythene bag (the very thin type) was cut into strips and pieces fixed to both baseboards ends with Sellotape. As you can see the very thin polythene does not interfere with locking the two baseboards together. Normally we would pour the ballast on from a plastic bottle and spread it with a paint brush, but for this small task something more precise is needed…. Once the glue has set the baseboards can be separated and the polythene peeled away. While I’m on the subject of ballast the picture below shows the result of a test piece done recently..... On the left the track is ballasted with fine granite. On the right some fine sand has been added over the top and brushed so that it fills gaps in the granite. Once the resultant mix had been glued it was painted with grey acrylic. I think this looks promising as a way of down-grading the ballast to the standard appropriate for sidings. Chaz

A bit more progress. I sprayed the water tank with dark grey enamel. It's a strange contrivance, lurking half under a bridge and very narrow. I needed something here as a view blocker to mask the transition between the yard tracks and the cassettes. In the picture above the track to the right of the water tank is the entry/exit track. This supposedly leads to a goods line in the passenger station, but actually goes to the cassette area, immediately behind the retaining wall. Of course this view, with the camera towards the back of the baseboard, will not be available to viewers at an exhibition. Another view of the water tank. You can see that the ballasting on this baseboard is now complete, Peter has done an excellent job. In fact we both feel that it’s a bit too good for a yard and we may alter it in the future to represent more closely the sort of ash ballast that was generally used in areas such as this. The canal bridges today I have been working on the bridges that will span the canal. Both of these will be simple plate girder affairs, one with rectangular girders and the other with fish-backs. This picture shows a pair of rectangular girders. You can see the one in the foreground with the detail built up from Plastruct angle and T section. The top edge and the ends have angles on both sides, and these are overlaid with flat strips. I pressed rivets into these and these can just about be made out in the photo (as usual white HIP is very difficult to photograph). The girder behind is face down to reveal the plastic plate which will be screwed to the underside of the plywood roadbed to secure it in position. The joint between them has been strengthened with a couple of pieces of plastic angle. Pictures of the fish-back girders will follow as soon as I have made them! Chaz

A timely warning, Stephen. I will check for penguins before we start.........

Hmmm, Brazil? A cunningly timed, unavoidable business trip.........?... Don't despair, Peter, I will post lots more photos as the rest of the layout comes together. Progress has accelerated since I got the invite to show at Wimborne, in fact it's all got a bit frantic. In a couple of week's time we are going to set up the whole thing in the kitchen (it will just fit) for a shake-down test. I have my fingers crossed that we don't find too many faults. Chaz

Thank you Dave, your comment is much appreciated. Not yet, but I will start a thread on the rolling stock later. It might have to wait until after October 21st, when Dock Green goes to the Wimborne show. All the rolling stock is from my "home" layout - you could say that Dock Green is a portable version of it. I plan to use Dock Green as a backdrop for the photos. Chaz

I couldn’t resist taking a couple more pictures to post on forum. As the siding that serves the warehouse platform is so close to the baseboard edge I fitted a wooden fence – a vigorous shunt into the far end of the platform could lead to a derailment, with the chance of wagons going over the edge…. I think the fence, which is all wood, has turned out a nice feature, although it does block the view of the running gear of the wagons. The up-down-up-down planking was a Great Northern Railway feature. The vehicles on the bridge are parked on the start of the station forecourt – the passenger station is imagined to be just behind the warehouse….. Another view of that collection of grubby vans so typical of BR days standing under the canopy, the two nearest the camera are of LMS origin, the three bauxite liveried ones are ex-LNER vehicles. A few weeds can be glimpsed at the foot of the fence. No activity, it must be a Sunday! Now, I really must get on with some modelling - the girders for the bridges over the canal. Chaz

Thankyou Stephen. I am very pleased myself with the way the scenes are coming together - right from the start I planned for a "hemmed-in" look, with a natural backscene of retaining walls. Of course everything is far too clean (apart from the rolling stock) but this will be dealt with before the first show. There is still a lot to do. Chaz

I have been busy finishing off lots of little bits on the first two baseboards and my friend Peter has been busy with track ballast. We have finally got a scene which will photograph reasonably well. All the bridges, walls and buildings in these pictures still need a hefty dose of North London grime – but I’m going to hold off on the weathering until all four baseboards can be done together – to avoid any obvious variations or joins. The photo above was shot with a compact camera placed directly on the track. I think that this gives a most convincing viewpoint, as if the viewer is standing in the scene. The track with the wagon standing on it is the headshunt. Looking through the arch you can see the pine pillar which supports the overhanging corner of the warehouse, which is cut away to give the operators access to the cassette area. In front of the headshunt is the gradient which supposedly runs down to the industrial sidings (in reality to cassettes). The main line cassettes will be behind the retaining wall on the right. A view from further back, with the girders of the railway overbridge framing the picture. The track that runs through the (very narrow) arch on the left goes to the warehouse platform. You can just glimpse the canopy through the arch. Peter's efforts with ballasting are proceeding well - we were going to use ash or cinders ballast for the yard but the result looked too much like black porridge for our liking so we've gone for fine granite from Modeller's Mate. We know it's wrong for this type of yard but think it looks more convincing. For this third view we are looking down from above the railway bridge. I placed a van in the arch leading to the warehouse platform and you can see just how tight the clearance is. There are several places on Dock Green where we have been forced into some drastic compromises by the size of the baseboards. I am not happy with the wooden stop block at the end of the spur on which the all-steel open is standing: It looks too flimsy and insubstantial. I will add more timberwork to it to make it look more robust. Later on we will add some hand levers for the points – in a yard like this there would be no signal cabin and probably not even a ground frame, so no rodding either. I will post other views as the two remaining baseboards reach a similar standard. Chaz

I have been using SE Finecast vacuum formed plastic sheet for the brickwork on Dock Green and over the weekend I had to get two more sheets ready to finish off the brickwork on bridge #1. To prepare this I give the whole sheet a coat of buff coloured acrylic making sure it is worked into the mortar courses. When this is dry, I paint the bricks with Humbrol #70 - red brick. This is put on by diagonal dry brushing, as SEF suggest. however every now and then I have a little too much paint on the brush and it runs down into the mortar courses, spoiling the effect. this is no cause for panic - it usually happens in about half a dozen places on a full sheet. The dry brushing is tedious on a full sheet of 7mm brick, 365 x 270mm. I found an easy rescue method is to wait until the red brick is dry and then splosh on some further buff acrylic, again working it into the mortar courses. Before the acrylic has a chance to dry the surface is wiped with a piece of wet kitchen roll. It is possible to overdo the wiping but you soon get the hang of cleaning the buff off the brick but leaving the "repair" in the grooves. Of course if you don't like the dry-brushing technique it is possible to reverse the process. Start by painting the whole sheet brick red and then use the splosh-on wipe-off technique to paint the mortar courses. Chaz

Having spent the last couple of days on wiring and "bodge" woodwork I spent a little time this morning on stuff that will actually show.... On some of the bridges and buildings on Dock Green I wanted soldier courses in the brickwork with a bevelled edge to the top. I bought some mounting boards offcuts (a large bag of some fairly large pieces for not very much cash) from a local picture framers. As most of these pieces were the centres from cut picture mounts they had bevelled edges. I found that I could cut strips from the four sides which would then have a bevel on one edge. I paint that edge a buff colour - the same shade as the mortar courses. After the embossed brick plastic sheet is added the top edge can have brick colour (Humbrol #70) touched in with a fine brush. This photo is me doing that last step on one of the bridges this morning before heading off to the show at Andover. This is the sort of small detail that might well go unremarked but is all too obvious if it's not done. Incidentally, I recently bought a couple of nylon fine-point brushes not expecting them to last very long - but they are brilliant - they certainly are keeping their points very well. They also seem to stand up to abuse, such as dry brushing, much better than other types have used. Chaz

Boring but necessary...... I decided to "share" my Lenz DCC system between my home layout and Dock Green. To make it a simple job to move it from one to the other I put the command centre and booster in a box with sockets on the front. A set of cables with matching plugs on each layout make it simple to connect it up to either. I spent today completing the installation, although I haven't had time yet to test it. The photo above shows the box, with the LZ100 and LV200 installed and wired to the sockets. The woodwork is very crude, with that chisel work, which I did to thin down the front plate to suit the fittings, reminding me somewhat of a dug-out canoe - but it is completely out of sight when installed. In front of the box is one set of plugs. There is no possibility of fitting the plugs into the wrong sockets. Above - The box, installed on its shelf within one of Dock Green's baseboards. This view from underneath shows that it's tucked away and can't be seen unless you crouch down to look at the baseboard structure. I made the wiring up into cables and made these long enough to make it possible to fit or remove the plugs with the box held below its shelf. Sliding it into place takes most of the slack out of the cables. Cable grips prevent any strain on the solder joints at the tag strip. Chaz

Yesterday I sat down with the two baseboards of Dock Green that have pointwork on them, determined to find and eliminate the fault (wiring? programming? Gremlins?). In fact a quick test showed that all the points were working perfectly. Result? Not really.....you can't trace a fault that isn't showing so I'm left in limbo. If the fault is still there the odds are it will not manifest itself again until half way through the first show.....and if it was a one-off I won't ever know what was happening. My best guess at the moment is that the multi-way cable that joins the two boards was not firmly home but it is only a guess.

Another tedious (and at times frustrating) day, spent rewiring the DCC from my fixed home layout so that it can be shared with Dock Green on show days. Also spent the evening programming the servos. This proved a problem. Half way through the evening several of the servos stopped working, I suspected a wiring fault but it all seemed sound when I checked. I think I may have made a mistake with the MERG programming software but I was too tired to think it through. HO Hum. I will post again, with some more interesting stuff when I get back to scenery - the canal's next. If I have many more days like yesterday I might have to throw myself in it! Chaz

Yes indeed Stephen. I was admiring the very convincing look of what you had done and regretting how much work remains before Dock Green gets anywhere near the same standard.. Weathering, yes it's essential if a railway is to look convincing. So much so that if I'm at a show I find it hard to get interested in a layout which doesn't have it. But what's possibly even worse is the mistaken belief that all you need do is spray the bottom half of all rolling stock a shade of pooh. Not good. The detail in the paint on your 16 tonner is exemplary! Erm, ahhh. Yes. That may be true but..... my leanings towards Swindon go no further than quite a few goods wagons (the Coopercraft kits do make up nicely, don't they?). GWR? I thought it stood for Gresley was right! Chaz