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D869

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  1. D869

    Epsom and Ewell 2014

    By D869,

    We got back fairly late yesterday evening from Epsom so I didn’t get chance to post any photos last night.
     
    We had a good time at the show. There were some excellent layouts on display along with a good selection of traders. The digs and food were good and we also managed to venture into the mean streets of Epsom and track down some pints of St Austell ‘Tribute’ on Saturday evening. I’m sure that our operating on Sunday was much better for it.
     
    Unfortunately the journey down on Friday was not great – pouring rain most of the way and a crawl around the M25 in rush hour – over two hours from the bottom of the M40 junction to Epsom.
     
    It never ceases to amaze me though how things that have been tested back at base can still let us down at a show and result in lots of crawling under baseboards and dilemmas about whether to go and eat or stay and fix problems on a Friday evening. I’m not going to repeat the whole fault list here, but one particularly puzzling issue was the East crossover. We always run a loco around every bit of track as soon as the layout is set up. I did this on Friday evening (including the same crossover set both normal and reversed). Just as I was taking the loco back to the fiddle yard and about to announce that everything was OK I got a short circuit on the East crossover. We decided in favour of eating but it meant that there was extra work to do on Saturday morning before the show opened. The problem was fixed using a razor saw to open out one of the isolation gaps… but this bit of track has been working and pretty much untouched since 2010.
     
    Thanks to Ian Morgan and Dave Stratton for stepping in as guest operators on Saturday. I hope that you both enjoyed yourselves.
     
    Next up is the Kidderminster 2mm gathering in June. Between now and then our plan is to replace the control panel overlay and move some buttons that are in the wrong place. The panel is getting rather untidy now with various amendments stuck on with paper labels or scribbled on in marker pen.
     
    As usual a random assortment of photos...
     

    Lower Exbury - a small layout beautifully executed.
     

    Cornwall was well represented at this show... Diesels in the Duchy.
     

    Law Junction. Definitely not small!
     

    Purgatory Peak
     

    Clutton - very Pendon-esque.
     

    Penlan
     

    The afternoon lull in the St Ruth goods yard - the Carlisle goods waiting for its loco and the pilot waiting to pounce on the GUV when it's time for the sleeping cars to depart.
     

    The buildings near the Hotel with the junction signal off for a main line departure.
  2. D869
    I was going to find some modern marketing speak for 'digging up the track' but the language used by the real railway is now so far detached from reality that I decided against it.
     
    As most readers will know, St Ruth is 'based on' Penzance but exactly how far that goes is rather flexible. Starting from the pre-1938 track plan, the very first departure from reality that we made was to add a headshunt to the goods yard and then continue this along the sea wall as a goods loop. This has been very successful in allowing operation to continue in the yard without interfering with trains on the main line as well as making life easier for arriving and departing goods trains.
     
    So... we're going to change it.
     
    No, we're not going back to a strict adherence to the pre-1938 plan. Instead we are stealing a little bit of the post-1938 layout in this area. The new plan will still have a loop (which will double as a headshunt) but we will reverse the crossover that provides access to the loop at the 'up' end.
     
    Why would we want to do that?
     
    Well, it allows some prototypical empty coaching stock moves that we currently can't do. The real thing (both before and after 1938) had the ability to push empty coaches back out of the platforms and into a siding on the sea wall called the 'sea siding'. After 1938 there were two of them (called the long one and the short one). We only have room for one (like the pre-38 plan) but we will keep the loop line between the sea siding and the goods yard (like the post-38 plan).
     
    The work on this started several months back - the new control panel diagram and the starting signals that cover moves over the scissors crossover already assume that the sea siding is there but we've always had things coming up that have put us off actually making the trackwork changes. Nobody has complained about the rather spurious extra signal arms. Now we plan to make the changes before the next show (Aldershot in October). Here are some photos of the new crossover on my workbench. It's built with the now discontinued 'Easiline' chairplate system to match the rest of St Ruth's track... with thanks to several people who sent me their left over stocks of chairplates.
     

     
    The template was done in a slightly convoluted way. First I took a paper 'brass rubbing' of the track. Then I left this in my bag for several weeks. With the next meeting approaching I finally got round to plotting the curves out in CAD by measuring the XY coordinates using a ruler and then joining the dots. I did an initial rough stab at drawing the pointwork using the same CAD templates that we used for the rest of the track before finally deciding that Templot might be a much better bet for drawing curved pointwork. The original CAD tracing was then loaded into Templot and used to locate and 'bend' the templates for the new points at our last meeting.
     
    The resulting template is pretty rough and ready because there was no time (or expertise) to sort out niceties like correcting the sleeper spacing but having printed it and checked it against the real track, that became the template for the job.
     
    All being well the saws and scrapers will be out to do some serious track modifications at our next meeting on Tuesday. We need to make a gap for the new crossover just east of the scissors and (hopefully) slot it into place. Then we need to rip out the original crossover which is even further to the east and replace this with some plain track, plus shift the point motors and associated gubbins. The job will also entail moving one of the signals - naturally it's the route indicating home signal with call-on arm - the one with 5 servos underneath. I will probably use the opportunity to fit some beefier wires to this signal because it does have a tendency to get stuck.
     
    Another job (later) will be to have another crack at the 3 doll starter bracket for the scissors. This was fitted in time for Railex earlier this year but the 3 foot arm that covers the sea siding shunt never quite worked properly once the thing was painted - not too big a problem when it covered a move over a non-existent crossover.
     
    Finally of course we need to re-jig some of the empty stock moves in the operating sequence and figure out how to arrive and depart good trains from the already cramped goods yard without using the loop.
     
    UPDATE:
     
    We've passed the point of no return now I didn't quite get as much done as I had hoped tonight though...
     

     
    I also found a couple of photos on my camera that I took during the earlier stages of the build and then forgot about so thought I'd add them so that you can check out my hi-tech crossing soldering jig.
     

  3. D869
    Having been temporarily chucked back together for AbRail, the Hall is just back from an extended spell in the paint shop having its paint job generally finished off and some weathering applied... just in time for St Ruth to go to Macclesfield this weekend.
     

     
    My plan for the 'paint job' was to wash over the Dapol GWR green (or it it US Army WW2 geep green?) with thinned Precision BR Green, doing my best to avoid the lining. It's kind of worked, but it took a few more coats than I had hoped because just a single coat looked very patchy. I managed (mostly) to avoid painting over the lining and clean up those places where I didn't quite succeed but found that it was a bit tricky because if I was too cautious with stopping short of the lining then the lining had a sort of 'halo' effect from the factory paint showing through.
     
    I chose 'Patshull Hall' because I wanted a loco known to have been in Cornwall and also one that lacked the fireiron tunnel next to the firebox as per the Dapol model. 4950 is the subject of a nice Peter Gray photo waiting to depart from Bodmin Road with a down train on a sunny summer's day so I really couldn't resist. It looks somewhat grubby in the photo, which is at rather an oblique angle so I've used photos of slightly less dirty Halls as a guide for weathering, although mine has still come out a bit more grubby than I was aiming for.
     
    I couldn't find any name and number plates to buy and didn't want to wait for the N Gauge Society to sort themselves out so I decided to get my own etched, using Ian Smith's artwork to give me a head start (Thanks Ian!). Even with a head start, it was still a lot of work and it's probably an expensive way to get nameplates, but at least I've now got the ones I wanted (plus plenty more for other possible projects). I'm really pleased with the way these came out.
     

     
    There are still a couple of jobs remaining. Somewhere I have some fireirons which would look nice on the tender. There is also the question of a crew. I have a pack of Farish figures but they are typically in poses like mid-shovel swing which will make them tricky to fit into the very limited space available. Finally I need to decide whether to add some headlamps.
    Some more photos...
     



  4. D869

    St Ruth at TINGS

    By D869,

    I was contemplating some rather lame puns for the title of this posting but I thought I would spare you all. We're just back from two days at the N Gauge Show which takes place in a barn on the Fosse Way near Leamington Spa - just down the road for us... which turned out to be just as well.
     
    I'm glad to say that St Ruth performed well during both days with just a few minor issues appearing during opening hours. The same cannot be said for the setup day on Friday...
     
    We had given ourselves plenty of time because we wanted to do some setup work on the new signals once the layout was up. Having completed a one hour stint adjusting things mechanically and programming the servo travel I was just packing stuff away when the signals went haywire and all of the lights on the control panel started flashing on and off. John pulled the plug quickly and then we noticed a nasty electrical burning smell.
     
    Unfortunately this happened shortly before the hall closed so in the remaining time we could only find out that the smell appeared to be associated with the power supply box and that none of the points would move. Then we had to leave without really knowing what we needed to replace to make the layout work again.
     
    So we arrived as early as possible on Saturday armed with pretty much everything that we might need including the kitchen sink. The signal controls were all disconnected and the 12V supplies piggybacked from a bench supply. Thankfully we then had a working layout for Saturday, albeit with non working signals.
     
    On Saturday evening I lashed up a MERG controller to some switches on a piece of ply to try to get the signals working again, fed from yet another bench power supply. Another early start on Sunday had this installed on the layout, followed by more mechanical and programming adjustements. Finally we had the home and starter working. Unplug the programming cable and the starter leapt up out of the ground because of a massive servo glitch. Suffice to say that further attempts to get the starter working were all followed by another glitch so the starter remained static. At least we had one signal working though.
     
    We were also joined by guest operator and 2mm committee member Jim Allwood who brought along some interesting things to run on the layout, oh and a Dapol Voyager that is about as uncontrollable as mine (2 speeds - flat out and stop).
     
    Some photos, mainly of more recent additions.
     

    I thought I'd try a photo from the opposite of the usual perspective.
     

    Jim Allwood's tamper and class 14. For once St Ruth was running every WR diesel hydraulic class... although there are no plans for a class 14 to be added permanently to the roster,
     

    The home signal and route indicator with a loco that some may have seen on the Hydraulic Heaven blog.
     

    Cossack again, arriving at St Ruth.
     

    One more building added since Nottingham - the hotel on the corner.
  5. D869

    Warley 2014

    By D869,

    Back home now after our outing to our local mega-show. After a few comments from other people beforehand I was a bit wary of exhibiting at Warley but really enjoyed it. For sure, the NEC is a huge venue and this brings with it extra aggravation particularly during setup and packing up and for sure it was stacked out with people on Saturday but there is stacks of space behind the layouts and the food is good, even if the queue was a bit long. It was also great to spend some time again with the other 2mm folks.
     
    Here are a few 'behind the scenes' photos from Friday.
     

    Driving my car into the hall was a new experience. Driving out again we had to drive along one of the main aisles so I got to see Clarendon and Leicester South from a new vantage point. I'm not sure that drive through model railway shows will catch on though although it does solve the rucksack issue.
     

    There were white vans too. Especially worrying when they reverse up the aisle . I can't say that I'm a big fan of the lighting. It's not the camera. It really does look like this.
     

    Testing testing... oh dear . Friday turned out to be not one of our better days with all of the points on the MPD board refusing to respond to the correct button (or in most cases any button at all). John and Ian spent quite some time with their heads in the control panel. Fortunately they managed to get it working again before we left, although it meant that we were there rather later than we had intended. Not the best start to a show but fortunately things improved from there and the layout was pretty reliable with only fairly minor annoyances during the show itself.
     
    This morning a nice man called Mr Waterman interrupted our wheel cleaning to give us a plaque for the best modern image layout. Very pleasing given the standard of layouts at the show so thank you to whoever decides these things.
     
    I've posted some pics of other layouts on the show thread...
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/85146-warley-at-the-nec-2014-22nd-and-23rd-november/page-8&do=findComment&comment=1675581
  6. D869

    Hawksworth BCK

    By D869,

    After being on the back burner for a while to make way for the completion of D604 and work on the next signal for St Ruth, I finally got round to doing some more on the Ultima Hawksworth BCK that I started in October.
     
    The coach is now ready for the paint shop (I just corrected a typo there - 'pain shop' - quite appropriate really). Although the coach is ready, I don't think it will be going near any paint for a little while - it's too flippin' cold and dark out there.
     
    For the most part, the coach went together in much the same way as the BG did last year. The main differences arise from the fact that this coach is passenger carrying, which means bigger windows to expose the presence or absence of an interior, seats and loos.
     
    As with the BG, I've made the roof removeable and added some nickel silver strips as strengtheners towards the top of the sides. Predictably, this complicates the interior a little but I did at least think ahead and located the centre strip in the area of the division between first and third class.
     
    The interiors are built up on a false floor of 30 thou black plastikard. I used the printed partitions from the kit pretty much as intended (barring some alterations to fit around the strengtheners), stuck together with canopy glue. I added some seats by stealing DavidK71's idea of using coloured paper. Naturally, I had to agonise over the colour for a long time before actually starting though.
     
    As far as I can tell the Hawksworth seats had a woven pattern - fawn on a red background for non smoking and on a dark blue background for smoking. The pattern for first class was much larger than the third class one. Having said that, other photos show Hawksworth coaches with a completely different material so it seems that there were at least two types, possibly related to the use of either wood or formica for the internal panelling.
     
    The third class seats are a dark brown card (from a cheese biscuits box). These are coloured by lightly going over them with felt tips. The pattern is too small to be visible, so I didn't bother. The first class seats use a lighter coloured paper from a buff envelope. These are coloured with felt tips with some attempt to suggest a visible pattern. I think the blue works OK but the red is a bit too light and bright for my liking. The good thing about having a removeable roof is that I can change things if I don't like how they look once the windows and curtains are fitted.
     

     

     
    The loo tanks have been discussed on DavidK71's thread. Checking photos supports the view that the fillers are very much off centre with respect to the tanks. Actually the fillers seem to be on the roof centre line (presumably because that's the highest point otherwise the water would fall out) so perhaps it's more accurate to say that the tanks are very much off centre. The etches in the kit don't have the filler sufficiently off centre, so I made the tanks from 10 thou plastikard… stuck them on… realised the next day that they were on the wrong side… sliced them off, sanded everything down and did it right the second time. The filler is 1.5mm round section fitted into a hole drilled through the tank and roof.
     
    My original plan was to do the loo filler pipes using wire which would be held in holes drilled into the plastic rod used for the filler. I made a start like this but found it was very tricky to get the pipe runs to stay parallel and generally not look messy. I was contemplating how to secure them to the roof ends (as per the prototype) - ideally I wanted to fix them using a sort of mini handrail knob in a drilled hole but I realised that it was going to be tricky to fit these given that there was no room to do any gluing on the underside of the roof because the coach ends were in the way.
     
    In the end I went for DavidK71's dodge and used 10 thou styrene rod. This gave a much neater result and I was so impressed that I extended the same approach onto the coach ends. The result looks a little more two dimensional than wire would but it's a darned sight easier to do a neat job and it also means that the two filler pipes can indeed be separate instead of being one continuous semicircle.
     

     
    I dropped the idea of sprung gangways but after agonising again over the Ultima castings I decided to stick with making my own from black plastikard. Once again these fit into holes cut in the end. Since the BCK can run on its own, at the end of or in the middle of a rake, I wanted to have some options regarding gangway position so at the back of the gangway is a brass wire retaining pin that locates into one of two holes drilled in the floor to allow the gangways to be sloped in the clipped back position or held vertical if being coupled in a rake.
     
    At the moment my plan is to put together another Ultima Hawksworth so that the two can be painted at the same time. As a first step, the Siphon G has now given up its (incorrect) long spring bogies and has been fitted with a pair of the NPCS variety built from my etches. Here's a photo of it next to the Siphon that I built many years ago with scratchbuilt sideframe overlays onto a 2mm Association bogie frame.
     

     
    Finally a view of my entire Hawksworth fleet... excepting the stuff in the gloat box of course.
     

     
    EDIT: A photo of a Collett roof at Buckfastleigh related to my answer to DavidK71's comment

  7. D869

    Your Starter for Ten

    By D869,

    Our next planned outing should be TINGS near Leamington Spa in early September although the show web site is curiously shy about our presence and that of another 2FS layout of this parish which I'm told will be in attendance.
     
    There are still a few more buildings needed and some of these may appear before September but I think it's time to make a start on another aspect (get it?) of the infrastructure - the signals.
     
    St Ruth needs a lot of signals so there is zero chance that they will be finished any time soon but they certainly won't get finished until we start on them.
     
    The first thing we need is a plan. This has been work in progress for a long time - the original plan was created before the control panel and then drawn using a PCB design tool. The printout became the template for the control panel. Our understanding of the way we will operate St Ruth has now moved on so there have been some changes such as adding full running signals to allow departures via the east crossover. I re-drew the control panel overlay using some free software called 'Dia'. The new plan is rather closer to the conventions used by the drawing office at Reading but it wasn't possible to get it exactly right because of limitations of the tool.
     
    Here is a PDF of the new plan. It is oddly shaped in places because it needs to fit over the existing switches on the control panel. struthsigplan.pdf
     
    We've tried to avoid inventing our own arrangements and have tried to find precedents from the prototype as much as possible. It's probably best described as a hybrid of the pre and post 1938 plans for Penzance with the addition of the branch line and goods loop. The signals for the east crossover are based on the postwar arrangement at Newquay which also gives us an excuse for a GWR backing signal. The trickiest part was the branch because there doesn't seem to be a perfect precedent for a single line junction joining a double track line within the limits of a terminus station. The closest I've found is the arrangement of the spur from Barnstaple North into Barnstaple Junction but it's not a perfect match and is only partly GWR.
     
    I am sure that signalling lawyers could pick hols in the plan but we've done our best to stick to the rules and get it right. Looking at the plan again I am thinking of some further minor changes - arm 62 might become a disc because it only covers shunt moves unless the branch points fail again and 65 should probably be lower than 15. The three doll bracket might also gain a slotted distant arm for the next box to the east.
     
    So far we have one signal which is mostly finished. This is the starting signal from the arrivals platform (number 68) and is one of the very few single arm signals on the plan. It has the extra advantages of lacking a rule 55 diamond and having its balance weights hidden below platform level. The intention is to operate all of the signals using servos as described in MRJ 201. This signal has been fitted with a servo on a test rig and seems to work OK.
     
    The signal also has a working lamp. This consists of a tiny white LED to which some enamelled wire is soldered. This is contained inside a short length of heat shrink sleeving in which two holes are drilled for the lens and backlight. A short length of 1mm styrene rod is pushed into the top and the whole thing painted black. It is pretty close to the shape of a GW signal lamp but perhaps a little 'chunky'. The power feed for the lamp comes via a resistor under the baseboard and then up the ladder as
    described in the 2mm handbook. The lamp man's platform is some thin double sided PCB with one side used for structural solder joints and the other side used for the lamp power feed.
     
    There is still some more 'development' work to do. We haven't yet finalised our servo controller approach. I used a 555 timer circuit (see photo) to get the thing working initially and we tried out a MERG SERVO4 unit yesterday. There will be some more head scratching about powering the LEDs on multi-arm signals because the easy thing to do would be to wire them in parallel but I'm told that having LEDs in parallel sharing a single resistor is a bad idea. I'm sure that using the first few signals at a real exhibition will also reveal some more problems for us to think about. The jury is still out on the colour for the post. I tried metalcote 'steel' but this was too dark so the signal was repainted in light grey which looks less wrong. I now have some metalcote 'aluminium' which I will try on the next signal.
     

     
    Here are some pics of the signal on its test rig and temporarily fitted to the platform at St Ruth. The clear signal was a bit of a cheat because the photo was taken before the servo was fitted. The servo is now in place, albeit with no controller or wiring yet.
     

     

     
    Now I'm working on the second signal. This one is rather more complex and provides lots of new challenges for me to think about, but more about that another day.
  8. D869
    In a scandalous misuse of the limited time remaining before Railex, Jackie and I took the Cheltenham Flyer from Tyseley to Paddington and Back with 'Castle' class 'Earl of Mount Edgcumbe'.
     
    The run was superb - a storming ascent of Sapperton and some fast running in both directions on the main line. 40 minutes early into Paddington and then an hour early back to Gloucester. A shame that NR couldn't find us an earlier path back to Brum so we all had to sit in Gloucester for an extra hour forlornly hoping that we would get underway.
     
    Cream crackered now - very long day.
     
    Pics from me. Vids from other folks.
     

    Waiting to leave Gloucester this morning
     


    I can't really call this 'old and new'. How about... 'old and very old' at the buffers. I haven't checked, but I wonder which has had the longer time in main line service.
     

    Back in Gloucester this evening.
     
    A couple of vids on Sapperton and one on the main line.



  9. D869

    The Sea Wall

    By D869,

    The sea wall is one of the most prominent scenic features on the layout. It's also pretty long - covering almost all of the 12 foot frontage of the layout. A few weeks prior to the Expo last July it was just a blank piece of plywood and our thoughts turned to make it into something more wall-like.
     
    Exactly how to model the sea wall was something that caused us some head-scratching. We already have some retaining walls done with embossed plasticard and the big retaining wall behind the station uses Scale Scenes printed stonework. We felt that the sea wall needed rather more texture than the other walls because it would have been made using bigger blocks of stone which would be battered by the seas causing the joints to be more obvious. The shape of the wall near the station was also rather tricky because it has a couple of fairly tight curves as well as the typical lean that retaining walls have to stop them falling over. The tricky shape (combined with the difficulty of joining so many sheets) rather ruled out the use of embossed sheet as well.
     
    We decided instead to try out using DAS modelling clay and embossing the stonework into this. Embossing 12 feet of wall was a pretty scary prospect too - clearly we needed to find a way to mass produce the stone texture rather than manually scribing it.
     
    I tried out a few test pieces before attacking the main wall. The first try used manual embossing. This ended up looking like exactly what it was - a bunch of hand-scribed wobbly lines.
     
    The next idea was to make some sort of roller to emboss the stonework. The first attempt used a piece of brass tube with fuse wire soldered to the outside in a stone block pattern. It was a real pain to make, even with just two courses of stonework. After embossing the DAS, the result showed some promise but the blocks were too large and I really didn't fancy making another soldered roller with more courses of blocks at half of the spacing that I'd tried for the test piece.
     
    A visit to some local model shops turned up some polystyrene tubing. This seemed to offer an easier way to make the roller. I bought the biggest diameter available, which still wasn't very big at 10mm. I was rather worried that a 31mm repeat would not be enough to create convincing stonework.
     
    The horizontal joints were added to the roller by wrapping some thin (10 thou by 20 thou) microstrip around it. The microstrip was wrapped around twice to make a double thickness and then fixed in place with solvent. The vertical joints were then filled in using small pieces of 20 thou square microstrip. I did about 4 courses and then took the embryonic roller to the next meeting for trials on the real sea wall.
     
    In the meantime John had created the 'lean' of the sea wall using some old Artex. This also gave a nice rough surface to fix the DAS to. Getting a nice even layer of DAS proved a bit tricky but eventually we found some suitable bits and pieces to use as a sort of 'rolling pin'. We rolled out some sheets about 2 or 3mm thick and then cut strips to the right height for the sea wall. The Artex was given a coating of PVA and the DAS sheets were then pressed into place and the joints smoothed over.
     
    Finally the roller was tried out on the wall (after lubricating with some water). We were pretty happy with the results so I took the roller home to add the remaining courses to do the full height of the sea wall. I made the lower courses slightly bigger vertically. I also made the lower blocks bigger horizontally by adding just 4 joints per course to the roller instead of 5 for the upper courses.
     
    To cut a long story short the remaining length of the sea wall was embossed at the next meeting and we went to the Expo with the wall in that state - and looking very white as the picture below from the Expo shows.
     

     
    Coping
    I now needed to find a way to add coping stones that would be a reasonable match for the main sea wall. To do this I made a mould about 3 inches in length as a plasticard trough with microstrip inside to emboss the joints. Actually I made two different moulds - one with a flat bottom and one with a shallow 'V' shape to give different styles of coping for different stretches of the wall.
     
    It took a while to figure out a way to use the mould without the new coping being pulled off when the mould was removed from the wall. Here is the method we ended up using.
     
    The DAS was rolled into a sheet about 2mm thick. This was then cut into strips measured to match the width of the mould. These were put on top of the wall (after brushing with PVA). The mould was then used to emboss the stones. This method didn't have a 100% success rate - sometimes the coping would still come away when the mould was removed, but it was good enough to do the job.
     
    The picture below shows all of the tools and test pieces. The thing that looks like a washer is a guide to ensure that the courses stay straight - this was attached with solvent to the end of the roller but it didn't stay attached. I'll glue it back on if I need to use the roller again.
     

     
    Painting
    One of the advantages of DAS is that it can be painted with watercolours so this is the way we did it. I painted one of the test pieces using some likely colours (ivory black and chinese white to get grey and then raw sienna for a brown hue plus occasionally some light red) to paint individual stones and was quite pleased with the result. The snag was that there was no way that it would be practical to paint each stone on a 12 foot long wall individually, so we had to find a different way.
     
    The way we devised was to first paint the wall using a fairly light mix of the colours to represent the colour of the mortar. Once this was dry a darker mix was made up, avoiding using too much water. This was then brushed onto the surface, trying to avoid getting paint in the mortar joints. Each mix covered a fairly small patch and then a new mix was made up so there is inevitably some colour variation creeping in. The picture below shoes the work in progress - on the right I've just painted the mortar colour and on the left I've done the stonework colour.
     

     
    Once this was done I then went over and picked out some individual stones using slightly different colour mixes. I usually looked for stones which hadn't picked up the basic colour very well, so this also fixed up any mistakes from the previous stage. I kept stepping back to check the overall effect and compare with earlier stretches of wall.
     
    The next photo shows a finished section of the wall. We really must deal with that white beach.
     

     
    This technique is still quite time consuming - we've spent several sessions on it and it the job is not yet finished , but we're more than half way along.
  10. D869

    Guest Op at DEMU

    By D869,

    Spent a pleasant day today at the DEMU Showcase in Burton helping out on Jim Allwood's Welton Down along with fellow Midland Group member John Russell and lapsed member Richard Lake. Thanks to Jim for inviting us and the show organisers for putting on a good do.
     
    I thought I'd take a few trains to play with but having precisely zero appropriate items to fit in with the 1990s Network South East theme, I just had to take along some inappropriate ones.
     
    First up, I thought I'd hijack Jim's continuous run to really give some Warships their legs with a recreation of the late 1960s 14 coach double headed Cornish Riviera which for some unaccountable reason has been diverted onto ex LBSCR SECR lines.
     

     
    Going the other way in time, I decided that I would use DEMU as a prompt to finally have another crack at turning my Virgin Voyager into a useful member of society by trying to tame its excessive speed and unwillingness to stay on the track. Surprisingly given the completely slapdash and rushed job that I did, it seems to have worked really well.
     

     
    Finally, I took the Hall along to run on Jim's preserved branch line. Later in the day I couldn't resist the opportunity of a 14 coach train, so the Hall was tried on that. Naturally there was some wheelslip but surprisingly it managed to drag the train around two complete circuits.
     

     
    A few other sights from the show...
     
    An unusual sighting on Wibdenshaw.
     

     
    A day out in Dudley (Blowers Green)
     

     
    Kinmundy
     

     
    Wheal Mannidge (geddit?)
     

  11. D869

    Gresley BG

    By D869,

    A former member of the Midland area group recently donated his box of unfinished projects and other bits and bobs so that the group members could make use of them. I picked out a part built Gresley BG which looked like a nice model which was crying out for someone to finish it. I have a bit of a soft spot for parcels stock.
     
    Some photos and words about progress to date...
     

    The coach as retrieved - basically two sides, two ends and a floor
     

    I don't know much about its origin - this is the only clue. I assume it's a shot down 4mm etch but I'm really not sure. The scale seems to be about 1:150, so half way between 2mm and 'N'. A rather unusual choice... which made finding a roof a bit tricky.
     

    I cut the ducket and gangway ends from plain brass - a change from all that computer stuff... although I did draw the gangway ends in CAD and then stuck a print of the drawing to the brass.
     

    A gangway being assembled. No real plan here - more a case of 'make it up as you go along'.
     

    Seemed to work OK though.
     

    My original plan was to use an Ultima roof that had been in my gloat box since the 1980s. I think I bought it at IMREX if anyone can remember that far back. Unfortunately when I measured it I found it was pretty much right for 2mm scale and about 2mm too short for this kit. Instead I decided it was time to get to grips with 3d curves and then got Mr Shapeways to produce the goods.
     

    Still needs some sanding though - admittedly the 3d printing artefacts run in the same direction as the planking beneath the covering of the real roof but I think the finish is too rough.
     

    A somewhat ropey shot of the coach so far. The underframe fittings are a combination of 2mm Association and Ultima stuff. The guards footsteps still need to be done from scratch.
     
    The roof fits width and length-wise but I didn't try to fit it to the top profile of the etched coach end. Instead I used the prototype profile so I need to modify the etched end to fit the roof profile... which would have been easier if I had left the gangways off until later. Makes a change from my usual over planning.
     
    Oh, and it will be a 'BGP' - or pigeon van if you prefer because these lasted longer than the 'pure' BGs.
  12. D869
    I think that a good time was had by all at the 2mm do at Kidderminster on Saturday. I certainly enjoyed myself and St Ruth performed with its revised control panel... when we weren't just nattering that is. I'm not sure how many times we got through the schedule, but I think it's far to say that the pace was more leisurely than normal. Another welcome innovation was the snazzy barstool provided by Pauline in the 'front of house' department. I also got to have a look in the new demo signal box that's being connected up just along from the museum.
     
    A few photos that I took on the day...
     

    We even bring our own punters these days! All part of the service.
     

     

     

    Mr Clifford spearheading the Association's new 'early years' initiative.
     
    Yesterday four of the St Ruth crew went up to the GCR at Quorn for the unofficial continuation of the 2mm do... along with Missy, 2mm Andy and Ed Sissling at least. The highlights for me were Kingswear in 2FS - a beautiful rendition of the place where my first ever train journey began, the 'Overlord' layout (more of a collection of models than a layout but some very fine models at that) and getting a run behind 'Gordon Highlander' on the big railway - marvellous sound even if it was running just one engine.
     





  13. D869
    More steamy goings on from my workbench. Now that I'm not frantically trying to make South Yard look less unfinished I've got back to some of the other items that have been in progress for a while. The main build effort amongst these is the David Eveleigh chassis for the Dapol 45xx. The various bits of this have been liberated from their paint shop boxes and put together in hopefully something resembling the right order.
     

     
    Under the hood is a Nigel Lawton motor coupled to the worm via a UJ with the intention of avoiding any end load on the motor bearings. The motor is on a removable mount - the intention being to test some alternative motors. In practice the only other mount that I've made (for the Association can motor) does not align the shafts quite well enough so the Lawton motor and mount is the only one that works.
     

     
    Everything going to plan? Not quite...
     
    When initially put together the chassis (as an 0-6-0) ran appallingly. In fact I had to wire up some jump leads to a borrowed diesel bogie in order to get it to run up and down a reasonable length of track at all. Maybe I'm wrong but I think that a new chassis ought to move freely without any lubrication (not that I'd leave it like that) but this one didn't. My first gambit was to give it 20 minutes of running in (on Taw Bridge up in the loft) with this arrangement and then lubricate it. The chassis didn't free up noticeably during running in but ran quite smoothly once the gears were lubricated. So it stayed like this for a week or two.
     
    The first test run after Nottingham was terrible - like it had developed a severe limp. This was quickly traced to a crankpin (on the side away from me) that had been bent. Straightening this restored smooth running but when tested carefully it still wasn't quite right - there was still some slight binding and when run at low speeds it always seemed to stall at the same crank position which seemed to be the same spot as the problem I'd had before lubricating it.
     
    I'd proved already that the problem was not being caused by coupling rod binding - the mechanism had the same tight spot even with the rods removed so I decided that it must be coming from the drive train. I'd already found a few issues with this and I still wasn't really happy with it, suspecting perhaps some eccentricity in the spur gear on the axle. Last night I spent a lot of time fiddling and fettling the drive train as a last ditch attempt to get the loco working properly short of a complete strip down and rebuild.
     
    For some reason my drive train just doesn't seem to have gone together as it should. First I found that the wormwheel was fouling the shoulder on the centre axle muff so I had to move the wormwheel slightly off the centre line of the worm to solve this. I also suspected that the same thing was happening with the spur gear on the axle and the shoulder on the wormwheel muff and had found during 'dry run' assembly that I could not fully push the spur gear up to the shoulder on the muff without it catching the wormwheel muff. You probably can't see any of this in the photo, but here's a photo from underneath anyway.
     

     
    This last problem could also account for the binding - rather than being eccentric the gear could have been slightly askew on the muff and still catching the wormwheel muff at just one point in its rotation. Resolving this without a strip down involved some leverage between the shoulder and the gear - probably not something you will see recommended in the handbook of correct chassis building practice.
     
    I also found while fiddling with the gears that there seemed to be a definite machining burr on the edge of the spur gear. If the burr was uneven then this might also have caused the binding - giving the same effect as an eccentric gear. Fixing this without stripping down was not going to be easy but I used a small screwdriver to wear away the burr at bottom of each tooth gap and a thin strip of wet & dry attached to a stick of plastikard to smooth away the burr at the top of the teeth... followed by blu-tack to try to hoover up any filings.
     
    I still couldn't see daylight between the wormwheel and the axle muff shoulder so I attacked the shoulder with a needle file (plus more blu-tack to remove the filings) until daylight was visible.
    To cut a long story after all of this poking and prodding the chassis didn't seem to keep stalling at the same point . After so many problems I'm cautious about saying that it's fixed but we'll see how things go.
     
    The pony trucks are another story. I wanted to pick up from both sides on each truck. I tried connecting a jumper wire but this caused too much 'steering' effect on the truck so it kept jumping the rails. It did prove that the pickup was much improved, so I wanted to persevere with it and set to thinking about how to transfer a bit more weight onto the trucks.... which made me wonder if I could kill two birds with one stone...
     
    I wasn't sure if this would work but it was simple enough to try it and find out. The current arrangement might be described as a Simpson spring but I've not heard of anyone using them like this. Mine are 36SWG wire soldered to the frame spacers directly above the pony axles. They head back towards the driving wheels before making a sharp about face to come back and bear on the tops of the pony axles. Some adjustment was needed to get the pony trucks centred and to arrange for a reasonable amount of springing but so far the results seem encouraging in terms of staying on the track and electrical pickup is now better than ever.
     
    The plan now is to fit some DGs and send it for a spell of testing before thinking about fitting the cylinders or doing anything to the body.
    Oh, and I need a new controller. The Lawton motor doesn't like my AMRs when pushed to anything above a crawl (although the quality of the said crawl is exemplary!). So far I've been using an experimental battery powered controller for testing it but this is not a long term answer - the slow speed control is particularly hit and miss with this gizmo.
     
    A few other things are gradually emerging from a long stay in the paint shop. The Hawksworth BTK is currently being subjected to my attentions with the lining pen
     

     
    You can also see the BG creeping into the frame. This is in for repairs because one of its bogies partly collapsed at St Albans. The bogie has now been strengthened with some brass angle and now seems very strong. I'd forgotten until recently that the BTK build and BG repair are related because I built a set of NPCS bogies with the BTK with the intention of swapping out the (long spring) bogies from the BG so that everything winds up on the correct bogies at the end of the process. My plan for tonight was to sort out the couplings ready for the bogie swap but then I got diverted to writing on RMWeb. A valid alternative to real modelling
  14. D869

    A West Country Hero

    By D869,

    I thought it was about time we had another Hydraulic on this blog, so here goes...
     
    St Ruth is set in 1965 so by rights it should be overwhelmingly populated with Warships. No problem there, we have Cockade, Hermes, Druid and Zest of various ages, plus Cossack too of course. The snag is that in 1965 they should really be green. Maroon is a bit of a stretch - the first maroon repaints appearing in September 65 so we really need some green ones.
     
    The first Farish Warship I acquired was a blue D822 'Hercules' shortly after they were originally released. For some reason it has never been favoured with a finescale set of wheels and has languished in its original box apart from the odd bit of test running. Hermes and Druid were both acquired secondhand, rewheeled and set to work with no other changes in very short order to address motive power shortages at our first outing.
     
    Obviously livery is one reason why it has been on the shelf for so long but another is my dissatisfaction with the Farish model. The moulding quality is superb but for me it just doesn't say 'Warship'. I think that the biggest problem is the way that the windscreens have been done - and this is most obvious on locos with full yellow ends but there are other issues too so I've decided to bite the bullet and try to make it better.
     
    At the same time, I will backdate it to green livery and it will get a new name. The name I've chosen is D820 'Grenville' which was named after an Elizabethan captain belonging to a famous Devon and Cornwall family... partly because this seems like a very suitable name and partly because I don't want to sign myself up (yet) for a bunch of other Warship detail changes by stepping outside the range D813-D832. Anyway a nice set of red nameplates was purchased from Mr Shawplan at Nottingham a few weeks ago.
     
    Anyway, enough of all the waffle. Let's talk about progress. So far I've just been working on improving one end so that I can figure out what works and then copy the ideas on the other end.
     
    The offensive glazing unit has been removed and I'm trying out some of the replacement windscreen surrounds that I had etched last year. These were an absolute pig to draw but thankfully they fit very well. In my (subjective) opinion they are a huge improvement on the Farish effort. I've figured out some further improvements to the etch but they will need to wait until a future build.
     
    I've also sliced off the handrails and replaced them with 33SWG nickel silver wire. They aren't brilliant but slightly less bad than the moulded ones. This seems to be the thinnest handrail wire available these days - whatever happened to 36SWG steel? I started by using the 'shadows' of the Farish handrails to position the holes but wasn't very happy with the ones on top of the nose so I've moved the inner holes upwards and inwards which seems to give a nicer curve that follows the shape of the nose better.
     
    The central headboard bracket has been sliced off and replaced by one fabricated from 0.5mm brass wire and 5 thou N/S strip in the same way that I did for D869 several years ago. The trick here is to file away half of the end of the wire to make a 'D' shape. Cut this off and make another piece the same way and then solder the two back together so that they overlap and trap the N/S strip in between. Then just cut off the bits that you don't want and bend to the shape of the bracket. It's a lot easier than it sounds.
     
    There's still more to do. I'm intending to replace the lower lamp brackets with something more three dimensional and also deepen the undercut below the headcode box. The headcode box is not a great representation of the real thing either. Ideally I'd like to attack that too but I really can't see how to do it without throwing the baby out with the bathwater so I think that I'll live with it.
     
    Other plans include smoothing off the rivets at the edges of the roof panels (go and look at some photos - the real thing has countersunk or pop rivets so they are invisible in most photos). I'll probably open out the fuel fillers to make them look less flat. The cab interior needs some work - the top of the control panel should be very obvious through the windcreens but Farish's version is too low.
     
    The final puzzle (for now) is the two access hatches on the cab sides. For some reason these have been moulded by using a really obtrusive groove. The real things were flush fitting panels so Farish's interpretation is as subtle as a brick. I might have a go at filling the grooves and/or representing the panels with some 5 thou plastic but so far I haven't figured out how (or if) the Farish body is painted or whether it will take Mek Pak. Anybody know?
     
    Finally, a note of thanks to Brian Hanson of Shawplan for sending me a CD with more close-up photos of D821 Greyhound than you can shake a stick at.
     
    That's all for now... apart from some photos of progress so far, alongside Druid which is out of the box Farish.
     

    First trial fitting - not too bad
     

    Another one of the test etches - too small
     

    Surgery underway on handrails and headboard bracket
  15. D869

    St Ruth at RailEx

    By D869,

    Just back from RailEx with St Ruth all packed away safely. It was a very enjoyable show and an excellent mix of layouts to look at.
     
    St Ruth behaved itself and performed well, including the new operators (Ian and Stephen). All four signals kept working for both days which is good news given our lack of mileage with them (and particularly the servo drives). The route indicator decided not to play on Saturday but was persuaded back into action today and was fine after that. I think that the new screens displaying info about the schedule were well received. By coincidence, St Merryn were also giving the first outing to a display screen explaining their operations to the public. There were a few minor niggles but I can't really think of any major problems and we certainly got plenty of positive comments from a knowledgeable audience.
     
    Some photos... as usual not exactly comprehensive coverage.
     
    Getting the legs levelled. Apparently the Stoke Mandeville floor is very level so in the end we used a ruler to set all of our adjustable feet to the same height.

     
    Blurry photo of me fitting the signal that was only finished the previous day. Not my best side really.

     
    Us in the RailEx hall. Jerry's Tucking Mill was the next layout along and Fencehouses behind us. With the Association stand we had quite a 2mm island going on.

     
    The late Phil Kerr's KGV got an outing late this afternoon... appropriately with one of my Hawksworths in tow.

     
    And I couldn't really leave without a taking some photos of the latest two items to make it out of my paint shop.

     
    I didn't get out much but did manage to get a shot of Bucks Hill's remarkable backscene.

  16. D869

    2mm Expo 2015

    By D869,

    Today was our third Expo in a row. We did actually question whether they really wanted us again but were told that this one was the 55th Anniversary one so we could come and play again.
     
    A good day was had by all. It was great to meet some with all of the folks at the show. Joint honours for going 'above and beyond the call' go to Steve for travelling all the
    way from New Zealand and Chris who was late for the start of the show with some lame excuse about Chelford being at the end of a 36 hour journey from Brisbane.
     
    Some photos from the day.
     
    The view of the 12 inch to the foot scale train set outside the hotel this morning. I couldn't resist trying this shot although it didn't work too well.

     
    I'm titling this one 'St Ruth by Night' because it's what the layout looks like overnight when at a show.

     
    Some shots from around the show. It was pretty busy although I think it had quietened down a bit when I took these.




     
    Finally my one and only proper model photo - Nigel Ashton's GWR mogul based on his Manor chassis with scratchbuilt upperworks and an RTR tender.

     
    Chris also took a few photos while we were entrusted (ahem) with the operation of Ian Smith's 'Modbury' but he said something about needing sleep, so those will have to wait for another day.
     
    Chris' edit after some sleep.. Some inappropriate goings on in South Devon.

    'Now arriving at platform 1, the 21st Century.'
     

    66204 picks up some very overdue freight.
     

    How much has cattle class has changed over 100 years?
  17. D869

    Pontefract 2020

    By D869,

    A quick report from our trip to Pontefract this weekend. An excellent show where the organisers made everyone feel really welcome throughout the weekend and with a bit of a 'do' after the show on Saturday evening. St Ruth also won a pot for the best scenic layout . Our congratulations also to the layouts that won the other cups including Mills Bridge which was awarded best layout. I must confess that I completely failed to take any photos whatsoever so there are no piccies to accompany this post... Sorry!
     
    EDIT: Andrew Hyatt kindly sent me some photos so here are a couple showing the layout 'in context'... but one of those was when we were packing away.


  18. D869
    After a somewhat late night yesterday evening getting them finally assembled, the two chlorine tanks are now finished.
     
    Here are a couple of photos.
     


     
    Overall I am really pleased with the way these have turned out. They have taken a lot of effort to build, mainly in the initial etch design and the painting and final assembly stages because they are such complex vehicles. I have also discovered a few tolerance adjustments that will be included in any future builds.
     
    As Association members will know, the AGM and annual competitions were held today and the chlorine tanks along with the semi-bulk bromine tanks and a brake van won the John Barker trophy. Mr Smith of this parish also returned home with a considerable and well deserved haul of silverware.
     
    It was great to catch up with friends today too and see four lovely 2mm Finescale layouts for the same very reasonable price.
     
    Finally, a note of thanks to Dave Millward for kindly supplying measurements plus a DVD of a video that he took showing one of these tanks at Embsay from every conceivable angle.
  19. D869

    Half Term at South Yard

    By D869,

    I thought I would introduce South Yard by concentrating on what it is for so here is a picture of South Yard set up in the holiday cottage that we rented last week for our half-term holiday on the North York Moors.
     

     
    I don't claim any originality in any of South Yard's ideas (or the title of this posting) - the main inspiration came from David Mallott's 'Chapel Wharf', particularly his idea of having a layout that could easily be taken on holiday to provide entertainment in case of inclement weather. Fortunately we didn't have very much inclement weather, but the nights are drawing in so there was plenty of opportunity to run some freight traffic. There might have been passenger traffic too if I had remembered to take the bubble car.
     
    South Yard was conceived a long time ago - probably about 2001 as a 'quick' ultra-portable micro layout. I'd partially built a bigger 2mm layout some time prior to this but a house move left it with no suitable place to live. If the 2012 RMWeb challenge is for the longest time to build the least amount of layout then I reckon I'll be in the running.
     
    South Yard is set in the back streets of Plymouth. The fictional story is that the LSWR wanted to gain their own access to the Royal Naval Dockyard at Devonport and so built a line off their Stonehouse Pool branch to reach the southern portion of the dockyard (which really is called South Yard) and gain access to the yard's internal rail network via a gate in the yard wall near to the rope walk. A small station was also provided to cater for the yard workforce and local populace. This fiction probably has quite a few holes including some questionable gradients and the elimination of several streets near the yard, but is perhaps no less plausible than the real thing which involved the burrowing of a restricted height tunnel on the internal railway between the various parts of the dockyard.
     
    The setting and built environment draws much from David Mallott's inspiration - the Turnchapel Branch, although I've lifted bits of Turnchapel station rather than the wharf and grafted them onto a track layout mostly inspired by John Spencer's Ruyton Road. The dockyard gate was originally inspired by the entrance to Coypool depot from the Marsh Mills branch, although you'd be hard pressed to spot any similarity now. The road bridge and scenic break is from further afield - Exeter Central, the story being that a road widening scheme required replacement of an older bridge. The provender store was recycled from my older layout and was based on the photos of Barnstaple cement depot in the first MRJ Compendium. Finally, the coal merchant's office is based on a photo of the back of a building at Welshpool and pure speculation regarding how the front might have looked.
     

     
    My original definition of 'ultra portable' was that it should fit into a single compartment of a flight bag (not that I ever intended to take it on a flight). This dictated the 10 by 16 inch area available for the layout and also that it should pack down into something not more than a couple of inches in height. There is no fiddle yard, just an adapter that allows modules to be plugged in. The other ends of the modules are supported by a book of suitable thickness. Here's the layout just back from holiday and still without any of its removeable scenic bits.
     

     
    South Yard has never actually travelled in the flight bag as originally intended because I was given a rectangular brief case for which I had no real use other than as South Yard's new carry case. This also allowed me to postpone the construction of the originally planned protective case for South Yard.
     
    It would be nice to say that South Yard packs down into a nicely designed box complete with integral storage for stock and buildings. It would be nice but it wouldn't be true. The layout itself including buildings, scenery and fiddle yard modules all pack rather untidily into the brief case.
     

     
    The briefcase then travels in company with a Morrison's shopping bag containing the somewhat bulky power supply (also recycled from my old layout), controller, locos and stock plus a small toolkit and a box with whatever projects I'm optimistically planning to work on while I'm away. Speaking of which, here are the products from three separate weeks' holidays during the summer and Autumn.
     

     
    Happily, South Yard has completely fulfilled its original purpose and has been taken on holiday on several occasions as well as playing its regular role as the permanent test track in my study/workshop.
     
    There is still plenty more to do - the bare bones of the scenery is done (which is a major achievement compared to my previous layouts) but there is plenty more work to do in terms of detailing the coal yard and adding more vegetation. The dockyard could use some actual gates plus an extra module adapter to allow trains to be shunted through them.
  20. D869

    St Albans 2014

    By D869,

    Well, 2014 seems to have arrived and after the usual last minute flurry of activity to get things finished, so did this weekend's St Albans show.
     
    It was great to see some of our existing friends and to make some new ones. I think that all of the team had a good time although you might have got a different answer if you had asked those of us on our backs mending the point motor at the goods yard throat during the Saturday morning session.
     
    The Sea Siding crossover also decided to develop a mechanical gremlin when we powered up on Sunday. This one is a real puzzle because it was fine on Saturday evening and the only thing that happened in between was a night in the hall under a dust cover. Fortunately the schedule hasn't been changed too radically by the new crossover and we could still remember how to operate without it.
     
    I think we'll be adding some lighting behind the scenes quite soon. We were on the stage so the lighting levels were low and the walls were black. Even with a couple of extra lamps that we had with us it was pretty difficult to see when anything small needed to be worked on. Swapping locos to the other end of trains in the fiddle yard was a particular challenge and I had to resort to my keyring Maglite quite frequently to check whether the wheels really were on the track.
     
    As has been mentioned elsewhere the hotel was very nice and the food was excellent.
     
    As usual, a few randomly taken photos. I started off with good intentions and took photos of a couple of layouts that were near to us... then I got talking to Julia... and then Jerry... and then it was time to head back.
     

    Hartburn. Apparently (unlike St Ruth) there really is a place called that.
     

    La Baraque. A chunk of France... from the Netherlands.
     

    La Baraque again
     

    A dismembered Dapol Western bogie for anyone (like me) puzzling over how to do a 2FS conversion. Note the square plastic axles (!)
     

    The view from St Ruth looking out. Missy is somewhere up there on the far corner of the balcony. The Association mob were out of sight down in the basement... probably for the best really.
     
    Next up (if I've got this right) is Epsom and Ewell. I'll update the sidebar thingy when I've checked that with John.
  21. D869

    Hawksworth Full Brake

    By D869,

    The class 22 is in the paint shop (scary) so something new has taken its place on the workbench - an Ultima kit for a Hawksworth full brake.
     
    These coaches survived well into the 1970s in rail blue, so this will fit neatly into my chosen period. I also happen to think that the Hawksworth coaches are some of the finest looking coaches ever built, so I don't need much of an excuse to build one. I'm planning to make life difficult for myself by painting it maroon and using my new Bob Moore lining pen - rail blue seems a bit too boring for this vehicle.
     
    This is the first Ultima kit that I've built. It consists of brass sides and floor and plastic roof and ends, so I'm a bit concerned about the strength of the finished article. I'm also rather reluctant to follow the instructions and glue everything up into a closed box because I just know that I will need access to the inside at some point in the future.
     
    The kit is not a beginner's model - for example the instructions seem to be 3 years older than the brass floor etch and suggest that the floor is made of aluminium. I'm guessing that this also explains why the moulded bumps on the back of the ends don't seem to be at the right height to match up with the floor.
     
    On the plus side, the etched sides seem pretty clean, as do the moulded roof and ends. In particular the roof is devoid of any bowing, so I'm contemplating fixing the sides and ends to the floor and making the roof removable.
     
    Interior access probably doesn't matter too much for the full brake, but if this goes OK then I am hankering after a couple more Hawksworth vehicles to make up a more mid-60s formation for St Ruth even though the passenger carrying vehicles were all withdrawn by about 1967 and therefore are just a bit too early for me. I seem to be having a bit of a coaching stock phase at the moment - I picked up a couple more Farish Mark 1s at the RMWeb members day and I also have just sent an order to Masterclass Models for some Maunsell brake coaches to form a North Cornwall style 'P' set... which doesn't fit at all with my chosen period or St Ruth's geography.
  22. D869

    More New Things

    By D869,

    There hasn’t been a huge amount recently that has really justified a blog posting on its own but there has been plenty going on so here is a potted summary of recent developments and the covoluted paths by which they progressed through the works.
     
    Another Stephen Harris tank is now ready for the paint shop. This one is a class ‘A’ tank. I went for one of the early ones with the shoe suspension and without bottom discharge because that’s what the transfer sheet covers. On the whole though I’m thinking that I need to find some way to get away from the numbers on the sheet so that I can build a few other variations with the remaining kits. The early ones don’t seem to show up much in later photos which makes me wonder how long they lasted in their original traffic. I was trying to speed up my building of these kits… I started this one in September so I don’t think it’s worked.
     

     
    The first diversion from the tank was an Association BR 20T brake van kit. I felt that I was rather short of brake vans so this kit was purchased at the Expo in June. For the most part it went together as per the instructions. The only major departure that I can remember are the roof vents – the positions of the holes for these don’t match the drawing in Don Rowland’s ‘first half million’ book (nor do they match the photos) so I filled the holes with solder and drilled new ones further inboard. Oh, and it's missing the holes for the little handrail above the ducket on the chimney side. This van was ready for traffic at the Burton show, although I still need to do some weathering on it. Here's a photo of it next to its rather longer in the tooth friend - a cut down Peco model.
     

     
    During our half term week on Exmoor I finished the brake van and did a bit more on the oil tank. I then started on another Hawksworth that I’d packed as my ‘holiday project’ - a brake third this time. Needless to say I didn’t finish it over half term (not even close) but now it too is ready for the paint shop – I managed this one in just under a month which is not bad for me. Then I felt guilty about that tank and finally did the last remaining jobs before the paint shop. Here's a picture of the Hawksworth. It's sat on NPCS bogies just now - once painted these will be swapped with the BG which is currently sat on a set of long spring bogies.
     

     
    Having scored a minor victory over my coaching stock gloat box, a package of assorted Collett and Hawksworth kits arrived from Mr Higgs last week. I then took the obvious next steps - put them away for later and order a few more to go with them.
     
    D1051 has been running progressively more roughly (sounding like a bag of nails) and was finally declared a failure at Burton, seemingly unable to make a round trip from the fiddle yard to the station and back without conking out. On reaching home I took it to bits and after a good deal of trial and error found that one of the motor bearings had worn to an oval shape allowing the armature to rub on the pole pieces. I also found that one of the motor brushes had been running at 90 degrees to the correct angle for a long time, so the wear pattern on the brush was a sort of ‘cross’ shape. I had some spare bearings and brushes from BR Lines in stock, so these were fitted and D1051 seemed much more chirpy when tested on St Ruth last Tuesday.
     
    Having recently cleared two builds from my workbench, there must be room for two more. The plan is to make a start on the David Eveleigh 45xx chassis and also get another bracket signal underway for St Ruth. Whether these projects get finished without interruptions and distractions remains to be seen but here’s a photo of the 45xx etch with its frame bushes fitted.
     

     
    Oh, and I almost forgot… South Yard has finally gained its own lighting rig. This was inspired by bcnPete’s use of Ikea LED strips. I started out with a set of ‘LEDBERG’s which were nice but I felt that they lacked a little in terms of output for South Yard. I then started experimenting with various of the self-adhesive LED strips that can be had for few quid on eBay. At the moment the rig is extremely ‘Heath Robinson’ being constructed from foamboard in a way that allows it to be packed into the briefcase with the layout. The LED strips are stuck on with Blu Tack at the moment and the power supply has a peculiar daisy-chain of connectors and adapters. The photos were taken under ‘warm white’ illumination using (most of) a 1m strip cut into 3 parts. Judging by the above photos, the camera seems undecided regarding the correct white balance to use. More work is planned, including painting the facia panels – white is not the intended facia colour – and some rather better put together electrical bits.
     

  23. D869

    Class 22 - Part 11 (The End)

    By D869,

    D6309 is pretty much finished now and is ready to earn its keep on South Yard and St Ruth. It even went on holiday (with South Yard) to its native Cornwall a couple of weeks ago.
     

     
    The trip through the paint shop was fairly long and painful, the lowest point being when I sprayed it with Humbrol matt varnish to protect the transfers only to find that this left a horrid translucent effect over the whole loco. I rescued this with an wash of thinned Precison green applied by brush. Thankfully this worked, otherwise it would have been time for the paint stripper.
     
    The lining was done with the Bob Moore pen. This went very smoothly and only needed a bit of tidying up to make the ends nice and crisp.
     
    The transfers are old Woodhead ones that I have had for many years. These were resurrected using Microscale liquid decal film thanks to a tip on RMWeb.
     
    Weathering was all done by brush - I am not yet confident enough to do this with the airbrush (certainly not on something that has taken so long to reach this stage). The effect I was looking for was to reproduce the very run down condition of these locos (especially the remaining green ones) circa 1969. I think I achieved what I wanted to do (they were really grotty), but after doing it I wasn't quite so sure that I wanted it any more.
     
    The glazing is 10 thou clear sheet glued behind the body sides using Formula 560 Canopy glue. I would have liked to do true flush glazing for the windscreens. I tried to do it but found that I couldn't persuade 10 thou glazing to stay put in a hole in a 10 thou metal loco body.
     
    The headcodes are done using some letters that I had specially produced for me by a local printing company a long time ago. They were photographed from my hand drawn artwork onto some sort of special printing film (not normal photographic film - I tried that unsuccessfully) so that when fixed into place the headcodes appear to be behind glass. I suspect that this way of doing things has probably been superseded by computerised printing so it may not be possible to do this again.
     
    There are still a few bits and bobs remaining - the cab door handrails are the main exterior items. I'm also going to try to fit a bit of cab detail if this can be done without it looking silly. There are still a few places on where too much daylight is visible through the side windows and louvres so I need to add a few more bits of black plastikard to block this.
     
    I'd also like to make the wheel flanges less shiny if this can be done without compromising the running, but I'm not sure how to do this.
     
    One day I might reinstate the lights to illuminate the headcodes from behind. I'd also really like to get a sound system working but I think that this would need to be under the baseboard both in terms of practicality and sound quality. So far I haven't found a good under baseboard system that can be set up with sounds to represent different loco types. I think it's quite a small niche market, so maybe it's too big an ask.
     
    Overall I am very happy with the end result. The loco (to me anyway) looks the part and moves very well indeed thanks to its Atlas running gear. I might even build another one... but not just yet.
     
    Here are a couple more photos...
     

     

  24. D869

    Leamington 2017

    By D869,

    This weekend we blew the cobwebs off St Ruth after 6 months of exhibition inactivity by taking it to one of the bigger of our local shows run by Leamington & Warwick MRC.
     
    We haven't been completely idle during this period (almost... but not completely). The most noticeable additions being the ability for our 'sun' to gradually set allowing us to run the layout in darknes. Apart from a black cloth to keep out stray light from overhead this has entailed a lot of work putting lights (controlled by an Arduino under each board) into buildings and generally bringing into commission all sorts of lighting bits that had been built in over the years but so far hardly used. The signals had been built with working lamps from day one but this is the first time that we've wired them up other than for occasional photo sessions. One of our more recent members, Andrew Hyatt has also spent a lot of time painstakingly researching and then creating reproductions of the 1950s era street lighting that is evident in photos of Penzance up to the 1970s.
     
    The second major addition has been a shameless theft of Nigel Ashton's display board idea. We now have a board running most of the length of the scenic section containing details about various buildings and other stuff about how the layout works. For this show it was printed onto plain paper but eventually it will be done with something more resistant to sticky finger marks... because it does attract plenty of finger poking.
     
    Oh, and the show was fun and the food was very good.
     
    Some photos...
     
    The Leamington College provided a handy balcony just so that we could take some high angle photos...
     


     
    My attempt at photographing 'after dark'. In practice this is tricky because I didn't want to get in the punters' way. As you can see, overhead is not the only source of stray light - particularly when you set the layout up in an atrium.
     

     
    The roadshow crew doing their stuff
     

  25. D869

    About St Ruth

    By D869,

    This layout is the current offering from the Midland Area group of the 2mm Scale Association. It draws heavily from Penzance station and is very much 'work in progress'.
     
    The scenic area is 12 feet long and up to 3 feet wide, with a further 4 feet of length of a traversing fiddleyard. It is set in the 1960's, but the trackwork is based on what was there in the 1930's.
     
    Currently, the track is operational and work has started on the scenery, buildings etc.
     
    The layout had its first outing at the 2mm Scale Association's Golden Jubilee Expo in Oxford on July 3rd and 4th 2010.
     
    The group meets about once a fortnight in Wolvey near Coventry.
     
    Photos can be found at http://www.rmweb.co....m/1060-st-ruth/
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