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D869

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  1. D869

    Swindon 2016

    By D869,

    The dust has now settled after our trip to Swindon. An excellent show in the presence of some of the great products of Swindon Works. It was great that our roving reporter, Chris (MinerChris) was able to join us from Utah . I hasten to add that Swindon was not the only reason for his trip. This morning we made the rather less fun journey to Heathrow so that he could catch his plane back 'over there'
     
    There was some disturbance from the other side of the planked wall caused by a rather rowdy contingent from Wiltshire and Cornwall attached to 'St Blazey'.
     
    Some photos....
     
    This punter seemed to engage in a prolonged study of our efforts. I don't think he was happy with the rather narrow gauge and had he got close he probably wouldn't have be too impressed with the non 'billiard table' nature of our track in the vicinity of the baseboard joints.

     
    I'm trying to persuade Ian that this should be his next project. He claimed to have forgotten his tape measure.

     
    The behaviour of some of the operators really started to slide later in the show...

     
    John Greenwood's delightful 'St Blazey'.

  2. D869

    Tutbury Supermeet

    By D869,

    The Tutbury Supermeet has come and gone. I'd like to thank John Aldrick and his helpers for organising a very enjoyable day.
     
    I spent most of it operating South Yard but had plenty of interest all day and by mid-afternoon I started to lose my voice because I'm not used to nattering quite so much. An unsuspecting Anthony Yeates asked if I'd mind him taking some photos and was promptly saddled with minding the layout for a few minutes while I nipped off to the Association shop and had chance to get to the loo. A certain Mr York also stopped by for a natter.
     
    A few trains also ran in between bouts of nattering - everything from a 45xx to a First Great Western 153 was seen. It's nice to ring the changes stock-wise (and date-wise) on such a small layout.
     
    It was also good to see how Modbury is progressing but I'll let Ian talk about that on his own pages. Laurie Adams' Yeovil Town was there too - this is already a pretty epic piece of work and will be quite something when it's acquired some buildings and scenery.
     
    I took very few photos, but here's a quick snap of the layout in all its insignificance just before packing up to prove that I did actually manage to finish the re-scenicking execrise. Unfortunately by this time the layout lights were trying to fight against the sun streaming through the window behind so it's not the best photo ever.
     

     
    I'm now looking forward to some rather more relaxed and less deadline oriented modelling and perhaps a bit more non-modelling activity too.
  3. D869

    A Bonus Show

    By D869,

    For anyone likely to be in the Wolvey (near Coventry) area on Saturday, we will be setting up St Ruth in the parish church as part of the fund raising fete which is open from 2PM to 4:30PM.
     
    I can't offer you any other layouts or any model railway traders but I'd say that there is a good chance of some decent cakes for sale and the other usual summer fete attractions.
     
    There may be some departures from St Ruth's usual sequence of operations, time period and geographic location.
     
    http://www.wolvey.org/SJTBC_Summerfair_2016.htm
  4. D869
    Some considerable time ago I invested in a couple of Chris Higgs' Maunsell coach kits. It was a bit of an impulse buy - I've always fancied having a north Cornwall 'P' set even though it doesn't fit with my usual core themes. Having languished in the gloat box ever since, I decided that South Yard's appearance at the upcoming (err... tomorrow) Supermeet at Tutbury was a good prompt to actually get them built.
     
    As with all things, time ran short so they are not exactly 'finished'. They still lack set numbers, door handles, loo fillers, weathering and so on and the non-public side has very effective ventilation courtesy of a complete absence of glazing.
     
    A couple of quick photos of the new arrivals.
     

     

     

  5. D869
    Things have been pretty quiet over the winter season modelling-wise. The building work on the house has taken up a lot of my attention, even though it was being done by someone else. We are still progressing with the aftermath (painting, light fittings, yada yada) but I'm finding that I now have a bit more time for the important things in life.
     
    Anyway, with the intention of giving myself some impetus to do dome actual modelling I promised John Aldrick that I would take South Yard to the 2mm Supermeet in Tutbury on June 25th. Not exactly a very risky proposition compared to some people's exhibition promises but there are a few jobs that I want to get done before then.
     
    The biggest job is to re-work the greenery. This was originally done by gluing dyed lint furry side down and then tearing off the backing. Unfortunately as others have observed, lint aint what it used to be. In particular it lacks the thickness of 'pile' that the old stuff had. I've always sort of tolerated the result rather than being happy with it. The snowstorm before Christmas 2014 probably left some white residue too which hasn't helped the colour at all.
     
    Sort of like this...
     

     
    The plan is to re-do things with static grass, attempting to follow the guidance in Mr Gravett's book. I picked up various packs of fibres from the Green Scene stand at the Nottingham show in March... and forgot to buy glue. I've now stolen John's pot of Flock Cement so it's time to get started.
     
    An electric fly swat and a tea strainer were forcibly mated together (I have to say that the fly swat was utterly useless for its intended purpose). First off was a test using the various fibres which went pretty well. So, I've now learned that to do realistic grass, you should make your landscape substrate from Morissons cardboard ice cream boxes.
     
    I then decided to just get on with the job rather than agonizing over further off-layout tests, starting with the front edge which in spite of being closest to the viewer is fairly nondescript and (I hope) unobtrusive. Naturally, it turns out to be more tricky on the actual layout with all sorts of sticky up bits to get in the way and difficult to reach corners.
     
    South Yard did already have a tiny patch of static grass. This was done a few years ago using (I think) Noch fibres. The fibres are a mix of various colours... and looked awful...
     

     
    Some of the tests came out a bit too uniform - rather like a crew-cut so I've been working by putting pinches of different fibres into the tea strainer one by one - mainly short summer grass with some short straw and longer spring grass mixed in as the mood takes me. I also have some 'lush green' which probably needs caution.
     
    The first bit (in the corner) was done by gluing straight over the lint grass (and old static grass). This looked fine but I wanted to try a browner substrate so for the next bit I tried painting over the lint with various things - two different watercolours (burnt & raw sienna) and some raw sienna acrylic... which comes in a much bigger tube. I'm not sure if it makes much difference but I like the idea of soil showing through thin grass so I think I'll probably continue like this, but maybe tone it down a bit.
     

     
    The latest efforts...
     

    The join between the two days' work is too obvious. I think this is down to my mixing colours on the fly rather than the painted ground... and rashly putting some lush green into the later mix. I need to be more careful to stick to known colour mixes at the edges of each area being done.
     
    I can also see the joins between each patch done on the same day - these show up as lines where the fibres are more thickly applied. I'm not sure how to get around this problem. Maybe I'll pluck some fibres out or disguise the joins with more planting. Anyway, I need to figure out the answer before I do the embankment at the back of the platform.
     
    I've also tried out putting some foam foliage into the glue before applying the grass. I'm not sure about this. It's definitely a bad idea to try to clump the foliage after putting it in place because then glue gets onto the upper side and you end up with grass fibres sticking out of the top which looks very odd.
     
    Another conundrum is how to deal with the join between the yard surface and the grass. I'm trying Mr Gravett's technique of using various yard-coloured powders while the glue is wet. The best so far seems to be collected from the ashpan of my 16mm scale coal fired loco. I also tried the stuff that collected in the smokebox. This is a sort of darker grey colour and I thought it would be OK but it looked horribly out of place. I hadn't realised how muted some of my greys were until I did this.
     
    So... just need to do the rest of the layout now.
  6. D869

    To The Manor Born

    By D869,

    A little project that I've been working on for the past few weeks...
     

     
    This is an Ixion manor bought on Ebay and now sporting a partly completed Nigel Ashton milled brass 2FS chassis.
     
    This evening was its first proper test run. South Yard is a bit too short for this sort of activity so after a few initial runs there to make sure the thing could actually move it was up to the loft to try it on the rehomed (and not very scenic) Taw Bridge where there is at least 6 feet or so of clear run.
     
    When the loco arrived from Ebay I was very impressed by the running of the original Ixion chassis and I thought that the 2FS version had a lot to live up to. Happily it has managed to pass that test with flying colours . It runs very smoothly indeed at all speeds although it doesn't go very fast because I chose the slowest possible gear ratio. Pickup is very reliable because it picks up from the split frame loco chassis and also has pinpoint pickups on the tender. It also managed to pull 4 Colletts back and forth (leaving Rapido couplers on the ends of a few coaches has advantages sometimes )
     

     
    The test was interrupted for a meal break during which the loco stayed in the loft so I now also know that it still runs well after cooling to sub zero temperatures.
     
    Lots of work still to do... most notably adding the conn rods and crosshead... hopefully without screwing up the nice running qualities. And then I need to do something to lose that 'out of the box' look for the body... which leads me on to...
     
    Early BR black is of course hopeless in terms of historical fit with all of my other stock. The black thing probably won't be the long term body for this loco because Dapol were knocking out Manors for 40 quid at Warley, so I was unable to resist buying another one in late BR green - rather more suitable as a supporting cast member for some nice green Warships.
     
    Anybody know where to get hold of etched GW name and number plates? I only know where to buy diesel nameplates.
  7. D869

    Kendal 2016

    By D869,

    Just back from an excellent weekend in Cumbria at the Kendal show - the furthest north that we've been so far. It was rather humbling to hear that some people were coming down from Scotland to see us (and hopefully the other layouts too).
     
    For the most part the layout ran pretty smoothly. A new innovation (hidden to the public) was some pictures on the operators' display screens to help us to run the correct trains - handy when people step into less familiar jobs to cover lunch time and so on. As usual there is a small list of gremlins to work on when we get back to the ranch.
     
    Overall, a nice show with a very firendly feeling. We really enjoyed ourselves and would like to thank the organisers. Also a special mention to Yvonne, our landlady for the weekend - a real character.
     
    A few photos from the show...
     
    The side of the layout that makes it all happen. Note the lamp underneath for adjusting signals that drift out of position and the empty cake tin - Pauline's flapjacks and brownies all gone!

     
    North Holderness Light Railway


     
    Hospital Gates

     
    Loch Oran - clearly there is at least one person in this group with a flair for scenery

  8. D869

    Merry Christmas

    By D869,

    As a late December evening draws in, 4574 and her crew prepare to set off for home with just a brake van in tow after having delivered a few wagons to South Yard. The cameraman manages to capture the scene with the train almost silhouetted by the solitary lamp that passes for illumination on the platform these days.
     

     
    Normally I'd post a seasonal message on the St Ruth blog but what with one thing and another I didn't get chance to do the usual pre-Christmas photo session, so you'll have to make do with a postcard from the seedier end of Plymouth instead.
     
    A word or two about the photo. We've had builders in for the past few months so the prospect of deliberately putting fine white dust onto things didn't really appeal this time around, so I decided on a snow-free scene.
     
    The lamp post is new. This was on the etch that I had done last year. You can't see in the photo, but it's one of the Exmouth Junction concrete jobs. The lamp itself is intended to represent one of those 'ESLA' arched reflectors that seem to adorn the lamp posts (or maybe just post?) at Oreston on the Turnchapel branch. 'Represent' is the operative word because it needs to be rather overscale in order to shade the tiny LED inside.
     
    Apart from the lamp, there is a tiny bit of fill-in light from the layout's own lighting system. Even with the LED controller trying to achieve 1/255 of full brightness, the white LED strips were too bright. I got better results by shading some of them during the exposure but I think that the exposure that I finally chose was using just a little bit of blue light. Blue is probably most peoples' idea of how near darkness looks, but it's a bit of a cliche. I took some of the blue saturation away using GIMP to get back to a more neutral overall colour for the scene. Otherwise the photo is unmodified apart from some cropping.
     
    The 45XX has appeared here previously. The Toad was built by MinerChris and painted by yours truly. I expect he'll want it back some time.
     
    Merry Christmas to all. Hope to see some of you at Kendal in January.
  9. D869

    Wycrail 2015

    By D869,

    We took St Ruth for a day out at Wycrail yesterday - actually a day and a night because we set up on the Friday evening, having previously discovered that trying to do a one day show in one day is a fairly stressful experience.
     
    All in all a very enjoyable show although I'm puzzled why it's not a 2 day affair - it certainly justifies it on the basis of size and quality. We had Missy Julia with a demo table next to us so it was great to have a catch up. Several other folks popped in to say hello too.
     
    I took my DSLR and tripod along to do a bit of experimentation once the punters had thinned out towards the end of the day. It's fairly well established that St Ruth's lighting rig produces an illumination that cameras find rather challenging so photos taken at shows wind up looking, well... not great. Very noticeable areas of light and dark between the areas in the middle of the spot beams and those less well lit are the usual issue so I thought that I'd have a bit of a play. I'm not sure that my efforts were very scientific and artistic merit wasn't something that I was aiming for but here they are anyway.
     
    What I wanted to try was using 'High Dynamic Range' processing to see whether it would help. This is a technique that tries to overcome the weakness of all cameras (compared to the Mark 1 eyeball) in handling scenes containing both strong light and dark areas. The trick is to take several photos at different exposures and them combine them using software.
     
    My efforts were fairly conservative - in each case I took 3 shots - one with what the camera judged to be the correct exposure, one overexposed by 1 stop and one underexposed by one stop. I trawled the net and found some software called Fusion F2 that can be had for no money and can be used to experiment with HDR. Other options are available - some free and some... well... quite pricey.
     
    In both cases I've posted the middle 'normal' exposure followed by the HDR processed version. I used the 'sum' method in Fusion because the results from the 'HDR' method looked pretty awful. I also needed to tweak the colour saturation because the default setting seemed to reduce this quite a lot compared to the original image. I tried to get back to something comparable with the original but I may not have got this quite right.
     
    I'll let you judge whether or not the HDR versions are an improvement over the 'normal' exposures.
    First a shot of the station area.
     

     
    Then a shot from the 'up' end of the layout. The sea wall is very close to the front edge of the layout here and is in fairly deep shade.
     

  10. D869

    Demountable Things

    By D869,

    A couple of items that have been stuck in the paint shop for a while.
     
    First up is a BD container. This is from a Parkwood kit that was sat in the gloat box for ages. It's sat in a steel bodied high - also from a Parkwood kit. The chassis is a 2mm Association etch.
     
    I've hankered after a container in the later BR 'door to door' livery for a long time and have now finally got round to doing one. It may be possible to get commercial container transfers but I was doing some custom decals for other reasons anyway so I added some 'A' and 'BD' container branding to the sheet. I'm very pleased with the results even though getting the transfers to sit around the strapping was a swine of a job.
     
    The transfers on the wagon are resurrected Woodheads - this time with just a single coat of liquid decal film. This seems to leave less of an adhesive 'halo' than my original approach of using two coats. Once sprayed with Dullcote the result stands up to pretty close scrutiny.
     

     
    For the photos I decided that it was time that I started putting my fancy pants new DSLR to good use and do things properly with lights, backdrop and all. It's more than capable of exposing the shortcomings of my modelling and my limited ability with the paint brush. Getting rid of dust is also becoming an issue. I attacked this model several times with a paint brush but it just seems to shift the dust around. Compressed air might work better but I wasn't in the mood for dragging the compressor out.
     
    The second new addition is another demountable bromine tank. This is one of those actually owned by Associated Octel (as opposed to their customer, F.W.Berk). These sat on conflats rather than lowfits and had a different livery. I'm grateful to Trevor Mann for sharing some colour photos with me. Without these I'd have had to rely on black and white photos and David Larkin's book which describes it as white with a yellow lid... which is a little wide of the mark.
     
    The new tank (the one on the right) is seen here along with its F.W.Berk friends. I did take a close up of this vehicle on its own but it really does show up the shortcomings in paintwork and so on, so it's not going to appear on here.
     

     
    The tank is a 3d print and sits on a 2mm Association etched conflat and etched chassis with added bits of styrene strip for the framework that supported the tank. The decals on both tank and wagon were custom printed by Precision Decals from my own artwork. I seriously doubt that I'd have been able to squeeze commercial transfers onto the side of the conflat.
     
    I also need to thank the people who replied to my query about N Brass container chains on the 2mm VAG. This overcame the final sticking point in actually finishing this model. In the end I gave up using the extension etches provided and used twisted wire which is not a perfect representation of the real thing but does allow some tension to be achieved so that the chains don't sag.
     
    In other news, it now turns out that the Berk tanks had two colour schemes during their brief time in traffic to Hayle, with grey being an option for these too. Unfortunately grey and yellow are pretty indistinguishable on black and white photos so whether or not FWB4 is the correct colour is now an open question. I can't justify a repaint... because I don't actually know whether it was grey or yellow. Such are the perils of modelling such obscure vehicles.
  11. D869
    First of all, apologies to anyone expecting 2FS content. Let's just call this a summer special.
     
    Today was a sad and a happy occasion. The builders arrive tomorrow to start work on our house extension. This means that the patio section of my garden line will have to close. Today was the final day, so I had to run a special.
     
    On a happier note, I've been beavering away (re) laying the track on the North side of the garden where the track gets the most sun and consequently would never stay together properly. The old track had wooden sleepers with F/B rail pinned to it. The new track is Peco Streamline set in a bed of mortar so I'm hoping that it will prove less troublesome even if it doesn't look as nice. So the farewell special was also the opening special for the new section.
     
    Some photos from the day. The loco is Sandy River No 24 - a coal fired 2-6-2 by John Shawe.

     
    Stupidly I forgot to take any photos on the new section. Jackie got one, but it's not great. The new track has rather a TGV look about it rather than bucolic narrow gauge.

     
    Last look...

    The lifting gang starts work.

     
    Oh dear!

     
    The end of the line (for now).

  12. 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?
  13. D869

    Lutterworth 2015

    By D869,

    Another show under our belt. On this occasion it was a very local affair - less that 10 miles from St Ruth's Wolvey home. It's not a show that I'm very familiar with... in fact the town of Lutterworth is somewhere that I have almost never been even though I live pretty close by - it's just a bit tucked away just off some major routes. Suprisingly the 2mm and 'N' stuff seemed to outnumber the rest by some margin.
     
    It was a fairly relaxed affair and we got to spend a long time chatting to Patrick and Richard W. Some interested Wolvey locals also popped along to see what we spend our time beavering away at. The fish and chips were good at lunch time although delivering packages to all of the operators on all of the layouts at the same time probably caused some noticeable 'down time' for the punters.
     
    The 45xx had a couple of brief outings but after being boxed up in reasonable working order before the show but seemed to have developed a severe limp when tried on the layout so was hastily returned to its box. Later in the day I decided to remove one of the crossheads that I thought was fouling the front crankpin... problem solved but not exactly a long term solution. Other work in meetings leading up to the show seems to have had mixed results. One bit of uneven track that was causing spontaneous uncoupling in the yard throat was cured. Our attempts to make the sea siding point linkages less sluggish seems to have made them worse. On a positive note we can now reliably depart using the east crossover.
     
    Lacking the usual pretext of an overnight stay for liquid refreshment we managed to arrange a nice little soiree in a Wolvey hostelry after the layout was packed away this evening.
     
    I didn't take many photos - just one of the general chit chat before the show and one of some nice viaducts on 'Dentdale' just along the wall from us.
     


  14. 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?)
     

  15. D869
    The painfully slow progress of the 45xx build continues. The loco had a test run at AbRail where it showed a tendency to derail. After readjustment of the pony truck springs it had another run at Macclesfield and was much better behaved. Over the past few months I've been gradually making progress with putting the cylinders together and tonight the second one was finally fitted to the loco.
     

     
    I've got to say that they weren't the easiest of things to put together - annoying issues like the square holes to take the slidebars being too small. The crossheads come as a set of 3 loose bits that need to be held in alignment somehow during assembly and you need to provide the piston rods yourself (mine are made from some suitably thin bits of scrap etch). I didn't like the use of a single etch thickness for the motion brackets so I soldered some nickel silver wire along the outside edges which results in something that looks a bit more beefy. All of these little niggles are probably why I kept losing interest and finding other things to do.
     
    The kit as it comes also has an issue with the alignment between the outside steam pipes and the cylinders - the steam pipes should be central to the cylinders but they are quite a way out. My answer to this was to take a large file and remove one millimetre or so from the front end of the chassis so that the whole thing can sit further forward. This improves the alignment of the steam pipes a lot and also puts the front pony wheel and front driver into what looks like a more prototypical alignment with the bits above the footplate. This change also needs the motion brackets to be moved back along the slidebars from the etched 'pips' provided but the new position seems more in keeping with drawings of the real thing. Another slight downside is that the rear pony truck is now a bit too far forward but that's not an unsolveable problem.
     
    Anyway, the cylinders are at least tacked into place now and the chassis still runs properly so I can move on to the next jobs. I think the next task will be to sort out the body fixings (complicated by my having moved the chassis forward by 1mm so the holes no longer line up). The motion brackets might need some more work because at the moment there is a gap between them and the footplate but I'll wait and see what happens when the body is fixed down properly. I'm also intending to try brush painting two pack etch primer on the cylinders to try to make the paint stay put on these exposed bits of metal. The instructions say it can be done, so we'll see.
     
    Another pic with the body removed...
     

  16. D869

    A Non-Runner

    By D869,

    Oh dear!
     
    It looks like my Hymek won't be appearing at Warley.
     
    The Hymek developed an issue a few months back with one of its wormwheels skipping on the worm. I think it had been happening for a while before I figured the problem out. The upshot is that the wormwheel teeth have been rounded off making the problem worse. I'd temporarily solved it prior to Kidderminster by swapping the bogies end to end, the intention being to keep it going while I got hold of a spare gear. Unfortunately no such spare gears have been tracked down and while testing the loco today the temporary fix had stopped working too.
     
    I don't think I'm alone in having gear mesh issues with a Hymek - there's a thread on RMWeb about this and other issues but while investigating the bogie mount tolerances and checking for worm bearing play (there is plenty of that because the bearings aren't really bearings) a more serious problem appeared.
     
    It now seems that the loco has broken its back. Here's a photo of the sad remains. It's not supposed to bend in the middle like that.
     

     
    Dapol Hymek spares seem to be like hen's teeth so I don't think this loco will be turning a wheel in the foreseeable. A dummy loco might be an option but I don't know what's in one - if it doesn't have the wormwheel then it's not going to solve the original problem.
  17. 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...
     



  18. D869

    Macclesfield 2015

    By D869,

    The second show in two weeks but a very enjoyable one. It's not a huge show but I can't fault the friendly reception that we were given by the organisers and it was nice to meet up again with Mr Millward.
     
    During playtime this afternoon I managed to line up the Hall with the late Phill Kerr's model of KGV.

     
    Plus a group shot with Ian's old stager.

     
    We were in front of a big window so I took the opportunity for a few photos behind the scenes. Spot the flapjack!

     
    Some of the other layouts... Appledore

     
    Calden Low Shed. An unconventional layout but I quite like it.

     
    Ynysbwl

     
    East Grinstead Town - I like the antique signals.

     
    St. Ettienne-en-Coux

     
    Bodmin, plus a close up of one of the very nice signals.

     

  19. D869

    Hymek First Aid

    By D869,

    I'm hopeful that the Hymek (which you may recall had failed prior to Warley) is now on the mend.
     
    In our previous installment, I'd got hold of some spare worm wheels from BR Lines and installed them in the loco but this had not cured the uneven running which I still thought was caused by the wormwheel skipping on the worm (hence the trashed original wormwheel)
     
    We have AbRail coming up on Saturday, so I finally got back around to looking at the problem... with visions of needing to make new worm shaft bearings or some such nasty job.
     
    Further investigations and testing with just one wormwheel installed at a time confirmed that the wormwheel mesh was indeed the issue. On one bogie it was intermittent (hence the jerkiness). On the other bogie the motor was free to spin with no drive imparted to the bogie at all.
     
    Now there is some play in the worm shaft bearings but I could not believe that this was enough to cause the problem. With the thing stripped down and laid on its side I checked out the worm mesh... and realised the cause of the problem.
     
    To cut a long story short, the phosphor bronze strips that pick up power from the bogies had too much 'spring' in them, probably a misguided attempt on my part to ensure good pickup from the bogies. This meant that the weight of the loco was being carried on these strips and that the bogies were being pushed to the bottom of the travel allowed by the pivots.
     
    The fix was to bend the strips much more carefully so that they still contacted the bogie pickups but without enough 'spring' to carry the weight of the loco. Roughly speaking they need to be fairly level in the chassis when the bogies are removed. With this setup the loco weight is taken by the top surface of the bogie pivot, so the bogies sit as high as possible in the body and the worm mesh is as tight as the pivots will permit. The photo shows one pair of the adjusted strips.
     

     
    There still seems to be some audible 'chatter' so perhaps I might check out the mesh more closely. Filing the pivot tops would close up the mesh but would not be reversible if I get it wrong, so I think I'll probably leave things alone for now.
     
    The other slight problem in November was that one half of the chassis block had snapped in two. Remember this?
     

     
    Solution? Mill out a slot in the chassis, make some threaded holes and fit a metal 'splint'? Err... no.
     
    Here is my precision engineering fix for this ...
     

  20. D869

    AbRail 2015

    By D869,

    A few photos from the Abingdon show today. An enjoyable time was had and it was good to catch up with friends again.
     
    A shot against the lighting. I quite like the way the light reflects from the surfaces but it's not easy to photograph with the lights shining straight into the camera.

     
    And we were awarded a nice trophy too. Ian seems pretty happy about it.

     
    The Hall isn't finished yet but it managed to do some useful work.

  21. D869

    Finescaling a Hall - Part 2

    By D869,

    A quick update on this project.
     
    The chassis is now pretty much done barring a few odds and ends like couplings and attention is now turning to the superstructure.
     
    Again there is not much to say about the chassis build - it went together as per Nigel's comprehensive instructions... although I do prefer to get things running and tested at the earliest possible stage whereas the instructions save the installation of the worm until quite late in the day.
     
    One part that did prove niggly this time was the brakegear etch. I don't know why but having had no problems with this part on the Manor, it caused the Hall's chassis to jam and it took quite a lot of trial and error and tweaking to get the coupling rods to stop hitting the brake blocks and finally discover that the back of one of the crankpins was also hitting one of the etched cosmetic springs.
     
    I also discovered while trying to trace a squeaking noise that the front end of the footplate was sitting too low and the front splasher was fouling the driving wheel flanges so it was quite difficult to turn the leading axle by hand. Surprisingly this seemed to be having little effect on the running. This must be down to the chunky motor and the high gear ratio in the drive train. Anyway that issue has been sorted by adding in 15 thou of packing to raise the front end a little.
     
    The wobbly middle tender axle seemed to be not too much of an issue when the Hall was tried on St Ruth. I was hoping to pad out the bearings somehow but having measured the pinpoint dimples I'm now less convinced that their depth is the main problem. They are most definitely bigger in diameter though, hence the extra play in the axle. Padding the bearings doesn't seem to be a very easy option and attempts so far have been unsuccessful. It has now had some 36SWG phosphor bronze springs added which should resolve the vertical play but not the fore and aft movement. We'll see how it goes.
     
    Having done most of the chassis jobs I then immediately set about attacking the body. I was anxious to not allow myself the excuse of leaving the loco in its factory finish ad infinitum (i.e. like the Manor) and given that it said 'Great Western' in large letters on the tender side, it would have been very out of place on St Ruth.
     
    Work on the body so far has included removing the Dapol etched plates - I was worried about this job but they pinged off with relatively little fuss when subjected to firm pressure parallel with the cab sides and applied to their top or bottom edges using a small screwdriver, the hope being that Dapol's glue was weak when subjected to shear forces (it worked anyway).
     
    Another bit of uncharted territory was erasing the pre-1948 elements of the livery. Having read up on the subject, I tried using T-Cut. After over half an hour I'd only erased perhaps half of the Bristol coat of arms on one tender side so I gave this up as a bad job. It also left a very gloss finish and a 'ghost' where the printed crest had been. After trying white spirit and IPA on a cocktail stick with little discernable impact I finally resorted to more severe methods.
     
    Some time back I'd managed to buy (probably by mistake) a pack of No. 15 Swann Morton blades. These are small things with a convex curve to their cutting edges. Sticking a new one of these in the scalpel and carefully dragging it across the lettering showed immediate progress and the finish left behind was not terribly different from the original Dapol finish. It's still taken a lot of time but I'm very pleased with the results. In some places I've also used some tiny strips of 1200 grit wet & dry to even out the finish. I've also attacked the firebox lining but have concentrated on trying to remove as much of the orange as possible, which has been tricky where the lining paint has slightly 'missed' the moulded band. I'm less worried about removing the black. There are also some very inaccessible bits of the rearmost band that I've left alone. Time will tell whether these come back to haunt me.
     
    ...Which reminds me... I still need to remove the buffer beam number.
     
    The moulded handrails have been pulled away from most of the boiler. Some of the knobs popped out of their holes nicely, others snapped. I didn't have much choice here because one of the knobs had already snapped so I needed to gain some clearance to be able to fix that. I'm still not too happy with the size of the joggle on the left hand side of the smokebox but I'm not sure what can be done short of replacing the entire handrail which I don't want to do.
     
    Finally the moulded coal has been cut out of the tender and the edges cleaned back to allow a real coal load to be added. I've taken this back flush with the insides of the tender moulding so a small strip of the original 'coal' remains but hopefully this will be covered up when the real coal is added.
     
    A couple of photos in its current condition.
     

  22. D869

    Finescaling a Hall

    By D869,

    I've been struggling for a while to think up a catchy title for this one. It was originally intended as a Christmas project which would obviously have been 'Deck the Halls' but I didn't actually get around to starting that soon so the moment was lost.
     
    For old times sake, I waited until the loft was again at sub zero temperatures before testing the Hall on Taw Bridge. I wanted to check that the coupled wheels would negotiate crossovers successfully (they did) and that it could pull a train - in this case 4 Ultima Hawksworth coaches plus an old Farish Mark 1 with an 'N' gauge coupling on one end.
     

    The chassis for this has been in the gloat box since I was part way through the Manor build and was originally intended for a second Manor but I rather hankered after a Hall. It took me a while to actually acquire a Hall for conversion - they seemed to be going for some tidy sums. In the end I managed to acquire this one on Ebay as a pile of bits, the previous owner having dismantled it to replace a traction tyre. This was ideal for my purposes since I was going to take the thing apart anyway, The only snag was that it was in GWR livery (and still is).
     
    There's not a huge amount to say about the chassis build - it went together as per the instructions, albeit more slowly because I spent a lot more time fettling the gears and polishing the wheel treads given what I've learned since building the Manor.
     
    Being not quite the intended loco sat on the chassis, there were a few bits of extra work. I had to make my own balance weights from brass sheet to suit the bigger wheels. The body also needs a few other bits cutting back - namely the clip that secures the front of the footplate to the Dapol chassis. I also needed to file away some plastic from the insides of the front corners of the firebox.
     
    There is plenty more to do - conn rods and crossheads being fairly obviously missing just now. I also need to sort out the centre axle on the tender - the Dapol chassis has much deeper recesses for this axle than the others so the middle wheelset flops around too much and the tender is prone to derailing. Longer axles aren't an option because there is a limit to how much I'm going to risk bending the tender frames to fit the wheels.
     
    Finally of course there's the question of nameplates and livery. I'm hopeful of salvaging the original paint job but time will tell on that score. Nameplates are a vexed question given that the 'N' Gauge society is currently unable to supply any nameplates and I have not been able to find another source.
     
    A couple more photos from the loft test session
     

  23. D869

    Let it... oh it has!

    By D869,

    Unusually we managed to find some real snow on our post Christmas steamy day trip to the GCR at Loughborough today. It's surprising how different conditions can be just 40 miles from home.
     

     
    The GCR also provides a welcoming refreshment room with a real fire. The all day breakfast went down very well too.
     

     
    We go to the GCR quite regularly. Somehow we always seem to get this loco
     

     
    The last train of the day and the gas lamps are lit at Rothley
     

     
    The loco ready to retire for the evening. Having watched the crew struggling with the couplings in the freezing darkness I pondered whether to recommend DGs to them.
     

     
    All together now... Ahhh!
     

  24. D869

    Merry Christmas

    By D869,

    D823 has just backed the stock for an evening stopping service into the arrivals platform and is quietly warming the coaches against the chill of the night. The other platform has been pressed into service to provide a bit more space out of the elements to handle the additional pre-christmas parcels traffic. A motley assortment of vans await loading but the staff seem to have disappeared. Maybe they are trying to find out who has stolen the barrows.
     

     
    Merry Christmas and a happy 2015 to all of our readers.
     
    A few words about the photo... The inside of the overall roof is lit with LEDs in the ceiling. It's not a part of the layout that is usually seen by the public so interior detail is rather lacking. The parcels sacks were hastily moulded from DAS and painted with watercolour on the night before the photo shoot. St Ruth is not usually a DCC layout but D823 had a CT chip plugged in for the photo and an NCE PowerCab attached to the controller socket so that we could have the loco lights on. I tried variations of the photo with the headlights and the tail lamp. The tail lamp looked better because the headlamps and headcodes looked too bright. In theory the chip can dim the headlights but in practice it made no noticeable difference. Unsightly items like the red and black feed wires for the roof lighting have been surreptitiously edited away on the computer.
  25. D869

    Let it... well, you know

    By D869,

    A light dusting of snow has fallen on the Plymouth area this morning. The coal men have turned up for work but retreated into the office to keep warm and get a brew going while they wait for the trip freight. Meanwhile D6309 has turned up with a couple of 16 tonners which it is positioning for unloading so they'll need to be venturing out again but it looks like they may be in for more snow before they are done.
     

     
    Merry Christmas everyone.
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