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Hamworthy - Dorset Coast c1988


jonhall
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So this is the Scalefour Society lever frame, in its 'stored' position it just about fits without protruding beyond the backscene at the outer end - the reason thats important is so that the baseboard can be laid on the backscene if reqired. The intent is that there will be a spar that crosses the back, more or less where the ruler is in this photo. Obviously there is no room for fingers to get behind the lever to operate them with the frame in this position.

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Here the frame is in the operational position. it only has to move about an inch.

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This is whats going on underneath, the two photos show the stored and operational positions. The final conections between rods and levers have not yet been made, they will probably happen a bit lower down, but its better to have too much and trim back again, than cut them too short!

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Jon

 

I would really like to operate my new layout with a proper leverframe like this although it may be difficult to arrange all the interlocks for points and signals on different boards.

 

How are you getting on now with the point actuators and cables now? Does Scalefour Society sell its frames to the profane?

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I would really like to operate my new layout with a proper leverframe like this although it may be difficult to arrange all the interlocks for points and signals on different boards.

 

How are you getting on now with the point actuators and cables now? Does Scalefour Society sell its frames to the profane?

 

I've not quite fixed it, but thats more a lack of a block of time to think about it - it's 90% there, but the last 10% is a pain. With only 2 hours on a club evening I don't really have enough time to get into 'the zone' by the time I 've pulled all the stuff out I just don't have the energy. I think if you are using push/pull knobs to the edge of the baseboard then the bluepoint system works really well - I think its the bluepoints fighting the leverframe thats my problem.

 

S4 Society will certainly sell you the frames at shows, I'm not a member.

 

Jon

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I've not quite fixed it, but thats more a lack of a block of time to think about it - it's 90% there, but the last 10% is a pain. With only 2 hours on a club evening I don't really have enough time to get into 'the zone' by the time I 've pulled all the stuff out I just don't have the energy. I think if you are using push/pull knobs to the edge of the baseboard then the bluepoint system works really well - I think its the bluepoints fighting the leverframe thats my problem.

 

S4 Society will certainly sell you the frames at shows, I'm not a member.

 

Jon

 

I sympathise with your predicament as I have been involved with several clubs that do not have clubrooms where layouts can be left erected. Makes for very slow progress.

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S4 Society will certainly sell you the frames at shows, I'm not a member.

 

Jon

 

The Scalefour Society has a policy that it will make items that are generally useful to all finescale modellers available to all through its Public E-Shop.

 

The lever frames, which are produced by one of the Society's Area Groups, definitely fall into this category, and we have known plenty of them purchased by modellers in other scales apart from 4mm as well. I recently had an enquiry from someone building a 1/24 scale model signal box and actually wanted to use them inside it...

 

You can find them to purchase at http://www.scalefour.org/eshop/eshop.html

 

Scroll to halfway down the page, and don't forget the handles!

 

HTH

Paul Willis

Scalefour Society Deputy Chairman

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hamworthy will be on show this weekend at Tolworth Showtrain, hopefully we will be demonstrating ballasting, which is another job thats tricky to do if you only have two hours before you put iot away, and need the glue to set - plaease come along and say hello!

 

Jon

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Hamworthy had most of the ballast laid this weekend, along with the first signs of spring, although I'm not totally convinced by the static grass, its all a bit even (both in tone and length) I think I might revert to carpet underlay for the embankments, and just keep the static stuff to the relativly well maintained area just outside the station frontage.

 

Jon

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Hi Jon,

it is great when a layout starts to turn green. I wouldn't worry too much about the eveness of the colour and texture of the grass. On Swaynton we used grass mats and our first thought was what have we done. It was very green, very even and very bright. However grass is very bright green, and the texture will start to break down when you add patches of longer grass weeds shrubs etc.

All in all it's coming along nicely.

Will we see it operating next year?

Edited by brightspark
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  • 2 weeks later...

The lever frames, which are produced by one of the Society's Area Groups, definitely fall into this category, and we have known plenty of them purchased by modellers in other scales apart from 4mm as well. I recently had an enquiry from someone building a 1/24 scale model signal box and actually wanted to use them inside it...

 

Paul, you wouldn't happen to know if the frames were drawn on PC or by hand? I really want to redraw the levers so that they extend further below the pivot point, and if the original artwork was in a .dwg format that would be pretty easy to achieve - needless to say the phototool would then be available to the Society to add to its range (if it wished).

 

Meanwhile I took one of the boards home last night, which gives two advantages.1) with one board missing from the cupboard, then another board which usually lives upside down, was stored away with wet glue right way up, and perhaps more relevently 2) I have a board at home to fettle the point levers - a job I abandoned nearly a year ago!!

 

A day off today has seen a little slow progress. Underneath much of this was already in place, I have finally bought a few more cleats, and soldered some of the metal links together today, so that all of the rodding now gets to more or less where it needs to end up. Two of the levers have been extended, with a third being a straight drive to a single blue-point, which does not seem to need an extension. The final point I was hoping not to have to extend the lever, but the extra crank seems to create just enough slack that the standard throw of the lever can't get it over-center

 

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On the surface I have cobbled together a couple of aluminium brackets to attach the frame to the baseboard.

 

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and this shows how it sits on an extension behind the curved backscene - once the points are all adjusted, I will add a couple of plywood plates either side to protect the levers from accidental damage.

 

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Jon

Edited by jonhall
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Grrrr, this layout is really trying my (limited) patiance.

 

Two more hours work, saw the remaining lever extended, a minor mod of the one that had been extended too much, and the whole lot hooked up so that all the blue point machines threw. Turning the layout right way around revealed that some of the points weren't really throwing properly - this is a long running niggle - they nearly work, but never quite 100%, so with the knowledge that the under-gubbins was working correctly I set out to get more cooperation from the switchblades.

 

Half an hour or so of adjusting the closures with a slitting disc used as a file, and they now all throw properly, so I take things a stage further and grind the sharp ends off the top of the piano-wires that pass through the tiebar - disaster - one of the solder joints to the catchpoint has failed I now need to borrow the track guages and put it back again. :cry:

 

I have the overwelming urge to take a cutting disc to both catchpoints - the person building them got carried away and they actually have frogs and checkrails (so they look like a full point) but on the prototype they didn't, and its bugged me for ages, I'm a bit frightened of fiddleing, but if I have to do a repair... :butcher:

 

Jon

Edited by jonhall
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You could alway ask the builder (no names but he normally has a Bacon sarnie first thing at a show) to make a new catch point that could drop in.

I wouldn't have thought that it would be too hard to make a drop-in unit.

 

The gentleman in question didn't exactly jump at the chance when I enquired at last years show... and the one that has failed was built as part of the point it protects, so it might not be quite so straightforward to replace.

 

I think this is teaching me that I don't actually enjoy the conventional model railway parts (track, electrics or operating) of building a layout and that its really the research and scenery that holds my interest.

 

Jon

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I think this is teaching me that I don't actually enjoy the conventional model railway parts (track, electrics or operating) of building a layout and that its really the research and scenery that holds my interest.

 

I know exactly what you mean Jon, it's the same for me. Hating doing the track for Whatley at the moment and getting distracted by everything and anything.

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Just seen the pictures and sent you an email before I realised you'd already seen them. Useful bit of reference material. Be interesting to see if they had anymore pictures that they had not posted.

just found this thread

think i posted about all the pictures i took whilst working down Hamworthy into my gallery, glad they were of use.

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  • 8 months later...

The carpentry is on the home stretch, with the final fiddle yard board assembled last weekend, we measured (several times, frequently with different measurements) the existing legs, and this morning after visiting the dentist, I went to B&Q and had them cut a sheet of 9mm ply into broadly the right size, and spent the afternoon with a jigsaw - these are 2x legs for the new fiddle yards, and a new wider leg for the Weymouth end, so that it is a bit more stable with the fiddle yard attached.

 

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Jon

Edited by jonhall
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Just leaving some more bookmarks for later

 

Furzebrook tanks

http://www.flickr.com/photos/74384955@N03/8544995146/

 

33/2 and 2 BDAs

http://www.flickr.com/photos/74384955@N03/8583521636/

 

Flasks including the funny BBA type

http://www.flickr.com/photos/74384955@N03/8569170378/

 

Speedlink including a clay tiger, and what appear to be fertiliser vans - is the second one back a Norsk Hydro curtain wagon? - I may at last have a legitimate reason to be building one!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/74384955@N03/8568612394/

 

Another speedlink photo this time heading down

http://www.flickr.com/photos/solent-rails/8749782011/

 

Jon

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  • 2 months later...

Alas Hamworthy's progress hasn't really been enough to justify its attendance at Tolworth Showtrain this year, however one baseboard will be worked on during Saturday on the club stand - the cement terminal buildings will see some activity, with this in mind a bit of sizing up was done last weekend at the club, and today I've been busy mocking things up.

 

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The silos are 70mm drainpipe in 150mm lengths - these are somewhat truncated due to the height of the backscene (300mm) which we don't want to exceed, therefore this only leaves about 140mm for the remaining structure, which is the gap for trucks to pass under the silos, and the corrugated sheeting that presumably covers the base of the silos. the structure will eventually be plasticard, but to see how things fit, cardboard and a hot glue gun will do for now. 

 

I've used a cararama concrete mixer to scale the gap for the lorries, which might be a bit tall - this isn't a readymix batching plant, it seems to be a distribution centre for powder tanks, so the skirt might be dropped a bit.

 

I think the overall proportions are probably OK? I was worried that with so much taken out of the height it might look a bit dumpy.

 

Jon

Edited by jonhall
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I think the overall proportions are probably OK? I was worried that with so much taken out of the height it might look a bit dumpy.

 

Jon

I don't know how it actually compares to the original, but it looks a pretty impressive bit of plant to me,

and from a lower viewing angle probably even more so 

 

cheers 

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Any pictures of the prototype to compare?

 

Not online that I've found. One in the book 'Rails to Poole Harbour' and one in the Middleton Press book covering the area, plus a couple that PaulRhB of this forum helped me find, but I don't have copyright for those.

 

A few more views would be very helpful. There was an ex-Turkish 8f partially restored at the cement terminal just after it closed, and one of the most useful shots I have is of that, with the cement silos in the background, I suspect there are more photos somewhere out there.

 

Jon

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  • 4 months later...

After rather a long gap between updates, last Sunday saw almost the entire layout assembled on its own feet for the first time. Only one fiddleyard extension was missing

 

From within the Y of the Weymouth end, looking toward London

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The Weymouth fiddleyard in back...

 

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...and front positions

 

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And the London end equivalent showing the folding extension piece

 

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