Semaphore Signals - 4mm Scale (Mainly)

[RailWest]

Not wishing to appear pernickity - especially for something that I could never build even 1/2 as well myself ! - but....

 

With that style of GWR route indicator usually the lettering was stencils on a wire mesh. The lamp was hidden behind an opaque white backplate, so you never saw the lamp itself when no indication was raised.

[The Stationmaster]

55 minutes ago, RailWest said:

Not wishing to appear pernickity - especially for something that I could never build even 1/2 as well myself ! - but....

 

With that style of GWR route indicator usually the lettering was stencils on a wire mesh. The lamp was hidden behind an opaque white backplate, so you never saw the lamp itself when no indication was raised.

As can be seen here in my photo of the No.6 bay starting signal at Reading (a long time ago).     The picture doesn't show the mechanism too well but you can just make out the 'L' angle bar across the levers for the various slides in the indicator which creates the 'OR' means of working the arm via the down rod.

 

The train in the background at Reading High Level is the Chipman's/WR weedkilling train.

 

 

 

[Stephen Freeman]

4 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

As can be seen here in my photo of the No.6 bay starting signal at Reading (a long time ago).     The picture doesn't show the mechanism too well but you can just make out the 'L' angle bar across the levers for the various slides in the indicator which creates the 'OR' means of working the arm via the down rod.

 

The train in the background at Reading High Level is the Chipman's/WR weedkilling train.

 

 

 

I think I may have seen this before. Not a motorised or illuminated one but as requested.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Stephen Freeman

[Jon Fitness]

Fantastic work on that 4mm scale Route indicator Steve

Must have been a right struggle squeezing 4 working flags in that. Beautiful...

JF

[Steve Hewitt]

Thanks Jon.

I actually had to extend the sides of the indicator's box by a mm. 

Steve. 

[Mike 84C]

A bit of advice please Steve, I am building a home signal with a subsidiary signal below the home on the same post . Lower quadrant with the weights at the post bottom. I have or had! got it all working but the wire I'm using to operate the arms is quite fine and has a tendency to bow. Would you fashion a small bracket to fit the post and stop the bowing?

 By the by did you finish all the Woodford Halse signals? I used to go there when I was a fireman, ye gods! its 60 yrs ago!!!

   Thanks if you can throw light on my problem.

                   Mick

[Steve Hewitt]

Mick,

 

Yes, one or two Down Rod guides were common, I believe.

Remember the down rod on lower quad signals is quite substantial so you don't need to to be too fine with the operating wire.

I use 0.4mm N/S for operating wires. Much too large for scale wire, but necessary for a model where it is required to push as well as pull.

For Down Rods I often use 0.45 or even 0.5 N/S to give the extra bulk of the real thing.

You can fashion rod guides from fuse wire with the ends twisted together and tinned to make it rigid. A suitable hole is drilled in the post with the guide soldered or glued in place.

Where several guides are required for parallel rods, I use a length of 1mm x 0.5mm brass strip. Drilled as required with 0.6mm dia holes for the rods to slide in.

A 90 degree twist in the brass rod will give a flat surface to solder or glue to the post.

 

Hope this helps.

 

I completed the Woodford Halse signals several years ago, at least those that the layout builder required.

 

Steve.

 

 

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Steve Hewitt said:

Mick,

 

Yes, one or two Down Rod guides were common, I believe.

Remember the down rod on lower quad signals is quite substantial so you don't need to to be too fine with the operating wire.

I use 0.4mm N/S for operating wires. Much too large for scale wire, but necessary for a model where it is required to push as well as pull.

For Down Rods I often use 0.45 or even 0.5 N/S to give the extra bulk of the real thing.

You can fashion rod guides from fuse wire with the ends twisted together and tinned to make it rigid. A suitable hole is drilled in the post with the guide soldered or glued in place.

Where several guides are required for parallel rods, I use a length of 1mm x 0.5mm brass strip. Drilled as required with 0.6mm dia holes for the rods to slide in.

A 90 degree twist in the brass rod will give a flat surface to solder or glue to the post.

 

Hope this helps.

 

I completed the Woodford Halse signals several years ago, at least those that the layout builder required.

 

Steve.

 

 

Ratio down rods are also 0.45mm n/s and they work well.

[Steve Hewitt]

A chance to meet...........

 

This coming weekend, March 4/5th, I'll be demonstrating at the Preston show.

I'll have the Route Indicator and other signals on my table if you want to examine it or discuss it in detail.

Please make your self known.

 

See you there.....

 

Steve.

[Rowsley17D]

Good to meet and chat with Steve at the Preston Show (Sat) and have a go with the Route Indicator signal! 

[Mike 84C]

Steve, do you paint your 4mm signals as sub assemblies/units then do a touch up after final assembly ?   Because that's how I shall do the next signals I build, all this holding your breath with the very fine brush, reckon I could be a pearl diver now!

[Steve Hewitt]

The short answer is "YES".

 

I usually paint everything with car primer WHITE from a Rattle Can.

For a simple signal that will be all the static parts.

Careful masking will then be followed by a coat of Black from a rattle can.

I usually prepare a batch of arms as a separate exercise, finishing them with either water slide transfers or brush painting with enamel or acrylic. 

Spectacles are the glazing from MSE, fixed with Canopy Glue or Clear Fix.

If the dolls have been painted separately they are installed now.

After painting, the first assembly task is the fibre optics for the lights.

All the moving parts are next, these having been painted or blackened in advance.

The final "above ground" assembly task is usually the back blinder(s).

The servo mount is then made up from plywood and installed on the Transport & Test Frame. The connection of the operating wires to the servos is done with the servos in "Mid-Throw" and the arms positioned accordingly.

 

Hope this helps,

Steve.

[Mike 84C]

Thank you Steve, I shall deffo; follow your advice in future. It seems obvious when you read your sequence but when the soldering iron is in ones hand and that eagerness to see the finished signal, sense can go out the window.

  So far I have used Glue an Glaze for the spectacles coloured with "Derwent" Inktense paint, just because it was in the house.

My first attempt at signals, I shamelessly admit to stealing your ideas! and thank you for the inspiration.

   

[Steve Hewitt]

Another, (final?) signal for Acton Wells.............

 

This is another starter signal with a Route Indicator, but requires a very long laft hand bracket. This is because the signal wil be mounted on the platform, but applies to the second track out. Originally expected to be a Gantry signal, there is no space on the model to accomodate the left hand post, so it has to be a Bracket.

The Route Indicator "Flags" are operated by long centrally pivotted levers, with the interlocking assumed to be in a pit below the platform!

 

 

 

The arm is controlled by Down Rod and a couple of cranks.

 

 

Five servos are used: 

One for each Route Flag and one for the Arm.

The usual LED and Optical Fibre lighting is used.

 

 

Finally a short video:

 

A few non-operating Ground Discs are to follow......

 

Steve.

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

To be honest the lattice main upright grates a bit with me because i can't think offhand of there being one like that on the GWR - I've certainly never seen a photo of one let alone one in situ.  Not that hth GWR didn't use lattice posts because it definitely but none I've ever seen, or seen a picture of, which were like that like that.

 

The GWr definitely used brackeyts witha very considerable landing length - usually in order to get over an intermediate track to bring the signal nearer to teh line to which it applied.  these weren't very common in later years although there was a very well known example at Oxford which carried signals applicable to two parallel running lines and eventually carried r teh colour light replacements for the semaphore fdolls and arms.  However that one, like I think all the others I either saw or have seen pictures of,   used two main uprights - originally timber and in later years either tubular or U section steel.  Like this example at birmingham Snow Hill - 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh1747.htm

 

 

But if you have a photo of one with lattice like that I'd love to see it please - and be shot down in flames.

[Stephen Freeman]

On 18/04/2022 at 15:48, The Stationmaster said:

To be honest the lattice main upright grates a bit with me because i can't think offhand of there being one like that on the GWR - I've certainly never seen a photo of one let alone one in situ.  Not that hth GWR didn't use lattice posts because it definitely but none I've ever seen, or seen a picture of, which were like that like that.

 

The GWr definitely used brackeyts witha very considerable landing length - usually in order to get over an intermediate track to bring the signal nearer to teh line to which it applied.  these weren't very common in later years although there was a very well known example at Oxford which carried signals applicable to two parallel running lines and eventually carried r teh colour light replacements for the semaphore fdolls and arms.  However that one, like I think all the others I either saw or have seen pictures of,   used two main uprights - originally timber and in later years either tubular or U section steel.  Like this example at birmingham Snow Hill - 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh1747.htm

 

 

But if you have a photo of one with lattice like that I'd love to see it please - and be shot down in flames.

The bracket and post are definitely not GWR but they did inherit some structures from absorbed Companies, so I think you could claim the post and bracket as one of those. The bracket looks similar in some ways to that at Carmarthen. I think the bracket at Carmarthen was possibly of S&F origin, anyway there is a photo in Adrian Vaughans book on GWR Signals plate 44 page 51.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Stephen Freeman

[Michael Hodgson]

22 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

But if you have a photo of one with lattice like that I'd love to see it please - and be shot down in flames.

Not quite like that, but here's a lattice post bracket at Exeter, on John Hinson's site

 

https://old.signalbox.org/signals/exeterwest-s.jpg

[Michael Hodgson]

On 18/04/2022 at 12:12, Steve Hewitt said:

 

 

Excellent workmanship, must have taken quite a bit of planning to get the four route stencils working so nicely.

To span two tracks like that the upright post would need to be very deeply secured into solid ground (as your mechanism is!) or supported by stay wires,

[Stephen Freeman]

On 19/04/2022 at 14:31, Michael Hodgson said:

Not quite like that, but here's a lattice post bracket at Exeter, on John Hinson's site

 

https://old.signalbox.org/signals/exeterwest-s.jpg

That is part of a gantry at Exeter of standard GWR design. The really large brackets at Exeter had 2 posts as Mike Romans says. I couldn't find any lattice post signals on that page, as far as I know the only lattice post signals on the GWR were single post. I think they were of Stevens design as per the LSWR.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Stephen Freeman

[Steve Hewitt]

Staying with Exeter......

 

The next project is for a model of Exeter Central, so prototype photos will be used to guide the design.

The first signal controls the four routes through the scissors crossover.

 

 

 

 

Very unusual (to my eyes) Smoke Hood in this shot.

Not the same in the other shots I don't think?

 

More soon,

Steve.

 

[Stephen Freeman]

Good Luck with that, the only Bracket of that type available from Wizard (MSE) is too short and I am not at all certain what scale it is supposed to be. Thats why I did my own etches for a model of Seaton Junction. Not the easiest of designs but got there in the end. but now available well, you know where 😉. I think you will need 2 posts for your main post, the Seaton Junction one  came from Alan Gibson (workshop 4MM54). All the other bits from Wizard. The damaged finial is intentional by the way as it is based on the actual signal.

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by Stephen Freeman
amendment and addition

[Stephen Freeman]

I missed the last angle cross piece off but easy enough to add on. In actual fact the brackets were variable in length and quite a few had only 7 plain diagonals, Seaton Junction had 8.

Edited May 30, 2022 by Stephen Freeman
addition

[Steve Hewitt]

Construction commenced............

 

The materials for this signal come from several sources:

Alan Gibson for the Main lattice post and the Finials, MSE for the Dolls and Bracket Etches, Masokits for the Ladder etch and signal arms, Les Green for the 3D printed items, Hobby Holidays for the brass and nickel silver sections, wires etc.

The bracket etch needed quite some modification and enhancement, and two of the main post etches need splicing to get the height required.

 

Here is the result prior to the Dolls being added:

 

 

To be continued...................

 

Steve.

[Steve Hewitt]

Continued..............

A quick look from below:

This view, looking up into the 1/2 inch dia "FoundationTube", shows the lower end of the turned brass support on the top of which the main post of the signal is secured. It is drilled through to route the optical fibres for the lights.

Also visible are the "Guide Tubes" for the operating wires. These have an internal dia. of 1/32 inch. The lower part of each 0.4mm dia. operating wire is sleeved in 1/64 i.d. tube which  is a smooth fit in its Guide Tube. This helps to prevent any buckling of the operating wires.

 

I decided to erect the dolls after painting. This made the masking much easier!

Everything was first given a good covering of White from a rattle can.

The main post was then masked and the remainder given a coat of Black, again from a rattle can.

 

Similarly, the dolls and arms were painted white, and then the Black or Red applied by brush.

 

The dolls were added, followed by the optical fibres for the lights.

Each arm was then fitted, with its operating wire routed up the main post to a crank, then to the weight bar and finally the arm itself.

 

 

When all was complete, the signal was moved to its "Transport & Test" frame, the top surface of which represents the layout location of 9mm ply.

This frame will hold the signal securely, and will itself be secured in a Really Useful Box Co 4litre box.

The four servos were mounted on a bespoke bracket made from ply offcuts.

 

The final connection between servo and operating wire is made with 1/16in dia Brass tube.

This is a sliding fit on the operating wire.

With the servo set to mid-throw (Safe position on the GF Controllers), the arm is adjusted to a corresponding position and the joint between the 1/16 th tube and the operating wire soldered up.

Adjusting the throw of the servos to Stop and Clear positions is then a moments task.

On delivery the signal can be tested or demonstrated easily before being transferred to its position on the layout.

 

Steve.

 

 

[Steve Hewitt]

NOT Hanging around.............

 

A "Gallows" signal for Exeter Central.

First the prototype:

This is from Pryers book on Southern signals.

 

The Transport Library.

 

The model:

 

Sorry for the Fuzzy Focus.

 

The model is built from C&L bullhead rail, Lace Pins, various Brass sections and strip, with an etched Arm, Doll and Ladder , etc.

A 3.7g servo is driven by a GF Controller, LED lighting via Optical Fibre.

 

More soon,

 

Steve.