Progress (or otherwise) on Jeff's new layout

Thanks Max. Progress is not as rapid as I really want but I am determined to "do it right"!  :cool:

Agnes is well and I am slowly mending - it's one of those cold/flu' things that keeps hitting back.

Here I am again, reporting another small amount of progress on laying the third and fourth rail. I have now got to the stage where I am also gluing it down. I am using the Scale Four Society end ramps on the third rail only. There are several different treatments possible for the fourth rail depending on a whole heap of factors on the real thing, so I have chosen the simplest using photos as a guide. Even so, I need to file down a couple of bits of rail rather like a point blade, to merge with the centre rail to form a 'V' section in the middle of the points.

One thing I wil say though: it is very tedious putting those chairs on to each rail individually!

[user=321]SRman[/user] wrote:

One thing I Will say though: it is very tedious putting those chairs on to each rail individually!

It keeps you from getting into mischief Jeff, stuck home threading chairs instead of prowling the pubs of Melbourne!

Adding just a little more to the previous updae, I have now made the junction 'V' sections for the two outer points and added a short third rail section, this time eschewing the ScaleFour ramps because of the shortness of the section. I started painting the rails too but the rest will have to await gluing the ballast down - the loose ballast sticks to the paint brush, otherwise!






I am not entirely happy with that lower junction - I filed too much of a taper on the curved rail so I may have to redo it. We learn as we go …  :roll:

That's a labour of love Jeff but the end result is well worth it. :thumbs

I have finally got around to gluing the ballast down. The glue (PVA plus water plus a drop of detergent) is drying as I type this so no running trains for a little while this weekend!! No pictures taken as it won't actually alter what you can see in the previous shots.

What it does mean is that I can continue painting the third and fourth rails without getting loose ballast particles stuck to the brush.

Stepping back a little in time, back to February 2012, in fact, here is a video for your entertainment showing two Bachmann 2EPBs, 5765 leading 5770, running in multiple (a DCC consist) and my then new Dapol class 22 diesel-hydraulic, D6315, hauling a mixed parcels train - this loco is a limited edition weathered example from Kernow Models.

I have, of course, continued the ballasting and started the third and fourth rail laying since this vid was taken (see my pics in previous posts).

While there is still a lot of work to do, as you can see, I have managed to obtain good smooth running, notwithstanding the tight (for me!) curves.

Very nice Jeff. :thumbs

I really like the "clickety-click" - is that just how it goes or have you notched the track ?

Hi Peter. The clickety-clack is "natural" - accentuated by having the track mounted directly on the baseboards through the whole station area. I may file some extra notches in the future to match the Underground stock coach lengths.

The clarity of the clickety-clacks is also a tribute to the silence of the modern motors and gear trains too.

Yesterday I had a day off work (officially a day in lieu for work I did earlier). While I didn't achieve a great deal, I did some more loose ballasting of the remaining tracks for the LT lines, although there is still a bit of the siding to complete yet. It does make the layout look more complete, even though there is still an awful lot to do.

As I am hosting a BRMA meeting here in a couple of weeks time, I thought I had better get a move on this weekend to finish a few things like the ballasting and the platforms.

With that in mind, I created a skrawking tool (a sort of scraper and gouger in one!) out of a bit of scrap brass etch to mark out the platform edging with two grooves parallel to the platform edges. I then scraped off the textured bitumen paint along the marked lines and painted the edges a light grey. Little bits of left-over black show faintly through the grey paint to add a little texture to that as well. I did make the skrawker a little too short - I should have cut it with a little more of a handle but it worked quite well, albeit a little hard on my fingers! Another piece of the same brass strip formed the scraper to remove the paint.

Because of the sore fingers, I achieved only about two-thirds of the platform length tonight (double-sided though!) but I will persevere and get the rest done tomorrow. Then I can actually glue the platform surfaces down at long last.

I will take some pictures and post them in the next day or two.

Are you aware of this Jeff?

http://www.olfa.co.jp/en/body/detail/156.html

I have one and find it extremely useful for scribing lines in plastic (most recently scribing the paving and edging into a station platform).

Cheers

John

 

They are great, John but we are having difficulty sourcing them here in Adelaide.

Have you seen them on any websites?

What about this?

http://www.diplomatblades.com.au/products_category.asp?id=4&name=OLFA

John

Thanks, John.  In Oz no less!  :thumbs  I've bookmarked it.

Wendy and I both use them.  They are great for styrene.

Thanks for those links, guys. I am aware of the commercial tools and am able to borrow one from my good friend Doug, who did most of the carpentry on my layout. My own crude tool is designed to score two lines parallel to the platform edges, simultaneously. It works!

:cheers

Photos:

1. The skrawking tool cut from a bit of scrap brass. The square edge runs against the platform edge and the two "saw teeth" each scratch a line along the platform parallel to the edge and each other.



2. A platform segment (40 thou plasticard) with one edge skrawked and partially scraped to remove the textured paint.




3. A pic showing the platform segments in both treated and untreated forms. The edges have been painted with Humbrol matt pale grey #64.



4. Two pics showing the segments now treated but not yet glued down.






5. Platform segments now glued down and aligned properly. there are a couple of joints to fill and level, plus the remaining paved section to complete, then I can level the buildings and canopies properly. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the way it has come out, though.








The last thing to do after all that will be to add the corbelling - two courses of brickwork just below the platform edges.

Those BRMA mob can be a bit nit-pickee so you better make sure all is well exclam:

In my case, I have declared the D&S to be a privately owned & run Railway so what I say/do is the Rule.

I dunno, Ron. I'm sure we can do a bit of nit-picking on the D&S if we try really hard!!!  :twisted: 

Speaking of nit-picking, I'll do a bit of my own here: I know there are a few anachronisms in that 'period' train behind the LSWR M7, not the least of which is the Firestone wagon - Firestone didn't open its Brentwood factory in England until 1928 so the M7 would probably not have been in LSWR livery by then! The SR-liveried brake van could overlap the early years (post-1923) during livery transitions, although it is really an LBSC one! I could go on …

On the above subject, can anyone here tell me what period those Shell Mex tank wagons represent? I really have no idea with those except to say I strongly believe them to be pre-WW2.

On the subject of corbelling, I have now done the brick strips below the edges on the side nearest the edge of the layout. To be honest, at the moment, with clean brickwork, you can't really see it at all, so I'm wondering whether it was worth the effort! Maybe when I weather it a bit it will come out better. That leads to one more question: I had each strip with one row of standard bricks and one of half bricks; would the half-brick row have gone at the top or the bottom of the raised corbels? I guessed and put them at the bottom, so the platform surface is 'resting' on the full bricks.

It is amazing what questions a bit of modelling can raise, particularly with historical items where no colour pictures exist and even monochrome ones are rare (pre-grouping Private Owner wagons), or where people just would not think to take any photos at all (who wants to photograph the support walls of a station platform??).