As a result of the recent spell of good weather which led to me opening up the shed layout after the winter recess, I came across a storage box full of Peco 7mm Individulay  track making parts.
Most of these had been won on Ebay auctions over the recent past together with some pre cut ply track and point timbering during my concerns over the availability of C&L products.

I seemed to have accumulated quite a sizeable amount and it1s a pity to see it all gathering dust.

So, in 7mm Finescale fashion a long standing `quickie` project has been born…..

Many years back I had purchased Peco point templates which are a match for their Individulay frog and switch parts. To save time these templates have been finallly utilised to make a set of five O Gauge points but using a set of gauges to reduce the track gauge to 31.5mm through the crossing V in order to rid the problem of wheel drop.

So, January the 1st, off I wented……..



Almost all of my many years of railway modelling has been competed in the comfort of the kitchen table and now I`ve turned 70 and my fingers struggle with rigorous modelling tasks, I`ve continued to rationalise my tool box by taking advantage of all those that are cordless or small enough to be used in a limited environment.

So this year I have `modernised` my soldering weaponry to cordless as well…….



With my trusty Solder-pro gas iron things have proceeded at a faster pace….




The age old usage of 1mm paxolin copper coated strip  to form the electrical track droppers and keep the frog and wing rails in place .



The rest of the pointwork is completed with plastic cosmetic rail chairs. I was lucky to have enough C&L GWR pattern chairs left over from my  Sarsden project rather than use the Peco products.

The hardest and toughest work for my aching fingers was fettling individual chairs around the soldered connections.



Pointwork tribulation complete…..




This has all led me to  Grainge and Hodder………. more to follow folks

Hi John,

Try using solder braid to get rid of the solder blobs. Saves carving up the half section chairs.


Nigel

Thanks Nigel, I`ll give it a try with the plain track………

By the time that the recent good weather departed,  three Grainge and Hodder laser cut baseboard units plus a control box unit had arrived and were quickly assembled primed and painted.


Great product !!

Eighteen years back in my 4mm modelling era I made a set of wiring looms using ribbon cable and a home made transformer box giving a range of  up to 16volt power out puts that have been used for all my layout creations and saved a lot of time with layout wiring.

This time my analogue point, magnets and signal wiring will be all non soldered connectors…….





Loco control remains DCC using NCE Powercab.

Took advantage of the fine weather today and started tracklaying procedures…………………

Excellent work!
Terry

Agreed - very smart.  :thumbs

Aren't you supposed to "gap" the CC sleepers ?

CC Sleepers ???? Petermac ???
Me no understand  

Copper clad ………..  :roll: ;-)

The Only CC is the TB ( Tie Bar) and that is gapped ( photo is a bit poor) I tend to stagger the gap either side of the TB strip to maintain some strength.
John

It be plywood sleepers, stay awake at the back there young Peter  !!  

Reading a thread from the start is like reading the last page of a book - it rather spoils it.   :oops:

I know the sleepers are wood.  I just wanted to check that the rest of you knew ………… :cheers

Plywood  - count the stripes.

Nigel

Nice work there. As Nigel said, solder braid or a solder sucker would make life easier.

The track laying has been completed in 7 days and now it`s over to the electrics dept…. oh! that`s me…




Back when it`s more a dream world.

But remember folks…. this is not a Train Set…

It`s a Scale model railway Operation  ;-) ;-)

Very nice.

Provided one has the time and the skill, you can't beat hand built track.  

It looks great John.  :thumbs

This project moves forward…………….
Trackwork has been wired up with provision for remote auto coupling using electro magnets and Flippem couplers.



all airbrushed with etch primer first and then track colours from Phoenix/Precision.



It scrubbed up quite well…





Everything tested and working as I hoped for…..




So I have got on with making some Railmodel ex Lasercraftdevon laser cut building kits starting with a kit based on Chudleigh.

Burn`t more midnight oil last night and have nearly completed a Railmodels signal box kit.

Hopefully, today I will get the signal box nameplate from Intentio models………….

Nice work with those kits.