When I made the signals for Charlotte Road and Widnes Vine Yard layouts, at the time, I used the smallest variety LED's I could get hold. These were the popular style 1.8mm diameter with an anode and diode length in the region of around 30mm long or so. The thing I didn't like about these LED's was the fact that they had to stick out further than prototype due to the fact that the equipment box behind the signal head was made to the correct scale dimensions. So it was a choice of either a large too thick out of scale equipment box or the LED's poking out a tad more than I would have liked. To help mask any sidelight emitted form the LED's I painted their sides black. This helped immensely the look of them when in situ on the layout.
The point of all this is that I have successfully developed a method of making lamp bezels. Combining that breakthrough, it is as far as I'm concerened, and the availability of the really small coloured LED's, has enabled me to start making my signals for the Wirral Finescale Railway Modellers exactly to scale. I made a beta shroud to see how it would go, set up, jigs and tooling etc. What surpised me was when I put my old style shroud, the smallest I could make to accomodate the old LED's, against the new accurately scaled size, I was amazed at the huge difference, as the image I have taken side by side shows.
I'm looking forward to making all the new signals for WFRM's new P4 layout, which is currently under construction. These I hope will be of a higher standard in terms of scale accuracy than I have built so far. I used to make an some dimensional adjustments to some of the parts on the older signals to keep the larger shroud/LED combination in proportion, the target board for one. Now I can get these down to exact scale size too, although less noticeable than the shrouds, but nevertheless, I'm pleased with the test single 3 aspect head I'm making at the moment to see if all the changes and techniques I have developed for building colour lights signals will pan out.
Cheers, Tony Sissons
for the rest looks like I will need the other part of the Wirral team.
