Elmleigh
Posted: Fri May 30, 2014 9:04 pm
The concept of my workbench started as a single length of track to test run a loco conversion. It seemed better to include a turnout especially a crossover as it would be more of a test, so it became a double track. If I was testing the running of stock on this, then I also wanted another line on which I could display whatever I built because it is nice to look at what you have done rather than hide it in a box. Then I thought it would be nice to photograph what I built so I wanted a background. I went through a few iterations of cuttings, loco sheds, factory buildings, … Then I saw photos of Llanastr which was a double track with crossover and a further length of track, effectively what I was planning, and thought if I adapted the concept of that, then it would allow me to model a range of scenic items as well as track. So what was a simple length of straight track has grown into something that I think qualifies as a Standard Gauge Workbench.
Elmleigh? Elmleigh used to be a farm called Shawefield just north of Havant station. My younger years were spent at Leigh Park and as a 7-8 year old I would walk into Havant and stand on the footbridge watching the shunting in the goods yard, the Hayling Billy, and various through trains. We left there when I was 9, but nostalgia remains. Elmleigh is now a mental health hospital, which in my youth were officially known as lunatic asylums, and somehow seems more fitting than Shawefield in representing the trials and tribulations of modelling in P4.
LSWR, Southern Railway, Edwardian life have always been of interest to me, on a stop and look basis rather than anything active, and that is where my modelling is focussed, but don't ask me questions; my knowledge is minimal. I admit to being a member of Scalefour for too many years, and not doing anything, but life has taken me in other directions. I have never modelled landscape or railway track or built any locomotives or rolling stock before - from scratch or kits. But I have collected tools, components and one or two kits over the years. And books! I have been to the occasional show, and been impressed by various exhibits over the years. I cannot believe I will achieve the quality of all that I have seen, but now I have time to have a go. Elmleigh is intended to be a base to learn, to experiment but also to give me some satisfaction en route. As far as possible, I will aim for LSWR around Southampton/Portsmouth around 1910. There are already deviations from that but only in the name of learning.
The track I started to build nearly 3 years ago fits onto a baseboard formed from a 1220x610mm sheet of 9mm ply from Wickes. I cut it into strips about 75mm wide using a handheld circular saw, sandwiched them together with blocks of 25x75mm planed timber, following a suggestion by Barry Norman in his book "Landscape Modelling" to give a frame that is 1220mm long and 690mm deep. Reading about the need for sound deadening taxed my brain for some time, so I included pieces of expanded polystyrene foam on the long sides. I thought the ply would compress this, but instead it bulges inbetween the blocks, and cut by saw the polystyrene is messy so I covered the exposed parts with gummed paper tape. It is not the best of frames, but it will do. Definitely not exhibition quality. Doing it again, I would make the sections deeper to give a firmer frame with less twist; no soundproofing; and find a way of cutting the timber more accurately. I have drilled holes at the end to enable baseboard alignment dowels to be fitted (for a fiddle yard).
I started making the track on a piece of 1220x610mm MDF, following Iain Rice's method in "An Approach to Building Finescale Track". So I taped cartridge paper to the board, sized it, cut out paper templates for the turnouts (2x A5 kept straight) and stuck them on, drew straight track templates representing 30ft sections of LSWR track and stuck printed copies onto the cartridge paper using slightly diluted Builders PVA. Curving the templates was not easy and a bit messy to stick down.
I have guessed what the sleepers would look like at the turnouts. I have spaced them closer where they interfere with each other rather than further apart. I have since realised that I did not cut some of my timbers from 12in width but used 9in (3mm). Sleepers were cut to length using a Swann Morton scalpel. At rail joints sleepers are set closer together to follow LSWR practice. Before sticking down (with more diluted Builders PVA) I rivetted at least a third of the sleepers. One mistake I made was to align the ends of the sleepers rather than where the rivets were, so later when soldering on the rail it did not sit squarely on top of the rivet. The punched holes in the sleepers were spaced right but not always the same distance from the sleeper end, although no more than 0.5mm difference. I drilled holes in the turnout sleepers with a handheld 12v Minicraft drill (Black & Decker), and so long as I held this lightly then it seemed to work ok. Some rivet holes should have been drilled closer together but I allowed enough space, being concerned about splitting the sleeper when fixing the rivets - particularly around the frog and wing rails. Rivets were fixed in place using a very small lightweight hammer against the top of a 4in engineers vice (which is small but weighs 6kilos!).
I had to replace a few sleepers at turnouts to change which ones had rivets; in particular removing rivets from those which should have slide chairs! I cut away the old sleeper using the Swann Morton knife; done carefully, it was neat enough, but the paper base did rough up slightly. In the end, I think this method with multiple layers of paper means the sleepers do not all sit at exactly the same height.
Then the soldering. I've soldered hundreds of plumbing joints but never anything as fine as a rail to rivet. My attempts used different solders and fluxes and soldering irons. Too much solder. Joints that wouldn't hold. Green residue from the flux defied all cleaning. Joints that wouldn't solder however long I had the iron there. Everyone I read or spoke to seemed to have their own method, so more experiment has led me to now use an Antex 18w soldering iron with Carrs yellow flux and resin cored 188 solder. The soldering iron has a 2mm rounded tip. I bought a piece of Tufnol board and to solder, I cut off a 1mm length of solder on the board and pick it up off the board by applying the iron to it. So long as the iron is clean this works well. Then I apply the iron flat side to the joint between rivet and rail, preferably on the side away from normal viewing. This join has previously had ample flux applied to it using a cocktail stick with the ends cut off. This seems to be the right size to give the right amount of flux. I find that the yellow flux can readily be cleaned off with methylated spirits on a kitchen towel, and I also use this to clean both rail and rivet heads before soldering; the paper base precludes the use of water. The rivet heads have also been polished with a propelling pencil type of fibreglass brush.
Cutting off the solder drops means I limit the amount of solder on the joint, which not only looks better but helps when later fitting cosmetic chairs. The 18w iron has ample power behind it, but the tip does become dirty very quickly, maybe after 15 rivets - perhaps time is the reason, as I feel I work slowly. Some say don't scratch the tip by filing or using an abrasive. Antex themselves recommend using Scotchbrite - the green scourer used in a kitchen. This is definitely an abrasive but does get rid of the dirt. More recently I have been using a tip cleaner, from RS Components. This may have an aggressive flux as its base but if so I have yet to notice any residue. It is a tiny tin, 3cm across, but dipping the iron tip into it now and again does make the soldering easier.
I am happy enough with my latest rail to rivet soldering, but did try to repair or improve my earlier attempts. I was beginning to make something more unsightly, so stopped, thinking that this is a test workbench after all. I will live with it.
Enough for now, more later.
Dave Harvey
Elmleigh? Elmleigh used to be a farm called Shawefield just north of Havant station. My younger years were spent at Leigh Park and as a 7-8 year old I would walk into Havant and stand on the footbridge watching the shunting in the goods yard, the Hayling Billy, and various through trains. We left there when I was 9, but nostalgia remains. Elmleigh is now a mental health hospital, which in my youth were officially known as lunatic asylums, and somehow seems more fitting than Shawefield in representing the trials and tribulations of modelling in P4.
LSWR, Southern Railway, Edwardian life have always been of interest to me, on a stop and look basis rather than anything active, and that is where my modelling is focussed, but don't ask me questions; my knowledge is minimal. I admit to being a member of Scalefour for too many years, and not doing anything, but life has taken me in other directions. I have never modelled landscape or railway track or built any locomotives or rolling stock before - from scratch or kits. But I have collected tools, components and one or two kits over the years. And books! I have been to the occasional show, and been impressed by various exhibits over the years. I cannot believe I will achieve the quality of all that I have seen, but now I have time to have a go. Elmleigh is intended to be a base to learn, to experiment but also to give me some satisfaction en route. As far as possible, I will aim for LSWR around Southampton/Portsmouth around 1910. There are already deviations from that but only in the name of learning.
The track I started to build nearly 3 years ago fits onto a baseboard formed from a 1220x610mm sheet of 9mm ply from Wickes. I cut it into strips about 75mm wide using a handheld circular saw, sandwiched them together with blocks of 25x75mm planed timber, following a suggestion by Barry Norman in his book "Landscape Modelling" to give a frame that is 1220mm long and 690mm deep. Reading about the need for sound deadening taxed my brain for some time, so I included pieces of expanded polystyrene foam on the long sides. I thought the ply would compress this, but instead it bulges inbetween the blocks, and cut by saw the polystyrene is messy so I covered the exposed parts with gummed paper tape. It is not the best of frames, but it will do. Definitely not exhibition quality. Doing it again, I would make the sections deeper to give a firmer frame with less twist; no soundproofing; and find a way of cutting the timber more accurately. I have drilled holes at the end to enable baseboard alignment dowels to be fitted (for a fiddle yard).
I started making the track on a piece of 1220x610mm MDF, following Iain Rice's method in "An Approach to Building Finescale Track". So I taped cartridge paper to the board, sized it, cut out paper templates for the turnouts (2x A5 kept straight) and stuck them on, drew straight track templates representing 30ft sections of LSWR track and stuck printed copies onto the cartridge paper using slightly diluted Builders PVA. Curving the templates was not easy and a bit messy to stick down.
I have guessed what the sleepers would look like at the turnouts. I have spaced them closer where they interfere with each other rather than further apart. I have since realised that I did not cut some of my timbers from 12in width but used 9in (3mm). Sleepers were cut to length using a Swann Morton scalpel. At rail joints sleepers are set closer together to follow LSWR practice. Before sticking down (with more diluted Builders PVA) I rivetted at least a third of the sleepers. One mistake I made was to align the ends of the sleepers rather than where the rivets were, so later when soldering on the rail it did not sit squarely on top of the rivet. The punched holes in the sleepers were spaced right but not always the same distance from the sleeper end, although no more than 0.5mm difference. I drilled holes in the turnout sleepers with a handheld 12v Minicraft drill (Black & Decker), and so long as I held this lightly then it seemed to work ok. Some rivet holes should have been drilled closer together but I allowed enough space, being concerned about splitting the sleeper when fixing the rivets - particularly around the frog and wing rails. Rivets were fixed in place using a very small lightweight hammer against the top of a 4in engineers vice (which is small but weighs 6kilos!).
I had to replace a few sleepers at turnouts to change which ones had rivets; in particular removing rivets from those which should have slide chairs! I cut away the old sleeper using the Swann Morton knife; done carefully, it was neat enough, but the paper base did rough up slightly. In the end, I think this method with multiple layers of paper means the sleepers do not all sit at exactly the same height.
Then the soldering. I've soldered hundreds of plumbing joints but never anything as fine as a rail to rivet. My attempts used different solders and fluxes and soldering irons. Too much solder. Joints that wouldn't hold. Green residue from the flux defied all cleaning. Joints that wouldn't solder however long I had the iron there. Everyone I read or spoke to seemed to have their own method, so more experiment has led me to now use an Antex 18w soldering iron with Carrs yellow flux and resin cored 188 solder. The soldering iron has a 2mm rounded tip. I bought a piece of Tufnol board and to solder, I cut off a 1mm length of solder on the board and pick it up off the board by applying the iron to it. So long as the iron is clean this works well. Then I apply the iron flat side to the joint between rivet and rail, preferably on the side away from normal viewing. This join has previously had ample flux applied to it using a cocktail stick with the ends cut off. This seems to be the right size to give the right amount of flux. I find that the yellow flux can readily be cleaned off with methylated spirits on a kitchen towel, and I also use this to clean both rail and rivet heads before soldering; the paper base precludes the use of water. The rivet heads have also been polished with a propelling pencil type of fibreglass brush.
Cutting off the solder drops means I limit the amount of solder on the joint, which not only looks better but helps when later fitting cosmetic chairs. The 18w iron has ample power behind it, but the tip does become dirty very quickly, maybe after 15 rivets - perhaps time is the reason, as I feel I work slowly. Some say don't scratch the tip by filing or using an abrasive. Antex themselves recommend using Scotchbrite - the green scourer used in a kitchen. This is definitely an abrasive but does get rid of the dirt. More recently I have been using a tip cleaner, from RS Components. This may have an aggressive flux as its base but if so I have yet to notice any residue. It is a tiny tin, 3cm across, but dipping the iron tip into it now and again does make the soldering easier.
I am happy enough with my latest rail to rivet soldering, but did try to repair or improve my earlier attempts. I was beginning to make something more unsightly, so stopped, thinking that this is a test workbench after all. I will live with it.
Enough for now, more later.
Dave Harvey