Meeting Reports 2007/2008

Moderator: Will L

User avatar
grovenor-2685
Forum Team
Posts: 3918
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:02 pm

Meeting Reports 2007/2008

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sat May 30, 2009 6:42 pm

Crewe Area Group Has Lunch 18th November 2007

As we meet on the second Sunday of the month, it should come as no surprise that today (3rd Sunday in Nov) we held our annual lunch at the Crewe Arms locate hard by the station and with a 66 ticking over outside the gents loo just to get us into the feel of the thing. Our ladies are invited to this event as a thank you for all that support and forbearances during the rest of the year, and as one occasion when a day out on the hobby provides refreshments a cut above cantean fare!
DSC00876.JPG

Talking of exhibitions some of the normal suspects are seen here behind the Kutsford East at the recent Manchester show.

Next Month. Xmas pies a Tony's, definitely 2nd Sunday this time Always a popular event and always with a railway to play with, if you ask nicely
Posted by Will L at 12:33 AM
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Regards
Keith
Grovenor Sidings

User avatar
grovenor-2685
Forum Team
Posts: 3918
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:02 pm

Meeting Report 13th April 2008

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sat May 30, 2009 9:15 pm

CAG April Meetings - Things get hairy!

The April 13th meeting took place in Don Roland's railway room.

The objective of the day was to demonstrate the wonders of the Noch Electrostatics grass planting system. You know the idea, electrostatically charge some fine fibres of grass coloured material and shoot it onto a glued surface where the charge will keep it standing on end while the glue dries. That nice Mr Noch provides both the clever device which generates and applies the charge, and the grass fibres. These come in a variety of garish shades but by judicious mixing it is possible to achieve a realistic colour for your chosen season. The secret seem to be not too much green but plenty of yellow and brown. To work it appears you need the target to be electrically earthed to the charge producing gun, requiring either a conductive target layer, like aluminium foil with a base fibre mat glued on top and/or a good soaking with electrically conductive glue sold for the job (looked and smelt like PVA, with added salt perhaps?). Wire the gun to the foil/glue layer, shake away and lo and behold things got hairy.

This exersize was duly performed on a section of Don's Central Cheshire line Alpraham Sidings which we have all been enjoying so much in MRJ recently, and as in the MRJ, John Sherratt provided photos of the event. I regret that on this occasions the photos did not do justice to the results so instead I leave you with a shot of the much to be envied general environment of the Central Cheshire line, mostly obscured by an, always to be preferred, back view of a fair percentage of the group.
John s no 2.jpg

April 27th also saw a layout meeting hosted by Dick Petter. This was held to ensure we are getting on with the tasks we must complete before Knutsford East reappears at Scale Forum in September. Signalling was much to the fore. Our current signal operating mechanisms have not worked as well as we would have liked, sometime not at all, and Phil Bourne had a new generation of mechanism on display. Another signalling job required is the completion of the point rodding. The design of the rodding runs has been done by our own in-house professional signalling engineer Tony Walker, in pursuance of the S4 ethos of getting it all right. To complete this design there is, among other things, the small mater of the construction of large numbers of point rodding stools. We all now have our quoter, even if, like me, you managed to forget to go to the meeting!

Also on view were bits of two new Loco's. That is a D9 and an J10 (both LNER/ ex GCR) suitable for Cheshire Lines use.
John s no 5.jpg
John s no 6.jpg

I leave you with further pictures, again courtesy of John, one of Phil's magnificent new mechanism and another of the chassis of the D9 (an 4-4-0 for those not up to speed on LNER class numbers). This comes from Dick's hands and as always exhibits engineering values most of us can only dream about.
Posted by Will L at 9:08 PM
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Regards
Keith
Grovenor Sidings

User avatar
grovenor-2685
Forum Team
Posts: 3918
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:02 pm

Meeting Report Monday, 19 May 2008

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sat May 30, 2009 9:41 pm

CAG do it in rubber, and resin

The Crewe area Groups May meeting took place in member Tony Montgomery delectable new home. Subject for the day was a demonstration by guest Adrian Prescott of his resign casting techniques.

Before our very eyes Adrian produced crisply cast resin parts and made the whole process look very simple and straightforward. So to prove it wasn't all smoke and mirrors he then had untrained volunteers successfully producing castings from his preprepared moulds. He gave practicable advice on what was and what was not doable in this medium all of which made a great deal of sense.

At least one member was suitably inspired to wonder if here lies the answer to the production problems related to the long trains of bogie limestone hoppers we don't have running up and down on Knustford East.
S1050903.JPG

Adrian instructed us on both mould production and their use to produce the final castings, but as the rubber moulds take 24 hours to cure, practicals in mould making didn't form part of the show. This months photo (by Ron Dickinson) shows Adrian sitting in front the the minimal amount of equipment he used to so ably demonstrate his craft.

The rest of the meeting was taken up with further discussion of the production of point rodding stools from the Colin Waite etchings parts (anybody with concerns about their eyesight may need to give this one a miss) and whether the was any real practical difference between the chimneys fitted by Gorton to O4s and D9s. Oh happy days.
Posted by Will L at 4:43 PM
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Regards
Keith
Grovenor Sidings


Return to “Crewe (CAG)”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: ClaudeBot and 0 guests