Swanage (again)

[nberrington]

[nberrington]

Some further progress:

I ran some 14ga bus lines connected to Anderson Power Pole connectors. (Popular technique in these parts). Connected all up to the droppers.

[nberrington]

Now for the dark art of tracklaying - soldering rail to rivets and glueing function chairs in place. I started by spraying the chairs a variety of rust colours. The Exactoscale chairs have the occasional issue of “flash” making threading a challenge.

My wife was curious about the obscession with the orientation of the chairs.keeping them in separate tubs (left or right) is obviously important.

Of course with soldering being a black art, appropriate tipple is in order, providing one does not muddle the essential elements of construction!

Little G6 struts it’s stuff on the first yard of track!

[David Knight]

Looking very good Neil. Are you taking any precautions with the fumes from the Butanone?

Cheers,

David

[nberrington]

Hi David - somewhat - I keep the lid on when not actually in use. The bottle has a narrow neck and fat base to avoid spills. Aside form that the room is very airy - so I don’t actually smell it too much, although the pleasing wafts of “airplane glue” occasionally transport me back to the he 70’s!

[CDGFife]

Very nice Neil.

Loving the G6!

Chris

[nberrington]

Loving the G6!

Chris

She’s a Connoiseur kit I built a few years back. Has CSBs and a High Level gearbox and runs like a clock. Here she the build thread with a video of her on Mark and Dave’s setup at GBTS in Toronto.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1761

[John Donnelly]

Nigel, I notice that, like me, you are using plastic chairs on ply sleepers.

Have you had any issues with track going out of alignment at all? I glued about 4 feet of track down last week using a straight edge to keep everything in line but, having looked along the track yesterday, whilst I can still push a mint gauge along it, parts of the track have definitely moved out of alignment and it is anything but straight now...

[CDGFife]

She’s a Connoiseur kit I built a few years back. Has CSBs and a High Level gearbox and runs like a clock. Here she the build thread with a video of her on Mark and Dave’s setup at GBTS in Toronto.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1761

Having followed your link I now remember that I've seen that before! They're lovely engines. I have 2 (plus a loan signing from Chris McCarthy) in Cadhay's regular stock roster. All three are SE finecast Whitemetal kits. One of my two has a CSB chassis using the Gibson etched frames as a starting point. It was the first loco I built with CSB and it is so beautifully planted I will do the other one the same when it's chassis finally wears out. It's also lead me to experiment with my latest M7 chassis using CSB methods. That one is still on the bench but won't be long before it's in test.

Watching the progress on your layout here with interest so please keep on posting!

CDG

[nberrington]

Have you had any issues with track going out of alignment at all? I glued about 4 feet of track down last week using a straight edge to keep everything in line but, having looked along the track yesterday, whilst I can still push a mint gauge along it, parts of the track have definitely moved out of alignment and it is anything but straight now...

I’m not sure yet. My previous “proof of concept layout” stayed true. I have rivets every two sleeper panels as power feed, and they are also solid. In theory a decent weight on the track for 24 hours should let the glue set up.

On the next module I will leave the balasting for later, as I struggled where to place the track, and had to laser cut several gauges and templates to help. I think the tabs between the sleepers on the timber track might help get alignment first time round. On this module I had removed them all, so was sans guide. It was fine on a straight piece of track, but as we enter the mpd things get more complicated....

More to follow....

[nberrington]

She’s a Connoiseur kit I built a few years back. Has CSBs and a High Level gearbox and runs like a clock. Here she the build thread with a video of her on Mark and Dave’s setup at GBTS in Toronto.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1761

Having followed your link I now remember that I've seen that before! They're lovely engines. I have 2 (plus a loan signing from Chris McCarthy) in Cadhay's regular stock roster. All three are SE finecast Whitemetal kits. One of my two has a CSB chassis using the Gibson etched frames as a starting point. It was the first loco I built with CSB and it is so beautifully planted I will do the other one the same when it's chassis finally wears out. It's also lead me to experiment with my latest M7 chassis using CSB methods. That one is still on the bench but won't be long before it's in test.

Watching the progress on your layout here with interest so please keep on posting!

CDG

I have a finecast one that I popped a new chassis on some years ago. It’s a heavy, powerful loco...
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1706

I’m still uncertain of that livery.... but it is pretty!

[John Donnelly]

Have you had any issues with track going out of alignment at all? I glued about 4 feet of track down last week using a straight edge to keep everything in line but, having looked along the track yesterday, whilst I can still push a mint gauge along it, parts of the track have definitely moved out of alignment and it is anything but straight now...

I’m not sure yet. My previous “proof of concept layout” stayed true. I have rivets every two sleeper panels as power feed, and they are also solid. In theory a decent weight on the track for 24 hours should let the glue set up.

On the next module I will leave the balasting for later, as I struggled where to place the track, and had to laser cut several gauges and templates to help. I think the tabs between the sleepers on the timber track might help get alignment first time round. On this module I had removed them all, so was sans guide. It was fine on a straight piece of track, but as we enter the mpd things get more complicated....

More to follow....

Thanks for that, guess I need to weigh the track down for longer than I expected...

[Le Corbusier]

Have you had any issues with track going out of alignment at all? I glued about 4 feet of track down last week using a straight edge to keep everything in line but, having looked along the track yesterday, whilst I can still push a mint gauge along it, parts of the track have definitely moved out of alignment and it is anything but straight now...

I’m not sure yet. My previous “proof of concept layout” stayed true. I have rivets every two sleeper panels as power feed, and they are also solid. In theory a decent weight on the track for 24 hours should let the glue set up.

On the next module I will leave the balasting for later, as I struggled where to place the track, and had to laser cut several gauges and templates to help. I think the tabs between the sleepers on the timber track might help get alignment first time round. On this module I had removed them all, so was sans guide. It was fine on a straight piece of track, but as we enter the mpd things get more complicated....

More to follow....

Thanks for that, guess I need to weigh the track down for longer than I expected...

I am definately no expert but my experience is .....I have used Howard's approach where the track is pre curved to the profile so in theory there are no stresses set up in the rail itself - meaning there is no real difference between curved and straight track. To date I have found that simply flooding the chair base with butanone and holding down with a fair degree of pressure for a slow count of 60 bonds things without movement (test pieces down for a couple of years now and still ok - though not moved about like a show layout). I think the pressure is important to ensure that the plastic melts into the grain of the sleeper.

Anyway ... that would be my four penneth for what its worth.

[John Donnelly]

I am definately no expert but my experience is .....I have used Howard's approach where the track is pre curved to the profile so in theory there are no stresses set up in the rail itself - meaning there is no real difference between curved and straight track. To date I have found that simply flooding the chair base with butanone and holding down with a fair degree of pressure for a slow count of 60 bonds things without movement (test pieces down for a couple of years now and still ok - though not moved about like a show layout). I think the pressure is important to ensure that the plastic melts into the grain of the sleeper.

Anyway ... that would be my four penneth for what its worth.

Cheers Lee, the track I've laid so far is dead straight so no stress on it at all. Tonight I've been able to separate the chairs and sleepers (one of the big advantages of ply sleepers) and re-glued - I've left weights on overnight so we'll see what it is like tomorrow...

[nberrington]

I noticed Tony’s method for droppers on Brimsdown Road.
Here’s my latest experiment:

Messrs Finley/Wesson/Mallard apparently soldered Cooper droppers to track rivets. They have held up for 20 years.

Turns out 20ga copper wire fits snuggly into the bottom of a rivet.

Here’s the principle

[DougN]

Wow thats an amazing hammer it makes things pop back out...

[nberrington]

Wow thats an amazing hammer it makes things pop back out...

I had some trouble editing the order of the pics.....

[Paul Willis]

Wow thats an amazing hammer it makes things pop back out...

I had some trouble editing the order of the pics.....

Hopefully that makes a little more sense now

Cheers
Paul WIllis
Deputy Chairman (and one of the moderators)

[Tony Wilkins]

The order may make more sense, but they don't seem to display properly now.
Regards
Tony.

[Paul Willis]

The order may make more sense, but they don't seem to display properly now.
Regards
Tony.

Hi Tony,

In what regard? They seem to be okay on my laptop (W10, Opera browser). Just like the originals pre-adjustment.

Cheers
Paul

[Winander]

Paul,

iMac OS X 10.14.6 Mojave. All are rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise when compared with the larger versions. The latter, I believe always show the correct orientation.

Ho hum, the good thing is they've been posted.

Enjoying your work Neil. Would also enjoy your whisky

[Le Corbusier]

[Paul Willis]

Paul,

iMac OS X 10.14.6 Mojave. All are rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise when compared with the larger versions. The latter, I believe always show the correct orientation.

Ho hum, the good thing is they've been posted.

Weird... All I did was swap the order of the attachments by editing the post, without opening them or changing the file properties.

I suspect that this is linked to the iPhone/Mac file-embedded properties issue that Martin and Webmaster John are discussing with a view to implementing CSS changes when there is opportunity. Hopefully that will make things easier across the board.

Cheers
Paul

[Tony Wilkins]

The order may make more sense, but they don't seem to display properly now.
Regards
Tony.

Hi Tony,

In what regard? They seem to be okay on my laptop (W10, Opera browser). Just like the originals pre-adjustment.

Cheers
Paul

Hi Paul.
They were rotated 90degrees on my laptop too (Linux mint 18, Firefox).
Your explanation makes some sense, although I had problems with the first pictures I posted on my Brimsdown thread and that was nothing to do with apple anything as they were all downloaded from a Fuji compact camera and cropped and compressed in Photoshop.
As you say weird.
Regards
Tony.

[nberrington]

A quick update of progress.

My method of soldering the dropper wires to rivets. Place a tiny amount of non corrosive flux on rivet. Insert wire, ensure it is seated down. Touch with a tinned iron: