My local group of the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association declared last Saturday a modelling day. I would normally have attended for the refreshments and the banter any modelling completed being a bonus but circumstances prevented me from going.
Also with the day job being other peoples models my own stuff only gets done in fits and starts but in sympathy with the other day I declared the weekend a personal modelling day and worked on the Brymston RR even planning enough ahead for a trip to the shops to buy some stuff I needed.
Three things happened: –
I got some modelling done
I got my modelling mojo for my layout back
I had something to write up for this blog
It was that last point that caused a bit of a jolt in that I realised that it was last February when I last added something to the Brymston RR part of the blog. There is actually quite a lot to catch up on so this could turn into a bumper update. I should get yourself a coffee or something stronger.
An update to things happening on the Brymston RR is long overdue and will be along eventually but for now (spoiler alert) lets imagine that the RR now has its corner board and that there is some track on it.
Within that elusion the track will cross the join onto the next board and will need supporting and holding to gauge. So two lengths of double sided fibreglass PCB material have been cut, perforated and slit on both sides for insulation. The slits have been arranged not to coincide to maintain strength.
The rails have been soldered to the PCB’s whilst some bits of stick held them up against the underside of the rails.
Luckily the boards clamp together so there is plenty of force to trap a piece of clear plastic coated with Vaseline up the underside of the rails to prevent glue sticking across the joint.
Here one side has been glued and I am writing this whilst waiting for this to go off. The idea of the holes is to give the glue some key and to allow it to be forced all around the join. Two lengths of well know coffee store stirrer stick were also lathered in glue and slid in from behind so as to force glue into the join. When the fist lot has gone off I will glue the second side and then, later, cut the rails and hope the anti-glue strip did its stuff.
For belt and braces I may well drill a couple of the holes out and down in to the boards before gluing in some 2mm brass rod. The glued joint will probably be enough but the pins will give it some extra protection in shear if it gets clouted. Scenically the track will be in the gunge and weeds up to the rail head so the reinforcing won’t be seen
So, back in February I bemoaned the lack of progress on the RR as work got in the way. That lack of progress was maintained until about a ten days ago but the seed of progress was sowed when I temporarily repurposed my own layout as a O14 track demo.
Looking for the silver lining I am going to say the delay was a good thing. Having designed the corner board and then stalled coming back to it eight months later has allowed a design review.
It’s probably fair to say the first version was designed with imagination and no not a lot of physics. The review has allowed me to check the design, superimpose a realistic curve radii on a board whose job is to turn the railway through 90’ and then further revise the design around the track layout.
The prompt for the extra board now when there is very little to show on the first is that the king point for the yard is to be close to the edge of the board and the track from it will immediately start to curve and it was going to be difficult to get the alignment right without it.There is the added factor that once there is some track down it would be difficult to play trains without some track beyond the point. The above image shows how the two boards go together and how the high level section mates. That isn’t fully detailed as it didn’t contribute to this design exercise.
I am lucky that I have posh 3D CAD in the form of SolidWorks for other uses but it proved ideal to design this board. A sort of pet hate is the layout that is flat. Not sure why it bother me so much, possibly because a now departed friend from my old model club whilst a profligate layout builder they were always flat boards with a backscene. On the first board I have taken the track above datum so on the corner board I was keen to see the ground drop below datum.
Using CAD speak each bit was designed as a part and was then put together in an assembly which creates the image at the head of this piece. All the parts can be seen in this exploded view.
Once happy with the fit of all the tabs and slots (and posh CAD helps here as it has tools to highlight errors) the parts laid out in 2D and a cutting scheme. The 3rd D now becomes a statement of “6mm ply for this bit, 9mm Ply for that bit”.
Having got the ply sheet sizes from the laser company I laid out the 2D cutting plot having done this sort of thing back when I worked for York Modelmaking and its not dissimilar to laying out etches. This probably saved me a few quid as it’s something the laser firm would charge for.
There was a bit of toing and froing with the files until we were all happy with them largely because posh CAD was being too clever for its own good at this stage. With this sorted the files were in for a cutting quote and to be honest I sat back thinking this is going to be where I learnt why people stick with flat boards.
The quote landed, I was pleasantly surprised, the quote was converted to an order and now we await the bits arriving.
I can already see the need for board three
Just for this illustration the third board is a copy of the first as I have done no design work for it yet. You will note that the viewing face changes sides . This last sketch of my model room explains why. This would be the master bedroom if we were selling the house as it’s the largest but it’s in the extension and full of trains. Once upon a time I had visions of a grand layout but the day job took over most of the space and the modular approach is the antidote to getting nowhere with the larger layout.
You enter and see the viewing face of the first two boards as they sit on a peninsula made of kitchen units and have to go round the end to get to the work area. That work bench is where I try to concentrate on doing electrical, electronic and DCC type stuff.
Board 3 (& 4, 5 etc) are against the other wall and need to face inwards. I haven’t committed pen to paper or pixel to screen for board 3 but have in this instant realised there may need to be two board 3’s. One and two are built with the idea of them being exhibited in which case 3 would need to be a fiddle yard for that whist at home it could be another scenic board. That thinking is for another day.
In my model room I have a plan chest. Some of the drawers have drawings in, some have models in and, clearly, some have hidden treasure in them.
Having decided that my flirtation with 0n30 wasn’t going any further as I concentrate on the 0n3 layout I have been selling off some of the 0n30 stuff lurking in that drawer. This Rio Grande Southern Galloping Goose was lurking in the 0n30 drawer.
The Goose was produced by an outfit called Precision Craft Models in the USA and I was the UK importer for them. They were actually the same company as Broadway Limited in all but name(the original one, not the current incarnation). Originally, BLI were set up by the company that introduced QSI sound decoders to bring their decoders to the market by hiding them in models. For narrow gauge modellers their first loco was a C16 2-8-0 with a QSI decoder in them. Even for the time the models were a little crude with moulded on pipework like an Airfix loco kit but the sound was excellent. This version of BLI was located in the north of the USA. The ploy worked, fantastic for its time, everyone now wanted QSI decoders in their models.
Having done what they set out to with BLI they no longer needed a model business and QSI sold the company. They were canny though, they managed to sell it to an outfit based in Florida and sold it with a tie to using QSI decoders but with no priority in the supply chain. Most of the original BLI staff left not wanting to move.
The new BLI found itself with models in production, a tie to use QSI decoders and no decoders. The answer was Precision Craft Models. It was basically a parallel company, all the details and staff exactly the same but no tie. Several HO locos were produced under this banner but the only 0n30/0n3 item was the galloping goose. The PCM models all had Loksound decoders in them.
BLI/PCM went through some weird times. In the following years they continued to have decoder troubles trying to bring their own out which were rubbish. They also lost most of their dealer network. They were so hand to mouth that they had to sell all their stock to finance the next project so having sold to dealers at a standard dealer discount and having only just done so they’d dump all the remaining stock on the market at a retail below dealer cost. Initially they did this to a couple of large US hobby shops but then to a company called Factory Direct Trains which by some amazing coincidence had the same address and the same directors (just in a different order). On those terms most dealers would have nothing to do with them. They have changed now but have stuck to HO & N models.
Sample Passenger Goose
The Goose was produced in 0n30 & 0n3, in a passenger and freight version and in several prototypical liveries and some fanciful fictional ones.
Its not been produced since 2005 and is now a quite sought after model.
The Surprise? Well, the model that was in the 0n30 drawer didn’t fit on the 0n30 test track. Turns out its 0n3 and would therefore fit on my layout.
The Dilemma. When it was thought to be 0n30 I was selling it. Now I am undecided.
It doesn’t really fit with my layout but it would sit in my larger 0n3 collection but I could really do with the money its sale would make for a current project.
I thought writing about it would help me make my mind up. It hasn’t!
There hasn’t been much work done at all on the Brymston RR in recent weeks. Once New Year was out of the way work imposed itself once more followed by the great vinyl floor disaster that banished me from the model room. Sorting the vinyl floor disaster took a lot longer to sort than it should have with my bad leg restricting the time I could tolerate crawling around on the floor.
Whilst banished though there have been a couple of “realisation” moments.
First was about the next bit of the layout, more on that in a moment.
The second thing came from watching ancient TV and several episodes of Bob Ross painting lessons.
Watching this made me think
Some of those mountains would look good as the backdrop
Bugger, I’m going to have paint them and I’m no artist
Doing it after the layout is built is going to be a pain
I’d better at least prep for it.
The layout board, as it was until about an hour ago, was a mish mash of surfaces of the bare wood. I had thought that I would put some coating on it as a seal as the scenery is going to involve slopping quite a bit of water about.
Watching Bob made me realise that a primer would be needed as a basis for painting anything arty.
All the wood finish has now had one coat of wood primer on it and it will get a second coat when it has dried.
A Dilemma Moment: Anyone want to volunteer to paint the backdrop? I have so much to do with the business that I get little time for the layout as it is so do I really have the time to learn to paint backdrops? I know from past experience I am wired up for engineering and technical stuff and have had an “arty” bypass.
If it does come to pass that I fail to find an acceptable fudge and I try painting I do have two layout length pieces of ply that the Perspex front came in as a practice `canvas’
OOH, a cheat: I’m always up for a cheat. This one might be worth a punt. A quick Google reveals ID backscenes with a view of the Rockies!
Says its for OO but using it in 7mm just means “far away” doesn’t it (cue – Father Ted clip)
Second Realisation – One Board is Not Enough
Extension Space
When I set out to do the layout as modules I started with module one knowing that it would need at least one more board to provide a fiddle yard but reasoned that could wait. Now the first board has a home a couple of things became apparent: –
The fiddle yard was going to be very short or it would have to turn a corner first and,
Planning the track on board one I was going to need some idea of what goes on board 2
With what I was thinking for board 2 no commercial standard baseboard was going to do.
A tidy up was needed!
Where Module 1 sits in the model room its end points at a wall with about 800mm between it and the wall. Option 1 was for a traverser or cassette based fiddle yard which would have worked as, at most it’ll be a loco and a couple of wagons, but the location would cause storage problems. It’s be pretty much in the doorway with no where to put modules down. Option 2 was to use the module to turn the line through 90 degrees which opens up all sorts of other opportunities beyond (and defers a fiddle yard decision)
Some doodling with CAD came up with this
It follows the idea of the Tim Horn baseboard that forms module one and continues the presentation format. It has a dropped front section and a more open deck as I envisage the line being on an embankment and crossing a small bridge before entering a cutting that deepens to a tunnel to exit the scene.
The high level section at the rear allows the high level track to cross from board one. This may yet get cut back to increase the openness of the lower track.
This has all been designed in 3D CAD.
It’s very nearly as I want it. When its finally done I have a macro that spits out a 2D version of each part recognising the material thickness as the 3rd D and discarding it. These flat 2D files will then go to the laser cutter to be zapped.
The laser firm I use are OK on price once you get above their minimum order level so I may progress board 3 and some stuff I need for the garden railway before I place the order. Cash flow just now has been too much ebb and not enough flow so far this month so it may have to wait a bit.
Following on from the previous instalment in which I made and silver soldered the Vee’s together. The vee was assembled in with the other rails in the Fast Tracks 0n3 #4 left hand jig.
The PCB ties would only be here temporarily to fold the rails in the correct orientation so no great effort was made to get fantastic solder joints. Also, this being a stub turnout the switch rails don’t extend all the way to the blades.
Once soldered the skeleton turnout was lifted from the aluminium jig. It was turned upside down and had bits of waste etch from kits soldered across the rails in the gaps between the ties so as to hold the rails in place without relying on the ties. Most of these were intended to be temporary but those holding the check rails to the stock rails and a pair binding each switch rail to its stock rail were permanent.
Back in episode 11 I detailed some mods I have made to jigs for producing the rail for the common crossing (the vee, frog etc) and blades for point work on The Brymston RR. The mods to the soldering jig were done because I mentioned that I intended to silver solder the Vees.
A number of comments here and on other fora were concerned that silver solder requires a higher temperature than the melting point of aluminium that the jigs are made of.
Many other things have got in the way of a practical test until today but whilst I couldn’t put my finger on the right techno babble to allay their concerns I thought they were worrying unnecessarily.
Today I silver soldered some vees without a problem and the reason it isn’t a problem and why my jigs aren’t a dribbly mess is down to mass. The jig is a bloody great big lump of aluminium which is a great heat sink. It holds the part of the rail to be soldered in clear air away from the aluminium. Added to that the heat source whilst intense is tiny.
I have now silver soldered a number of vees together and used two methods of heating. The early attempts clamped up the vee and I then added silver solder paste in to the vee. This left some surface contamination. Whilst they cleaned up nicely I wondered if it could be avoided. In this first video I have the rails clamped in place but first I applied silver solder paint to the inside faces.
Now for those worrying about the aluminium note that some liquid that is in the recess behind the joint doesn’t even get hot enough to boil away. Straight after soldering it looks a little charred but that all cleans off. From the jig the vee goes in a jar of pickle solution to clean it up, then rinsed in clean water and it cleans up to shiny metal.
Then I had an idea and wondered if resistance really was futile. Ok, so I only used that line so I could post a picture of 7 of 9. [I wonder if it occurred to The Borg that if they had all looked like 7 of 9 they’d have had a lot less bother assimilating half of the population].
What I was really wondering was if my resistance soldering unit would get the vee hot enough. Its a pretty small cross section and for soft soldering I never use it on full power anyway. Only one way to find out. Give it a go.
Well, that worked better than expected. Afterwards I noted that the very sharp end of the vee had opened slightly but I reckon either a clip or less pressure on the probes will sort that. That said there isn’t a lot to choose between fire or resistance methods for doing the vees. On other modelling projects the resistance method may be better because it only heats where your joint is as the flame is a bit wider.
Why silver solder. As you have seen it needs the bits to be red hot to solder. It will need that temperature to come undone so any amount of soft soldering I do to add other details isn’t going to cause this joint to come undone.
After the last post discussing applying a name and how to do it things moved very quickly.
Posting the blog to the NGRM forum came up with a few suggestions as to how to do it and the one I went with was a recommendation to use Vinyl Lettering Online UK.
A quick visit late that same night with the intention of ‘just having a look’ turned into an order and two days later the lettering turned up with postie.
Two of the inmates
A quick burst of painting the surround black prepared for adding the lettering. It is one of those jobs you start with considerable trepidation and then wonder what all the fuss was about.
The lettering comes as a sheet, mine was rolled in a tube. On the layout you lay it out and get it all lined up securing it in place with masking tape in several places. You then remove the tape at one end and peel the backing away. Then you press the remaining tape down firmly on to your surface. You do need to press firmly with a hard tool to make sure that the lettering sticks to your surface. You can see a subtle change in colour as it is pressed firmly. You then peel the front tape away making sure it leaves the lettering behind. If it starts to lift a letter changing the angle you pull at sorts that. With the front tape off you’re left with your lettering properly aligned and spaced. Probably as a hang over from using press down transfers I put a sheet of plain paper over the letters and gave them another firm press.
A very brief update this one and a request for suggestions on how to do something.
Following on from yesterday’s Perspex screen post it got me thinking about the presentation of the module and the need for its name to be displayed. When it is all assembled the pelmet gives a front facing depth of 65mm, so, what I envisage is white lettering on painted black background. Letters about 50mm high.
I have been playing with fonts and as it was a mandated font for Railroads to use I was thinking it should be in Railroad Roman.
That said there is some leeway as there were umpteen versions of it with some railroads customising their own version.
A silly bit of me thinks it should be in the D&RGW Flying Grande style
That would be silly as my D&RGW engines won’t be allowed on this bit of the layout as I doubt they’ll get past the first switch.
I suppose another alternative would be to use a Stencil as things were often lettered with them
My question for you all is how to do the lettering in a professional looking way. That rules out me hand painting it or using stick on house letters as I’ll never get them on straight.
Here is a problem #1. I am a poorly disciplined messy bugger. By that I mean that I put things down intending to put them away later but never get round to that putting away part.
I am fortunate enough to have what Annie tells me would be the master bedroom if we were selling (we’re not) as it’s the biggest as my model room. I always envisaged filling it with a large 0n3 layout but inevitably most of the space has been taken over with workstations for EDM Models business.
The desire to get something done layout wise resulted in the modular approach to the Brymston RR as described in these blog posts. If the layout grows further, it will probably be in the form of connected modules.
Here is a problem #2.The layout is immediately on your left as you enter my model room and currently presents a large flat surface not unlike a shelf.
Consequence: The layout is inevitably covered in stuff I carried up stairs and needed to put down. Clearing it up just makes it available for the next load of stuff I need to put down.
As I get on to track laying this has to change!
Result:The layout now has a removeable Perspex screen on the front and the exposed end.
The Brymston RR doing a shelf impression
For the initial installation the Perspex has had two keyhole type slots cut in it and it hangs on two screws poking out of the pelmet. I think this may well develop in to a magnet based solution as the screws sticking out are bound to attack a passing shoulder.
Future:The Perspex came wrapped in two sheets of thin plywood of the same size so I am currently doodling using them to make an easily removeable peaked roof. Peaked because a flat one would just be a higher shelf
