West End Workbench

[jwealleans]

I suspect if you did the roof like that in 4mm, Rob, the plank lines would show through the tissue, or the tissue would have to be so overscale as to look odd. Speculation, though, it's always worth a try.

This is how it stands on its own 4 wheels at the moment:



Here's the inside so you can see the two short floor sections and the shaped recesses for 8 BA nuts. I seem to have run out which is why there are only two here.

[Robpulham]

Thanks Jonathan.
For roof tissue I use recycled spectacle lens cleaning tissues I am not sure how they would scale to 4mm but they look perfect in 7mm.

[Hatfield Shed]

This is a personal taste question in my opinion. The 4mm scaled texture of a 'doped' canvas roof cover in good condition is 'smooth', so slight exaggeration of texture is required if the canvas is to be suggested. I use one leaf of Tesco's finest bog roll, and then dope it with matt paint until the texture has nearly disappeared for the suggestion of texture. A few vans have wrinkles and failing coverings with tears and/or visible roof board edges, the latter always a sign that the roof as a whole is on its last legs. Much better than smooth plastic mouldings, even if a not truly accurate representation.

[jwealleans]

Well, it's been a while. To conclude the above, I think any textured paper looks overscale for canvas in 4mm. I use talc in a grey mix to give both a dead matt and slightly textured finish. Not my idea, it came from Martyn Welch.

So, where have 3 months gone? Well, apart from the usual distractions, I've had a bit of a project on the go. I decided some time ago that I needed to do something about a proper test track. I've been spoilt up to now by having the Ormesby layouts, Grantham, Scottiedog's layout and anyone else who'll have me to run stock on. This last 15 months, that's almost all stopped, of course, so i found myself with a backlog of stock which needed test running before it could be finished off and not much motivation to add to that backlog. The way forward was to put together a test loop of some sort, most likely in the garage.

Shortly before Christmas I heard that Ely club were disposing of Ramsey, their small 4mm layout which has been doing local shows for about 10 years. I remembered the genesis of it, before I moved away in 2006, as being a highly portable end to end layout, 4 x 4' boards which boxed into two 4' x 2' x 2' boxes, so easily transportable in an estate car. I don't recall what year it was finished, but I operated it at an Ely show one year and found the cassette fiddle yard very frustrating. I can't have been the only one to think that as not long after it was taken in hand and made into a roundy-roundy.

I thought that the two members who'd done that work and largely run the layout for the last few years would be taking it on, but then found that they'd decided to build their own. I made enquiries, parted with a few quid and it became mine.

The fiddle yard had apparently already been broken up, which initially was a disappointment until I worked out that I'd have had to build a new one anyway. My garage is 18' long so the full 16' wouldn't fit with the original fiddle yard attached and - when I stood and looked at it - I'd be operating from what would be the public side, so the fiddle yard needed to be reversed, to curve round the 'front' of the layout rather than the back as you would for an exhibition. Wood was cut over Christmas and the first train ran right round about a fortnight ago.

There's a retrospective of Ramsey under Ely MRC's ownership here. This is what it looks like today, devoid of buildings and signals but otherwise operative.





The two fiddle yard boards have now gone into storage and today I was able to have a really good running and fettling session on some of the stock I put together over the end of last year and the start of this.



The D210s largely just needed one or two of the bogies fettling where they were rubbing, one or two of the underside details moving or shortening for the same reason and one set is now officially complete. I see that Dart Castings have the MJT bogie steps back in stock, so the other should follow in fairly short order.





The D218K Quad set had run on Scottiedog's a couple of weeks ago but it was apparent that it needed straightening and levelling up so the carriages were nicely in line and level. That has now been done.



3554 itself needed a run and in fact has taken up most of the day as I found that one of the layshafts in the HL gearbox had some adrift and was causing the gearbox to jam up intermittently. After a strip down and a new, slightly longer shaft, it's back in action. Guard irons needed shortening, weight in the LRM tender and it can now acquire brakes, maybe sandpipes and whatever else I feel like adding. The minerals were also recent production and in need of a run out.

Meanwhile, back on the workbench.... after a long hiatus, I accumulated an order for Wizard Models and that meant springs and axleboxes for the plastic CCT. I used MT119, GWR 6' springs and NERC006, NER oil axleboxes, cutting the spring away. They'll be near enough when painted black. Springs were provided with the sheet of parts, but there were no J hangers so I went with the cast ones as a sturdier solution. I found I'd then created myself another problem by using the supplied axleguards as they weren't recessed as far under the solebars as a brass set would have been, so the springs stick out. I thought about going beck to brass ones, but for the moment I'll keep the supplied set and see how robust they turn out to be. I can always substitute with brass if I do suffer a breakage. Suitably inspired, I've started adding details including rivets. I'm now waiting for another sheet as I've used all the appropriately sized ones from what i had. This is the more or less finished side, the whole exercise needs repeating on the other.



Grain hoppers are now pretty much lettered up. I tried the Powsides sheet again and it was no better than last time - there's no way the lettering will fit into the space available. I may end up making my own.



Finally a couple of Ebay acquisitions at sensible prices, something of a rarity since lockdown.



DJH C1, with Portescap, £75. Probably didn't interest anyone because of the big hole in the firebox top where the safety valve cover has gone walkabout. This had a run out on the Hills of the North a few weeks ago and goes very well, but the tender needed to come apart to fit a Kadee for Grantham and add pickups. The whole thing needed a repaint, so this is where it's got to and it's now awaiting a package from Alan Gibson with handrail knobs and Ross Pops (the ones I had are way too thin).



NuCast O2, also £75. I have one of these to build and thought this was worth it just for the price of the wheels, although it runs nicely and has tidied up pretty well. The builder obviously didn't solder unless he had no choice, so I've removed a lot of glue and he seems to have had a disaster where the footplate sections join, so there'll be a bit of heavy weathering going on there. This one's waiting for tender frames, again from AG, to improve the running and let me fit pickups. I was planning a new motor, but it's gone round the test track nicely so we may get away without.

[Woodcock29]

Hi Jonathan
Nice work above. I note the quad appears to be missing a window in the end of one ducket. Are they just painted on?
Andrew

[jwealleans]

Morning Andrew,

ISTR the duckets supplied were plain and (being cast) thick walled, so after I'd cut the windows in the first one with difficulty I left the other pair to try painting them on. Good spot as I'd forgotten, clearly.

[Woodcock29]

Must confess I've found it tricky to get them in the right place in the duckets at times. The D&S duckets certainly aren't the best and require quite a bit of work to get them right.
In my triplet built about 18mths ago using D&S kits I substituted etched
versions from Frank Davies but then I worked out that the windows still weren't in the right place so had to file them in one direction and patch in small bits of brass in the other! Oh the joys of trying to get it right!
Andrew

[Dave]

I hope you observed all the elf & safety boll*cks about working at height and had a harness on etc etc for the overhead shots.

Have you kept the pub? (just realised you have) and are you going to model a covid pop up tent.

Great models as usual.

[jwealleans]

Harness? I stood on a bucket.

I haven't done anything with the buildings yet - they probably need to be removed to make the changes you suggested and that'll be a winter job.

Dave and I were discussing how to roll the layout back another 20 or so years and new windows in both houses and pub was the main item.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Nice to see some GN motive power with the appropriate rolling stock.

manna

[Chas Levin]

G'Day Gents

Nice to see some GN motive power with the appropriate rolling stock.

manna

Seconded: very enjoyable post, Jonathan

[Quicksilver95]

Hi Jonathan,

All of this is looking superb as always! Looking forward to seeing more of this layout in future!

Meanwhile, back on the workbench.... after a long hiatus, I accumulated an order for Wizard Models and that meant springs and axleboxes for the plastic CCT. I used MT119, GWR 6' springs and NERC006, NER oil axleboxes, cutting the spring away. They'll be near enough when painted black. Springs were provided with the sheet of parts, but there were no J hangers so I went with the cast ones as a sturdier solution. I found I'd then created myself another problem by using the supplied axleguards as they weren't recessed as far under the solebars as a brass set would have been, so the springs stick out. I thought about going beck to brass ones, but for the moment I'll keep the supplied set and see how robust they turn out to be. I can always substitute with brass if I do suffer a breakage. Suitably inspired, I've started adding details including rivets. I'm now waiting for another sheet as I've used all the appropriately sized ones from what i had. This is the more or less finished side, the whole exercise needs repeating on the other.

Glad to see some progress has been made with the CCT. I hope you don't mind my "borrowing" some of your solutions. With regards your rivets, what brand and product number are you using? I've seen a lot of people seem to use Archer but I can seem to find an obvious UK distributor.

Thanks,

Joshua

[jwealleans]

Evening Joshua,

The whole idea of putting up what i used was to save others the bother of looking, assuming they're happy with the compromises I've made.

The Archer Rivets come from Historex Agents, who i think are the only UK distributor: https://www.historexagents.com Sheet number AR88001, which is an assortment of sizes and spacings.

I hope to have it painted by the weekend.

[jwealleans]

Bit of testing tonight, so you get to see the layout again. J6 3554 with a short parcels/sundries working.



There's a bit of a backstory to this. I set off to do this running on Wednesday evening, but it was one of those nights where everything I touched fell apart, so this is the first time it's all been in a state to try to run again.



I've been adding the final details to the loco, sand pipes, brake gear and the like. It's run round there a few times before, but on Wednesday it suddenly locked solid. On examination it had unscrewed a crankpin and gone out of quarter. All replaced and the rod straightened and it behaved this evening.



The GNSR horsebox. This was the other main miscreant on Wednesday - although it ran fairly freely, with the lights off it was a one man Guy Fawkes display. I did have my suspicions, but I did also think I'd tested it before. Anyway it's had some brutal surgery underneath and now runs nicely and with no pyrotechnics. Oddly the 3 suspension units are all the same, but only two have needed hacking to this extent. I can't even blame Hornby wheels, they're the fairly finescale ones from Wizard.







The 3 GN CCTs. This is really to show how well Joshua's plastic one blends with the two from Danny. It's repaid the work put into it, I think and I do like the small variations between them. For those who can't tell, the plastic one is the middle one of the three and before anyone mentions it yes it does have the same number as the one next to it. It's the D & S one which I've managed to get wrong. One number either side would have been fine. I'll do that this week.



D375 OCT with a Riley Monaco load. I don't believe I've ever seen a Riley Monaco, but I did like the colour scheme.



NER horsebox. The one with the sensible roof.

Finally a query. I started a D & S NER D18 BT(3) today. Instead of the usual bogies I found these:





Has anyone used these before and do they have any hints about assembling/adjusting them? So far I think they're an awful idea - although they do what they're supposed to, they create no end of drag on the axles, despite filing the beams nicely flat and then to an edge. They also completely conceal the fixing/pivot (which is a rivet, for some reason), so they have to be attached before final assembly and then stay on the floor through the rest of the build. They are now impossible to remove non-destructively which also makes getting the body screws in and out a work of contortion. I may end up pushing the bearing to the bottom of their travel and soldering them solid, but I will give them a test first.

I think this is a very old kit, from the state of the brass, so this may be an idea Danny tried then dropped. Any information welcome.

[kimballthurlow]

Hello Jonathon,

So I wonder why one bogie has two parallel members and the other only one.
Compensation?

Kimball