Quick rod

The ground frame and waving 2nd man was present on Rhiw Mk 1 and has since re-appeared on the Mk2. On both versions without any exiting rodding for the point and the FPL. I'm sure that there would be various proto-guidelines for the operation of the crossover, but despite all the comment over a decade or so on both versions existence, no one has mentioned it. This backs up the theory that modellers as a breed are fairly blinkered and see what they want to see and that the niceties of safety and actual proto operation are comfortably ignored. Anyway...

Not wanting to cough up for the commercial point rodding items which look too thick to me and stand out too much, I elected to just hint at the existence of the linkage with some lengths of rod and some plastic strip for the upstand rollers. This I'm fully aware is a long way from looking like the real thing, but simply suggests. Likewise, the already suggested FPL was in place on the Peco point. Tiny details, but who adds FPLs to points? Only the P4 bods I would imagine. There's that comfortable blinker again.

The upshot of all this is that I can announce that I've actually done some modelling; the first for a couple of months and the first for me for longer. There are two more small jobs to do in the same area on the layout. Hang on to your hats, I'm on a roll now.

 

A new fiddle yard for Rhiw

Further to the last missive; a little work today, dancing between other things, on a quick baseboard build for the new short FY for the home running of Rhiw. A ferret around in the huge pile of old baseboards and MDF off-cuts in the garage turned up enough for a 12" x 38.75" board. It didn't need to be up to exhibition robustness so, at least for the time being, I did without pins and corner blocks, relying on glued joints only. 

Determined not to cut any new sheet, I could only generate one full length side piece, so a bodge with a short infill piece and a brace. As is standard, the height of these is 3" to match the layout.

In place with bolt holes drilled and some track dumped on it. The clearance is tight at the back, as it is with the exhibition FY, just need a bit more code 100 to finish it off. The next stage maybe to face it with some hardboard front and back with a small lip to keep things off the floor.

The rear two roads will cope with a two car DMU, the front of the three will hold a loco and two coaches... just. There will also be a plain road at the very front for the second 'off'. This is quite the departure as aside from building other people's layouts, I've not had one of my own in a running state for quite a while. Dury's Gap has a short temporary fiddle stick, but never ran at home with the exhibition yard. This a new world.

If you've enjoyed this waffle, show the love. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/chrisford2Q

 

A new 009

 And a return to the home base. I always say that there will be another 009 layout if you wait a few minutes. This one is an arm twist and is purely down to Mrs. F. who deliberately replied to manager of the Norfolk/Suffolk 009 members day when he asked if I had a layout for the next show. 'Oh, he'll build one.' Thanks...

Therefore, a lightweight baseboard built and now the first point down and wired. 

I don't think I need to explain to the regulars here how this is done or why I do it this way.

Baseboards and points

 

Progress is slow. Mainly because I keep getting dragged into other projects like colour light signals. However the first bit of track is down and the point control 'shelf' has been fitted.  Although 'mouseholes' have been used of late I much prefer this method as the switches are easier to get at with regard to wiring and it's somewhere to put the uncoupling paddle.

This is of course not so much a build as a rebuild: the boards are rescued from the GWR project, the gallows are the 12" wide set that were last used on Rhiw and the facia boards ditto. This meant that is was just a case of measuring and drilling new bolt holes for these at the appropriate spots.

I still need a name for this and indeed a more positive location. Suggestions on  a five pound note please to the usual address.

With reference to the comments in the post below, I feel that this will explain. Not the classic pose, but close.

009 trackwork

The demo layout all wired except the siding lower-left which I'm still pondering.  Next the saw comes out for some re-shaping. Yes they are tight - small stock only.

Fitting Peco points

This should be quite quick... A push this week to get all the basic track and wiring down for the Nixnie copy (working title Glan-rhyd). My usual fare of small DPDT slide switches wired to the rails and actuating a piece of wire from the tie-bar - it's close enough not to bother with any tube and is surprisingly firm.
Wrapping the track to the left around a 7.5" curve is slightly trickier. The rail was pre-bent and re-threaded to take some of the spring out of it and has been pinned about 3" intervals; belt and braces.

Orne fiddle yard mods

Orne wasn't really thought of as an exhibition piece hence the front loading point switches. Seeing as it's going out later this month a timetable of sorts was run through using the simple three road fiddle yard. What was spotted was that there are a couple of railcar moves possible that mean moving something else to load them up. Having two short sidings for two railcars seemed the answer.
Fast forward to Sunday and I picked up a point from Kernow Models and... well you can work he rest out yourselves. The wood glue is to fix a strip of wood along the near edge to stop stuff falling off.
How slick is this going to be?

Point control switches

Fitting new point control switches
Part of the electrical work is to fit new bigger DPDT switches. The old layout trackwork on Morton Stanley used the slightly smaller version of the standard switch. This meant that the holes in the MDF sheet that holds them needed to be enlarged. After much filing to make the holes bigger (it would have been easier to start from scratch) all four are now in place. There are also 7mm diameter holes drilled immediately below the switches in the back of the board to thread the wiring through to link it to the points. This means that hopefully at least one end of the wiring is easy to get at during an exhibition. The wires themselves run to the stock rails and the frog so that the electrical polarity is changed by the switch while the sliding action physically changes the point.

This is all quite crude compared to some people's layouts where every effort is made to hide switching gear away from view. I take the view that is easier to fix if there is a problem if it is as visible as possible, besides the strip of batten which supports the whole lot acts a a) a stiffener for the layout and b) is somewhere to put an uncoupler and a track rubber during an exhibition.

I might paint the outside of the case now before anything else happens.

DPDT switch

Point switches for the layout with no name. My usual simple set up with a slide switch to change the polarity lashed to a wire-in-tube set up to move the tie bar. 

First a 0.8mm drill through the handle as low as possible. There's a hole in the middle and the plastic is usually quite soft, so it struggles a little at first then pings out the other side when you least expect mostly into the fleshy part of your index finger.

The new OO layout.

Everything old is new again.

This is quite a slow burn project. I picked up the track for this in May, but save a bit of plotting, it hasn't moved very far forward  - too much writing and GWR. Yesterday I had a hour to waste so started working on the shelf that holds the point switches which is also useful for resting uncoupling hooks, pencils and the like during a show. I'm reusing the old bits of MDF to hold the switches and just re-mounting and adjusting to suit.
I need a name for it soon.

Point control to ginger tom

 This is proving quite slow going. I was quite nervy about getting the first point linked up. Older readers will remember the points for this project being built quite a while ago and at the time I don't think I was considering what switching system to use. To go with my standard set up I needed a throw of about 2mm to match the blade movement. This more or less matches the throw on the smaller DPDT sliders that I use for PECO 9mm track... but it's tight.

I linked up in a reverse fashion to usual, putting the wire through the switch hole first and then trimming to length at the front. The wire end is bent and dropped through a hole in the tie, and a generous blob of solder added to secure.
It occurred to me how much of a recycled project this is going to be: the rail (so far) is scraps from Nigel's cupboard and the wire-in-tube is stripped out of Rhiw. Never let it be said that I waste any money.

O-16.5 hand-built points

Aside from a little painting there has been much work on the slightly forward planned 7mm ng project. To that end I've been filing away at the nickle silver faster than a 13 year old boy goes through a box of tissues. Nothing startling in the above, the construction of these is covered if you click through the labels link. Needless to say the pointwork is now finished, just plain to do. Now though I've run out of the scrap rail donated from Dave Willet's HO layout. This is a bit of a bugger as I was hoping to do the whole lot out of recycled 8" lengths. Now I'll have to visit Gaugemaster.

Looking at the stats for this page and taking averages and lumping them into a monthly figure I realised that this page gains as many views as the monthly circulation of some of the lesser model magazines. May I take this opportunity of saying thanks for your continued viewing. Have you not got something better to do?

7mm narrow gauge points

It may have been noted that there has been a little more 7mm work going on. This all stopped at the beginning of the year to make way for Tal-coed, and then beyond that Svanda. However as a little break from painting the warehouse I started doodling around with some lining paper and a few bits of stock. I think... that it may be possible to build something small and testy in 7mm ng on a standard board - that it one that is 45" x12". Two more points will be needed. You don't want me to go all through that again do you?

Soldered Point construction Pt 4

The last instalment and the final details: checks and gaps. Check rails are the smallest part and the most important; stopping the wheelset sliding down the wrong road by holding them over to the stock rail as they approach the nose. Nothing but a short length of rail cranked slightly at each end. The length is determined as below: the LH end slightly beyond or level with the wing rail on the crossing, the RH end beyond or level with the gap in the rails. Here my generous Triang friendly clearances means they are set at about 1.5mm in, finescalers would want to be 1mm or less. P4 is about half a mill or something, but then if that's your thing, then you won't bother with all this rubbish. Solder your CLEAN rail to the CLEAN sleepers. Gaps are a bit personal. I mentioned Laurie Maunder in part one. Laurie's system is to gap down between the blade and the stock rail thus connecting the stock rail to the middle and changing its polarity to either side. I tend now to use the EM Gauge society gapping suggestion with a couple of mod's: From the right gap down the middle to the arrow where the rails should be cut. with a disc or saw. Beyond the arrow gap down the middle of each road. This means the 'frog' to the right of the arrow is dead and needs a switch to change the polarity, but the blade is live to its own side all the time.

Finally put the plug in the sink and wash the entire thing with a dollop of cream cleaner and an old toothbrush. Then remove the old toothbrush from the bathroom. Mrs F. tends to brush her teeth with the light off, but dislikes the taste of flux...

Soldered Point construction Pt 3

This is rapidly turning into an epic text only topped by Ian Rice's 'Pragmatic Guide to Soldering' which ran for about 97 parts in MORIL. After lots of grinding and a little trimming you should have two blades: one straight, one bendy, which attach to the fishplates and locate into the cut-out in the stockrails as below. Firm but floppy -a bit like the second Mrs F. Now to tie-bar. Here I've used a length of 4mm copperclad, but you could shave down a bit of the 7mm stuff. referring to your PECO point slide under the rails and mark inside where the blades will go when switched one way or the other. Drill a small hole at these marks and one other beyond the outside of the sleeper line. This for your connection to the lever and switch. File a gap between the blade holes and to make sure -another under the stock rail. The squiggle on the left is waste.

At the outside of the blade holes coat the tie with felt-tip pen to stop the solder wandering under the stock rails and sticking the whole lot solid. Tin the copper and drop a short length of brass wire into the holes, solder, and bend toward the nose about 2mm above the copper.

Remove the point from its paper backing and clean up. Lay the point over the tie and keeping it hard against the second sleeper solder the rail to the copper, squeeze the wire into the rail web and solder firm- the pic below shows this a little more clearly. The copper will hold the rail, but sometimes lifts. The wire running through the tiebar takes the strain. As can be seen I've smoothed of the copper from No2 sleeper to avoid shorting. The final part (Hooray!) will be checks and gaps.

Soldered point construction part 2

As is the way these days I'd taken some photos along the way, so thought to turn it into a short tutorial. So following on: The curved stock rail is approached in the same way as the straight one, but first bend gently between the thumbs to the required line. Remembering that the bend starts at the tie bar intersection and ends at the point of the nose from where it must (in this case) be straight and in gauge. This will be a little fiddly-er than the straight one.
Now all the closure rails: Cut an over-length piece and estimate where the bend will be. Notch the 'foot' of the rail (for FB) and tweek until the angles match. Then crank the 'lead-in'. The above is just laid in line before fixing. When happy trim to length - in this case between the 3rd and 4th sleepers, and add half a PECO fishplate. Make sure that you can join another rail to it, and touch with a tiny bit of solder. Repeat with the curved one. It will be noted that something more finescale would probably use Bullhead rail which is more whippy and doesn't need a fishplate hinge. With the bendy rail added, it should look something like the above. Two things to note: One, I'm running Triang wheelsets through this so the flangeway is quite generous. And two, the dashed arrow pointing to where the rails will be cut to isolate. This means that the 'frog' assembly at Side A will be dead and the rest will be live to the respective stock rail once the gapping is done.

Now the fun bit. The bit that people fight shy of. Blades. Piece of 1" x3/4" timber 6" long. In this case with a saw-cut down it so the FB rail sits flat-ish. Remembering which side the blade is for... clamp down and grind away with a file until you have a nice slope down to about half the depth of the web at the last 3-4mm. Clean it up. That's it. Do this when wifey is out 'cos apparently it's 'not a nice noise'.

FILE AWAY FROM YOU ONLY! Experience says that a return stroke will bend the rail up like a clock spring. Trim the length to a few mil over the length from the hinge to the tie-bar. Repeat with the curved blade. Do keep cleaning up with a small file on all rail cuts and polish before soldering.

Soldered Point construction Part 1

Two related happenings at ExpoNG led to this. Firstly I looked for some reasonably priced PECO O-16.5 pointwork, but unable to gain any mates-rates prices and working out that even on one of my usual four point plans it was going to cost me over fifty quid... I don't have fifty quid. Secondly Laurie Maunder presented me with a DVD showing the build of a small layout that he constructed in the 70's. This sprung me into action. I didn't have fifty quid, but I did have some copperclad sleepers and some scrap rail left over from Llynfordd. If you ask ten modellers how they build track you will get ten different answers; this is my take on it. A lot of people say they can't build points - that's bollocks. If you can cut plasticard and solder wire onto rail, then you can do this. Tools: hacksaw,pliers, iron, big-ish file, flat needle file, wet and dry paper, solder ordinaire, flux, bit of wood, clamp.


A PECO small radius point was borrowed and marked out on paper. The paper then glued in the corners only to a flat piece of wood. Sleepers cut and laid with a tiny drop of UHU at 3' (21mm) centres. Two bits of rail were put together for the nose. Basically you file a flat on the inside edge of the straight rail (5mm) taking the 'foot' back a little further and the same with the splice rail, only angled to a point. Lay them on the plan at the angle required (here 1:4) and solder together.


Quick word on soldering: CLEAN everything! Polish the bottom of the rail and the copper sleepers. And use flux. I still use paste flux applied with a cocktail stick. Tin the sleepers with a light coat of solder, and fix to sleepers in position. Wipe the flux off and clean up with a file.

Straight stock rail: Cut to length, mark where the tiebar will go and file a notch (5-10mm)down to just below the web. Then gently file into this notch, in this case L to R so it graduates and again take the foot (if you're using flatbottom) back a little further.
CLEAN rail and sleepers. Tin sleepers and lay in position straight,square and in gauge with the pre-laid nose rail. Quick wipe of flux and solder on the outside. Wipe as before.

This is not pretty. It's not finescale. But it does work. Half the layouts in the history sidebar top right used this method with no ill effects. You don't need a set of fancy gauges. The 14mm one I used for the 7mm NG layout was the earth pin off a 13 apm plug with two notches cut in it and a piece of copperclad sleeper for the flangeways. You just need simple spacers. More anon.

Wiring the points on Rhiw

Simple, cheap and usually very reliable. Not unlike me really.