Saturday 13 September 2014

Lovely legs

And more woodwork. I worked out a while ago that at least some of the time it's pointless dragging a car full of trestles around to hang the layout on so came up with a simple lifter for Garn which vanished. So for the single showing of Edge and for the future showing of Morton Stanley a replacement has been constructed.
Basically all out of 19x34mm batten. The main bit is 1m long x 10" tall, the side wings 12" x 10" tall. All held together with glue and 3/4" screws and connected by cheap 38mm hinges from B&Q. These strangely come with 8 screws per hinge rather than the required four. But then at least two are so badly cast that they fall through the holes... quality no object obviously.
The whole sits on a 29-30" high exhibition table taking the bottom of the baseboard to 39"+ . Plus the depth of the board at my standard 3" lifts the track level to not much less than it would be on trestle and a great saving on weight and moving.


Wednesday 10 September 2014

Fiddle yard board.

When is a fiddle yard not a fiddle yard? When it's a fledgling Krupabahn as well.
Edge needs a storage yard of some sort for its one show. Building one for just a day seems a little wasteful, so I though that it would be an idea to double the usage and make it scenic-able as well. here it is in its basic final shape. track will be lightly tacked down to make a two-road temporary fiddle yard for the day, the permanent stuff will come later. The layout will sit on a fold up base and this board will jack off of it with a single leg, the same method as was used on Garn a couple of years back. Things may all seem a bit disjointed  at the moment, but there is a plan. the days work today was to firm this board up with corner blocks and add the lower section base.

Tuesday 2 September 2014

Cracked Egg

 I decided to work around the desk in a clockwise fashion... sort of.
First up was to finish the Egger to tramcar conversion. The second bench seat was added and lead stuffed everywhere before I added the new bulkhead panels in one end. So far so good. Then the tits went up as as I mentioned earlier in this one, there was a worry that the ageing plastic would shatter... it did, and cracked across both layers while removing the second end part.
I elected to try to weld it together. Tricky, as the slippery plastic seems to be immune to most solvents. The second bulkhead panels were added and the roof perched jauntily on top.
Onward with the new outer ends and glass.

Monday 1 September 2014

Clubbing

 I'm not really a club person, probably for the same reasons as I'm not really a forum person. There are exceptions though. I have only ever been a 'member' of one model railway club that being the Sussex Downs Group of the 009 Society and have have to point out that I learnt more in that period about how to do and not do things than at any other time, which is probably as good a reason as any to join up. So when I was asked to help out by the above at an exhibition later this month I agreed and asked if I could come along for a couple of meetings. Things have changed somewhat in venue, but the dynamic is still the same. In common with all organisations there are movers and shakers and those who float around the periphery, and the downside is that most things are voted upon, which is the bit that I find difficult to grasp. It's all to easy to end up with a decision which pleases everyone and yet pleases no one. That said the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and I might well make this more of a regular occurrence, they're a nice bunch and if I can find a way to set fire to the  club layout all will go very well...