More hacking at the baseboard

After last weekend's work on resizing the door, and making a cut-out area underneath the layout for the point mechanisms, etc, to go, this weekend's activity was a little less to do. The glue having set, all the edges were sanded down. Two cross members were screwed and glued across the underside. These will be used to locate the board on the leg trestles, but were also intended to strengthen the layout before the cut-outs for the stream and river Yar were made in the layout's top surface:

The rounded ends of the new cross members can be seen below the layout, about 4 inches in from each end. They also mean that the layout does not lie flat on the floor when off its legs, and can be picked up more easily.

The 6 inch grid has been drawn on the topside of the layout, and the trackplan sketched out on it. The locations of the strengthening timbers around the underside cutout have also be marked, to help me avoid them. The areas for the stream and river were then cut out with the jig saw and the cardboard lattice removed. The level of the river bed will not be the full depth of the door thickness. It will be as deep as the cutout in the edge timber.

I shied away from making a similar cutout in the timber at what will be the front of the layout. I decided, instead, to move the road bridge downstream a little so it covers the timber. I may change my mind again later, once I have completed the fiddle yard connection. Now, I can just await delivery of the leg trestles, and brass baseboard joining dowels. I intend to complete all the woodwork construction, including backscenes and transportation/storage boxes before starting any track laying.

Time to throw my hat into the ring

Since the 2mm Scale Association laid down their Golden Jubilee Layout Challenge to build a layout of 9.42 sq. ft. or less in time for their 2010 Expo, I have spent a year and a half thinking about it, and now I have a year and a bit to actually build something.

The thinking bit was quite tough, coming up with criteria to be met by the eventual design, and then getting a design that met most of those criteria. The criteria included:

- max area 9.42 sq ft, of course
- maximum baseboard length, 5 ft (for transport)
- interesting to operate and view
- not too complex, given the time constraints
- Southern region, BR 1950's - 1970's
- based on a real location

Finally a suitable prototype presented itself, although it does require generous use of modeller's license. The location is the terminus at Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. Combining a scan of a large scale O.S. map onto the satellite photography of Google Earth, I found that it easily fitted on a 5 ft. by 1 ft 6 inch baseboard, with a fiddle yard of 2 ft 6 inches by 9 inches (total area 9.375 sq. ft).

The original track plan shows lots of interest, with the kick-back sidings and outside single slip. Unfortunately, the layout was rationalised between the wars, and the slip, and two sidings serving the loco facilities were removed, along with the short siding to an end loading bay. An extra spur from the run round, making 3 bufferstops by the station building was added though. For operating interest, all the track from both periods will be retained:



(the purple lattice is 6 inch squares)

To make it possible to extend the operating life of the line, and allow more variety of stock to be used, I have invented a new course of history. Following the war, it was decided to keep the Isle of Wight's rustic charm by banning all road improvements on the island, and restricting motor vehicle use to residents and local businesses. Money saved was put towards the Lymington-Yarmouth rail bridge/tunnel link. All the existing rail routes on the island were then relied upon to convey produce, supplies and holidaymakers. (Britain's version of NASA was based near Freshwater, and might have generated some traffic if it had not been abandoned).

The line from Yarmouth to Freshwater thus became a short branch, with direct trains from Newport and Cowes. Excursions from the mainland would need to reverse at Yarmouth. This new history and generous use of modeller's license means I wil call the layout "Fresherwater".

So much for the ideas, time for something practical. On a visit to the closing down sale at our local Trade Depot I found a pile of plain plywood doors for just £4 each. I felt sure I could do something with one of them, and for that price, I could just dismantle it and use the plywood. First, I would try to make use of the strength of the door's construction.

I started by cutting the door down to 5 ft. long. That is when I realised the faces were not ply, but MDF made to look like ply. However, I continued with my plan, and fitted a length of timber into the cut end, glued and clamped. Then the door was cut lengthways to bring it down to 1 ft. 6 inches wide, and another length of timber glued into the gap at the edge, to give the door its strength back again. The offcut from the end of the door was trimmed to 9 inches, and a length of timber glued in to form the fiddle yard.

Next, I drew out the layout (mirror imaged) to what will be the underside, to determine where point motors and uncoupler magnets will go. This area was then cut out, and the cardboard lattice strengtheners removed from inside the door. More timber framing is then glued in along the edges to return the strength. The photo shows the edge timber clamped while the glue sets, and the first of the timber framing around the central hole in place. So far, the baseboard is still light, and nice and rigid. Note this will be the underside of the layout:

08 kit building - Part 7

It is over a year since my last posting. I had been making excuses, such as pressure of work commitments, life, looking for a good way of blackening the chassis, etc, but mostly it was down to being disappointed in how the chassis was running. Anyway, Friday 6th June, I got all the bits out of the box again. The rusting tube the worm is mounted on was cleaned up with emery and oiled, and found to be running smoothly in the chassis with just the worm gear on its idler shaft.

Adding the next idler gear messed things up though. It looks like the worm gear is slightly non-concentric on its shaft. The bearings have been opened up to give a little play, but adding the next gear took away thay play. So, some more careful opening up of the bearings eventually resulted in free running of the gears.

By now, the stub axles used by the idler shaft muffs were quite a loose fit, and kept dropping out. It was time to glue them in place. For the second shaft, with the hole drilled in it, this was a simple matter of applying some super glue into the hole on the end of a pin. The worm gear shaft is trickier, because there is no room for such a hole. I inserted a small piece of plastic rod to ensure the two stub axles can never meet in the middle. Then I tried adding some glue into the muff, putting it into position, then inserting the stub axles through the bearings. First I tried superglue, then I tried Uhu. No real success with either, except that I managed not to glue the muff to the chassis. However, the stub axles are now a tighter fit, and might stay put.

The rear wheels were fitted next. The muff had to be reamed out quite a lot, but still retaining a tight grip on the half axles. Everything was still nice and smooth. Adding the centre wheels locked the whole chassis up though. The gear was hitting the solder and folded tab of the spacer fitted above it. The solder, and some of the tab was carefully filed/chiselled away until there was clearance. The same was done for the front wheels, but eventually, on Friday 13th, all wheels were turning sweetly, and very slowly, under motor power.

The chassis had been blackened using a CD marker pen. It needs touching up after all the fettling, but it is a quick, easy way to do it.

08 kit building - Part 6

Having completed construction of the N Brass rolling road (plus the extension kit ready for the 9F) I turned my attention back to the 08 last Friday evening. Dave Stratton had attended a chassis construction group and has his gears and wheels all installed now, so I was lagging behind.

I was unhappy with the worm gearbox on mine, and with just the motor and worm fitted (no gears) it was very rough compared to when the motor was out of the gearbox. Flexing the gearbox did allow the motor to speed up, but I just could not make it stay like that. Eventually I realised the gearbox had folded up not square. I removed the bearing from the far end and the worm rod was naturally hard against the side of the mounting hole rather than in the middle. I took the gearbox apart at the fold lines, filed the edges square and soldered it back together square, so that the worm rod was central to the bearing mounting hole, and when the bearing was added, the motor still ran smoothly and very, very slowly.

Now I think I stand a chance of making it work with some gears in position too. However, I want to blacken the chassis first.

08 kit building - Part 5

This Friday we had balsa wood (courtesy of Dave Stratton) so I could add the wires cut during the last session to the brakes. At this point we noticed that there are another set of brakes on the thinner etch. I presume these would have been easier to fold and drill than the ones on the thick etch, but maybe not so strong in use, so we will use the thicker ones.

Threading in the wires, and soldering up, as per the instructions,was straight forward enough, and the photo shows them with most of the wires trimmed and cleaned up. I will cut the remainder later, as I expect the length will be critical to hold them in place with the outer frames, without fouling the gear chain on the one side.

The next stage will be to paint or blacken the frames and wheels ready for final assembly before progressing with adding the cranks and connecting rods. There will be a few weeks gap before the next session, as we have our own Basingstoke Exhibition coming (March 10th/11th - very good value) and then we are helping Jim again at Nottingham.

08 kit building - Part 4

Last night's session started by me having to free up the rusting worm tube and extract it from the bearing. I cleaned it up again with emery paper, and got everything running freely again, but left it dismantled this time. I must put some oil on it to stop it rusting again.



Having dismantled everything, this evening was a less-than-exciting session of drilling .35mm holes (the smallest surviving drill I could find in my toolbox). Twelve holes in the chassis, and another 18 in the folded up brakes. However, Dave Stratton and I managed to complete all this without breaking a drill, which makes a nice change for me. I then cut 18 half inch lengths of .3mm nickel-silver rod ready for soldering,but as we did not have any balsa wood, that will wait for the next session.

08 kit building - Part 3

We were very pleased to be joined by Paul Martin for last night's session, but as he accepted some of our tea, he may well be back in hospital pretty quick. He had his 08 kit with him, and although he read the instructions and looked at the bits, we did not manage to persuade him to start construction - yet.

Dave Stratten and I started by cutting up bits of the axle steel into bits approximately 3.5mm long, using a vice and slitting disk. The gear muffs were drilled and reamed until the axle steel would push into them (1.6mm drill was used eventually).

I fitted the lay shaft with the gear at each end first, using a 1.5mm drill first, then pushing it through with one of the short lengths of axle steel. This method worked quite well. The larger gear was catching on the stretcher tab, so it was filed back a little to clear the gear.

Next would be the worm gear lay shaft. The muff for this one needed shortening as the bearings are further in. Another problem is the fitting of the gearbox over one of the bearings. Excess solder was filed away to allow it to fit, but it was apparent that one of the gears on the already fitted lay shaft needed to be away from the end of the muff to clear the gearbox. The smaller gear had been glued to the end of the muff last week, but the larger gear could be pushed right up to the collar to give clearance. It does mean that the gear train to the wheels is on the opposite side to the model in the instructions, but hopefully that will not cause more problems. To turn that lay shaft round, I had to file the other stretcher tab to clear the larger gear.

You can see the gearbox tab and how it fits next to the gears in the bottom left of the second photo.

Note that the tube that has the worm on it is rusting rapidly, although I am sure I did not get any flux near it.

With the two lay shafts and the gearbox in place, power was applied, and it whirred away smoothly, but slowly. Very satisfying, but I think it needs loosening up a bit. Not sure yet if the gearbox has to be fixed in place, or left to float.