Final tweaks

As we prepare for another weekend exhibition (Weymouth this time - our home club) there were a few minor niggles that I wanted to resolve...

First of all the control panel. It's been rebuilt and re-overlayed a coupled of times during the 12 months of operation and during the last rebuild, I used self-adhesive photo paper which was then sprayed with lacquer. The gloss lacquer has a tendency to react with the paper and then lose adhesion, with the paper starting to bubble and lift quite badly, especially if stored in cold or slightly damp conditions. Even one night in the car is enough to lift most of the artwork.

As we've also made changes at the front of the layout removing points and adding the uncoupler, I decided to make changes to the graphics to reflect the new, simplified layout.

Thankfully all of the graphics files are stored safely for just this kind of situation but to actually replace the graphics requires not only removing the panel from the casing but also removal of the four ammeters and all of the switches.

After carefully removing everything I printed the new panel graphics, this time onto self-adhesive vinyl, which is much more forgiving. A couple of coats of matt lacquer seals the inkjet ink and prevents smudging.

This panel is actually made up of four individual pieces of vinyl:

With everything dried it was time to refit all the bits I'd removed. I also took the liberty of adding the logo, which was missed from the last panel:

The panel now re-assembled ready for the weekend:

Time for one other "small" project...

When I first completed the blue EMU project, I wanted to keep a genuine green set but found that in the current setup, I don't have sufficient room on the outer sidings to store it. Running as a nine car formation with the other set tends to detract from it somewhat, so I either need to sell it or find another use.

I'm not keen on selling it as it is a genuine example. When first built, the shuttle was designed to take EMUs in the form of the two Bachmann EPB units, however it was clear that due to the control equipment used at the time, they were difficult to control properly and invariably ended up skidding into the buffers. After changing to steam locos and later upgrading to feedback controllers, I then ended up moving the isolating diodes further to the buffers as the speed was much more realistic and controllable. This put an end to ever using the Bachmann units again as the pickup assembly is mounted on the inner bogie of the motor car - much the same as the Dublo EMU.

The only way to make the Dublo EMU work on the shuttle would be to move the pickup assembly to the outer bogie. First of all there isn't enough room under the motor bogie to mount the pickup, so a more radical approach was required - turn the chassis around!

Now again this sounds simple, but it really isn't and is not a modification to be recommended, particuarly if the unit is in mint condition, which thankfully mine isn't, although I really can't stomach the thought of making another blue EMU at the moment!

To complete this modification I stripped the motor coach completely. The coach body has a rectangular section of metalwork cut away above the motor bogie to accommodate the support beam that holds the motor in position, so first job was to cut an identical rectangular hole at the other end. For this I used the plastic inner sleeve that makes up the window glass as this also has the rectangular hole. I simply turned it the other way and marked the hole with a pen before cutting with a Dremel cutting disc.

With the hole cut into the coach body, I needed to remove another fixing strut, this will weaken the body slightly but shouldn't affect the performance of the unit. I also found that the centre fixing hole isn't entirely centre, it's about 2mm offset, so some slight reaming to the unpowered end of the coach frame was required to enable the unpowered bogie to rotate.

Finally everything was reassembled and the unit given a quick test around the loft track - all appears to be well so hopefully this will work well on the shuttle and provide a bit more variety!

Don't try this at home...

Christchurch MRA - All done!

Another weekend over in a flash!

After a pain-free final setup on Saturday morning,  we've had a chance to fully test the recent modifications.

The new, automated semaphore signal system not only worked perfectly, it gained a fair amount of attention. The electric uncoupler also worked reasonably well, although some locos required some tweaking of the couplings, which was to be expected.

Removing the diamond crossover and points made a massive difference to the performance of the layout, no more phantom uncouplings  or bogie derailments in this section.

The LMS 2273 tank (as featured in the Scrapheap challenge posts) made an impressive first appearance and was soon promoted to running double-headed with 2274 on the upper loop. Speed match is reasonable, which is impressive considering that the armature is home-wound!

The Blue EMU in its six car formation ran faultlessly until one of the couplings snapped on the rear centre car. As the couplings and bogies are riveted (and I don't have the tools to refit) I swapped the chassis with a spare, corroded carriage that I had in the stock box. Afterwards this again ran perfectly with a reasonable amount of speed.

In total there were three casualties - one of the 0-6-2 tanks jammed but this was quickly spotted, again thanks to the use of the ammeters. Closer inspection revealed that the top bearing retaining nut had come loose and wound itself onto the top of the armature - a quick fix and back in action within a few minutes. One of the Co-Bo's shed three of its tyres, closer inspection revealed that these were perished and were on the loco when I acquired it.

The biggest (and only) disappointment came with Duchess of Atholl, again! After swapping chassis with the redundant Duchess of Rutland, the loco had a notable shake when running, resulting in more than a few derailments when run at speed. As we packed up the locos I noticed that the valve gear has come off and the rod pins are missing. Annoyingly this was the reason why I swapped the chassis in the first place - I'm starting to think this thing is jinxed! For now I'll borrow the chassis from the Duchess of Montrose (also featured in the Scrapheap challenge posts) while I track down the correct transfers for the Abercorn project.

Once again we were very well received with further bookings taken.

The layout is once again safely packed away ready for service again in two weeks!

Video footage here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_3DxRbVC8E&feature=youtu.be

A selection of pictures below:

Set up and ready to go...

Over the course of the next six weeks, the layout is attending three weekend-long exhibitions.

After two months of being stored away for minor enhancements, we set up this evening and within 90 minutes of arrival we'd unloaded, put the layout together and set up most of the stock.

We've been given the whole of the stage!

Thankfully everything went together without fault. The interconnections between the boards continue to operate really well and hopefully the recent tweaks and modifications will increase reliability even further.

Sadly, of the four recent scrapheap locos, only two are ready to show, the others are still awaiting transfers but the red LMS tank has pride of place and will see use on the shuttle train over the weekend.

This will also be the first test of the automated signalling along the front of the inner loop.

Fingers crossed for a successful weekend...

Scrapheap challenge - part eight

With the top coat dry and hardened, time to mask off ready to paint the black bits:

For the Duchess of Abercorn I've decided to use the primer coat as it seems to be a reasonable match for the Wrenn version.

The Castle body gets its black coat:

And not forgetting the tenders - masked and ready:

Painted and ready for unmasking:

The tender chassis were also treated to a spruce up, after a good clean these were masked for a quick "blow over" of satin black:

For the Castle loco, the loco chassis was also badly playworn with lots of paint missing.

Having had major problems in the past reassembling wheels and valve gears, I decided to play safe and just mask up the wheels and valve gear in-situ:

And this is the current state of play - both locos have had their colour coats, both need front buffer beams painted red, some minor colour touching-up required which is to be expected. 

Once I have the transfers and linings, these will receive a coat of matt lacquer before refitting the handrails. 

Certainly looking better than they did this time last week!

Scrapheap challenge - part seven

With two of the locos in the above picture completed, I've now moved on to the Duchess and the Castle.

The Duchess was the only locomotive in the box that actually ran (albeit slowly) so only needed a magnet and lube. The Castle was missing a brush arm but after finding spare brush arms in the spares box, this also now runs.

I already own a Bristol Castle and it's fair to say that my existing one is in far better condition. The only option here is to strip to bare metal and repaint.

After removing the handrails, nameplates and reversing rod, the body was ready for stripping.

 Same goes for the Duchess, again way too playworn to be exhibited, this one needs stripping as well.

Just a few minutes later and the handrails and smokebox deflectors are off.

Some chemical assistance again with the stripping. Worthy of note is that the Montrose body ended up in this condition after barely a few minutes:

Whereas to achieve the same results with the Castle took several hours!

With both bodies & tenders stripped, time to prime:

Once dried, I had the GWR green paint ready:

I'll let this harden for a day or so before I mask-up and spray the black bits. At present I don't have the transfers and to do a proper job I need proper transfers and not home-made PC ones.

The plan for the duchess is still to make it into a grey Duchess of Abercorn, just need to find the right shade of grey...

Scrapheap challenge - part six

Work on the 2-6-4 tank (the one I expected to scrap) has been completed.

The front of the valve gear has been painted black and the chassis paired with a spare GWR body.

This is the final result:

One down, three to go...

I had already identified that the armature was completely fried and ordered a replacement (but ordered the wrong one) so the incorrect armature is fitted to the 2-6-4 tank above. I still needed a resolution to this one but with Christmas fast approaching, I'm conscious of not spending too much money.

I have previously rewound armatures, with varying degrees of success so I decided on a slightly different approach.

First job was to remove the existing wire from the damaged armature, my assumption that this thing had been fried wasn't far off the mark, there were large blobs of melted lacquer and little wonder that the armature resistance was below 1 ohm between each segment. It took over an hour just to remove all traces of wire and lacquer before I could even consider rewinding.

This picture is taken under the magnifying glass:

Now it's time for some creativity.

This will be the end of my armature winding tool:

A leftover JG Speedfit plumbing adaptor. The end of this was cut to accommodate my armature, it was then attached to the rest of what will eventually become my armature winder!

And here's the winder itself - no manual hand-cranking here, this is in fact an old dynamo (generator) from my old Volkswagen Beetle. I'd played around with an old dynamo from a tractor as a kid so I know that these things will work from a Duette controller, albeit slowly, which is exactly what I need to wind the armature. No speed required here and minimal torque.

The original key for the pulley was removed and the first self-tapping screw locks the adaptor to the shaft of the dynamo. The second screw allows me to secure the armature for winding.

Here's the armature being (carefully) wound:

It's far from perfect, the dynamo needs a casing and requires securing into position but even in this basic state, it did the job.

After cleaning up the soldering to the commutator, I refitted into the chassis and tested on the desk: 

Once satisfied, The finished body was screwed into place ready for a quick test around the loft track.

Job done!

I now have nine 0-6-2 tanks.

Technically this loco has cost me nothing to restore - the paint and transfers were all leftover spares and although I did purchase an armature, as it was the wrong one I'm not counting it towards the cost of this restoration. The coil of wire for the armature was also purchased several years ago when I first began experimenting with armature repairs. 

So the total cost is NOTHING!

Two down, two to go...