Better Late Than Never

Wow! That was good wasn't it? Expo, I mean. 50 years? It seemed like there were nearly fifty layouts.

Well done to everyone who contributed in whatever way.

Now I know, I haven't blogged for what appears like fifty years. But so much gets in the way of modelling sometimes. Suitably encouraged by Expo, where Brafferton performed reasonably well for much of the time, I press on.

For Oxford, I painted two part backscenes to relieve the mass of hardboard that would have otherwise formed the backdrop. On my return, I've started using these to sketch out what the backscene really ought to look like:

Also, the 04 finally got chipped and seems to be running well in it's new DCC state.

The legs on Brafferton were commented on quite a lot over that Expo weekend. These were substantially the idea of Edward who also helped with their construction. Indeed Edward and Alan Smith have contributed greatly to the legs and baseboard side of things on Brafferton; thanks for your support guys:

How long to the next blog? Soon, soon...

Haromthwaite 2: Baseboard Assembly

Ok, nearly 17 months have elapsed since the first installment, but in mitigation I have been busy out on the circuit with 'Niddbeck Bridge', the 2mm Roadshow, helping to organise Golden Jubilee events etc. The recent brilliant Oxford Expo has also given me a kick up the arse and got me all fired up again!

The board 'kits' were assembled using aliphatic resin wood glue (Deluxe Materials Super 'Phatic) and a couple of joiners try-squares.

Some chisel-work then ensued to mortice-in the 51 x 28mm brass cabinet butt hinges (satin chrome plated). The screws were very near the inside edges of the ply sides so small thickener pieces were glued in place first. The hinges were fitted with sufficient knuckle projection to allow 2mm thick ply or MDF facia and backscene to be fitted at a later stage and still allow 180 degrees of fold.

Opposite each hinge position is a simple 8mm turned steel furniture male/female dowel for board to board alignment. These were epoxied in place.

To hold the boards together in the open position cylinder mortice magnetic catches with 6kg of pull are used and epoxied into place. As the layout is designed to sit atop a trestle table on the front of the 2mm Roadshow it doesn't really need anything more secure. 6kg of pull is sufficient force to hold the boards together during operation and easy enough to break apart for folding at the end of the session. Magnets will probably be also used to hold the boards together in the closed position but these will be installed at the same time as the facia/backscene panels.

Next up will be the 'fiddle sector plates' at each end. I am also conscious that I need to give some background information on the prototypes that are the inspiration for this little demo piece, and a track plan.

Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends

Having fallen off the railway modelling map for some six months, I am now managing to get some modelling done. Our business purchased a second outlet in July and needless to say, this has taken up much of my time!

Anyway, back to more interesting stuff. The priority is to get the layout fully functioning by EXPO 2010 (you haven't forgotten about that, have you?). The second and third boards needed wiring and a bit of trackwork completing. To ease myself gently back in, I started with the third board which only has two points forming a crossover. After a few teething problems (mainly me not reading the Tortoise instructions; the switching contacts aren't Left/Common/Right as I'd assumed, but Left/Right/Common), everything seems to work well on here. The temporary loose wires will be replaced by plugs and sockets at each board joint.

On to the second (middle) board now. This need a few bits of plain trackwork inserting before starting the wiring. Here are the three scenic boards assembled. Looks like I need a bigger house...

Brafferton Update 24a: Still Baseboards!

After I'd posted my last missive, I realised I'd not photographed the interesting bit! So here it is:

Now; back to the modelling desk!

Brafferton Update 24: Baseboards

When I started "Brafferton" I thought of it as a "small" layout. It soon became apparent, having built the baseboards, that it wasn't. When scenery and backscenes were added, I quickly realised that moving the layout around safely would need some careful thinking about.

With three scenic boards and two non-scenic, I decided that two scenic boards could be moved together and the remaining three boards would group together.

End frames were cut and drilled to coincide with the baseboard joining fitting. Where each board end meets the frame, the male part of a dowel locates into the frame and a wheel-headed bolt secures through onto a lock-nut.

The frames extend wider than the boards and above and below to afford some protection to edges of scenery etc. Finally, I have left a long extension on the top and incorporated hand-holes for carrying. Using this system, I can now fairly easily manhandle these two scenic boards alone, even to the extent of taking them down the stairs.

Brafferton Update 19: Point Control Pt II

Onward, onward!

Having prepared the Tortoise machines and the baseboards as mentioned last time, I proceed to fit the two together. This proves fairly straightforward although the template provided with the motors was of no use; I found I had to position an actual motor and hold it whilst making sure the throw either way was sufficient. I then marked its position before drilling and screwing. 

Four in on board No2, two more on this board and a further two on board No3 (which still awaits track):

The motor control will not, I have decided, be DCC. Instead a small panel will be mounted on the baseboard to control the points mimicking the lever-frame on the prototype.

Although curved boards are excellent for forming a circular layout (how else would you do it?!), the boards individually can be a bit awkward. Edward Sissling kindly manufactured two "ends" to be affixed to a single board whilst work is underway. This makes them more stable and also protects trackwork and board edges from "knocks":

I also today chipped my Cl108 DMU. All fairly easy apart from the initial removal of the power unit body; it seemed to be tack-glued to the motor unit.

Anyway, more progress tomorrow. I hope!

Going Green

Yes, this will most definitely be an organic layout. Already you can smell the country:

The moral must be; be careful where you store your layout. I thought mine was safe in the loft area, carefully boarded out and safe from small hands. Unfortunately birds, have made a nest under the roof and have been flying around the loft space. They are now evicted, but just to be on the safe side I'll be covering the boards with polythene when they're up there!

Supporting Act

It's been a while since I updated the Group blog on progress on 'Niddbeck Bridge' and to do so I must retrace my steps back to August 2008 and the manufacture of the supporting structure and associated lighting and presentation facia. The layout had it's first showing at Shipley in September 2008 and this work was done in advance of that show.

One of my pet hates is poor layout presentation at public exhibitions and layouts that lack integral lighting. I'm also not keen on layout supporting structures that are complicated or 'Heath Robinson' in design, slow to erect and take down or require any sort of tools to do so.



The stucture consists of two end frames made up of 45x20mm PSE (Planed Square Edge) softwood with simple glued and screwed butt joints. The rear uprights stand 1980mm tall, the front uprights 1200mm and are 435mm front to back. The longitudinal spacers and diagonal brace are good quality 6mm birch ply. The front one is 280mm deep and the rear one and the brace are 155mm deep. The rear one is shallower to allow an operator to sit at the layout on a draughtsmans swivel seat with knees underneath the layout. For that reason there is no rear diagonal cross-brace. Being tall and narrow the structure is not overly stable but once weighted at each end at floor level with a couple of 25kg boxes of nails (I'm in the trade!), it's very stable. All bare timber is painted with matt black paint.




The beams locate onto small steel 8mm male/female furniture dowels and are secured by plastic handwheels with M10 male studs which screw into threaded female inserts embedded in the rear of the timber uprights. Nice and easy to assemble and no tools required.




The lighting is provided by 4 x 20w slimline kitchen-type fluorescent lights which are mounted in a 6mm play 'tray', lined with white Formica to reflect the light downwards. I had some of the laminate left over from a DIY project and it seemed easier to use it rather than do several coats of white paint. The tray is stiffened with lengths of 45x20mm PSE down each side. The ends of the tray have 6mm aluminium U-channels epoxied on and the channels simply locate onto the projecting bracket arms seen in the picture. The brackets are 6mm ply and like the beams are attached with alignment dowels and handwheels with T-nuts. The metal brackets seen at the ends are to support the facia panel (see below).



This shot shows the rear of the facia panel. Again it is 6mm birch ply and is faced with white Formica. It attaches to the projecting brackets using interlocking steel 'flushmount' fittings. It's a simple drop-on fit that requires no tools and is held in place by gravity. The lettering on the front of the facia panel (see first picture) are in black self adhesive vinyl and were done by my local signmaking shop. The 2mm and 2FS logos are the latest Association resin-domed layout badges .



This last shot shows one of the protection brackets I made last Saturday to protect the overhanging/cantilevered kickback sector plates. Experience at Shipley showed them to be vulnerable to clumsy operators on adjacent layouts not watching where they were going! These attach to the end frames using the flushmount fittings seen above. They give an indication of track level on the finished structure, approx. 1350mm or 4' 3" in old money


Other jobs to do prior to my next outing at York this Easter include adding a couple of extra 20W lights behind the facia panel to eliminate shadow in front of the station building and adding a small inside shelf at each end to keep my DCC 'tower' and associated gubbins off the floor.

Brafferton Update - 8. Baseboards Pt ii

Suitably refreshed on a pint and peanuts (the pub had stopped doing sandwiches) we resumed. Once gluing started, there was no stopping us. The upper and lower boards are grooved and this accurately places the upright members including the end faces. We discovered that the captive nuts were not fully threaded and so these had to be opened out with a M8 tap; Edward did this whilst James (member number three of our group) and I did the woodwork:



You can see the section of trackork laid and reported earlier in this series. Unfortunately a small section of it got damaged when two boards fell against each other. I think I can extract a fairly short length and replace it without disturbing the surrounding trackwork. As you can see, once the glue had set and the boards were bolted together, it was all rather solid:


Now to continue with the trackwork. The next board has points. Should be fun...

Brafferton Update - 7. Baseboards Pt i

Ain't no cure for the summertime blues, eh? It's been a bit quiet here, there and everywhere of late hasn't it? I suspect we're all taking advantage of the great British Summer; that or we've blown the last of our credit card limit on a holiday to warmer climes. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago we had a week's holiday and went to stay with the sister-in-law in Dewsbury; hardly Rhodes or Antigua I know, but it was a break. It also enabled me to get some work done on the layout - on the first Saturday of the holiday Edward Sissling kindly offered to help get the baseboards assembled. So we did:


First job was to smooth all the rough edges off the CNC cut board pieces; tedious but necessary. We also finalised the connection method between boards. This is exactly the same as on Pool-in-Wharfedale, Edward's layout. C&L dowels ensure accurate alignment whilst plastic headed bolts and captive nuts (ouch) secure the join; two of each item at every baseboard join.

The holes machined for the dowels were slightly tight and even when persuaded in with a builder's screwdriver they sat proud of the wood. Edward carefully opened the holes out with a drill and T-bit whilst I sorted the captive nuts out.

All enthused I set to hammering the captive nuts in, being very careful to put them on the inner face of the boards; the bolt will then pull them into the wood when in used and ensure a strong connection. Finished I admired my handiwork; I'd hammered nuts into every single face! Of course we only need them on alternate faces; on the other half the bolt needs to be a clearance fit through the wood. Time for a coffee and then carefully remove the nuts from half of the faces...

Edward also thoughtfully made up two cheek boards. These will enable the boards to be safely held whilst working on wiring etc.:

After lunch we actually did some gluing!...

Brafferton Update - 6. Trackwork Pt iii

Once I had cut the many little squares of ply, I stuck them together in pairs and then stuck them at 2.5"-3" intervals along the underside of the trackbed. This was then stuck to the baseboard top. The block at each end of the board was inserted last of all to ensure there was a slight overhang. When the glue dried, The block and the trackbed was filed back flush with the baseboard edge:


Probably somewhat rashly, I have done all this before the baseboard is even assembled. I am hoping that it won't impinge on the construction of the board too much; we shall see!

Next Saturday Edward has kindly offered to help ensure that the baseboards are put together in a professional manner. I shall be whizzing over to Bradford to undertake this task with him. Then I can bodge on with the rest of the layout...

Brafferton Update - 5. Trackwork Pt ii

Suitably enthused by another North East Area Group meeting, here is the next step forward on the track side of things. A couple of people asked about the track template at the meeting: Using Coreldraw, I merely drew the track radius to scale with lines demarking 0.5" either side then copied and pasted this in an offset manner. I then printed off the bit half way down at full scale to gain suitable templates. These were substantially overlapped to ensure accuracy. Below is a jpg (reduced) of the drawing I did:


Similarly, I needed to accurately mark where the track beds cross the board joins; the track starts in the middle, sweeps to the front and then goes back again. This is merely acheived by offsetting the centre of the track circle against that of the baseboards. Again a full scale drawing was made on Coreldraw and the bits I needed (ie the joins) were printed out:



And attached to the actual baseboard with Pritt:

You will note that the template for the joins shows double track; on this baseboard there is only single track, so I have clearly scribbled through those markings not in use:

As I mentioned earlier, the trackbed will be raised up on blocks of ply. Using a steel rule and Stanley knife, I simply scored and snapped multitudes of little ply squares:

In the next bit I'll show you what I did with them!

Brafferton Update - 2. Design Pt ii

So, with the kind help of Alan Smith, I had a nice set of baseboards; albeit in flatpack form. I'm sorry to say that despite having these for several months now, they have not been progressed:


With the change in the geometry of the baseboards, I decided to change the layout design. There would still be three fully scenic boards, but the staging would be on two only and therefore the layout would be more than 50% scenic. I could not now show all of the scenic boards and meet the Layout Challenge criteria. Nevertheless, I will proceed. If I need to designate a smaller area for Challenge purposes, I will cross that bridge when I come to it. Here is my first stab at the redesign:

However the longer track length on the new design got me thinking; could I revisit the actual station plan (ie OS map) and get the layout plan almost to scale length? Here is the 1909 OS extract with various jottings and computations:

Better than I thought! The length from the bridge to the end of the coal drops can be modelled without compression and gives, what I think is, a rather elegant plan:

Now to progress the baseboards. Trackbuilding has already commenced, courtesy of Easitrac, but more of that next time...

Brafferton Update - 1. Design Pt i

How are you doing with your Challenge Layout? Better than me, I hope. Now, no doubt some of you can knock a layout out in three months, but when you have to bring home the bacon, organise the troops (especially the junior section), and numerous other bits and bobs, then things start to slow down. Anyway, I have made some progress and over the next few posts, I'll bring you up to speed.

Firstly planning. The idea for Brafferton originally germinated several years ago and I've kicked ideas around for quite a while. Whilst the actual station was dead straight, I've always thought it would be fun to build a circular layout. Here is an early attempt to present Brafferton in that format (undated, but probably c.2000):




Much of my information came from the Allanwood Press publication "The Pilmoor, Boroughbridge and Knaresborough Railway" by Patrick Howat. Here is the 1902 Signal Plan fron that book:

If it wasn't for the Layout Challenge, I suspect that nothing further would have happened. With the advent of the Challenge, I set to revising my plans to a. fit in with the Challenge rules and b. to meet my own operational requirements as a portable, exhibitable layout:



I commissioned Alan Smith to laser cut some baseboard pieces for me. At this point he suggested a five piece circle, rather than the six I had envisaged, to add structural stability to the erected layout. Fair comment, but now I would have to rethink my design, and it would take the layout outside the Challenge rules in terms of the total area of layout. I gave the go-ahead to the boards and returned to the drawing-board...

Golden Years

Another NEAG meeting and more interesting stuff than I can take in! Once again Bob has a bit of Fencehouses up and running and we get to see his beautiful double junction. The D49 gets a bit of a run out and some useful tips are picked up for its improvement.

Meanwhile the rest of Bournmoor is in brown-out as we get the similtaneous use of several RSUs. It was interesting as a commited iron-user to see these in use; bravo to Rod for taking the plunge after all of these years. It was also good to see the Judith Edge kits brought along by Steve; a challenge if ever I saw one.

Finally, I managed to get a first view of the baseboards for "Brafferton". Again I've benefitted from the knowledge and skills of members where I have little to speak of! Alan Smith redesigned my boards and I now have five making the full circle. This avoids the layout potentially "breaking its back" as each joint is opposite a solid piece of baseboard; something which six boards singularly fails to do! Alan cut the wood with his CNC facilities making an all but perfect job - the circle is perfect and the edges require only slight sanding to be baby's-bum smooth. Additionally I have taken the opportunity to stretch the scenic section to three boards or 60% of the circle as opposed to 50% originally. This may take it slightly outside the Layout Challenge criteria, but I'm sure I can blag that somehow...

Thanks to Mick Simpson for the photo.

Next step is to get the boards assembled and start on some legs; these should be within my capability (I hope!).

Curves In All The Right Places

Here are some shots taken by Mick during a mini NEAG meeting in my kitchen last Saturday. David Long came over and joined Stephen Harrold, Mick and myself for a chinwag about DCC and for David to have a good poke about on the nether regions of 'Niddbeck Bridge'. David brought along his Uhlenbrock chipped class 33 Farish diesel with scratchbuilt chassis. Slow running performance was impressive and will no doubt improve even more with a few CV tweaks. David also had a selection of photos of his new 60's/70's era diesel shunting layout which looks very impressive and not too far away from being exhibitable. One to watch out for.

The pic below shows the newly installed curved backscene board on 'Niddbeck Bridge'. As previously described this is two thicknesses of 5mm foam-core board made bendy by lots of vertical knife cuts at 5mm or 10mm centres according to radius required. First one thickness was glued into place using PU gel wood adhesive (Bison TimberTix) and held temporarily with dressmakers pins. Once this had set the second lamination was added, PU'd and pinned in place, relieving cuts face to face. Once the glue had set it became a gratifyingly firm structure, acting as a central spine for the whole baseboard unit. The thickness of knife blade used also affects the 'bendability' factor of foam-core board - a thick Stanley knife blade allowing more flex than say a thin scalpel blade.



The shots below shows the double-curve treatment used at each end. My intention is to try and make the layout appear scenically longer than it actually is, by wrapping the painted sky/landscape backscene round like fiddle yard like this, and by making the scenery taper off to next to nothing. Tony has kindly offered to help with the scenic and buildings aspect of the layout, so I'm hoping he might assist with painting the backscene. I've long admired his understated effort on 'Masham'.





I'm presently debating how to clad the exterior side and end edges of the layout. The foam-core board is very susceptible to scuffs and dents, especially when being carried single-handed through doors and loaded into cars etc, so some form of protective skin is going to be required. I think Tony used Fablon to cover 'Masham' ('sticky-back' plastic of Blue Peter fame - remember that?). My inclination is to use Formica or thin plywood.

A start has been made on the station building, or at least the etched windows, doors and bay front that Bob did for me. The platform and cattle/horse dock are next up, or at least the edge bits, so I can then get on and ballast the track.