Thursday 27th March

Work log:
Geoff - repair a point actuator.
Stephen - extend loom to the future fiddle yard.
Laurence - provide constant verbal support from a chair (excused from work due to a dodgy hip).

After the 'highs' of last week, this weeks anticipated a running session, never happened. A quick repair to a faulty point identified last week, turned into an extended work session. The point just wouldn't throw fully both ways and needed attention.

The standard method of point actuation on Cottesmore used the rotating tube of the H&M motor. A rod, from the tube, extended through the board and with a wire arm locating into a hole on the tie PCB bar. See below:

John often assembled his points using silver solder, which softened the nickel-silver rails. When adjustment was attempted, the blades deformed and had to be re-made. Geoff decided to change the actuator to the direct method used on the two new points (and all on his 00 layout), where a wire is soldered to the bell-crank straight into the tie-bar. Slivers of stiff paper will be inserted either side of the tie-bar to cover the much larger hole in the baseboard.

The fiddle yard only needs three wires - two feeds for the main line & mine track, and a track common. Rather than run these from the control panel, they were simply piggy-backed off the adjacent loom plug-top.

The fiddle yard design is still being debated. We're pretty sure it's going to be a 'cassette' type rather than points & sidings, but we're tempted to try using track on removable wooden strips. If we make it the same length as the new board, the two can be stored together - facing each other, as the main boards, but we haven't decided yet.

Thursday 20th March

A 'milestone' session - trains running on Worton Court again

The rest of the wiring was completed on the control panel, including all track feeds, track common return, point motor feeds and a make-shift device for point activation (a nail on the end of the wire).

We had 'our man' look after the loom and completed control panel while we assembled the layout. It kept the loom tidy and him out of trouble.

An old controller is being pressed into use until a 'proper' controller is sourced. A pertinent choice, as it is one that John made for Geoff and is his main test kit. The track work is a lovely shape, especially the new run-around through the platform.

As the 'panel' is just a piece of hardboard at present, it has to be hand-held, so it's two-hands for section and point control and another hand for loco control with another. It quickly became a two-man job - very egalitarian.

One of John's Peco Hunslets (on a scratch-built chassis) was first up, with a rake of mine wagons. An initial run-through showed up some sleeper short-circuits (quickly remedied) and some points throwing wrongly - again, easily resolved. Trains running again on Worton Court!

The track was given a clean and we all 'had a play'. All areas were tested and 'action required' areas noted.

The point motors caused some concern as not all points in multiple-firings fired together. Geoff brought in another capacitor, without any improvement. John used very thin wire for his layout generally, and Geoff thinks the point wires need to be upgraded.

Another loco that was given a run was a Simplex (as found at Bressingham), scratch-built Laurence.

A rake of mine wagons provided a test for the siding, as well as giving us a chance to see if we could still remember how to shunt with Kadee couplings.

All-in-all, it was a very successful and satisfying session. And a major milestone in the revival of Worton Court.

See, if we don't keep an eye on him he gets into some very awkward places.

Thursday 13th March

Work list:
Another joint effort on the wiring.

Geoff had drawn up the board in Visio and printed it out. A suitable piece of hardboard was produced and the schematic glued down. Miniature toggle switches were purchased for the sections and cheese head set-screws for the point control studs. A few holes later and hey, presto! - a control panel (temporary, of course).

Laurence and Geoff set-to continuity testing between the loom end and the four board connectors.

With a carefully prepared list of the connections, it took no time at all to solder everything up. Who were we kidding? We still had more wires than sections and points without wires. However, once we'd realised that after recording all of John's sections, we'd decided to join some together and that we had new points needing to operate together on different boards, it all fell into place.

This is the whole of the loom! You'd think the way it gets tangled around everything that it was three-times the sizes, but no.

We'll have it finished early next week and we can test it all out. Bring some stock Laurence.

Buon comlianno! J-L

Thursday 6th March

Work list
A team effort soldering.

With the boards assembled and the female connectors attached ...

... attention turned to wiring the detachable parts of the loom. This entailed stripping and tinning the wires; a process speeded up by gently splaying them out in a vice. 

As everything was going OK, Stephen borrowed Geoff's camera and snapped him smiling.

The technique for soldering wires to spikes needed two pairs of hands 

To prevent shorting out between spikes, plastic sleeves were slid on and heat sealed.

Note the temporary use of cup hooks to restrain the loom as the boards sit on edge. 

Finally not to be outdone by the selfie taken at the Oscars we had a go.

LM

As we had decided not to decide where to put the control panel, the loom has to be flexible. All wires, therefore, went first to the centre of the layout and then out as a single bundle at a length that will allow the control box to be placed at any point around the layout, front or back.

The final control panel will be no more than 420mm long (A3) and width to suit switches and studs. Geoff is going to make a mock-up panel to mount switches, etc., for a thorough test of both the panel and wiring. 

Friday 28th February

Work list:
Geoff - Extension board - design and start building road. Amend wiring
Stephen & Laurence - Bridge board - wiring


First of all, G&S surveyed the bridge board with a 'continuity meter' and recorded all of the track sections and point motor connections.

We then stripped out the old electrical gear - control panel, transformer, capacitor discharge unit and redundant socket. All of the fittings were located on the board, but under the glass-fibre scenery. No, John hadn't bolted them in place, he'd screwed them, from on top ....... a typical 'Johnism'. Some came out reasonably easily with some cranked screwdrivers, but others had to broken out, like the one below. We wondered how he'd got them in, and then noticed a repair patch in the shell above!

The capacitor discharge unit was definitely home-made, and although he does not recognise it, Geoff probably had a big hand in its design/construction.

Laurence was soon into the rewiring, which, together with mounting the connector, was completed before the afternoon tea break. Basically, we're just replacing the wiring from the old control panels with leads to a socket, ready for the loom. The loom was discussed, and Geoff proposed that in the control panel, we wired directly onto the switches. 

Geoff being temporarily redundant as S&L were in charge of board wiring, he decided to become a road layer. A dirt road (plaster/filler) was chosen and a base of card was glued down.

Geoff has a new tool (must find out what it's called), which works like an electric toothbrush. So, with a suitable blade, he trimmed out the board edge, down to road level.

He didn't get off wiring completely, as we decided to cut the end section of the run-around, to provide a loco isolation section. Visible below is Geoff's preferred method - a brass nail is hammered through the board and wires soldered between nail and sleeper. Underneath, wires are soldered to the nail, which is trimmed to length.