Thursday 23rd June

Worklist:
Gas engine detailing
Fence extension
Coke storage

Due to flooding the the South East, Stephen was two hours late, but the other two pressed on in silent bliss!

Geoff carried on adding fittings to the engine using both plasticard and brass. Once a satisfactory level of detail had been achieved, he began painting the model. First a base of green, then the wheels in red. Wearing surfaces will be cleaned to bare metal, in due course.

Laurence continued to work on the extension to the platform fence. Having applied brass strip post-reinforcements the previous week, a coat of paint was applied. Then, having painted it a different colour to the existing fence, that was repainted to match the new section.

Stephen continued to assemble some cut-down sleepers to form an enlarged coke storage area. Super-glued together and re-stained, metal strapping was added and the unit glued in place.

Stephen had brought a small pot of ballast he'd prepared for a Gn15 line, using Cornish grit mixed with neat acrylic paint. It was a grey/brown colour which, he understood to be ideal for coke, but a discussion on the actual nature/colour of coke ensued resulting in a need for further investigation!

Thursday 23rd June

Worklist:
Gas engine detailing
Fence extension
Coke storage

Due to flooding the the South East, Stephen was two hours late, but the other two pressed on in silent bliss!

Geoff carried on adding fittings to the engine using both plasticard and brass. Once a satisfactory level of detail had been achieved, he began painting the model. First a base of green, then the wheels in red. Wearing surfaces will be cleaned to bare metal, in due course.

Laurence continued to work on the extension to the platform fence. Having applied brass strip post-reinforcements the previous week, a coat of paint was applied. Then, having painted it a different colour to the existing fence, that was repainted to match the new section.

Stephen continued to assemble some cut-down sleepers to form an enlarged coke storage area. Super-glued together and re-stained, metal strapping was added and the unit glued in place.

Stephen had brought a small pot of ballast he'd prepared for a Gn15 line, using Cornish grit mixed with neat acrylic paint. It was a grey/brown colour which, he understood to be ideal for coke, but a discussion on the actual nature/colour of coke ensued resulting in a need for further investigation!

Thursday 23rd June

Worklist:
Gas engine detailing
Fence extension
Coke storage

Due to flooding the the South East, Stephen was two hours late, but the other two pressed on in silent bliss!

Geoff carried on adding fittings to the engine using both plasticard and brass. Once a satisfactory level of detail had been achieved, he began painting the model. First a base of green, then the wheels in red. Wearing surfaces will be cleaned to bare metal, in due course.

Laurence continued to work on the extension to the platform fence. Having applied brass strip post-reinforcements the previous week, a coat of paint was applied. Then, having painted it a different colour to the existing fence, that was repainted to match the new section.

Stephen continued to assemble some cut-down sleepers to form an enlarged coke storage area. Super-glued together and re-stained, metal strapping was added and the unit glued in place.

Stephen had brought a small pot of ballast he'd prepared for a Gn15 line, using Cornish grit mixed with neat acrylic paint. It was a grey/brown colour which, he understood to be ideal for coke, but a discussion on the actual nature/colour of coke ensued resulting in a need for further investigation!

Thursday 16th June

Worklist:
Gas engine details
Gasifier building - doors, coke store, gasifier entrance assessment
Fence

Geoff reprinted photos of a few prototype Tangye gas engines to investigate what additional details could be added to the basic engine model. The fittings varied quite a bit, but salient items were chosen and fabricated in either brass or plasticard. These will be painted in contrasting colours so that they are more visible through the large main window.

After searching for most of the morning, Stephen eventually found the engine building doors, and glued them in place, together with the circular window. This will enable the ground around the building to be finished, which will then allow the chinchilla-dust ground finish to be continued.

The area around the opening for the gasifier was discussed in detail. The original model had a small pile of coke, a bucket on a chain, and a beam extending from the gasifier landing out to the coke pile. It was agreed to keep the arrangement. The next thing agreed was that the coke pile was far too small. After discussion, it was decided that coke would probably arrive via tipper wagons and should be dumped close to the existing pile position. That said, there was very little extra space, but after taking account of working space around the equipment, an enclosure of sleepers could be accommodated (see pencil line on the ground). Stephen started to assemble suitable redundant sleepers for the structure. A threshold similar to the engine room was considered, but the open floor area was retained as it looked quite feasible.

Laurence trimmed the gas holder base around the scrubber base and adjacent floor grille frame. This will be glued down and the undulating ground can then be levelled to allow the new dust finish to be evenly applied.

Laurence also started to extend the platform fence along to the board edge. Old Ratio fencing was sourced, cleaned up and prepared for use. He and Geoff prepared sections of brass plate to form the fixings into the board.

Thursday 9th June

Worklist:
Gas engine drive unit rebuild
Gas building overhaul

Laurence was taking a break in the wilds of rural England, so just two this week.

Geoff continued working on a new drive unit for the gas engine. The old unit relied on an O ring being driven via a small pencil rubber, which worked well, but started showing obvious signs of wear. Instead, the O ring wheel will be driven by a worm gear drive.

After a few mishaps (gears breaking, motor contacts accidentally being sawn off etc) a new unit was completed and tested very satisfactorily. The overall performance was greatly improved as Geoff had worked on the engine itself, generally cleaning and oiling the moving parts and giving it a good running-in session.

The new drive unit

Initial testing to check the speed was within an acceptable range

Fitted underneath, with a spring to lift the drive unit up against the fly wheel

Stephen worked on the gas building itself, cleaning years of detritus of the old plastic brick finish, filling cracks and 'homogenising' the overall effect, following the patching-up exercise undertaken many months ago.

All went well until an overall colour wash was applied. Actually, it was when the wash dried out that the building looked decidedly worse for wear. A re-evaluation is required.

Thursday 2nd June

Worklist:
Chinchilla dust test appraisal
Road resurfacing
Grass
Coal stage

The first job was to review the panel prepared last week to test three methods of laying the chinchilla dust that we want to resurface the internal roads with. Two methods used so far are gloss paint and PVA glue plus a newcomer - textured spray paint. We marginally prefer the PVA as it gives a regular finish and is easier to work with. However, the spray paint was very interesting on two counts. Firstly, it is very 'wet' and so soaked up into the excess dust forming small mounds. Secondly, it was indistinguishable from the dust itself - only the bottom half of the test panel is dust, the rest is paint.

We opted to use the PVA method and so, once the extent and minor details were agreed, Geoff started laying the dust road.

Stephen spent a short while gluing small amounts of grass material around the quarry siding area. He then remembered that the coal stage needed to be finished and so Laurence stepped into the area to carry on laying the base layers for the grass areas. Two different techniques were employed to test different effects.

As a final thought, we decided that the safety fence along the platform area should be extended to, and possibly across the the board joint. Laurence went through the bits-box looking for remnants for re-use. It's simple Ratio panels that can be easily replicated with plasticard, if need-be.