Thursday 21st July

Worklist:
Gas engine
Coke storage area

Just G & S as L was on granddad duties on the south coast.

Geoff completed work on the gas engine and refitted it in the building. The engine and drive unit were given 'the once over' and oiled. It was then powered-up and left to run.

The next job was making the dynamo. A lengthy hunt for suitable plastic tubing led to the total destruction of a fibre-tipped pen. A brass core was turned to represent detail at both ends and extra details/mountings were added in plastic.

 A strip of thin brass was cut and fitted around the pulley on the dynamo to represent the belt from the engine.

Stephen painted the plaster base for the coke black and then added a coat of PVA to take a base layer of coke (dyed grit).

A further layer of coke was laid and glued in place by the time-honoured ballast method (diluted PVA and washing-up liquid).

Finally, Stephen returned to installing the coaling stage. However, as the stage had been relocated since it was made, half of the back panels were now too short, so they were removed and new pieces made and fitted.

Thursday 14th July

Worklist:
Gas engine
Fence
Coke stall and floors

A full house, but no photo's!

Geoff worked on detailing his gas engine for a while and then, when he tried to reassemble it, realised that he'd glued the base around the wrong way. A purely aesthetic problem, but it had to be corrected. Making a platicard section to glue on the front was tried, but thought totally unworthy, so a new steel block was silver-soldered to the front and the whole block milled to shape. Geoff was finally happy.

Laurence continued to work on the fence extension. The previous weeks installation had been with Uhu glue, which, it was pointed out, would not be rigid or long-lasting. The new fence was removed, cleaned up and reglued with 'Araldite' (or the Poundshop alternative).

Stephen mixed up some filler and formed the base mound for the coke store. The remaining filler was used to infil the gap around the building base and level off the workshop floor.

Thursday 30th June

Worklist:
Gas engine paint finish
Platform fence
Play trains!

A particularly satisfying session this week. A few projects to finish off and playing trains on the whole layout.

The layout bases were assembled and cabled.

It was good to get everything out to be able to see what we have been working on, on individual boards. Although quite a way off being finished, it was very pleasing to see how it was developing.

It was also useful to test the track and points, which threw up a new problem. We knew we had a problem with John's points due to the way the blades and frog were one continuous element. This becomes a problem if the blades touch the stock rails out of sequence with the frog micro-switches. We were reminded that this situation occurs at each point-throw, so we have to ensure loco's are stationary when points are changed. However, one of the points caused a short when left in one direction. It was found that the servo horn had moved out of alignment which meant one switch wasn't activated, causing a dead short. This was easily rectified, but definitely something we'll have to keep an eye on.

As we started cleaning the track, Geoff announced that he was going to make a cleaning device he'd seen in a magazine. A section of aluminium channel, a bolt and some wood off-cuts, and it was ready. We all had a play and immediately put our orders in for one!

Whilst the building and features were being set out, Geoff completed work on his gas engine by cleaning off the red paint from the 'tyres', which finished it off perfectly.

We also had a couple of 'Whoops!' moments that had to be included at Laurence's insistence!

Laurence completed installation of the platform fence only to find, when the first item of stock was run past it that it was too close! It was so close that the holes had to be filled ready for re-drilling next time.

The second whoops was when Laurence was shunting his Decauville 0-6-0 in the platform and the front buffer was pulled off.