Wednesday 8th February

Worklist:

Wiring repairs and associated remedials
Track painting
Tunnel lining
Board prep and paint sourcing

Unfortunately, an incident on the M3 meant that Laurence was unable to make the session. Geoff and Stephen pressed on....

Instead of setting up the full layout on the trestles, Stephen requested that one of the main boards be clamped upright on two trestles to allow assessment and repair of some electrics to be carried out. A couple of wires feeding voltage reduction units had broken off, but attempts to strip the ends showed that the wire was very brittle and both sheath and wire broke easily. The only answer was to re-wire all four of the units (2 sets of lights, the gas engine and sound unit).

The platform board ready for wiring repairs

Stephen in his unusual working position.

The Tangye sound track that was thought to have been accidentally erased was still intact, and worked nicely. The new electric motor unit for the gas engine failed to work until we realised that the power supply had to be reduced from 13v to 6v to run at all. It was then trimmed to 5.2v to get the tick-over of the engine to synchronise with the sound unit.

With the board upright, Geoff kept finding areas of track and scenery that had not been fully painted. Once the platform board was finished, the bridge board was similarly clamped, and missing paint applied. Stephen took the opportunity to apply a layer of plaster to the interior of the bridge.

Geoff painting rock-faces and rail edges

Whilst Geoff worked on touching-up paint on the yard board, Stephen worked on the baseboard fascia, which had sustained some damage. Commenting that the layout fascias needed to be painted, a search of the workshop/garage turned up a tin of grey undercoat left over from the narrow boat. A flurry of hole filling occurred, so that the repaint could be progressed next week.

Geoff getting very 'arty' with the photography!