Wednesday 21st June - the longest/hottest day of the year

Worklist:
Crane installation
Workshop - externals
Workshop - lighting

It was possibly the hottest day of the year - around 35 degrees - and it wasn't comfortable. Each of us had his own mode of dress to suit the conditions...

Laurence concentrated on making and fitting two wooden blocks to represent the concrete bases for the crane legs. These need to be located up in the hillside behind the crane.

Stephen continued with the workshop lighting. Filament lamps like the generator room were considered too bright. Rummaging through Geoff's 'semi-conductor' box, a pack of 3mm warm white LED's were found - 4 were thought sufficient for a trial. Geoff did a quick calculation based on the 19v DC supply that each board has, and determined a single resistor around 500 ohms (i.e. 470 or 560) should work, with final brightness tuned by the power drop-down unit that would be fitted. The unit was fitted and all components soldered up. 15v seemed to produce a decent light, but won't be confirmed until testing in the building can be carried out at a later date. (Geoff was painting it at that moment!)

The LED test-rig.

A flickering light system for the brazier was discussed, and will be investigated in due course.

Geoff, as mentioned, was painting the outside of the workshop, attempting to 'weather' the stark new plastic sheet. Varying colours were applied randomly, which will be further weathered, when dry.

Stephen brought along some strips of 'foliage' for review. The strips form along the mortar joints on the top of a 9" wall that is mainly in the shade. A combination of moss and its seed heads grow very well and can easily be harvested with a pallet knife.

Geoff also produced a box of John's rolling stock, which was given a nostalgic run. John usually made his own chassis which were invariably noisy, gaining the affectionate description of 'coffee grinders'.

Scratchbuilt battery loco

Scratchbuilt McEwan-Pratt WW1 petrol loco.

Bord-Na-Mona inspired diesel on a Piko chassis.

A powered 'Cars of Yesteryear' model with a 4W coach using spare kit parts.

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We received sad news this week with the death of Roy Thurston - one of the Cottesmore Five. The photo below records a night out in November 2014, just before Roy's move to Fort Augustus in Scotland.

Roy had only recently offered-up 'Lansdown Green', his section of Cottesmore, which was gratefully received by some members of the South Downs Area Group of the 7mm NGA. They hope to incorporate the boards into a new modular layout, and so they may grace the exhibition circuit again.

Wednesday 14th June

Works outing...

This week, the venue switched to Stephen's house. This was partly at the request of G & L, who wanted to see progress on the workshop and various projects, but also so that Stephen could pick their brains about a lathe.

Many, many years ago, John (of Worton Court fame) descended on Stephen and delivered a 'spare' lathe, mounted on it's own bench. However, it subsequently lived in the garage with a sheet over it and saw virtually no use as Stephen had little experience or need. All such work being carried out at Geoff's, under expert supervision. With the demolition of the old garage to make way for the new workshop, the lathe was stored away, but the bench had to be securely wrapped, under-cover on the patio. With no likelihood of the lathe being used in the new workshop, especially sitting on the bench, Stephen sought advice on what all of the components actually did and where it might be sold. It turned out to be a Stringer EW model engineers lathe, possibly owned by John's father, a very early exponent of 2mm fine scale railways. John was also an experienced engineer and the boxes contained many handmade additions as well as the original lathe parts. Everything will be cleaned and a more discerning/deserving owner sought.

After Laurence left early for an appointment, Geoff and Stephen retired to the workshop to examine some trackwork problems on Belfield Engineering (Gn15). All was not as bad as feared, and the session proved key to a new phase of work.

Tea break on the patio - the Stringer lathe to the left and the workshop behind.

Back to normal next week.

Wednesday 7th June

Worklist:
Workshop doors
Generator room wall lights
Crane base

A full house and a fairly productive day.

Geoff gathered the various parts of the workshop sliding doors assembly including the new laser-cut doors themselves, and fitted them to the building. After discussions, further detailing elements were fabricated and added, namely the vertical door stop and the head-channel fixing brackets. All of the unpainted items were then .... painted.

Stephen had the platform board fixed upright on the trestles so that the additional wires could be soldered to the goods lighting power supply (3v). With the board laid flat, the generator room wall lights were fitted and the wiring added in parallel to the existing filament lighting. However, these being 12v, an extra resistor was required. The tiny LED's in the wall lights were only just visible below the rims of the shades, but it was enough to make it worthwhile.

The crane base had been formed from a block of hardwood and needed to be 'faced' with appropriate building materials. Laurence added plastic brickwork strips to the sides and a plaster/filler topping.

Whilst most of the session was conducted in a suitable fashion, a slightly more laid-back approach was noted post-lunch.

Wednesday 31st May

Worklist:
Fit new wall lighting
Crane detailing
Workshop doors

No meeting last week (2 weeks for Laurence), which meant a bit of catching-up to do and why it took us a little while to get back into the swing of things.

Stephen progressed the new light fittings, finally working out (with Geoff) how each building could be wired and the placement of the extra resistors where there is a 12v supply. The lighting wires are so incredibly thin that something appropriate to join them up was sought and found in the form of stripped-down parallel printer cable. It is still going to be difficult incorporating the wires inside the buildings, keeping them safe from damage, whist maintaining full accessibility to removable parts. Some soldered joints were attempted and found to be quite viable, albeit very fiddly.

The generator building was removed for the process and this view of the whole gasifier equipment became visible.

Laurence moved the crane on a bit more before having a test-run of locating it on the baseboard. After a joint discussion, a suitable location and orientation was agreed. The hill behind prevents the normal arrangement, so the support arms will need to be adjusted and possibly shortened, when they are fixed onto concrete bases, cut into the hillside.

Geoff worked on the workshop doors, fitting and painting the sliding door gear.

However, yet more time was spent on the laser cutter, finishing off previous projects and running off a few more leaves.... Stephen had been experimenting with wood dyes and the sheet of paper beside Geoff (above) was a mixture of mahogany and golden pine. A new drawing of mixed-size leaves (1500+ on an A4) had been created and cutting was started, but will have to be reviewed next week due to the excessive cutting time.

Hopefully, we'll be more motivated next week?