Wednesday 25th October

Worklist:

Batteries for generator room

Point levers

Cassettes

Crane bases

Trees

Geoff continued to assemble the 7 blocks of 7 batteries for the generator room. These were drawn-up and cut from card using a laser cutter, including the 1mm dia filler caps. The fronts were then painted a pale green to replicate the glass containers. 

A physical mock-up was created to assess the overall effect and the general layout of the room. There's a lot more to add like conduits, cables, columns, handrail and ladder. Note the OSRP notice on the wall. The wall corner-braces are visible here, but won't be, when viewed through the front window.

Laurence finished painting the areas around his concrete crane bases and added grass flock. He then moved on to making some more cassettes for the fiddleyard, for which Stephen had bought 2 x 2.4m lengths of 25mm aluminium angle. Laurences first job was to examine and record the way the existing cassettes were made in preparation for creating some more. A lot of ad-hoc modifications were made at the time, so it will save time to have a proper set of instructions. There were a few small pieces of 12mm MDF along with some short lengths of aluminium angle left over from when the original units were made, which will be made into short cassettes. 

Stephen finished off the area around the point lever at the end of the platform. Then, all of the point levers were glued in place. Rummaging through the storage boxes, he also found the various cars assembled over the years. A scene was set up showing the vehicles parked around the Manor gates as left by members/staff of the railway.

Stephen had also brought a pair of 'bare' trees made from heavy copper flex, twisted and soldered, and painted with acrylic paint mixed with plaster. This exercise was to review the general height of trees, and these worked well. The trees were taken home for foliage application.

Lunch was taken in the garden, in bright sunshine (25th October!)

ExpoNG on Saturday, so the shopping list was reviewed.

Wednesday 18th October

Worklist:
Decal stripping
Snagging & shopping lists
Generator room details

Stephen brought along a 'Days Gone' model he had purchased from a local shop for £3.50. The Morris Z-van had no scale on the box, as usual, but this one looked O scale, and a bit of Googling confirmed it. It was cream & black with Gordons Gin branding and looked quite smart. Rather than a full 'Nitromors' paint strip, a more delicate decal removal was attempted. Geoff had read that Dettol was a good, mild stripper, so Stephen had a go. It was a very slow process using a cotton-bud and gentle rubbing, but it did work. However, mindless tasks usually allowed Stephen to talk non-stop, and this work fell into that category ....z....z....z......

We just have to decide what the new branding will be. Possibly something to do with the new preserved railway, or maybe a delivery vehicle for the tea shop?

Laurence had a wander up-and-down the layout, taking stock of recent progress and was therefore encouraged to prepare a snagging list of all the things that needed doing. As extra materials were often required, a shopping list was started as well. With ExpoNG at Swanley coming up, both could be very useful.

Geoff worked on the generator room. Firstly, a pair of doors were fitted. These had been made-up from images found online and printed out. The control panel he'd drawn had also been printed out and dropped roughly into place for review and to assess the battery layout. The gantry floor (over the panel) was painted.

Artists impression!

Finally, a method of assembling the dozens of batteries was investigated. These will go beside the panel and on the gantry over, and need to be mounted on angle iron racking in groups. The spacing was calculated and spacers cut out. The batteries have been laser-cut from card. Note the top plate with 1mm dia terminals.

The main building has long been the elephant-in-the-room. Stephen had produced the polyboard mock-up and experimented with self-printed brick paper. However, the other buildings and bridge had subsequently been clad in embossed plastic, so a textured finish was essential. Stone was felt to be more appropriate, but the plastic sheet used for the bridge stonework was far too crude. Even if a suitable sheet could be found, the current design would require a lot of making-good. Stephen offered to attempt a full plaster finish scratched with bespoke stonework, but it was decided that research into plastic stone sheeting would be undertaken, especially with Swanley a week away.


Stephen also brought along his BO-BO diesel (Bachmann GE44) to show how the bonnet grille problem had been resolved. Based on 15" gauge 'Carnegie', the fine grilles had been difficult to emulate and 'no grilles' was becoming the only solution. However, prompted by Geoff, Stephen tried several different methods and finally settled on panels of .75mm plastic rod. Rod was cut over-size, glued together and then cut to width when fully set. The top rod was shaped at the ends and the back of each completed panel sanded to half-way through the rod thickness. They are still slightly overstated, but the effect is pretty good.

It now needs a paint job, and a name.

Wednesday 11th October

Worklist:

A full house and we had decided to "Play trains".

All loose project-related bits and pieces were carefully removed from the layout and the hoover came out, followed by a quick 'wipe' with the track cleaner. The power box and the loom were plugged in, the points tested, the cassettes were filled with stock and we were off.

All three of us had a session of running, as well as being on the fiddleyard. We rarely get to use the latter properly as we normally just get something out to test. We quickly ended up with a log-jam and often forgot to 'manage' the isolating switches. The three cassettes clearly aren't going to be sufficient for a full exhibition-type operating session and what do we do with the 'spare' stock. We need more cassettes of varying lengths and possibly some static shelves. All good to know.

Some stock needed small tweaks to couplings and loose bits etc. and running repairs were generally undertaken. However, some stock clearly needed more than a tweak and was earmarked for serious work. We also managed to discuss 'prototypical' shunting manoeuvres without tempers becoming raised. The layout has great operational scope, which is jointly down to John's original layout and the new alterations/additions. However, there are still some idiosyncrasies that we need to understand - the lengths of sidings and runarounds, track breaks, magnet positions etc. These all need to be tried out, issues highlighted and solutions learnt. The shorter sidings can easily trap a couple of longish wagons between buffer and coupling magnet!

With projects set to one side and the layout tidied up, discussions veered towards how the layout was coming along, and importantly, what still needed to be done - like the main building - brick paper or embossed plastic. The prototype lights had been pushed into the roof of the workshop - would a couple more LED's be better (where did that calendar come from?).

Dodging between trains, Geoff couldn't resist going around with a 'dirty' paintbrush touching up areas of ballast, roadway etc. that had gone 'under the radar'.

 All-in-all, we had a wonderful day - which is what it's all about.

Wednesday 4th October

Worklist:

Generator room internal finishes

Workshop detailing

Pointwork levers

Just Geoff and Stephen this week - JL 'minding the fort'.

Geoff decided to make fittings to secure the somewhat vulnerable hinged doors on the workshop. The outer door was given a stay, fixed to the brickwork. The rear door only needed a tapered block as the back would never be seen, but Geoff insisted on doing it right. Stephen suggested a brick or block (as he would on his side gate at home), but Geoff decided on a barrel of workshop rubbish. A plastic barrel (from a military kit) was found and assembled, then lots of 'scrap' made to go in it. After a paint-job, it was slipped in behind the door. Stephen provided a block of wood, painted concrete grey, for the front.

Stephen continued with the new point lever installation, by making the dummy fishplates (with bolt-heads) to tie the new sleeper sections in place. The lever assemblies, previously primed by Laurence, were finished off and temporarily dropped into place. Some plastic rod was painted and cut to length for the actuators. The new elements were then painted.

Finally, the discs were painted white.

The lever adjacent the platform access point needed to be close to the track, so Geoff made one of the ground-level levers as per the unit at the end of the platform.

The very first lever installed (by Roy Link) was removed, the sleeper extensions cut out together with some surrounding ground, and then reinstated at the correct spacing for a new lever - to be completed next week.

By now, Geoff had moved on to the generator room internal walls. These, he had previously produced on the computer using captured images of real glazed tiles. Initially, these were printed onto gloss photographic paper and stuck onto the rigid plastic walls, to great effect. However, general handling had damaged the gloss finish and some of the tiling had been rubbed off. These sheets were replaced with new sheets printed onto light card using double sided tape. A new panel will be created for the side wall to incorporate a door into the lobby.