Worton Court: Wednesday 6th March 2024

Worklist:

Progress lighting gear.

Progress control panel.

Instead of the brass collars soldered to the lighting poles, Geoff had manufactured nylon block-clamps with a bolt fastener which facilitated an adjustable pole height. Geoff had also manufactured fixing brackets for the gutters, which were now fitted to the pole ends. A new pole was setup alongside the existing pole on the bridge board, to get the line and level. The second pole was then levelled with the first pole and a nylon block fitted to fix the pole height. A length of 100mm black guttering was cut to length and screwed to the brackets and the brackets fitted on the end of the poles.

It would be nice to say that everything fitted perfectly, but both brackets had to be refixed to get everything level. Cable holes at the ends of the poles were marked to suit the brackets and cut out. The poles were taken apart and sprayed with grey primer. Blank ends will be made for the gutters in due course. Power supply cables will be fed down the poles and once they arrive, LED strip lights will be fitted to the gutter interior, together with silver foil tape.

Existing and new lighting gutters: Although three were originally fitted, only 2 strips of LED's were powered on the first lighting strip, so only 2 will be fitted to the new light unit (1 x warm white + 1 x bright white).

Focus turned to the control panel. Much thought went into deciding how to indicate the area of track that each of the three controller section switches the 'master' switches covered. It was decided to spray paint the background of the central engine shed area with grey primer. This left the mainline and fiddleyard lines well defined.

Before spraying, the switches were carefully masked with..... masking tape. Probably the first time in years it had been used for the purpose is was made!