Wednesday 4th September

We had accidentally discovered that a simple plastic telephone pole made an amazing visual difference to the whole appearance of the board and we decided to develop the idea. Cables on layouts rarely look good and they often get snagged and broken. We developed the idea of making 'C' shaped housings in sheet steel for small drum-shaped magnets, to which cables would be fixed. The other cable ends would be fixed to the telephone pole. This would allow them to be dismounted for storage and, hopefully, reduce damage due to snagging.

Geoff started making the housings.

A pin soldered to the bracket allowed fixing into the polyboard buildings. The telephone pole crossmember & insulators unit was glued to the pole and all painted. A brass socket to locate the pole was turned and mounted in place. A small box was made to represent high-level cable connections.

Geoff turned-up a steel rod to the diameter of the magnets (approx. 2mm) to hold the magnets while thread was wrapped and tied to them. Superglue was applied once removed from the tool.

The magnetic 'insulators' and the tops of the brackets were painted white.

We tested pulling the magnets out by the thread, which was difficult, but it did work. Next week we will attach the cables to the pole and complete a low-level connection box. Hopefully, we can add cables down the face of the buildings.