Plan B - for bodgery!

 (or how not to build a baseboard...)

With plans to expand 'Beck Bridge' from diorama to micro layout now abandoned, work on progressing "Plan B" has started, despite my intention to leave it until the new year. The 23 1/2" x 7 1/2" board first envisaged as a test track has been expanded into a board that is 30" in total length with provision for a water feature in the front left hand corner.

On the front edge I cut the pine strip back at an angle over the end of one of the battens underneath in order to get the most support for the join. The new backscene is 3mm ply on the back and 5.6mm at the end, both from the extravagance of new sheets of material! A piece of recycled ply forms the base layer of the trackbed extension at the left hand end. This piece was in undercoat already and conveniently the required depth. It has since been topped with a piece of foamcore board that was also spookily correct in one dimension...

The less said about what goes on underneath the better, but it's pretty solid. Just visible on the right hand side are the trim pieces added around the top and sides of the main backscene board. All new exposed timber has now had a coat of gloss oil-based varnish as the first stage in protecting it from the thrills and spills ahead.

There will be a fiddle yard run off added after Christmas, using the ply that was cut for the extension of 'Beck Bridge'. Very little goes to waste!

Colin

There's always Plan B...

There is a piece of training we deliver at work where at one point we explain how the system warns you if you are about to take a "destructive action". Layout planning doesn't always do this for you but having spent a good few days doodling, brooding and examining, it became clear that extending 'Beck Bridge' might be a destructive action too far and that I would have to up the game for plan B. Whatever that was...

Plan B is envisaged to be based on the corkboard-esque board that was in service as the "new" test track, albeit then on the mk2 version. Whilst this worked satisfactorily, I was torn between leaving it in bare boards form, some low-level scenic work or something more layout-like with backscene boards etc added. 

It also became apparent during my recent coupler clinic that as a test track it took up too much desk space to be able to work on the item being tested. So I have replaced it with a smaller version, constructed from oddments during my initial workshop investigations into the 'Beck Bridge' rebuild.

An off-cut of ply 18.75" x 4.25" forms the top surface with framing from window beading strip that once graced a real 15" gauge carriage. A coat of varnish makes it all look a lot better than it really is and Peco track and MicroTrains uncouplers were recovered from the bigger version to create a two short sidings holding two wagons each, which is enough for testing purposes.

Which of course frees up the original board to potentially rebuild as plan B! There is an option to break out of the desk-sitter mould and extend the board by another 8" to the left if required and a potential extension could include a dropped area for a water feature, but probably not another bridge!* Track layout possibilities include recreating the mk1 version of the test track;

or adopting the basic idea from the 'Beck Bridge' extension; or even a new take on this plan that I drew up 15 years ago before going down the 'Shifting Sands' path....

Colin

*and yes, I have thought of recycling the bridge off the diorama...

Coupling Clinic

One of the advantages of the desk-sitter test track is that it allows for some tinkering and testing of couplers as well as locomotive mechanisms. A lot of the MicroTrains couplers on my wagon fleet have been added as a necessity but never actually used very much for real shunting. Getting them in a fit state to do so can involve a little fettling of drop-arms and plenty of 'Grease-Em' graphite lubricant. 

Of course this only works if the couplers themselves are in a good state. One of the bogies on the van in the picture had been equipped with a Kadee knuckle spring rather than the correct MicroTrains one. I vaguely recall doing this at a time I was short of springs and it worked to an extent but not to uncouple! Replaced with the correct item it was a problem soon resolved, although the idea is a good one of you have couplers in use that you don't want to uncouple accidentally.

So far about 10 of the Shifting Sands and extended fleets have been seen to, the result being much more reliable coupling and uncoupling. This all informs future layout planning....

Colin

The edges of reason

Just as a coat of primer can really bring together a modelling project and make it look 'as one', a unifying coat of paint around the edges of a baseboard can make it look much more complete.

Matt black, from a Wilko water-based paint, has been applied in two coats and hides the bits of filler, nail heads and some of the differences in material in the surrounding edge of the desk-sitter test track.

Other jobs completed or underway are the buffer-stop posts at the ends of the sidings (furniture dowels filed square on the top section and let into holes in the frame) and super-gluing the majority of the track in place so that the pins can be removed as they are too long and poke out below the board. Shortened pins have been retained in the point and around the magnets.

Phase 1 of construction will be completed once the electrical connections to the board are installed. Then I can think about what, or indeed if, scenic treatment will follow...

Colin

Surround and around...

The desktop test-track has been in the workshop this week being fitted with timber surrounds to give it a neat look and hide that it is a bodge of corkboard bits and timber. The end result is a medley of 44x4mm pine strip on the front and right edges, 3.5mm ply at the rear and left back, and similar thickness MDF in the left hand front corner.

Why the piecemeal approach? The original intention had been to use thicker 5.5mm ply as per my dioramas on the rear and left ends with the pine strip along the front (there is a limit to how narrow a strip of ply I can cut!). As the 5.5mm ply is too thick to allow a phono socket to screw in place I used the MDF for the piece where the sockets will be located.

After this piece was fixed in place the decision was taken to use thinner ply on the rear surround so the MDF remains in place despite offering no real advantage (although the drilled holes are probably a lot neater). The thicker ply parts had actually been cut and test fitted in place before the change was decided, hence the title of this post!

Colin

KISS - Keep it Simple, Shunting

After weighing up the options for the new desktop test-track outlined last time, I opted to keep it  simple, with the two siding, 4-4 capacity version. This keeps everything very simple and actually looks quite spacious. Using materials recovered from the previous version the track has been laid and the point wired for frog polarity switching via a slide switch. Other wiring is a temporary setup until the fascias etc are added to the board.

MicroTrains uncoupling magnets have been added to both of the sidings. Having experienced issues in the past with the standard length of the magnets matching wagon length making it tricky to re-couple beyond the magnet, I have followed Michael Campbell's example and split a magnet in two by holding it in a vice and giving it a (less than) well aimed tap with a hammer. The resultant less than perfect edge will be hidden as and when scenic treatment is considered. Yes, it is likely to become a scenic test track over the coming months...

You may notice that not all of the track pins are fully tapped in place, officially this is to allow for track adjustment during testing, however there is also the small issue of the board thickness being a couple of mm less than the length of a Peco track pin!

Colin

Colin

Desk-Sitting - Again!

I have been spending a lot of time recently considering what the next project might be. I've been weighing up various ideas but nothing that has grabbed me as feasible at the present time. Space is still the major factor, along with it being less attractive to be in the workshop in the recent weather conditions. So I've revisited the desk-siting test track concept again, last publicly considered three years ago...

I thought that I had shared the origins of this board here before but cannot find it - it was last years attempt at a desk-sitter using corkboard technology and a bolt-on fiddle stick, but not learning the length lesson from Up-cycle - too much needed to be cleared out of the way to use it! Here it is in original form...

The track has been lifted some time and the board used for the recent tight curve research and Greenwich coupling tests. As rebuilt I have retained a very short extension piece, only 1 1/4" but that is enough to bring the usable length to 25". The extension is fixed in place and could either be boxed in within the backscene and fascia boards or just left hanging out! The extra length allows clearance for a 3-3-2 inglenook with loco+2 behind the first point or loco+4 behind the second.

Alternatively, there is a one point option with 4-4 in the sidings and loco+3 behind the point and perhaps a bit of allowance for an odd longer wagon.

I'm torn between the schemes, the first could be made to work as a shed scene but as a wagon-shuffling scene the sidings look short compared to the simpler plan. The alternative might be a boxfile project but the appeal of a single board is strong. Hmm...

Colin