Lachlan's layout baseboard construction begins

The only thing I did this weekend was yesterday afternoon. On Saturday I had been thinking about the most convenient way to build the support legs for Lachlan's layout, which would be collapsible and at his height, but not too low for me to help him when required. Then a Eureka moment occurred. I was looking at nothing in particular in the shed when my eyes stumbled on my pair of saw horses. These are the cheap metal leg, wood top ones that the hardware stores sell for $40-$50 a pair. The legs are collapsible and they were the right height for Lachlan and me. So Saturday arvo I went off to Bunnings for a recce. All sold out. Sunday afternoon I went down to Brendale Building Supplies and they had a stash. The sold them to me at the catalogue price of $45 for the pair, even though the catalogue doesn't come out until the end of the month. What a great shop! Also four 1/4" bolts, nuts and washers were purchased. By late Sunday afternoon I had bolted the under-baseboard (a MDF sheet) to the saw horses and hopefully next weekend I will be able to affix the top ply baseboards to the MDF sheet and have the layout ready for tracklaying as Lachlan is eager to get into the scenery!

One day I might get back to Illavearf! Maybe if I have a free evening this week I might get out to it, time will tell.

Lachlan's new train

Well not much happened this weekend other than going to the club on Saturday arvo as I had to work Sunday! Lachlan had his birthday earlier in the week and scored a Walthers Alaska Railroad Coal Wagon 6 pack from his Pa (my Dad). So we took it down to the club to see if we could get onto the big layout for a spin. We were fortunate to be able to get onto the layout under DC mode for most of the afternoon. This was great and it rarely happens on a meeting day! So we coupled up the wagons to his ARR GP40 and put the caboose at the end. It looked great. I accidentally dropped one of the wagons onto the concrete floor. Fortunately it landed coupler first. The Club Prez soon had the broken one off and a replacement Kadee # 5 installed in quick time (thanks Bruce!). One of the wagons had a bounce happening. So this was removed as it was affecting the running of the train. So closer inspection required of this wagon to see what the problem is. Could be a dodgy bogie, warped axle or possibly a flat spot on one of the wheels.

No modelling from me this week, so here are a couple of pics and vids.

The Thin Controller!

ARR train through the sidings.

ARR train across the bridge.

ARR train through the sidings - 2.

Until next time, happy modelling.

New blog being followed - Rushby's Railways

I followed this blog from Eastmoor. Not to bad.

A productive long weekend!

Well what a very productive long weekend. Good Friday had some shed time with designing Lachlan's layout. After looking through copius tomes of layout design books (thanks Mr Mackie) I decided that he only really needed a simple layout to play on and do his own thing with the scenery. So nothing elaborate. The end result was the usual single oval with two inside sidings. We were able to use the circular track from his Hornby Thomas the Tank Engine starter set, along with some spare curves, straights and a point from my stockpile. We needed a new right hand point so this was added to the shopping list. The dimensions of the baseboard were measured, 1600 x 1200mm would suffice. So this was added to the shopping list. Easter Saturday morning I made a dash across to Hobbyrama to pick up the required point. Then later in the arvo, I ducked up to Bunnings (after the morning madness had subsided!) to get the plywood. A sheet of 2400x1200x12mm CD grade plywood was cut down into 800mm sheets so as to fit into the car. The end result was put together loosely for perspective on Easter Sunday. The photo below shows the layout.







My accomplishment for the weekend was, wait for it..........., I finished the tunnel mouth! HURRAY!! Sunday night I cut down my Scalescenes rock wall paper to fit the balsa wood frame. Monday I did some soot weathering and then sealed the paper. I loosely fitted this into Kensington Hill as can be seen in the photos below. Not bad I think!








Now for the sceniking of the Hill.

Lachlan's diesel is operational again and the tunnel entrance work resumes

Lachlan's diesel
Well last week saw me trolling through various websites about the best way to fix the universal joint problem I had with my son's Alaska Railroad diesel from Bachmann. I contacted Bachmann via the web and they replied that they don't stock the universal joints separately as spare parts and I would need to order a new motor assembly (US$15 + 16.50 p&h). I then thought about maybe just buying another GP40 and replace the shell. This would be close to what I paid for the original. I then had a look at Micro-Mark and they stock universal joint kits. Four metal shafts plus nylon balls and sockets for about A$25. I was heading down the path of the Micro-Mark option when I spoke to my mate PK. He suggested maybe getting some K&S piping of suitable diameter and cut a small piece off as a collar to go over the universal socket.

So Friday night I got out the magnifying glass headwear and took the diesel apart for a closer look. Surprise, surprise as Gomer Pyle used to say! My eyesight was playing tricks. The socket hadn't splayed apart at the ball end, it was fine. What had happened was that a small crack had developed at the end that compression fits on the gearbox spindle. So naturally taking the cheaper option first I when and purchased a length of 4mm diameter brass K&S tubing on Saturday morning. That afternoon I got out my multitool and cut a small (3mm) piece off and then had to cut a lengthwise slit in it to reduce the diameter to fit as the socket gearbox end was marginally to big for the 3.5 mm or 5/32" diameter tubing in stock. Glueing up the crack and then using pliers to compress the brass ring down on the plastic socket, seemed to do the trick as I then tested the chassis on the track and it moved ok. I then put the shell back on and did a further 1.5 hours of medium speed running with no load coupled up, on Illavearf.

Now Lachlan wants me cracking on with making his layout as soon as possible!

The tunnel entrance work resumes
Late Sunday afternoon I had a spare thirty minutes to see if I could resume this work. Out came the balsa bits and bobs. I cut down some square lengths to use us the side uprights, as well as some 2mm thick sheet to use as the fascia. These were glued together and kept insitu as the glue dried as it was then time to go and sort the kids and dinner out. Hopefully this week I can get around to experimenting with the Scalescenes rock work sheeting and the Metal Beam photo mentioned previously. The latter might be ruled out for sheer simplicity sake and the fascia rendered in the rock work as well (modellers licence might be is that there is an unseen steel lintil holding up the stonework!)

My son's first diesel loco drama

On Saturday afternoon just gone, the baby was upset with teething pain. As a result my older son Lachlan was getting narky. So the missus gave me the approval to take him down to the club for an hour or so as it was only five minutes away and not far if I had to get back home quickly. Lachlan has received his first 'real' model diesel loco, a Bachmann EMD GP40 with Alaska Railroad livery about three weeks ago and wanted to try it out on the big layout at the club. So off we went without a moments hesitation!

It ran very well for about half an hour then trouble started. It ground to a near halt. The mechanism sounded as though it was jammed or something. So off I went to the club's workshop to get to the bottom of the problem, but how to remove the shell? I didn't have the schematics with me so it was a bit off a dilemma. Fortunately a club member, Jamie, had a similar GP40 model (I think in Sante Fe livery) so he had a go to see how his shell would remove. The trick was the fuel tank. The shell screws were concealed by this pull off component. So the screws were undone and the shell removed. A quick run on the test track and the problem was obvious. One of the universal joint 'cups' which marries up the drive shaft to the gearbox was splaying apart, and thus the drive shaft was free spinning and not engaging the gears.

So this morning I have put a service request into Bachmann to see if they will supply some replacement 'cups'.

New blog being followed

I have added Rollingstock News to my Blog List. Not a bad site!