Two separate days on business in Amsterdam this week, and an evening seminar in between means that there has been precious little time available for any modelling. However I managed to find a quick ten minutes last night to knock up a quick jig that will help with future jobs.The period that I'm going to be modelling is Great Eastern Railway, circa 1909/10. The exact date hasn't yet been fixed, but it will be around then. Thanks to Adrian Marks on the Templot forum, I have plenty of information on the different types of track formation that would have been used.At this date, the quieter branchlines of the GER would still have been laid with rail in lengths of 30 feet, if not even the earlier 24' length. A standard was established in 1883 (rather than 18.83!) set that there would be eleven sleepers per thirty foot section.I am knocking up a quick piece of board in order to sit rolling stock on to check buffer height, coupling alignment, etc, etc. This is just on a small offcut of wood pinched from the back of the garage. It's conveniently long enough to fit two 30' legths of plain track on it, and next to it I can put an A4 turnout that will be a test to see how stock runs over pointwork and crossings, and will be a good proxy for some of the more severe curves that will be found within the to-be-built brewery.Adrian provided a set of measurements for the sleeper spacing of this rail length, so I printed off his diagram, and then transcribed the markings at 4mm to the foot on the side of a piece of stout card.
This was then placed next to the length of track that had already been prepared withseparated C&L sleepers taken from the individual P4 trackbase panels. These work very well on their own, but they don't simulate the variable spacing around rail joints and the large gaps between sleepers that I wanted to capture.The spacing marks on the card could then be easily aligned with the centre of the chair on the outside of the rail for each sleeper.
A bit of shuffling around, and we have one prototypically spaced length of GER track. The railhead is notched with a piercing saw to simulate the gap between the railends, and I'll add an etched brass fishplate to the join afterwards.
I'll now attempt not to nudge the sleepers out of position (being separated from each other means that they do move more easily out of alignment) and when all is square I'll glue it down to my bit of nicely varnished board.
I had a call on Saturday from Colin at Alan Gibson saying that he had an order for me ready for shipping. On Tuesday I had a card through the door saying that the Royal Mail had a package for me to sign for, And finally today, I was able to go down to the post office and collect a stout brown box with my name on...And inside were :-)
I haven't opened the boxes yet, but they should both have a full complement of P4 wheels included, and be ready for full springing on all axles. Excitement!
Recent discussion on the Scalefour Society's web forum gave a cautionary word to someone that was planning their first P4 layout and had included in the trackplan a three-way point. Advice was along the lines of sucking between the teeth and saying that it might be a bit tricky - but it was generally positive. The episode coincided with me finally deciding to get rid of the second ever piece of pointwork that I ever built in P4. Mind you, looking at the picture below, of how I found it in a box of other railway bits, you'll see why:
It was a double slip - a B8 I think - and despite not having survived countless house moves, it shows what can be done with a bit of determination. The first ever point that I built in P4 was a B6 turnout on copperclad. Like this, it was just to prove that I could do it. I think that looking at the centre section of the slip shows that I could.
So the message to those contemplating P4 track for the first time is to have no fears. Indeed, with the P4Track Co turnout kits, life should be a lot easier...
Over the last couple of days I've been finishing off my first restoration wagon by fiting Sprat & Winkle couplings to it. Yes, I know that it's taken a long time to get this far, but I've been thinking - a lot...As a P4 modeller, normally I would have a preference for broadness - 18.83 looks better than 18.2 or 16.5 for example ;-)However my plan to use a wider loop for the coupling isn't very satisfactory. Having decided that I'd like a width of 12mm to ensure that there would be plenty of swing from side to side on the sorts of curves that I'm anticipating on industrial sidings in a brewery, it simply doesn't look very good...
On the left, the new width. On the right, an older wagon with a much narrower loop. Despite being made out of much thicker wire, I think that it's much less obtrusive. Time for a change of plan (and the gauges that I have set up for making these consistently).
Well, not in a bad way. I have finally managed to get some time earlier today to get started with some of the modelling kit that I bought at Scaleforum.I've used the Brassmasters wagon wheelbase jig to straighten out the w-irons on my LNWR ballast restoration job. It now sits squarely in the runnig gear, only to reveal that the body is not the straightest thing that I've ever built :-(Never mind, perhaps it suffered a rough shunt in a previous life. At least with sprung buffers it will not be adversely affected by the misalignment when it's running.The next challenge that I'm facing is that of getting the Sprat & Winkle couplings set up properly. If I'm every going to get consistent running, then I ned to find a way of easily making these consistently. I'm working on some ideas, but it's more frustrating than I could possibly imagine! I seem to need about four sets of (asbestos) fingers to hold everything together in the right place whilst glueing/soldering the parts together...Oh well, not much chance to do anything in the next few days, as I'm off for a week on a Dutch language course. I'll have very little free time, so perhaps a little browsing of the new-look RMWeb will be all that I can manage.
Well, it's the night before Scaleforum and I'm adding the last things to my shopping list...Alan Gibson waisted pinpoints - if I'm getting the wheelsets, then I need the bearings. The ones with the metal cutaway so that they are like a little Mayan pyramid (but obviously without the human sacrifices) in shape, and which mean that there is much less metal or plastic that needs to be removed when modifying axleboxes to fit over them. It may mean throwing away, or at least popping in the spares box, perfectly good parallel shaped bearings, but the improvement in ease of fitting makes it so much more worthwhile.Piece of aluminium for RSU - I have one of the superb London Road Models resistance soldering units. I've never been very happy about earthing the workpiece through a piece of scabby brass sheet that was sitting around. I think that I need to look at Eileen's Emporium (now under new ownership!) for a piece of proper aluminium sheet that I can use for a more professional set-up.And that's it. That's my shopping list. Of course, there's still plenty of room for the impulse purchases ;-)
Further thoughts on what I need on my shopping list...- an airbrush moisture trap. I've never had one, and thankfully never had bad results from spraying, but from reading so many articles saying that they help get a good finish, I think that it's about time.- weathering colours. More precisely, the list of paints recommended by Martyn Welch in his invaluable book, "The Art of Weathering". He produces all of his effects from the artful use of a very limited range of colours, all from the Humbrol range. To save ploughing through the whole text in search of them, they are:- 33 Black- 62 Leather- 82 Orange- 53 Gunmetal- 64 Grey- 112 Tarmac- 133 Bauxite- 9 Gloss Tan- 110 Natural Wood- Metalcote Gunmetal- Metalcote Polished SteelI intend to keep these separate in a box so that can force myself to ONLY use these in a weathering palette, and then I shoudl get consistency in the shades and effects across all of the models that I paint.Oh, and I did a quick check to start working out how many wheelsets I would need from Alan Gibson. I have 38 (thirty eight!) unmade D&S wagon kits alone... Whoops!
