murrayec

Hi John I cut the styrene with a Cameo Silhouette machine, it doesn't cut all the way through .5mm styrene but scores it heavily and then out with the scalpel..... I have set up the Stepcraft cnc machine to cut styrene now, it can cut with a drag knife like the Cameo and cuts all the way through .5mm sheet and more, or I cut with the rotary tool like cutting metal but experiencing heat problems. There are special single flute tools to cut plastic and one uses compressed air to cool the plastic, I'm still perfecting this system...... Eoin

'Quoins' Fantastic work David Eoin

I completed out the Laminate coach a month ago or so, set up some photos to post up and promptly forgot to do! - So here are the final bits of the build;- I made .5mm styrene partitions for the corridors and break/goods compartment, painted them brown and test fitted them to the body, chassis n seats. .25mm styrene window sheets were cut out and stuck onto the internal sides with Deluxe Glue'n'Glaze with the aid of a few metal weights to old as the glue goes off. The decal numbers and door handles were fitted, the handles are .4mm bent NS wire through a sliver of tinfoil as the escutcheons for the locks, the body is now ready for a few coats of satin varnish. Varnish complete I test fitted all the internal bits and then glued them in with Glue'n'Glaze- windows & corridor dividers. Everything ready to bolt it together! It fits beautifully, the screws just slotted in and screwed up a treat. Some tinfoil bits were stuck onto the tops of the passenger door glazing and finally it's pristine Complete!! And some photos on white. Eoin

Happy Christmas Wrennie

Got my card yesterday Happy Christmas lads Thanks Eoin

Hi Goerge Big trains! I think they need a weed-spray train... Happy Christmas to you & family Eoin

On the 800, this is the mod I make to the LNER crosshead and slide bar, its a single H slide bar with a bolted clasp around the bar holding the crosshead on so I use a .5mm NS folded plate soldered onto the LNER bits after the head is filed down. The unit is clamped using the slide bar to set the gap, the slide bar is removed and the unit is soldered, being careful not to get solder in the slidy bit . The end of the slide bar has been filled down to fit into the cylinder backplate. .5mm NS 800 detail bits just about to be soldered onto the eccentric rod, this end will be screw fixed to the return crank with 12BA screw. All the valve gear is now riveted and ready for a test fit. The lifting arm has a 1.5mm steel rivet soldered onto it which fits into the radius rods lifting slot. .5mm NS 800 detail bits in the motion bracket, these fit onto brass bush crankpin bearings fitted into the motion bracket which are counter-sunk to take the 12BA screws. Fitting of the gear..... ....and we've got problems! The anchor and drop links are fouling the cylinder backplate and jamming the gear, its not much- the thickness of a 14BA screw! In the photo below one can see the anchor link is disconnected from the crosshead to allow overlap otherwise the crosshead can not travel this far. New anchor links will have to be cut and made a bit shorter. Other than that link problem everything is working fine, the valve rod may need a bit of attention also, its a bit sloppy in its cylinder but not fouling, will decide on that when the gear is test run under power...... Eoin

Hi Dave Dawes Noel forgot to mention that the z21 takes a Multi-Maus handset for your ' shunting style of operating and/or using a shunting layout' Eoin

Hi DART818 My comment about a Google search and the title you are using is an example if Google themselves did a search they would find evidence that passenger carrying railways were in existence before 1834 and it may influence their decision negatively in supporting your request. The 'Commuter Railway' descriptor has been under long debated as to what it means. UK railway historians and avid followers of the early first railway systems argue who was first to carry passengers proper! whether pulled by horse, pulled by steam, taking passengers from town to outlying areas, or from town to town.... - endless! and are still debating! Interestingly some UK historians ignore most railways as 'commuters' until 1836 with the opening of the London & Greenwich Rail Road connecting London to the English Channel and boats to France, which they say was based off the L&MR, and they claim was the first to solely carry passengers!! Interestingly again- this railway was first developed as the Kentish Railway around 1826, while under development an anti-railway writer penned words referring to ''Congreve's richocher rockets'' (from the American national anthem) while having a go at discrediting the railway, it is said that this quote led R Stephenson to name his 1829 loco 'Rocket' Eoin

Hi DART 8118 Ireland's first commuter railway, a monumental occasion to be sure, I'm a fan of Mr Dargan and as you know I model D&KR stuff and my DART display layout currently being worked on is based around Dun Laoghaire and Seapoint. I'm also developing a model of the ' Hibernia', which can be viewed on this forum in the 'Manufactures' area...... But, may I suggest that your future canvassing should relate to 'Ireland's First' or 'One of the World's First' and not 'The First'. If one does a Google search for the first passenger railways in the world, you will find that a number of passenger railways were in existence before the D&KR- the Stockton & Darlington of 1825, passengers were hauled by horse up to 1833- when steam took over, and the Liverpool & Manchester of 1830- to name two of the most significant. We should also consider that the 'Hibernia' type loco was purchased from Sharp Roberts in Liverpool- a box of spares a number of years old, leftovers from Mr Roberts unsuccessful 'Experiment' loco for passenger hauling on the LMR or who ever they could sell his de-funked invention to. Passengers on the D&KR suffered the same fate as the Liverpudlians- knocked heads, sore bums and also the poor drivers had a difficult time staying on the footplate. Although the D&KR were advised not to purchase it I'm glad they did- it's my no. 1 favourite Irish Loco........ Eoin

The replacement valve parts and other nickel silver parts were cut out and cleaned up. Break shoes cut from Tufnol and been prepared here to slit the backs and mount them on their hangers. Shoes mounted on hangers with brass pins yet to be trimmed and glued, break rods and other break parts prepared for assembly. Nice set of cnc engraved engine plates and those little bit to the left are the break hanger spigots which will be soldered onto the chassis to hold the break gear. Breaks on, this assembly is removable by springing the break hangers off the support spigots and it comes away in one piece. Electrical pick-ups installed and wiring just completed. A quick test on the rolling road to see if the breaks need adjusting and check for electrical shorts- all fine. Next was to start on setting up the valve gear, the motion brackets to hold the crosshead slide bar were folded up and soldered. Then the crosshead slide H bar is made up of 3 .5mm NS parts, jigged and soldered. Then the slide bar brackets are soldered onto the chassis, quite a bit of fettling to get the bracket to hold the slidebar horizontal. The LNER valve kit crossheads needed some mods- the drop link was shortened and drilled for riveting the Anchor Link to, and the slides on the heads was modified to take the NS 800 type slide covers. When the crossheads were done and the 800 cover soldered on all was offered up to the cylinder, fettled & fitted. The slide bar is filed down at one end and fitted into a hole in the cylinder, this part will be fitted after the painting is done. Next was the Expansion Link, I was not happy using the LNER open type link as the 800 has a solid link and the LNER just doesn't look right, also I've cut parts for working oiler gear which needs a pivot hole right where there is an opening in the LNER one. So NS .5mm laminated parts were used to do this. I went with solder paste for this one as the parts are so small it's hard to use standard wire solder without flooding the parts and having a whole lot of cleaning up afterwards. Pasted, clamped, soldered, and minimal clean up. Link completed except for opening up the holes. Thats one of the discarded LNER Expansion Links to the left. Then the Eccentric Rods, they needed a flute cut down the middle, so they were mounted on an angle plate, viced up in the mill and a .5mm flute cut. That looks a lot better, better scale! Eoin

Don't forget the Train & Model Fair is on this coming Sunday, KMCE's 'Wicklow South' diorama will be paying a visit, don't miss the opportunity to see this fantastic layout in the flesh and see his beautiful scratch built stock - which will hopefully feature his armoured train! Eoin

Looking superb David

I'll bring the blowtorch

The last Fair date of 2019;- There may be mince pies!!

That looks fairly intact, the deck seems to be there n all? Eoin

So then after a number of outings with the baseboard I've decided the wires for the jigsaw plug-in track parts is just to fiddly, we need an upgrade- no wires at all! The solution I came up with is sprung loaded PCB board contacts fixed into the routed slot that was made for the wires, with copper contact tape to the underside of the jigsaw boards..... This is the underside of the jigsaw board with contact tape installed and wires to the tracks soldered on. The contact BCB board, brass dome head nails to be soldered in and ends snipped off, the mounting screws and the little springs wound from guitar strings. The PCB boards mounted in the slot and wired up. Close up, the heads of the brass nails are just above the slot and the springs allow movement down when the insert board is screwed down. It works. Now just another 14 to go....... Eoin

After the parts were machined and cut from the sheet I started to process the bits;- First the outer frames were stamp with a few rivets, unfortunately the scale spacing of the rivets does not fit the tool correctly so the previously stamped rivet gets a bit squidged when stamping the next one, but I carried on! They still look pretty Then the slots which were chain drilled .5mm in the machine, were opened up and sized for the tabbed parts. All slots done but still a bit of fettling required to fit the chassis together. It's now I remembered that because of the outside frames I have to use horn blocks to install the axles as the outer frame obstructs the access to thread the axle through if one were to use bush bearings!! I did engrave lines on the inner frames for this- a bit more cutting required. More parts to process. Just if your wondering how I opened up the .5mm slots- first I cut through the chain drilling with the piercing saw, using the saw like a file the rough edges were removed, then with a modified .5mm thick diamond coated nail file cut and ground down to a width of 2mm, which is the size of the smallest slot, I used it to clean up the slots to size. The file does loose its grit over time but I got through this work OK and next time I will give it a bit of a grind beforehand..... Soldering next I think. Eoin

Hi Peter I do repairs, is it an Gauge N GF 185 and do you know how many tooths are on that gear? I have some gears in stock- if I don't have that one we will have to try and order it!! The old type intermediate bogie GF gears all split over time- so it may need a few to be changed! I'm in Bray on Sunday at the Train & Model Fair if you want to drop out 10.30 to 1.30 or pm me to arrange if you want. Eoin

It's like David says The porch roof looks like a lead or copper sheeted roof, the up-stands along the front eaves- is the detail one uses to join the sheets! the roof falls to the rear against the station building wall which would have a gutter or flat surface laid at a fall towards the rain water pipe, this gutter discharges into a hopper just below the roof covering and fixed to the fascia then through the double bends and down to ground. The rain water pipe from the roof above discharges onto the porch roof and carried from there into the hopper. To do this detail correctly one should carry the roof finish- ie; a lead flashing , up the station wall approx 150mm scale height above the porch roof to weather the station wall and form the back of the porch roof gutter. Eoin

Spray paint the rails with a mat rust colour before ballasting, while the paint is wet rub down the top of rails with the edge of a block of MDF- a-la BaseboardDave technique. If the paint dries wrap some wetted wet-n-dry fine sand paper around the MDF block and rub down. Graphite as well as being a conductor is also a lubricant- one may have traction problems with this one, but sure if it doesn't work, out with the eraser! Eoin

I don't like this stuff, it's TV- people & personalities for voyeurism- TV! But as Garfield says it promotes railway modelling and that is a good thing..... Eoin

Studio Scale Models do a brass etch phone box kit;- http://www.studio-scale-models.com/Scenics.shtml

https://www.google.com/search?q=old+irish+phone+box&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ACYBGNQFpWAHswsU6kKUdzpRGDgbHFo32A:1572732743564&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=OhuA1BrEu4IaiM%3A%2Cvl67x6fI0vBxoM%2C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kT3EJwXiQ9UO2BA1_C8QNzRCMPNig&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwisz4aExszlAhWDr3EKHf9FBWwQ9QEwAHoECAcQHA#imgrc=OhuA1BrEu4IaiM: