murrayec

The date for the next Fair;-

@Broithe Now that's a big circuit breaker! Eoin

I made an aluminium side casing for a BSA motorbike restoration a long time ago, we made it from Coke & 7up cans cast into a home made oil sand mould in a metal bucket, using a styrene-foam master which burned out as the metal was poured in, it worked but boy did we need a lot of cans! the casing has lasted for a long time.... Eoin

Here is something we generally only see on those old Hornby clockwork loco wheels 'Zink Pest' This is the first time I've seen it on a more modern die cast model, a Bachmann Hong Kong made American thingy.... The chassis expanded to the point that the plastic body had no choice but to split and give more room for the expanding chassis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_pest Eoin

and more tools;- Roxey Mouldings do a nice set of nut spinners 16BA to 8BA with a nicely machined brass handle, I made the other aluminium handles. The heads do need to be screwed on tightly or use thread lock as when unscrewing a nut or bolt the head has a tendency to unscrew itself! nail varnish would work also- I see David doesn't like pink so how about blue with metal flake! The Expo Tools spinners are a pain- the socket is to deep and those little 16 & 14 BA nuts get lost in there- do get the Expo BA spanners though. The tool to the left is an allen key for Slater wheels, a tuned up stick of aluminium with a cut off key forced in the end and Loctited, with the cross bar one can get the right torque and the screw taper locks- the problem with the 'L' allen is it twists n bends and most people give in before the taper locks! Eoin

Hi Guys Use a broach to widen out a hole, if one is careful and work it from both sides the hole will stay on centre, a reamer is for setting a specific size hole and is designed to cut a very small amount of metal after one has drilled a hole very close to the required size- if you force a reamer it will break or damage one cutting edge which will give an incorrect size when used later! Eoin

Excellent Ken Sure their would have been sparks flying around that anyway! Eoin

Well that was a very enjoyable 3 day show, I have to say a big thanks to all the chaps that made it possible with their hard work and organisation- well done. And thanks to all who came over to the DARTs and said hello, brilliant to meet and chat with everyone. Every day on the way to food and stuff I passed Ardmore, by the MRSI chaps, I'd snap a look and then run off! Today I got to spend some time there chatting with Brendan, George & Harry and took a few photos of their amazing creations;- Lovely stuff... Also well done to all the layout exhibitors who made the show and the traders who brought goodies to buy- I have a few cattle wagons to build and books to read. Cant wait for the next one Eoin

@Broithe can we make suggestions?...... Choose your date by their track laying skills, choose your date for their ability to render and install a realistic back-scene, or their calm control of the knobs in a rear shunting situation!..... What do you think, what do you think? can I have a job|? Eoin

I have one of the 'coupling couples' for the back seat of a DART! though the mecha is large and have not worked out how to get it in yet. Eoin

I have been hacking away on the Hibernia Loco build which featured way back in my 'murrayec projects' in the Workbench area, I have decided to carry on showing the build here. If you want some background info on the project here is a link;- So after building the test plastic-card chassis I made a few adjustments to the drawings and then sat on the project due to the workload back then. A couple of months ago I started back at it and set up drawings to mill the parts from .5mm & .25mm brass sheet to build a brass test chassis and other components which will be needed to test fit out and to use to make moulds for white metal castings. I have also set-up a brass tube boiler and machined up a firebox former from 30mm dia nylon bar, again when the fitting is done on the firebox the former will be used for moulding the final unit. The boiler will be worked out when the motor and gearbox are installed. That's the fire hole in the back, the lower section is the ash-pan and the side cut will hopefully allow the chassis by! Last week the milling started on the chassis parts, cylinder base & heads, valve gear, bellcranks, and the nameplates in the .5mm brass;- This chassis has inside and outside frames, with the slot & tab frame stretcher construction I reckon .5mm will be plenty strong? Bellcranks are half depth milled to give the cast iron look, and in the footplate stretcher one can see the .5mm dia chain drilled holes to be opened up into slots for construction- the chassis frame tabs will stick up through these. Again half milled nameplates- can't wait to see these painted and the brass text all shined up. Next will be .25mm brass splashers, footplates, smokebox, smokebox doors, and more chassis fittings......... Eoin

Hi There will be an overhead Gauge O track! in the new museum with 4 'non-Fry-made' trains running, but unfortunately not including the 121 loco. Eoin

Hi All KMCE's 'Wicklow South' will be paying a visit to the Fair this Sunday, a great opportunity to see the amazing diorama, locos and rolling stock- not to be missed..... Eoin

Hi controller That chip only has 2 switch-able functions! the green wire & the purple. F2 not staying on sounds like your controller is set for momentary switch like a toot on your horn! need to refer to the manual to switch that off, or remap what you want to switch to F3. If those red lights are directional loco rear? they should be switched by the directional wires- directional light wires are white for front & yellow for rear. One has to wire up so that the white & red lights alternate depending on direction. Then you have 2 function switches to play with- use one of these for cab light, and for maximum coolness wire up the cabs for the two functions and then only the front cab light can be switched- in each direction. Eoin oops! an 08 only has one cab- even better a free function switch!!

Hi Leslie I'm down for 4 but I'll take a Five Pack..... Eoin

Hi All, Just a reminder of the Train & Model Fair is on this coming Sunday. Eoin

David As PP says above 'Brilliant to see Fintonagh in motion', the locos in motion, the depth of the buildings and back scene are just stunning. Eoin

Excellent Ken, that looks great I cant help noticing the perspective of the photo under the bridge- do you use Photoshop, if so do you know the 'distort' transformation with the four handles at each corner- tug on those and you can change the perspective to be more in line with the laid track and platform. Pulling the top left corner would be a start, would be a trial n error exercise but I reckon it is worth doing! Eoin

Hi Guys Evergreen do 2.5mm (the largest) Quarter Round ref; 250, which would be ideal for the corners of the tank, if one was to stick a horizontal styrene strip to the inside top edge of the sides one would not notice the internal square sides of the Quarter Round. Eoin

Re; Water Tank Structure. On reflection! no discerning Railway Man would spend his good money on my first submission so this morning I revised my guess to a more economical solution, this is the kind of way plastic tanks are built today and am sure it came from the past;- Curved corners to the outer sheets would add significant structural capabilities and could lead to even more cost savings for the Railway Man- like the photos of the green tank above! Eoin

Tony 1 sqm of water weighs 1 tone approx, which puts some pressure on the sides especially at the top, so I reckon it might have bracing on the inside- angle iron verticals and horizontals with angle iron diagonals in this kind of fashion at a guess;- Note the diagonals go from inside bottom to outside top! Eoin

@Peter I did get prints back on Friday but it's not looking good for the show- still having problems with colour. The top print is what came on Friday but the orange/tan is way to light and some of the detail is missing, the print under I received back in July- the orange/tan is great but detail was missing, adjustments have been made and its back with the printers.... Eoin

Galteemore I did a search on the Guild Forum and came up with this;- '' Mr Donaldson's locomotives are covered in Slide programme number 57 'Ralph and Drew' with a commentary by Mr Bill Scott'' You could order the slide disk for the cost of copying & postage and check out if he built it- that's if its on this? You could also post the question on the Guild Forum- this is the thread;- The O gauge railways of Ronald Shephard and Drew Donaldson Eoin

'What to do with broken or worn files & hacksaw blades' I don't break many files but when it happens I throw them into the scrap box- for the future! - and the future is now...... When setting up the cnc machine I had a few messy starts working out the system, ending up with a few sheets of metal not fully cut or the machine stopped half way through, lost it's settings and could not pick-up where it left off so a new sheet had to be done. I tried to cut the parts out with a scalpel and a Stanley knife but tough going!! What's needed is some small chisels, so into the scrap box and out with a broken file (it's hardened steel so as long as its not overheated while grinding it will keep its hardness) two chisels were made from the one file- a big and a little;- The set-up for grinding, it's what I use for sharpening the lathe & drill tools, a standard grey fine wheel is mounted with the Veritas table and its sliding fitting for sharpening screwdrivers and chisels. Chisels made and honed time to test, done on a lump of lead from the fishing days- the lead gives support to the parts and allows the chisels through with minimum distortion to the parts. As you can see in the shot above the parts are not fully cut out, it worked a breeze, just had to chisel around the parts and through the tabs. Below is a photo of the Walker coupler rod after been cut out without any distortion. While you have your bench grinder out a broken hacksaw blade is ground into a 'Scrawker' a grove cutting tool for brass n styrene. A wooden handle will be fitted somewhere along the way but works great as is, I use a glove though. Very useful tools..... Eoin