murrayec

Yes was a great show, I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 days, great fun chatting to everyone and picked up a few nice items. Well done to the club with organisation and thanks to the girls in the kitchen Eoin

Hi All Unfortunately the 6th November Fair has to be postponed to later in the month due to availability of the Braywheelers Clubhouse. We will confirm a new date in a few days....

Hi I have progressed a little further on the patterns I re-made the springs with a coarser 3mm bolt which gives a better spring look and more to scale, the shots are of the components going together- some are glued down and others not until the glue is cleaned up.... .....There is not enough hours in the day! Eoin

Hi Here are a few photos of the long grass(6mm)layer almost complete, just the field grass to go and we're into the trees n ground cover... Eoin & CM

Nice one Dave, can wait to see it Eoin

Hi All Here are a few interesting photos taken by CM, the second layer of long static grass has gone down, still s few bits to finish in this mode- 'layers n layers' I like these shots though... ... you can see the layers building up CM & Eoin

Hi All The Bray Model Fair is on this coming Sunday.....

.....and a few shots CM sent this morning of the hovered site Eoin & CM

Hi A4m Stunning, it has been great to see it develop to this, stunning.... Eoin

Hi All and thanks for the great comments The first layer of static grass went down today, this is 2mm grass at track side- looking burnt from the constant weed spraying! The photos are taken just after application, the next post will be of the hovered site and hopefully well have burnt grass both sides of track.... Eoin & CM

I have the design of the chassis and running gear complete, but this project has been on the shelf while doing the DARTs, though I am tipping away at the bogie frame sides and here is the story so far;.... The motors will be Tenshodo Spuds with a little brass truck to carry the third axle, this affair will pivot off an etched brass side frame mount fixed to the Spud body- I've yet to make one of these to test. So with that decided! I set about working up the patterns for the bogie sides which will be cast in white metal. The photos show the main side frames cut out and part cleaned up, cut from 1mm black styrene, it's a bit softer than the white stuff. Each frame is in two bits and will be stuck together to give 3d look. The white cut-out laid on top is cut from never-tare paper which will be used for detailing the frames, and the springs are made of plastic- cast from a mould made from a M3 bolt, only half the bolt is cast for making up the springs. M3 bolt thread is a bit small and not the right scale, I might re-visit that one.... Next step is to work out the shock absorbers and mounts and all should be ready to glue up!! Eoin

Some photos taken at the last Fair;-

Hi John It's home spun.... http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/2119-Some-useful-Tools?p=92980&viewfull=1#post92980 Eoin

Here are a few shots of a soldering clamp and support board, made from 9mm MDF with a hardwood upstand and 90 deg fence. Threaded inserts are used for screwing down the clamps and an arrangement of clamping bits I use is shown, I use a strip of frying sheet to stop the parts sticking to the MDF, as you can see the MDF gets scorched- hardwood would be a better material. The unit is sacrificial, so holes can be drilled for a new clamping arrangement Eoin

Thanks lads Yep it will be at the Bray Fair tomorrow, although it is dismantled!.... Eoin

Hi I do like battleships...... Eoin

Rivet detail soldered on the steps with a quick clean up Rear chassis spring and horn block detail was next, these white metal castings were all out of shape and quite hard to get flat. They were prepared for sweat soldering onto the chassis with 140 deg solder on the brass and 70 deg solder on the white metal. The horn block covers were soldered with 70 deg solder. To minimise spreading solder all over the brass I marked up the location with a pencil, solder will not freely pass over a graphite line so is handy for this job. The parts are sweated on to the brass by using the iron on the inside of the chassis and not near the white metal, if more solder was required the 70 deg was used. All done with the tender coupler installed Eoin

Flying Scot Springs, breaks, steps & stuff... Springs were next, these are fiddly etched laminations that were cleaned up and sweat soldered with 180 deg solder. Some cusp filing is required in areas before soldering- as once stuck one cannot get a file in at these areas. One of the spring assemblies has been modified with the horn block arm cut off! this is required for the suspension modification I've done to the kit, 3 more will be cut as per.... The break castings were cleaned up and found to be poor castings on one side, the mould was off centre when cast and caused a step in the casting. When offered up to chassis and wheels, the castings were fatter and touching the flange of the wheels, a slight mod was done with the edge of a file to thin the shaft and allow clearance for the wheels. All done and ready to go onto the chassis after I set up the electrical pick up arrangement. The long break push rods where mangled in the previous build and took quite a bit of work to straighten out- but it worked! Next was missing part making- the rivet detail on the driver steps, and a tiny footplate support were missing for one side and these had to be made The trick to punching out fine rivet strips is to stay away from the edges of the sheet, this minimises distortion and helps to give the proper shape, once punched the strip is cut to close size, it's flattened, and then filed to size. A light filing on the top of the rivets give a good match to the etched ones from the kit- the middle strip is the home made one!