2016_12_12 We moved Alday forward

2016_12_12  "Al-Day" moves to Monday this once only. Al arrived and we finished off Kilmore East and started to tidy up the Silos, amongst other things.

As I write this entry, just had a nice conversation with Peter Birthisel from Warrnambool (about)
Hope you do get to visit, you will be welcome.

Ok so what did we achieve today? Al manned the tack hammer and the Dremel, and fitted track into place.

My job was to keep ahead soldering droppers to points, and connecting up point motors and wiring them in.

We did a heap of work.  Al's track work is extremely good. I am thinking of hiring him out :)

Pictures will tell the story :D

Ok.  The track on the top left is the branch line exiting the three way point, which is going to represent my Bowser Station.
The next track to right is the Main North East BG.
The next is the Main North East S.G..line
The third leg of the three way wont take you to Bright, however it does lead to a 21 hopper Apex Quarry siding.

Showing short head shunt.

The long straight section top two tracks will locate the Loading shed.

Loco Run a Round fits X or S plus a T type loco. Normal power in my era.

What's next mate, says Al ;).   Well, as you asked, the grain silo area needs a rebuild?

So we used up the last couple of hours tacking down all the points, joining in the straights to connect it all up, and setting up for the point motors.

 The empty storage roads far end, need to be replaced now that the d'slip is mounted.
Then I need to fit 5 Tortoise machines and one DCC singlet. (servo motor)

Loaded storage roads are a bit short. Might have to extend the road another 600mm.

Al built this section. The SG crossover was in, but all the rest including the nice straight line through the yard is all Al's work. Excellent work!
That will do me for tonight.
Cheers
Rod

2016_12_11 Custom Pointwork

2016_12_11 Custom points made in Madang Indonesia.

Thank you Evan ;)

Departing Coal Siding, Wodonga. The existing track was supposed to be a temporary one, going back towards Wanganella, allowing trains to circulate. Although it will be almost totally hidden, it is good track, and I decided to leave it in, if I could overcome this problem. I need to construct a special point.
In fact a huge special double  track Y junction, with 44 and 46 inch radius curves. I was stumped.

But along came Evan from Indonesia. Exactly one week on, we only have the problem of getting it through the post office :)

Design...one day!

Build and test?  two days.

Ready to mail in  a week.

Very fair price and problem solved!
Cheers
Rod

2016_12_08 Its Al Day again!

2016_12_08 We want to finish alignment of track and make a start on Kilmore East.

Picture Story:

I was a bit slack with the camera, but here is the 4 pm shot of our work today. All droppers in, and ready for point motors

All we wanted to do was put the quarry siding in. But as we said before, we found we had to rebuild the whole junction to expand the quarry to allow for two engines and 19 hoppers. Even so I can fit only one van on (20veh) and my era is that a van sat on each end. The obvious solution is to leave one hopper off.
Very pleased with the work. I worked on one end and Al from the other and we met exactly at the correct position too.

At this stage I suggested Al might do a double shift, and we could get the siding in.......

Enough said 🙋

And so I continued on for a while whilst Al returned home to Corowa, and started here and fitted the loco run a round in.

And by about 9.30 I almost got part of the siding in. Just need the run a round points this end, and put the run a round itself in.

Ok crew change and ready to depart, the "block rock"

Cheers
Rod

2016_12_05 So how was your day?

2016_12_05  My day was sort of........ destructive?

So I am still messy? Sure am :)  However this is a special mess. Its caused by my difficulty to find something I know I have, and now I need, but have no idea where it is.

So in my search, I filled another rubbish bin, and moved everything of value, that did not have a home to here. As well I cleared my proper work bench down, and perhaps I can do my work there now, as I have room to work once more. Might stop me loading the bench board up as I usually do, just like this.
Possibly by tomorrow all this will have found a home. Already today I reduced the pile by more than half.

Constructive work? Well I tried to mount the point I recently modified here to access the turntable. This means that  the distant (see it behind tree?) had to be moved out further. This meant I had to rewire it, that is, extend the 7 wires that operate it and move the signal and tortoise motor to a new position. I wanted to use some ribbon cable, and so began the search which turned into a clean up.

Yesterday I damped down the scenery and the track to allow the modification!   Damn another mess!

But of course that got cleaned up and the point was still too close to the turn table. So I upended the board and removed the distant signal, so I could cut the point back another 6 inches or so.

So the Tortoise has already gone You can see the bent link that joined the bottom of the signal post to the tortoise? so it was mounted to the right. I found 5 wires joined to Tortoise and two to the signal.

I noted down where each wire was meant to go, and cut them away and joined them to the new ribbon cable. Tidied up the wiring. I notice  here I have not reconnected the power feeds yet.

So here is the signal in its new position. It does sit ok when the weight of the connecting rod from the Tortoise sits on the connectors.

So now I need a home signal to protect the turn table road? Funny thing about that......

I did have a brass home signal, however it had been damaged many years ago, and the mast was bent. So I spent several hours with needle nose pliers and I actually straightened the post, and pulled out all the lattice and it looked, perhaps 85% good to go.  So it was sitting up on the baseboard whilst I was banging and drilling and somehow it disappeared. Well I looked for it, unaware I had already found it several times it appears. :(
It was on the floor...  and looked like this

I guess it did not want to be fixed. A new one will cost me $200. Such is life....

Cheers
Rod

2016_12_03 Saturday? V8 Super Cars? Wiring Jobs?

2016_12_03..  V8's at Sydney. Its hot! and I really want to get things done in the shed

Ok record the V8's and turn on the air conditioner.....  waiting.... wai.....

lay track? ok we need to get ready some points, don't we? Points glued down and ballasted are always going to give trouble, so I have to wire them so they wont ;)

 This is the Junction crossover going into Melbourne end of Honey Suckle. These are code 70 Micro Engineering No6 points. They are dead frog, however the frog can be made live with a little clearing of plastic underneath. Just looking here, I see a mistake already. I have insulated the frog rail approaches. They need power because unlike Peco  the frog is completely isolated (dead frog) Powering up the frog does not supply power anywhere else. Easy fix.

The white wire solders to base of frog. I simply ground away the plastic with a Dremel.
Now solder red and black (eh? grey today :)  ) to all other rails
And spotting those insulated joiners linking the points, and for these type of points only, I will replace them with metal and solder droppers on to power in between points.

So you think Peco Electro frogs are easy?

Ok Ok, you do know that Peco redesigned the released "electrofrogs" don't you? The early ones gave trouble and were fixed, and I have found a few original ones in my store, and I decided to fix them today as well.

The new "electrofrogs" have jumpers that need removing for DCC. This one does not!
Also you will notice I have had to cut gaps between the frog and blades to isolate the frog?
Red and black (eh grey) to DCC bus, and white to switch the frog from switch machine or frog juicer.

But that's not good enough.

Cut and clear sleepers to allow linking two rails on each side and joining to DCC bus.
Grind away under frog and join a frog feed here making sure feed wires to rail ends remain attached, mine didn't.

Is that easier to see?

Their is a missing picture? must have been out of focus. I linked these two wires to the bottom of frog, and you can just see it through the plastic? I should not have removed it in the first place. The white wire was soldered into this link. Normally I would simply lift one the bridge wires with a flat head driver and solder the wire directly to it using the driver as a heat sink. Then prod it back into the grooves.

crap soldering not withstanding ;)  I now have DCC bus connectors to blades and all solid rails.

These lay on foam underlay and the wires are just cut into foam.

So I don't care if white glue insulates the blades. I only have to make sure it does not freeze them, and they easily move from side to side. Power will only fail if the wire (or solder) fails.

Cheers
Rod

2016_12_02 Al-day it must be Thursday?

2016_12_02 So its Thursday., but what to do today?

Bench work of course is now at a hold whilst I work out how to build the new Helix. Have asked for a quote on a professionally built one, as yet no results to report.

So wonder how Al is going to like doing track work? So with me in charge of the soldering iron, Al attacks the hybrid Kilmore East / Bowser (Both names will change when I think of a new one, of course) three way junction. The real Bowser had a particularly nice three way junction signal, and McKenzie and HolLand are building it for me in co-operation with San Mateo Models who are developing brass frets.

So let the pictures do the talking as you will see this leopard has not changed his spots :(

So I cleaned up this corner where Kilmore East Quarry is being installed. Al asked if I had enough room for a 19 hopper block rock, so we measured it out and you guessed it!  it was going to be only big enough for 14 hoppers with a double loco run a round at the end.  What to do??
Most long term sufferers of this blog will know, I built a huge shed to run prototypical length trains.

Where the brick pier is, I had arranged for two  large bridges similar to the one at Chiltern. An older ballasted bridge with brick abutments and piers, and a more modern SG concrete and open sleeper design. That's the area under the spirit level. Ok I have to lose that, fix new baseboards in place and bring Bowser all the way back to where the BG track ends. In the meantime Al connects the SG link to the new territories. Once I work out what I want here, Al goes on and replaces the baseboards and removes the surplus track.

So all this was removed.

 Now this is a Shinohara DC point I had modified. It worked, sort of, but if any vehicle was going to derail, it would happen here. I stripped the point down and insulated the swing blades from each other used fish plates to connect them to the frog extensions and soldered the plates to the frog. With proper gaps a wire connected to frog, I connected it all up, and straight away my main short disappeared. The point was modified properly I thought, and using switching relays should have been ok. However obviously something was missed. I ran trains through both sides of point and could not force a derailment either. Good job! :)

Even looks better with an in focus picture :(

Ok bridge area removed and supports being added.

All nice, flat and level.....

Next job is to mount the track, adjust positioning and install points and motors.

Cheers
Rod

2016_11_25 And so their was light!

2016_11_25 Aldi 10m connectable (to 40m) rope lights-Just $17

All lights off and no flash! Its very dark outside.  No (real) moon Just strip lights... Oh I like that 👀

Strip lights (both sides) just standing back a little. I could negotiate the mess on the floor, easily with this much light. These strips are sunny white 5m and cost me $8 each plus shipping from China.

The other side with blue Aldi lights on Wodonga side. As you can see wiring job has become a re-wiring job, but I am getting through a lot of modifications and can soon tidy all this up.

Only light on is the rope light. I think I can bare looking at a "blue" moon 😆 I think I will fix it  to top of back scene board, out of sight under layout. I think 4 strips will be quite bright. Might have to reduce the voltage a little. In fact joining a second strip, may do that for me.

Interestingly in this shot the sunny white strips are on and so is the blue rope light. The blue was very bright, but easily overcome by the sunny whites. I wonder if the fader controls will work. I would need to parallel 0 to 36 volts with 12 to 0 volts to get the effect and I'm betting I would need to do that electronically, which bests my analog skills.

Ok had my coffee, time  ⏰  to get down and dirty on my floor once again. 
 Well the trolley at least keeps me above the floor these days. 😌
Cheers
Rod

2016_11_24 Al came over again for more torture.

2016_11_24   Paint the wall. a little carpentry and then the two of us tackled some wiring.

It seems that my mistakes are not looking far enough ahead, or perhaps I am just less observant than I once was?
 The high level road bed was already clear of the lower level SG track. It would have been far better to lay this baseboard against the wall from the turntable on. It was only when I was looking for a place to put the table that I realised I had clear acess from underneath.
The supports are screwed tightly and appears solid, so I just added another support against the wall and will glue the foam board between that and the baseboard. Actually an easy fix, even if the original mistake used resources and time unwisely. Particularly as I have a good friend helping me get this side finished.

Whilst messing around with the timber, Al painted the wall. Thanks mate.

After this we fixed some more wiring on the Wodonga station board. Some jobs were two man easy, and a lot more difficult on my own. We fixed all those!

Ok so now all the wiring underneath this section is either fixed, or easily fixed on my own. And thats tomorrows job!
Above you will notice that I have removed the LED strip lights and cleaned the venetian blind slats and re-glued the strip back in place.
I used hot glue, and I was very lucky not to destroy the strips. As it turns out the leds are soldered on to the strips with low temp solder, and the hot glue damaged one strip of 4 LED's. It could have been much worse.  I will use "no more nails" in future. But the lights are now out of sight and give great illumination. Some say you need three rows of light strips. That's not for me. I am not modelling a desert scene, after all. You might notice on top of the track some rope lights? These are 10m Christmas lights from Aldi. They can be connected together, up to 40 m, in length, but from their instructions, I am not sure if one power pack is enough for all of them??  But at $17 a box, good value. These are a blue light strip, and will be used during night time running to simulate moonlight.

This is the other side of the island baseboard. Wodonga Coal Siding. These lights were put in 2 years ago, and I attached the LED strips to venetian blinds (as reflector) and to hold them straight I screwed it all to a strip of 35 x 18 pine. The strips have stayed attached, however the wood support is a pain to work around and it certainly does not look great. But it works and will stay in place.

Ok thats it from Al and I for another good "Al-Day"
Cheers
Rod

2016_11_18 Alday!! eh Thursday work day ;)

2016_11_18   Another work day with Allan Jeeves in attendance.


Had a great day, with both of us laying track in different locations.

So Al levels and lays the track on the new add in section of Honey Suckle.

And I work on track laying on the trestle. I had to cut the trestle back about 25 mm and set it up to allow a smooth 36 inch curve into it and exiting it. Worked out well, but time consuming, like everything else on this railroad ;)
Next job is to install the junction and then lay the track on the other leg, back towards the Bowser junction.

At about this time, we looked at the other end of Honey Suckle.......

And I mentioned to Al that I had a short turntable I would like to install at this station. We worked out where it could go, and modified the track bed to suit by moving the whole assembly 55 mill closer to the aisle

So with this section all levelled up and relocated, I have room for the turntable in the new box section we will build between Honey Suckle and the relocated track bed

As the track against the wall can be easily accessed from underneath, now, I will join the high boxed roadbed to the wall with that high density foam, behind Al, here..

We are getting to a place where we have to decide on what to do with the Helix.
Enough for now.
Cheers
Rod