2014_12_31 The end has come?

2014_12_31 The end and yet the World did not?

Just thinking about things :)
I have always wanted to make small round holes quickly. Well ever since sound started to interest me, and I found speakers required baffles.

I asked everyone I knew had faced this problem, but could not get a definitive answer

Here is a loksound 8 ohm speaker. The accepted way of cutting out a circle for the front of the baffle is to draw around it, drill out the middle with many small holes then break it out and clean up with a file. My attempts wasted half a day and I had to then fill in the gaps before it all worked as it should...Yeah I know, I think the same all the time.

So then I started to search for a workable easy to use hole cutter!

Yes you can ream it out, but then you have to file away another 6 mm around the edges, I never did find a ream big enough.

You could use these things, but they are harsh and more often tear out the edges and dont leave a neat enough hole. And you cannot get one at 23mm 21 and 25 but no 23! So more filing out.

My Chinese contractor sold me this for $6 and free postage. The thing weighs half a kilo and apparently you need a lathe to mount it, and somehow winding it up springs out the blades till you get a 23 mm hole. I could not spin it with anything I have here, and using a shifter and  a vice, I could not turn the nut on the end.

I found this nifty device in a craft magazine. It does cut a nice hole in glass but could not cope with styrene at all.
Mind you if I ever get around to it, I am pretty certain that I could replace the glass cutting wheel with a fixed knife blade it would do exactly what I want.

But then
When ordering styrene shapes from China, I found this...

And it is actually a plastic version of the Canadian glass cutter, and it works really well :D

JQG18 Nine Sea Compass Circle Cutter Cutting Tool 1cm-30cm Diameter NEW
evemodel_ca (4635 )
99.8% Positive feedback
eBay item number:
171163537839

So now I am happy!
Cheers
Rod

2014_12_24 Its Christmas :D

 2014_12_24 Christmas Eve
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

My Wife came from Finland and apart from Vodka and Beer they loved their Christmas on Christmas Eve.

Here two generations celebrate their own way :D

Tess is getting a little worried because the shadows are getting longer, and Santa has not yet arrived.

Some of the older kids are not so worried, each trying to outdo the adults with death defying feats of high jumping.

And even more waiting!

Finally lights and sirens are heard as a late Santa arrives in the Yackandandah Fire Stations Big Pumper! All the kids scampered up into the cab to check out the pre... eh the truck.

Finally everybody retired to the lawn where the next several hours were much enjoyed by the kids opening presents with the Adults looking on. We much enjoy this little bit of family tradition, and the vodka must have caught up, because I never got a picture :(

Well Christmas Dinner was next on the agenda.

Here Billy sits beside Riitta. Well its her Christmas tea shirt and it is placed over the chair she always sat on, when she was still with us. Sort of hope she still comes along all these years since breast cancer took her away from us.

On the Model Train front?

Now that all the gremlins have been found and sorted, trains can circulate the layout, even if SG freights do have to run through Trentham   eeek!! Bit rough!!
So a lot of train running and little work, other than fixing up problems as they are found.

One set of points not switching the frog here, so I will need to put another mono frog juicer in.

A week before Christmas, Graeme Schulz arrived with his spatulas and we decided to play around with some scenery.
This is an artist paper mache plaster mix we were put on to. Its mixed into a ice cream container with water and plastic paint to colour like dirt.And Cement colours sprinkled on top.to simulate dirt. Woodland Scenic's greens for effect. Hard shell hard to chip, yet still easy enough to cut out and fix problems, should they occur.

After Graeme left I decided how I was going to fix the causeway bridge and splice in the new section I got on E-Bay. I did most of the work gluing in new bridge girders under the rails.

The new bridge over the creek has a trestle support next to the far abutment, which has to be removed and put at the other (far) end.
Then it will look like the trestle was built at two different times. Perhaps fixing a wash a way?

Anyway that's about all I have done:)
Till next time,
Rod Young

2014_12_13- Roger visits

2014_12_13

A great weekend with a visit from Roger Lloyd up from Melbourne with wife Marie.
I met the train at New Wodonga and Marie went on to Albury to stay with her sister(s). Roger and I transferred by road to the old Wodonga Station where copious measurements were taken in preparation of the building of Wodonga Station in HO scale. We collected a few pictures a full set of plans from VicTracks and our own measurements. The hardest thing we had to figure out, was what remains of the the station now, and how to make it look like it did in the 70's We would love to see your pictures? If anybody can help us out here?
 As usual Roger spurred me on to do some more on the layout when we returned to the house in Osbornes Flat via Yackandandah :D
We did a heap of work, adding a few more tracks but proving the wiring and short proofing the track work and the droppers, which of course a picture cannot show!. However a job well done. The Stockyards and all track East of the BG main line is now DCC  wired and only needs a few "juicers" added and the droppers connected to the section breaker to run trains  Imagine that!!

Although not a true representation of the yard, it does retain enough to keep two yard pilots operating for a night, we both guess.

Altough Roger already laid this track a year ago, we found it necessary to lift and relay it to fix all the insulaton problems and apply the droppers. As an example over 60 insulated joiners and 120 droppers were added. just to guarantee the integrity of all the track sections. I solder droppers to both sides of every point, also to the blades themselves and lastly one to the live frog.

Roger measured up the Wodonga Station area and the Goods shed. We adjusted tracks accordingly. We now can fit a scale model of both buildings. The compromise will be the yard beyond the Goods shed.

As can be seen from the above shot we cannot fit in the Carriage sheds or the loco. So we will move these to the North over High Street. This will mean the hand gates (formally used to bring the SG into Wodonga Depot will now be added back in to feed the new loco Depot.

The long road behind the "Box" is a SG engine storage road, because engines were not stored at Albury

And beside Roger you can see we addded the two BG store roads where generally L and M vanswere stored to service the stock race.


Cheers
Rod Young

2014_12_01

2014_12_01 December? but it was just January??
Very hot day with just a little cloud cover after a spectacular light show which was illuminating cumulus clouds brightly, with only an occasional flash of lightning to be seen this side of the mountains,.in pitch blackness last night.

So here I sit 1227 pm and still drinking my (cold) breakfast coffee.  Have fed the grand daughters rabbit and hung out the family washing. Found ants in the house and organized a can of surface spray.

The Studio is still locked up and mate Tony is on his way from Bendigo for the night.
Hardly seems worth while starting another project today :(

Cheers
Rod

Edit 2337 hrs
Well Tony arrived and we did accomplish a few things. We swapped Austrains G Class number and headboards so that we finished up with FA and V/line numbers not released. Suited us both actually :)

Then we fooled around with sound chips Finished off 4483? needing only reapply the couplers tomorrow. Listen to two Alco's destroying the peace. If only we could duplicate the clouds of black exhaust without suffocating ourselves :D
Did not like the Loksound 251 series engine. To be honest it sounds like an EMD with a piston hanging out the side to me. So I substituted the older sounds just because it sounded more like the engines I did remember (to me at least as an EMD driver for VR)

Model: DL500B Type: Diesel-Electric Builder: AE Goodwin Introduced: 1957 Road Numbers: 4401 - 44100 Number Built: 100 Preserved - 2 Preserved - Operational - 7 Scrapped - 81 Stored - 9 Under Restoration - 1

Length: 17.81 m Mass: 108.00 t Axles: Co-Co Engine: Alco 12-251B Generator: GE 5GT581 Traction Motors: GE731 also AEI253 also AEI254 Power: 1455 kW (1950 HP) Starting Traction: 339 kN Continous Traction: 204 kN at 18 km/h Maximum Speed: 121 km/h

2014_11_30 (Thanks Bluesteel :)

Strewth Another month gone? Its true the older you get the faster your clock spins :(

Apologies to all for forgetting my obligations to this blog. Big things are in the planning but only little things are going on at the minute, thus my tardy lack of entries this last month or so.

Wiring is uninteresting! More so when a fault suddenly crops up and you spend days unplugging circuits to find out where the fault is :(
Breakdowns of equipment just as uninteresting.
Nothing new has turned up.
My dear Mother and Father moved down from the Gold Coast to Narre Warren. Why would you do that ?? So lots of time lost to the railway with trips to Melbourne for visits and other things.

So although lots of things have happened a day goes something like this.

 About 10.00 am  Check one
Turned on the air conditioner a week ago and sprung a leak externally on the roof, and it is fixed now.
So opened up the studio and set the conditioner working whilst I checked the circuits that had played up the night before.

13.8 volts at 3.0 amps Running hot check the volts delivering 3.4 v.  Continuing on from last night I started removing parts of the circuit  starting furthermost away. disconnected Tortoise motors and Digitrax  UP5 connectors (the reason for the circuit. The fault lies on the upper modules, as 13.8v is available on the lower sections when top is disconnected.
Check all connectors, ensure all Tortoise connectors are central and not shorting, and eventually about midday the green all working LED is glowing brightly. No idea what was wrong, tightened up the joints and insulated a few so I must have fixed it doing that.

A Win!! green LED indicates all is well once again.

Make a cuppa.. Grand Daughter wants to watch a movie, so set that up and make us both a sandwich. About 1.00pm back out to a nice cool shed. Whats next?

Nice easy job to start things off. I have an orange CLP and it is much too modern for me, but I did find an AN green and Gold body in the junk box. Lets convert it over and check out the sound unit. Bugger its a Digitrax sound bug, stuff all I can do with that, will have to save up for a new decoder.

Little bit of paint under the step and a globe for the marker lights but that can wait for the new sound chip.

Look at the time its 2.15 so what is next?

Had a dummy 44 Class decided to repower it using a cheap 930 chassis. Had to swap everything into the 44 Class chassis because the 930 one is not going to fit.

Lets find an Alco sound chip for it. For some reason the cab interior and the lighting bar will not fit into place so I need to glue it together. Where are those pegs, so I can put it aside?

932 had clicking wheels, so I made some adjustments to the gearing and it is ready for assembly and fitting sound.

Ok the cab clipped together ok this time. Remove one speaker as the Loksound unit has its own speaker which I sealed into its sound enclosure with Khrystal Kleer and attached into the vacated speaker hole over the rear bogie.

Its 4.15 and the new Loksound Select needs a sound loaded on so that will take an hour at least. It took two hours and as I left for Dinner at 6.30 I finally (after two attempts) got the sound loaded and fitted to the engine.

Tried to multi up the CL and the DL, however after running very well since I fitted the Loksound 710 chip it failed and will need looking at. 

Recent projects Tsunami into the 81 and Loksound micro into the F class

This is the SEM conversion E car now fitted with Auscision wheels. Much better :) The flimsy multi piece SM bogies came apart after a derailment.

Whilst tracing out the earlier wiring fault, I noticed that this point was warped, So I did manage to glue it down under a few bricks, and the job looks like its ok now.

Unfortunately this does not sound anything like my 932, Not sure why not? It is an expensive camera?

Its 1134 and I need a cuppa. Closed up the shed and wrote this page for the blog. Long day and only a little of the backlog of work actually did get done.
But thats working on the Railway for you :D
Cheers
Rod Young