2016_05_31 very quiet, but?

2016_05_31 Auscision really goes for my wallet!

Southern Aurora

Better get some track down to run it on!

Could this be ready for Caulfield, even if they already signed it off?
Cheers
Rod

2016_05_27 The wet has arrived

2016_05_27  Wallpaper eh Back sheets again?

BACK drops again!! My local Bunnings store paint manager, is a liberated Pom ;) He brought his family here after spending years painting and wall papering homes in England. He has never been available for a chat until now. "In England we still use oil based paints. The reason is that some of our houses are so old and the weather is so damp anyway that we need to properly seal the walls and plastic paint just does not cut it."
Most wall papering, he says, goes right over the top of old wall paper, and in very old houses it can grow to half an inch thick. The new glue seals up the old paper and its good for many more years. It acts as an insulation as well. New homes get oil based top coats to ensure the damp is sealed out and if required wallpaper can be applied. Strangely it is difficult to buy oil based paints here, and I guess damp is not usually a problem?

Without a doubt, I need to paint the plaster walls with oil based paint. I think he was suggesting that this means undercoat as top coats are acrylic? Apparently lightly sanding the existing plastic and mixing the blue colour into flat undercoat will do the job. Just another $57 for paint with 8 litres of unused paint to get rid of :(

The Murray Railway Modellers Exhibition 2016
Our exhibition this year was very successful again this year. I have been lost in action during this busy time and spent three days with the Exhibition.
Our major sponsor was Austrains again, and about an hour before closing Sunday he announced it was his best ever show here breaking records for all small Exhibitions.

Our huge collection of Australian HO and books went well, however a lot of the collection is still to be moved. Not sure what they will do now.

Cheers
Rod

2016_05_21 Down by the station....

2016_05_21  Down by the station Four little engines all lined up in a row ;)

oop's that's not what we are doing here? However each of these engines needs one of these :)

Water Tanks!

With the silver Trainbuilder one, I think that's about it for water tanks :)
These were express delivered to me from the smoke a the Exhibition
Its a great job from a new supplier, I think you will agree!

Check out their FB site here.......
Section-8-Model-Railway

Cheers
Rod

2016_05_19 Playing with the new engine.

2016_05_19  Package in mail, and found some old friends.

So the E Tank loco arrived. First a test on DCC, then start stripping it down for DCC. Plenty of room too. So will have to see if sound is an option :)

These heavy little tanks hauled Melbourne's passenger services prior to electrification. They ended their lives in the 60's as yard shunting engines.

Service and test it before converting to DCC.
It is abit twitchy at the moment, mainly because of pick ups, and a possible short. I have checked with Brian Chester to find out any sugestions he might have for the conversion. Tweaked the pick ups and it does run better.

Pretty simple little things, appear to have enough room for a WoW to Ha Ha.

Fine Scale Models N Class

After reading another FB page I was reminded that I had these lovely little engines :)

They were white metal and brass kits. I must listen and see how they run, I remember that they were noisy.

Their still in the DCC queue where they have sat for over 8 years. Another job to do :(
Cheers
Rod

2016_05_17 (Stepping Back) and working on track circuits and signalling.

2016_05_17  Well the damage to the back scenes has gone no further. Sheet one is rippled and needs replacement, however sheet two is quite acceptable, making me think that a brand new unused sheet two might go on perfectly with what we have learned. But stepping back for a little while.

So what has happened whilst this wall scene drama has been escalating. Not a lot

Wiring:-    As the wiring has been changed so many times, I am bound to find problems. This happened a few weeks back when I found the branch line was shorting out. Not enough to set of circuit breakers. But a certain amount of warmth was found in some heavy wires.
Disconnecting them stopping the short and then carefully adding the droppers back into the circuit locatied at least three insulation problems and I have not reached the end yet.

I found that when the wiring was removed some track sections were still live. Bullioh was getting an unwanted + feed from the north and a - feed from the other end.
Then I found some droppers had been connected to locally protected circuits and others had somehow been joined to the DCC bus lines. This of course bypassed the local circuit breakers.

So I gradually removed duplicated feeds and got everything to go to where it was designed to go. Just a few droppers to solder in place and that maintenance work will be finished
Signals and Detection
I also started locating some San Mateo Signals.  They are pretty good. The only problem I have found is that these signals use a common negative and the nice Australian made detectors I found on EBay are DCC compliant. This QLD supplier is going to fool around with his circuit and see if he can modify it to be common negative. What a champion! I am pretty sure some others out there might like to buy a San Mateo detector from a local business that shows a lot of care for his potential customer

You can find him here
jonesaj73 EBay Account

The new baby....  E Class
I also noticed an E Tank loco was offered for sale on Face Book. Of course I asked to get second  offer if the first guy did not go on with it. I was offered the engine on the basis that the seller wanted funds in a few days, and that is how I bought this....

And as I don't think this is a loco that will not make it in plastic in my time, I am happy with the opportunity :)  Looks pretty nice I reckon?
Cheers
Rod

2016_05_16 So thats the best I can do!

2016_05_16  This is about where you walk away :(

Whether it be that you just can't recover a damaged sheet, meaning we will have more success if we try to fit a new sheet?  But I think I am over this. My background wishes are pretty much history today.

without flash, just room light

Flash shows what it really looks like

Pulling it off wall with heat, and re applying glue, takes the large crease out.
heating it up also takes it out.
But two hours later it is right back again.
We used a new craft type spray adhesive, spraying both surfaces as well as leaving go tacky.
I was a horror to put on, because you had to glue it to a line, which meant pulling it away to keep it straight.
All pictures taken one after the other and the room temperature was 14C at 51% humidity.
Cheers
Rod

2016_05_14 More Back Scenes!

2016_05_14 Graeme must be a masochist ;)

At about 9.30 he is banging on the door again and so we had our wake up coffee. Retired folk don't need to get up at these early hours do we?
Ha Ha I was ready for him, actually and already had  removed the sheets and started to remove the glue of the wall.
We found some sugar soap and scrubbed it clean and I used a dry cloth to rub the rubber of the sheets. They came up very well, with only one small tear.
Some pictures  just after dark that night follow.

This was taken with flash, and so at first look, we might have done it?

Some of the original creases have reappeared :(
But we were worried about them from the start, and so no real surprise. I think a new sheet might go on far better than these sheets that have already been pulled off the wall.

So I heated up the paper with a hand held heat gun, and all of the creases disappeared as before and the glue seemed to be still sticky, so I rolled them flat once more, and sprayed the whole sheet with clear matt medium to see if I could stiffen it up . It appeared to work

Rolled flat painted with clear matt (and no flash this time!)
I guess if it sets like this we will have achieved our goal?

Cheers
Rod

2016_05_13 (part2) SDS Sill less GY's

2016_05_13    Well look at that,Steve's long awaited G and GY vehicles finally arrived.

SDS Models

Pretty model with good proportions except for  the fact that they feel light. They may be ok, almost certainly are, however the Orient Models Productions OBF weighs almost exactly the same, and does need a metal weight that is placed on the floor (neat fit) of an unloaded wagon, it is painted to hide it away. I will let you know how these go without the extra weight. 

Interestingly I started to compare the Auscision GY to the SDS one and got a fright when I saw the difference in the leaf spring suspension, but as usual Steve and the fellas at SDS got it right.. See here..  EDIT: The Auscision GY leaf springs are also correct and match the version of the GY they modeled. I did not realize the springs varied over the different series of wagons.

from SDS pages.

Love these, next pay I will buy a few more :)
Cheers
Rod

2016_05_13 Home! (with goodies :)

2016_05_13 Went shopping in Albury the other day, came home empty handed apart from some insulated rail joiners and body filler from Albury Hobby shop. The Art shop had closed down, so all I did was waste time looking for it.

However I headed for Bendigo to visit Tony and one of Victoria's best hobby shops and came home with bags of goodies. Cost $55 for Diesel, but sadly Wodonga and local businesses just don't cut it, and missed out on over $500 in sales. :(

Bendigo Model Railway Shop

Home at last with three parcels. Made the mistake of going back to hobby shop on Thursday, didn't I ;)

Not much here, just some fences, cork and peco pits for the  engine shed. large gates (and "OO" large at that :(

But I did notice that SDS sill less GY's were in stock. Really nice models (more later) Got some nice coal that is very regular looking, and I will load into some of those G's and see if they look like briquettes?

 The Bendigo Art store was easy to find, unlike the Albury one, had great authorative staff and had what I needed as well.

Pity about not being able to help out the locals at home, but they don't seem to care, do they?

Cheers
Rod

2016_05_10 Change of Pace

2016_05_10  Spent the day on wiring :) A change!

Had some droppers hanging that needed connecting in. Also found some redundant cables that could be removed. Also as this Railway has 5 Digitrax Command Stations, I altered the outputs to better reflect the power progression around the layout. Found the reason for the loss of power to the branch line, and started setting out the new points in Trentham.

It was rather productive.  :)

Al had glued some waste back scene down before he departed Sunday, and it has remained in place without wrinkling up. So it might be a win for us.

Heading for Bendigo tonight, not expected to return home till Saturday. So it will be quiet here for a while. Looking to pick up some SDS Gy's tomorrow at the Hobby Shop

Cheers
Rod

2016_05_08 (con) a few hours later!

2016_05_08  Still raining and had visitors from Corowa........

We probably solved the back scene problem?  Goes a bit like this  (Read the instructions)   :D
I think I share a problem with most people. How many of us read the small print?

The instructions say spray or brush the adhesive on, but further down (the part we obviously did not read) it adds a few extra important bits, that may have caused all the problems.

The spray adhesive we first used, was a commercial product for trades folk and the instructions were minimal. However the craft shop adhesive (which we did not use actually explained how to use it properly.
The same with Elmers glue.

This can of craft adhesive says clearly that you can have temporary bonds and permanent bonds.

This one the 3M pro product says apply whilst tacky, which we did.

Elmer's Glue says the same as the craft adhesive coat both surfaces for permanent fix, or one side for temporary fix.

It seems to me that Terry and Al may have solved our problem.
What do you think Graeme?
Cheers
Rod

2016_05_08 iIt rains, in fact its pouring.

2016_05_08 Humidity 54% inside 13C outside 14C

And I am walking away from this for a while. Going to concentrate on laying track. It has beaten me for now.

Its very damp outside. I sealed up all the aircon vents and closed all the windows, and when I looked in this morning, it did not seem too bad. However close inspection showed that ......

Nothing has changed.....

Only thing I can do now, is find out if a water proofing treatment for paper is available.....
or how much it would cost to copy the scenes onto adhesive backed vinyl? or even a thicker paper?
This stuff might work all right in a house or perhaps even in England, but its a real handful in a shed.
My friend Colin in NSW cut the 5 foot lengths into halves and used a smaller height sheet, and did not have these problems.
...................   But its time to change directions for a while and finish off the bench work and start laying track. :)
Cheers
Rod

2016_05_07 The battle heats up!

2016_05_07  The war cabinet has planned the battle, and the troops have been sent in.....

The first sortie at 1030 am was delayed by bulging in the landscape which was to be suspected.

And so the heavy guns were brought in to soften up the battle field

The hand held heat gun was used to counter spot incursions and the 200 watt heated artillery was brought to bear to soften things up.

And wasnt too long before the countryside was pacified and the battle of the bulge was called a Victory.  The troops mopped up and fixed the edges back down using Elmer once again. The heat gun sorted out a few local problems along the way.

Unfortunately the camera was not used to record the pacification treatment, when we sprayed the battle ground with clear matt  to fix the scene and allow the Army to move on.

The damage was well contained, just a slight gap here (behind the silos)

After the clear sealer was applied the heater was again used to make sure the spray did not alter the shape of the paper before drying and sealing.

And as I write the heat is kept up to make sure it is thoroughly pacified.

oops Elmer has let go a little on the edges. The hand held heat gun seems to fix that problem.
As the Army march off for a victory drink at the wet canteen, we can only wait to see what happens overnight. It has to be that the paper is absorbing moisture. Humidity has been mid range for a few weeks. Will the land remain pacified? We will have to wait and see :D
This is battle group Charlie Tango 345 signing out!
Cheers
Rod Young 

2016_05_06 Life gets in the way.

2016_05_06 Trying to update some temporary wiring....

In between household chores, doctors appointments and other distractions.
Got screamed at by the Dietician (Hi Janet :)
And they are still trying to get me to eat like a Rabbit :(
Today I picked up a nice little laptop for the shed (JMRI etc) which will hopefully help lighten the load where my Medion note pad is so damn slow.

As well I got this...

Supposed to be safe on photographs and paper? Not supposed to yellow and allows the painted surface to be wiped with a damp cloth.

No changes out here though! At 8.30am on the 5th May.

 at midday!

and at about 4.00pm

Cheers
Rod