Author name: Rodney Hall

Tar Works wall and a PBV

Wagonman’s progress is unrelenting – he has just started on an ex-NER Passenger Brake Van based on a D&S kit.

Tke long-running saga of the Tar Works wall is approaching its denouement having been stuck down. We probably need a little more to show of the works itself now. Out of shot Paul 🥇 was painting the fascia, MrC was assembling cassettes as well as continuing with the GBV and Luke was preparing the name baord.

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Wednesday

LBH snuck into the clubrooms again and laid the short length of track into the Goods Shed and disda bit of ballasting.

He also completed assembling the ground frame (although he managed to break one of the levers). Need to paint one lever blue and one white now.

Progress with the ADR goods brakevan.

After a few failures it was possible to bend the handrails reasonably accurately and solder in place.

Later on the duckets were fitted and all handrails too. That leaves door handles on the sides and lamp brackets on the ends

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Tuesday

A quiet night in terms of numbers attending but nevertheless good progress made. MrC worked on a Goods Brake Van in Scaleseven (really enjoying all those handrails) and our Wizard painted the sleepers and chairs on the new track for the Goods Shed. Fred uses a combination of four colours (in this instance) to get the variations in hue found in chairs – a tin of ‘track colour’ is not the same thing!

Elsewhere LBH worked on a ground frame for Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae and Andrew J on a signal box for Lyne Road

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Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae Goods Shed

Away from the clubrooms TAFKATYS is beavering away on a Goods Shed for Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae and, to help with laying things out in an area where real estate is at a premium he provided LBH with the footprint, which was then transferred onto an Amazon card envelope. In the accompanying images the card indicates the outline of the shed and the position on the track has been drawn on it.

The buffer stop on the middle line is to be removed to provide rail access into the shed (this was always the plan) but there is a pinch point between the corner of the goods shed and the buffer stop on the other siding. Our eagle-eyed chairman noted that the buffer stop earmarked for removal was a bit shorter than its neighbour. So by transferring the short buffer stop over and removing three sleepers of track from the siding the pinch point was eased and the three-wagon capacity could be retained (just!). Hurrah!

Here’s the result of the night’s changes with the footprint the shed no longer impinging on the fiddle yard board, the rule is on the line of the track that will be laid into the shed and the buffer stop is fixed in its new position. LBH is happy with the outcome but unfortunately rather nice short lengths of wall and fence had to be removed.

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Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae update

 Paul🏅had been doing sterling work building the fascia and lighting enclosure for Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae.

Our resident Wizard has been steadily painting the chairs over several weeks; this view contrasts favourably with that of the grey chairs on New Year’s Day.

Also to be seen here are ground surface work and the new wooden boundary fence.

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Week-ending 12th January 2024

Mr Chairman has been busy finishing some huts for Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae. Working clockwise from the top:

The woodwork on an original Pol Sands hut has been repainted to match a the new Edwardian period.

LBH assembled a 422 Modelmaking Timber Platelayers’ Hut kit and Mr C ‘repaired’ a broken batten and painted it.

Finally MrC has revived an earlier model of a scratch built wooden hut. In its original location the rear wasn’t visible, so wasn’t finished to the same standard as the rest. However on Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae it’ll be both viewer-facing and close to the front so an upgrade is needed. MrC ingeniously sourced the thin wooden sheet from Camembert packaging.

Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae fiddle yard and a tale of two glues, Paul🏅manfully overcame the effects of the solvent of the contact adhesive used to fix the formica while LBH was a tad heavy-handed with the Resin W bottle leading to a spill not too dissimilar in appearance to a Christmas cake.

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Curry Night!

Friday 5th January we held our traditional Yuletide curry.

Not wanting to eat on an empty stomach our evening commenced at the Red Lion.
The lighting at our chosen restaurant, Hatti, gives an unfortunate hue to photos taken there. We’re not really poorly!

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New Years Day

Only two were in attendance, Mr Chairman and LBH, both working on Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae. MrC on ballasting and the control panel and LBH on scenics.

In the foreground we can see where MrC is ballasting, but it’s more difficult to pick out where LBH is adding wire (actually elastic filament) to the further fence.

The old Pol Sands control panel has to be moved to a new box. As you can see from the shot of the rear the buttons will unscrew but 15mm holes will be needed in the new box. The largest drill available was 10mm so the crude use of a reamer took that up to 12mm, then the even cruder file work got 15mm – ish holes. The finished result is below, though the lines need to be drawn in properly.

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