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Week ending 14 July 2024

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Monday at the club had the usual tidying up theme. Inevitably lots of bits were thrown in my workbox at the end.

The only major problem with Pavilion End at the show was the failure of a point mechanism. Its position was too difficult for an immediate fix so the drive has been positioned to come from the rear of the layout instead from under the platform. The next steps are to connect a servo onto the other end, connect the drive, disguise the tube and reposition the ground signal.

On Tuesday Luke came with some lovely NG stock from Bachmann. The loco represents the Alice class from Dinorwic Quarry and the wagons are very good too.

We took the cliched opportunity to contrast two locos, both to 7mm scale – Dave’s 42xx and Luke’s Quarry Hunslet

Friday and a much better attendance than the usual four. There were 8 of us plus one visitor.

On Pavilion End the wire-in-tube drive has been connected up and hot glued in place. It curves around so that the servo can be close to its controlling circuit board to make plugging in easier. The turnout has been tested and all is satisfactory.

When he wasn’t installing point servos TAFKASTYS spent some time grinding away on the goods shed for T’yn y Coedcae blending in some new stonework. With 9 bodies present space was at a premium, so the corridor is being used to work out how to recycle ex-LMJ legs into supports for Luke’s shunting layout, advised by Wagonman.

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The second half of the year starts.

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Monday is our only meeting at the clubrooms this week. Tuesday we’re on Zoom and Friday many of us ar helping Mr C set up Pavilion End at Penarth Exhibition at St Cyres School, Penarth.

Five of us made it to the clubrooms on Monday but with most of us continuing to work on he same projects we have no new photos. Sorry!

Tuesday bought our monthly electronic get together on Zoom and we had presentations from Mike E with his very appealing proposal for an American Short Line layout in 0 scale, a blatant plug for the Industrial Railway Society in the guise of info on the locos of Maritime (Pontypridd) and Varteg collieries from LBH, a fascinating selection of images of terraced houses culled from the web for research into window frame painting practice in the ’50s from Mr C and a fine collection of railway and family pictures from Stephen Bell.

The second half of the year starts. Read More »

GBVs Pontnewynydd (twice), Rhymney and York

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First up this blog is this poster print of York that has been bequeathed to the club by Rowena, the widow of our founder member, club stalwart and Secretary, Tony Bennett.

York held special place in Tony’s affections having spent his student days there.

The Wizard is still working on the Rhymney Goods Brake Van in Scaleseven

Andrew N has recently completed his second Pontnewynydd break van in P4, the first, on the left is from an ancient Falcon Brass kit, the one on the right is a recent product from the 247 Developments stable. Here is the story of the latest build.

Tuesday and more work on the doors and windows for the terrace. The green door has come out very dark because of the red primer. Perhaps the white primed one would have been better. The white of the window frames is too stark, so the second frame has been overpainted with light grey, thought it’s come out looking cream.

Last seen back in mid-May as basically a flat pack the GWR Hawksworth autocoach has been put together by Wagonman. There’s a lot of detail on both ends because of the autogear. Windows, couplings and paint will come next.

Friday

Work on the terrace continues with the pavement to the front. The grey primer is being overpainted with a white / grey acrylic mix. The laser cut edges to the flags made it easier to run the paint up to the edges.

And LBH almost finished a wagon – in this case a NDR (aka A(N&SW)DRCo) two-plank example with the help of Bernie’s paint job. Just couplings remaining to be fitted.

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Layout Room Developments

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With the introduction of daytime meetings on Monday afternoons we found the red curtains often opened providing us with too little privacy. So we decided to apply a frosted-effect film to the inside of windows.

Having applied the film to the windows in the layout room we found an unplanned consequence – the red-wash that permeated everything in the room (see 16 June blog) has been replaced by a for more appealing natural light colour during our daytime meetings.

Before
After

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Week ending 16 June 2024

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An all-clubroom week this week.

Not many model photos from Monday, despite a good attendance.

TAFKATYS has made some progress on the Goods Shed for Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae and it is seen here in situ. Don’t be misled by the cerise hue; it’s an effect of the light passing through the curtains during a rare spell of sunshine.

A review of period images of south Wales’ pubs, principally here showed that rendered pubs were generally painted a very pale colour, probably while with the lowest 3-4 foot being a dark colour, probably black. Hence the repainting we see here and the mock up of the finishing,

The regular reader will notice the name change, chose to reference the Abergavenny location and its association with Crawshay Bailey, Junior.

Mike E brought along a whitemetal kit for a Midland 2P – a typical S & D loco. it was something unearthed from a cupboard. You can see the date on the wonderful instructions. Mike claims probably bought it about 20 years ago.

On Tuesday Mr Chairman continued to battle with the 4MT. A new hole has been drilled in a more convenient spot for the wires and leaving space for the connecting plug and socket. (under the centre axle)

But bits keep coming adrift. The black locating tab by the rear axle came off and resisted both butanone and superglue. It’ll have to be araldite next.

By Friday the low level light black paint had been applied, but it’ll need to be toned down before we’re finished.

And the lean-to, which will eventually be at the other end of the terrace, gained corrugated-iron roof.

For the row of houses a start has been made on some of the details. The chip shop frontage has been put together and awaits priming.

The ‘fret’ to the right are the parts for doors and windows of a single house. The door is three layers and the windows two. The glazing will be two separate pieces attached to the back, and I haven’t worked out yet how to do an open window.

The wiring is nearly complete on the 4MT with a plug attached to the tender sub-chassis. Having done some fiddly soldering in there I was keen to give it a test run. I thought trying to get the last two wires in (from the tender pickups) was pushing my luck. The test was successful, it still runs smoothly.

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Week ending 9 June 2024

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Bank holidays and half term over we got back to normal this week with five attending in Monday.

The terrace on ABB with be bookended by a chippie, with a small lean-to and a pub, both will be finished in render to contrast to the brick-built cottages.

Tuesday saw seven of us chatting on Zoom and presentation covered Richmond (NER) and Simla (SKR). Hopefully next month Mike E will chat about modelling US shortlines in 1:48.

Our resident Wizard has made substantial progress on a GWR County Tank with the aid of an 88D Models kit.

By Friday a bit of progress had been made on The Two Gongs.

After a period of storage this 4MT is back on the workbench for attention. Having established that the chip is damaged the hunt was on for a suitable location for the new one. Previously it was tight on top of the motor and it probably got too hot. There is no further space in the boiler as it is full of lead, so it looks like it’s got to be in the tender. There’ll be long leads to the motor which is right behind the smokebox.

The tender has a compensated sub-chassis which needs to come away to get access for the chip. Handling this managed to dislodge one of the pick-ups which can be seen dangling at the front. By the time that had been glued back in place the one on the other side had fallen off!

Week ending 9 June 2024 Read More »

Week ending 2 June 2024

An extremely short report this week. The meetings planned for Monday and Friday were cancelled as there were too few available attendees.

Tuesday’s did go ahead and we discussed and mocked up operation on a possible P4 layout.

Elsewhere Mike E exhumed this wonderful Chapel from Cwm Du and we are considering how it may be reused.

Week ending 2 June 2024 Read More »

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