Other works progressed though, with Luke turning his attentions from the body of his 0-4-0T to its chassis. A write-up of Luke’s build can be found in the Scaleseven Group website here.
Friday also saw TAFKATYS arrive with the planned control panel for Cwm Carno. After discussion the uncoupling magnet positions are settled and by Sunday it’s been completed.
Work continued on the trackbed on Cwm Carno, which is now fixed in place.
When we got the framework laser cut, thanks to TAFKATYS’s prescience, we also got a set of alignment gauges made to check the we had the correct elevation difference and that we hadn’t introduced a warp into the trackbed.
Elsewhere we worked on reviving and old Mainline pannier tank, uniting an elderly brass chassis with a modern Bachmann body. The chassis will need a bit of TLC and the body a bit of detailing and weathering but it should provide a useful loco for Cwm Carno.
Mr Chairman sorted out a problem that we had with one of the servo motors that move the uncoupling magnets on ABB. It was working in the wrong sense, that is normally in the up/uncoupling position, this was sorted out by swapping over the blue and orange cables inside the control box.
Continuing the etched brass tank engine meme from last week, Rhobat, with the helpful Wizard’s eye, is also essaying his first loco, in this case a Hunslet Jazzer kit in OO from the CSP range.
Meanwhile LBH converted a B&MR PBV to S7. Now it needs some serious weathering!
Tuesday evening we largely concentrated on runs-through of the ABB table honing a few items here and there. Wagonman continued to work on his ex-CM&DP pannier tank, the Wizard on a diesel (a Peak perhaps), and LBH on a gearbox for a 2-4-0T.
Friday and the next job to do on Cwm Carno was to cut the plywood for the track- and river beds. The initial idea was to extract the positions of the edges on the trackbed at 150 mm intervals from the drawing below.
That approach wasn’t welcomed by the club carpenter, Paul S!
Instead, we had already obtained a full-size print of the layout drawing for planning purposes, so we drilled small holes through it to plywood below marking the borders of the beds. Then by ‘joining up the dots’ we were able to use a jigsaw to the correct outline. Here we see the river bed in place, but not yet fixed.
And here’s the trackbed placed on the frame. The top of the picture is the top of the valley with, from the left, ‘mainline’, headshunt and colliery screens.
There are adjustments to make at the entry and exit points.
Meanwhile in the workroom a small parade of locos was assembled.; two pannier tanks and two 56xx’s. From left to right we have the Ditton Priors tank that’s featured before, two 4mm scale tanks from Mike E’s stable (which ran much better after the wheels had been thoroughly cleaned) and a brand new Minerva Models 7mm 56xx. This last belongs to Ed who in true Newport fashion has his feet in both the 4mm and 7mm camps.
Monday saw us starting to glue together the baseboard for Cwm Carno,
By the end of the afternoon we had glued the perimeter, with a number of strengthening blocks added the joints. And we see Mr Chairman applying some PVA.
And Rhobat is making a hut for Cwm Carno, the roof is yet to finished.
Gluing and clamping continued on Tuesday along with discussion of materials for the trackbase and its fixing.
While all this was in progress we did our first practise timetable with ABB. There were the expected usual issues with coupling/uncoupling, otherwise it was satisfactory. The slightly revised timetable was better, though it would have helped if the signalman, yard and driver all had the same version.
Friday, and five of us chose to not watch Wales trying to play rugby. The Cwm Carno baseboard had dried nicely and was light and rigid enough for an ancient club member to lift by himself. It was on its way to being inverted, so that the last strengthening pieces could be glued underneath with assistance from Luke.
Meanwhile, back in the workroom;
Wagonman continues with the Ditton Priors pannier tank and brought along photos of it at Newport Dock Street in the 50’s.
Luke has the boiler test-fitted in place and the bunker completed.
The Welsh Wizard continued working on a pannier tank that needed TLC.
On Monday a little reorganising was done. With the components for the Jubilee Challenge / Cwm Carno baseboards due to arrive this week, possibly, a work-surface was created to enable construction at a reasonable height rather than grovelling on the floor. Care was take to get it nice and flat.
It apparently didn’t occur to Poppy’s Woodtech that anyone would be daft enough to build a 7’6″ wheelbase wagon, but, yes, LBH is quite daft enough so the jig is being modified with an extra slot at 6′ to provide 7’6″ in combination with the +1’6″ slot.
In the background you can see the Gilvach (sic) wagon patiently awaiting its axleguards.
By the time Tuesday arrived plans had changed slightly and ABB needed to be erected, which with 8 weeks until its appearance at Ally Pally was a good move too. It was levelled (with some effort) and successfully tested for trackwork. Next will come uncoupling checks and cleaning.
Further vegetation for ABB appeared too.
Friday the laser-cut parts for the Jubilee Challenge/Cwm Carno were delivered chez LBH. And with the aid of Fred and his van transported to the club.
Within a few minutes the packing was opened revealing the fifty-odd components of the baseboard framework.
And just a further few minutes later the components fell together with surprising speed and ease, much to everyone’s (especially LBH’s) relief.
There a few errors that will need to be sorted out before the pieces are glued together. Mr Chairman and LBH can be seen plotting remedial action.
Perhaps Storm Bert deterred a few this week, but we had four members present and two guests, Phil and Cory, good to see you.
Dave is still working on the short wheelbase coal wagons and we took the opportunity to pose some of them with LBH’s Manning Wardle Class I, the B&MR’s Lady Cornelia, which was built thirty years ago, on Llanastr.
Not entirely coincidently the image is not so different from this, taken at the Rhymney Iron Works probably in the 1880s
Operating Llanastr at the open day threw up some issues with the track alignment between the baseboards, so after 40 years we thought it might be timely fix some proper dowels. Here is Paul discharging the drill’s battery to this end.
Tuesday and numbers are up to 8 today. But despite the number of people there were periods of studious silence when we were just getting on with modelling. Perhaps that was due to the drill battery going flat so PaulS had less to do.
Luke continues work on his Loriot, now applying buffers and ABB was moved into the workroom for attention to the electrics by TAFKATYS. We are hopeful for some test running on Friday.
Friday and numbers were back to normal, with Fred, Paul 🏅🏅, Mr Chairman, Luke, Wagonman and LBH all making an appearance.
The operation of Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae’s fiddle yards at Statfold proved problematic, with the operators unable to view the front of the layout so see what was happening.
So we’ve decided to try operation from the front. This necessitated removal of the board on the front of the Fiddle Yard above approx 1″ the surface, which Paul did on Friday.
Having got the Loroit to the paintshop, Luke is now working on a model T railcar. Or more exactly a pair of them to work back to back. Here’s the result of the first 30 mins work.
The Southern U class progresses on Wagonman’s workbench. The smokebox, boiler and firebox are now joined as one piece.
Monday was a quiet afternoon following the trip to Statfold Barn. To keep himself amused Mr. Chairman painted up some 4mm figures to go on ABB. One point noted at Scaleforum was that some locos did not have a crew on the footplate, or even a cab floor. Some of those in the picture are not true enginemen but in the cab of a tank engine are you going to notice?
Tuesday was better attended and Wagonman brought along the latest project – a SR U class mogul from a David Andrews kit. As you can see the tender went together well. This will be one of those engines that ran on the MSWJ line wandering south down to Andover and eventually Southampton.
Turning to narrow gauge, Luke has worked on a couple of purchases. The tiny diesel has had new pickups and after a bit of fettling and track cleaning began to run very well. The Talyllyn loco, Dolgoch, has been stripped ready for a repaint, though there is still work to do. Both of these are to 7mm scale running on 00 track.
As has been trailed for a while we took ABB to Scaleforum this year.
En route we called in at the Didcot Railway Centre
We stopped for lunch.
Local Hero, Trojan, performed well
A Prairie sizzled
Trojan shuffled wagons and delighted us
The Castles looked OK
ABB got erected
The terrace fitted in well
The station operator’s view.
R&R after a long day
At the actual show we tend to be busy and forget to take pictures. Here’s one from later on Sunday.
No. 4 is collecting full coal wagons from the siding to take into the off-scene factory. Earlier in the sequence it had deposited empties in the same siding.
And of course, we can’t let an exhibition pass without the customary cold tea toast.
Here we see, L to R, Mr Chairman, LBH, Paul🏅🏅, TAFKATYS, Andrew N, Wagonman and Jonathan.
With Scaleforum getting closer more attention to preparation of stock, getting the ground surface ready for the terrace and tweaking and practicing the timetable on ABB.
Meanwhile Rhobat made some fascinating finds among his late father’s model collection …
This whitemetal GWR ex-Barry Class G 0-4-4T in OO. Rhobat plans to repaint in Barry Crimson
See the 4 August post for more on the Barry G class or click on Barry in the tags above to get all the Barry related posts.
and this pair of GWR Steam Railmotors, also in OO. Little is known of their origins.
Five of us attended Guildex in Stafford, and LBH made a few purchases:
A pair of S7 wagons, which on later examination proved to be sprung but had become gummed up. A few minutes attention freed up the axleboxes and they ran well.
They came in LMS livery, which LBH is removing to allow repainting in Midland colours.
And this Brecon and Merthyr Composite, superbly painted by Dave Studley. Luckily the conversion to Scaleseven was a quick and simple wheel swap.
Paul S has been sorting out the ground levels in preparation for the planting of the terrace Mr Chairman is working on.
Thursday saw an extra session snuck in, again for preparation for ABB‘s trip to Scaleforum – the throws of signal arms were adjusted, wheels were cleaned, routing macros were corrected, a fiddle yard casette split into two match traffic demands
Friday and Mike E arrived with his latest bargain. Only three of these prototypes were built by the Southern, with both 3rd rail and pantograph pick-up. The pantograph does actually unfold. Also the cab lights turn on, though it’s not apparent in the shot.
Mike E has also designed and fitted laser-cut window frames on the ABB Villas.
Mr Chairman has spent a while on the window furnishings on the terrace to good effect.
Seeing LBH struggling with the boiler fittings on ADR 14, and knowing that it’d be great to run it at Warley at Statfold, our resident Wizard kindly offered to fit the fittings and has also done a wonderful job of cleaning it up and removing LBH’s extensive extraneous solder.
Sunday and Mr Chairman has completed a trial assembly of the terrace.
Monday afternoon showed quite a good attendance at the club but little found its way in front of the camera
Preparations are naturally intensifying before ABB goes to Scaleforum. In a desperate last gasp effort LBH thinks he has fixed the problem with one of his S7 Victory class.
The ABB preparations include glueing in the structure for the long terrace taking care to get everything vertical. The laser cut parts are so accurate that a layer of primer paint has to be filed off before they will slide together.
You can see there are a couple of really early-bird customers in the chip shop waiting for a fresh batch of chips.
Tuesday and a Zoom session. Rhobat took us through the development of Caerphilly Works by the Rhymney Railway, then Steve B emerged from several internet rabbit holes with pictures of various sorts of gear-driven engines.
An extra quick session on Wednesday saw the final wall in front of the semis installed.
By Friday Mr Chairman had completed a lot of work on the terrace, which is starting to look the part ….
And the Chip Shop
A rake of ex-LMS stock, built by Mike G was put through its paces and passed with flying colours.
And the recent work of the cottages was blended in and the fencing given some weathering
