steam!!

OK, it's not modelling, but hey, I got up early to take this shot of Duchess of Sutherland coming north on its way to Scarborough.

Layout progress has mainly involved a trip to Derby to find that the model shop was unexpectedly closed (nothing on their website about this though!). huh!

Have also cut up 3 cereal boxes into strips ready for scenery, attached a piece of plywood under the site of UB114 and filled the resulting difference in height with polyfilla. Have also sawn down the piers of UB114 to the correct height and curavture.

Once the polyfilla is dry overnight, I can then glue the piers of UB114 in and then get the heights of the other piers right and attach them too. Of course, the baby could come and all these best laid plans could come to nothing, but hey that'll be cool too! Tomorrow we are exactly one week past the due date so it's got to come soon....!

Colin

Well, there we are! The layout (4 boards) set up in the garage. Was a great excuse to chuck loads of stuff away too (trip to the local tip ensued) and a chinese takeaway!!

This allows easy access to plan exact track layouts and start glueing down the cork underlay and once UB114 is sorted, the piers for the Fridd Isaf section (nearest the camera and sat on temporary piers to show the 'effect').

It's coming on fast!!! Only 926 days until the real thing opens through to Porthmadog, which is technically my deadline too! Might make it! Colin

more progress

Further good progress today. The platform has been jigsawed from 6mm ply and shaped correctly. The pieces for the trestle 'clamps' are now all cut and ready (one was test assembled and I need to get some slightly longer nails to complete the design v3).

Also the first M10 bolt was cut in half with a new hacksaw (courtesy B+Q)

Tomorrow, after getting the new nails, I'll finish all the clamps and start the massive rearrange of the garage required to put the 4 boards together for the first time and accurately map out the track positioning, before gluing down the platform and cork underlay for the station and curve preceeding Fridd Isaf. Once UB114 is sorted height-wise the piers for the elevated section can be sawn and installed and it will really start to look like a layout!

Colin

NEWS!!!!

Finally an update!!!

Well, with a baby on the way and a bus company to turn around in Bournemouth it's been all work and very little play (i.e. modelling).

However, recently work has restarted at some pace...

- 2 more trestles have been made (I now have 4)
- an ingenious design of clamp has been designe and tested to allow 2 boards to be connected across one trestle, thus saving the total number of trestles required
- the boards have been connected using bolts and wing nuts and holes drilled for this purpose. PS B+Q only sell long M10 bolts, so I still need to hacksaw them in half, however I have broken the saw blade I had, so delaying progress on this.
- suitable plywood has been purchased for the platform and this has been brought indoors for marking up (tomorrow hopefully).
- the piers of UB114 have been sourced and now just need cutting to fit. plasticard mouldings are ready to emulate the concrete bridge sides.

Next steps...

-Get a new hacksaw blade and finish halving the M10 bolts
-Cut out the platform and mark on the possitioning of all track
-Cut out the necessary elevated track on board 2 to bring the fridd isaf section back to baseboard level, probably using polyfilla to complete the ramp.
-Place UB114 and cut the piers to fix the curves into place, keeping gradients sensible
-Complete 6 trestle clamps (I started cutting the pieces today).

Hopefully by the weekend there should have been some serious progress and the layout might even start to look like a layout! But then the baby might come and progress on the modelling front could be no progress. watch this space!