Sunday, January 11, 2009

Wendy House and Merddin update

Hi,

Firstly, I have been doing more work on the 'wendy house' station shelter for Rhyd Ddu.  The sides will be laminated from 30 thou plasticard and evergreen board / batten.  This is the setup used by Geoff Taylor, so I thought it sounded sensible.  

However the windows need to be flush with the outer surface, so they are a friction fit against the board/batten sheet with the 30 thou sheet just acting as a stiffener.  Basically the board/batten window aperture is cut smaller and then filed to ensure a snug fit.  

The apertures for the windows in the 30 thou sheet need not be so accurate however and indeed need to be slightly larger than the window itself to avoid showing through. 

The back has been completed in board/batten as a trial and the 30 thou plasticard bases for the other sides have also been cut out (tonight).  The door has been glued to the 30 thou base layer and will have a frame added around asap (thin evergreen strip).  The next job is to complete the board and batten for the sides and ends and then think about the roof - I will be using wills slate sheet for that plus ridge tiles.

Meanwhile at the Gloucestershire works, Dad has completed a necessary alteration to Merddin.  

To enable extra space for the motion, the cylinders have been packed out from the frames. Backwoods do encourage this and apparently this issue was tackled on Taliesin by including this packing within the kit (although it does mean that the kit is not quite to scale).  I would always prefer a slightly out of scale engine though if it means it runs better!  

Images below, the white packing will of course be painted black.  The engine is in the early stages of painting.





Colin

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I was thinking of getting a double Fairlie from Backwoods (Even though Roco are doing a RTR).
What are the running qualities without the packing?

Is it plasticard?
Cannot tell from the picture as they won't size up.

Thanks.
Garry

Colin Lea said...

Hi Garry, frankly it won't run as the clearance between the rods and slidebar equals nothing. The packing is absolutely necessary and is indeed plasticard although thick brass would also do.

will wait and see on the roco thing, I start sceptical...

Colin

Anonymous said...

Hi Colin,

I suspect we will be able to get 2 or even 3 Backwoods kits for the price of the Roco Fairlie. If indeed it reaches the shops.

Is there a lot of bending work on the Fairlie (curves that is not right angles) as I need to practice more of that. I wonder if Taliesin would be a good way to build up the skills.

I already have the Backwoods Penryhn Hunslet kit, just about to order 2 more plus Russell and maybe one other, either single or double Fairlie

Garry

Colin Lea said...

I don't think there is a lot more bending than on Tal really, just more of it - the joggle in the footplate is done 4 times, instead of 2 etc. The cab roof is quite tricky but there's only one of those at least!

I've never done a backwoods before and started with Tal - indeed I think because of the clearance issue and because of the fact it's smaller, it's a good kit to start with...

Colin

AER said...

Looks very nice.

Did you paint your power bogie before fitting the wheels? I'm at the crucial stage just before fitting mine and I'm wondering about painting before doing this. I'd rather not have to mess about with the bogie once I've got it running sweetly.

Colin Lea said...

no, but it would have been easier to do so.