What's the biggest mess up you've made on your layout . . . . . . .

Gary Burcombe · October 03, 2016, 09:34:03 AM

. . . . . that you're willing to adnit to here?

I ask this question because of the massive blonde moment I had recently. Due to the time gaps between working on the layout I (unwittingly) changed the wiring convention in my head between different boards.
My layout currently consists of one very old board, built years ago (no scenery) and six new ones. The mistake I made was that the old board didn't have a proper red and black wire to the track colour coding, so on the next two boards built I adopted "red to the rear" rail convention. You know whats coming next already don't you? Yes, months later when time was available, I built the next four boards with "black to the black", DOH! So when the grand moment came to play, I mean test, when the loco tried to cross the join it simply stopped. It took only a few minutes of investigation to realise what I'd done, boy did I feel stupid! My wife came to inquire if I was seriously hurt due to the expletives and profanity emanating from my loft. "Only my pride my love, only my pride". Anyway, only a week or so later it is all now "black at the back" and it works.

NeMo · October 03, 2016, 10:25:37 AM

As a youngster decided to use salt on my 00 layout to represent snow. Looked lovely until everything rusted solid. Didn't help the layout was in a cold, damp shed!

My current "wish I had an undo button" situation was trying to clean a faulty Dapol 58. Easy enough to take apart, and the insides were awash with green grease. But no idea how to reassemble it! E-mail now sent off to DCC Supplies...

Cheers, NeMo

Karhedron · October 03, 2016, 10:43:33 AM

Not wiring every single section of rail independently and relying on fishplates for connection. All worked beautifully until the track was weathered and ballasted but now I have lots of intermittent dead sections where paint or glue has seeped into the fishplates and turned them into insulators.

My current plan is to simply solder the offending joins together. The layout is a fairly short end-to-end affair so expansion should not be too much of a problem.

silly moo · October 03, 2016, 10:58:29 AM

My first layout featured a harbour and I decided to use the Woodland Scenics 'water' that comes in a packet of plastic beads that you heat up on the stove.

There wasn't enough of it to start off with so there was a big area with no 'water' and a whole lot leaked onto the carpet

I wasn't very popular.

The 'water' that was there set rock solid and I had to chip it out with a chisel. When I got rid of it all I used painted plaster of Paris which I varnished, that worked well.

I've always be very wary of resin type products ever since.

cjdodd · October 03, 2016, 11:51:32 AM

I forgot to drill the holes for the point motors till months after, had to drill up from undernearth ..... very carefully

I also wish i'd done my wiring better.

Malc · October 03, 2016, 12:22:45 PM

1) Going for code 80 on my first layout.
2) Not discovering this forum until I had built the layout.

Bob Tidbury · October 03, 2016, 12:31:41 PM

The biggest mess I've made is knocking over a bottle of liquid flux ,it turned my lovely grass and ballasted yard grey ,just can't get it back to look the same no matter what I do.
Bob

zwilnik · October 03, 2016, 12:53:33 PM

Quote from: silly moo on October 03, 2016, 10:58:29 AM
My first layout featured a harbour and I decided to use the Woodland Scenics 'water' that comes in a packet of plastic beads that you heat up on the stove.

There wasn't enough of it to start off with so there was a big area with no 'water' and a whole lot leaked onto the carpet I wasn't very popular.

The 'water' that was there set rock solid and I had to chip it out with a chisel. When I got rid of it all I used painted plaster of Paris which I varnished, that worked well.

I've always be very wary of resin type products ever since.

I had a similar water experience. For the harbour area of Ivebridge I'd already ruled out the woodland scenics yellow stuff that you have to heat up and decided to use their realistic water that comes in (small) £15-£20 bottles.

Now I thought I'd completely sealed off the area I was pouring into, but it took 3 bottles to cover what I thought was a pretty small patch of water.

Not until I started the rebuild recently and was digging a hole in the nearby scenery to fit servo point motors did I find rather a lot of set water resin underneath the scenery where it had obviously leaked from where it was supposed to be. So I probably used about twice as much as I needed :/

On the upside, I also found a lost tracksetta guide encased in the resin and buried under the scenery. Maybe another thread.. "Layout archeology"

thebrighton · October 03, 2016, 02:26:22 PM

I ran a GWR loco on it......................
I'll get mu hat and coat on the way out

Maurits71 · October 03, 2016, 03:42:16 PM

Quote from: Only Me on October 03, 2016, 11:43:31 AM
Spent 18 months wondering why transponding only worked sporadically before realising I had wired one digitrax detection board completely backwards and then spent nearly two years scratching my head lol

pfff you forgot to mention that you didn't listen to the crazy Dutchman who suggested this from day 1

[admin]Thats because I thought you were still Crazy...

... Obviously you are not.... well apart from your Helix's..Hats off to you Maurits my man Cheers Paul[/admin]

colpatben · October 03, 2016, 05:16:10 PM

Yup, done the Realistic (now underground lake) Water thing.

Also knocked over a bottle of plastic solvent on top of plasticard station concourse.

Why do I continue to put a bottle of 'Dangerous' liquid in the centre of the layout and then lean over it with loose sleeves

Newportnobby · October 03, 2016, 08:22:16 PM

Send a note to yourself, Colin.
"Must not wear wizard's outfit in the railway room"

cjdodd · October 04, 2016, 07:44:44 AM

One other one i did was to tell the SHMBO that it was "only going to be a small layout"

colpatben · October 04, 2016, 09:22:55 AM

Quote from: newportnobby on October 03, 2016, 08:22:16 PM

"Must not wear wizard's outfit in the railway room"

But I always dress in the appropriate attire whilst practising the Black Art of DCC

Komata · October 04, 2016, 09:42:07 AM

To date, no doubt several, but the one that sticks in my mind most sharply (deliberate pun BTW for reaons whih will become evident) was when i decided to put telegraph poles (and wires) alongside the tracks a la prototype. I couldn't purchase plastic poles so made my own as per prototype - lengths of code 80 rail cut to the appropriate length, with wooden cross-arms fitted a scale distance from the top. I then 'planted' said poles and strung wires. I was very pleased with the finished effect; again very prototypical.

Came the first 'operating session', and I (very) quickly discovered several things. These were : (1) That sleeves of shirts can get entangled in the 'wires'; (2) That wires will only stretch so far before pulling up the pole to which they are attached up out of the 'ground; (3) The now highly-mobile poles / wires can inflict very sharp jabs into human forearms, to the extent that blood is drawn (4) When trying to replace the poles back into their holes, it is very easy to ram the ends of the poles under finger nails and into both fore-arms and hands. All of this happened within a matter of seconds.... Let's just say that the pain and blood (and 'interesting' language) added a certain 'something' to the session, which, perhaps surprisingly, came to a somewhat rapid and premature end...

Needless to say the wires / poles were rapidly (immediately) removed and placed on the 'inner' side of the tracks - where stray sleeves and human arms are unlikely to have contact with them - except sometimes....

And I still have the scars to prove it ...