A place to post tips you learnt the hard way! (If you dare admit it)
My first offering,
Ordered one of the "ballast dispenser" type tools; the container with grooves to fit over the rails and holes to let a small amount of ballast through as you move it along the track.
Works nicely UNTIL ... ... ... ...
While waiting for it to arrive I had fixed the platform edging strips ... WRONG!!!!!!!!
The ballast dispenser is a little wider than where the platform edging strips are. SO it's off with the edging strips until ballasting complete.
Luckily I hadn't used a glue that gripped too tightly so the edging strips survived removal, to be refitted when the ballast is dry.
Once, and only the once, I omitted to drill holes/cut 'Vs' in cross braces and adjoining ends of baseboards to thread wires through and had screwed/glued the baseboard tops down :doh:
Using plastic glue (the smelly solvent type) when it's not absolutely need, as fogging/staining becomes easily visible and hard to remove. I've since discovered a sort of gooey rubbery glue does the trick, or even a sort of PVA glue (both widely available here in Japan, not sure what UK equivalents would be), and is not as permanent and much easier to clean off. Does the trick for things which need to be held together but don't require maximum sticking strength.
Laying a whole load of track with multiple points, then realising you have not used insulated joiners at the cross overs between main lines. And the only way to get them in is to lift the whole lot as there is not enough lee way in a point to point join to slide fishplates across.
grrrrr
:confused1:
Quote from: mattycoops43 on August 10, 2017, 04:25:33 PM
Laying a whole load of track with multiple points, then realising you have not used insulated joiners at the cross overs between main lines. And the only way to get them in is to lift the whole lot as there is not enough lee way in a point to point join to slide fishplates across.
Oh dear, you could have just cut through the track with a slitting disc and filled the gaps... :sorrysign:
Running the track close to the edge of the board and just managing to catch a Black 5 as it derailed and headed downwards. Now has a raised bead along the edge.
Didn't manage to catch mine!! They don't glide too well do they??
Still haven't put a barrier up, some people never learn..
:no:
Two recent "learnt the hard way" from me:
1) Keep small bits in bags / containers whilst working with others as they CAN disappear completely (nameplate, £9).
2) When filing, do it slowly and methodically. Getting distracted means you end up removing too much material and you can't put it back! Lucky I have another spare body...
Skyline2uk
Wear an Apron over your clothes when using polyfilla / paint, unless you want an ear bending from SWMBO.
I've got a plain welders Apron for really Dirty work, much bigger than most offerings which are tiny and an EMGS one for more "formal" occasions.
Do the NGS do one? I suppose I'll have to join and find out...
Not feeding each section of track separately and then ballasting and weathering the track. The paint and glue seep into the rail joiners and turn each one into an intermittent isolating section. :(
Not sealing the baseboard properly and then pouring in resin to make water, most of the resin ended up on the floor!
Getting too impatient with applying layers of varnish to create the water for my harbour: in the end I poured in rather thick layers, and so after 20 years it's still like a custard skin - dry on top but squishy underneath, as little (and not-so-little) fingers find out from time to time at shows!
(http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/54/5885-110817131517.jpeg) (http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view&id=54174)
Putting a soldering iron into my pocket while I answered the phone :'(
Quote from: The Q on August 11, 2017, 08:32:05 AM
Wear an Apron over your clothes when using polyfilla / paint, unless you want an ear bending from SWMBO.
Avoiding an ear bending from SWMBO? That's a whole new thread.....
Years ago I mixed Atlas points with Poole Farish locos, the combination of not very good points with pizza cutter wheels meant nothing was able to complete a circuit of the layout. I nearly gave up N gauge completely.
I know Farish locos have improved in leaps and bounds and I expect that Atlas points are much better too but I stick to Peco now.
Spending an hour or so trying to trace a loose wire or bad connection only to find that by putting the plug in the socket things magically burst into life.
Without switching off at the mains, pulling a plug out when my my fingers slipped behind the plug and gripped the pins. I was only 8 at the time and it threw me across the room into the opposite wall. I claim that's why I've never been right since :laugh3:
Putting your underpants on inside out and back to front and wondering why you feel under pressure.
The Mark I version of the sawmill on Tintern -Completing the main building and annexe . Card built using downloaded stone texture. all windows/ gutters etc in place. About 10 hours work. Final varnish spray to fix everything -picked up cellulose spray rather than acrylic and watched as the ink dissolved and I was left with a plain card shell rather than the stone edifice I had made.
The second big mistake was leaving a nearly completed St Michael's church within reach of a Labrador with no architectural interest [see my separate topic on St Michael's]
I learned a valuable (i.e. costly!) lesson last week:
NEVER put a live Megapoints multipanel controller PCB down onto the nearest flat surface, especially if that flat surface happens to be your fiddleyard with DCC current flowing through it...
:-[
Quote from: newportnobby on August 11, 2017, 08:35:51 PM
Without switching off at the mains, pulling a plug out when my my fingers slipped behind the plug and gripped the pins. I was only 8 at the time and it threw me across the room into the opposite wall. I claim that's why I've never been right since :laugh3:
Exactly the same thing happened to me, at about the same age. The only difference was that my (Triang 00) layout was on the floor and I gripped the gas pipe leading to the fire with my left hand as I pulled the plug with my right... I can't remember how it felt now, but I must have invented the defibrillator half a century too soon!
Cheers,
Chris (still breathing...)
Quote from: Papyrus on August 19, 2017, 07:12:11 PM
Quote from: newportnobby on August 11, 2017, 08:35:51 PM
Without switching off at the mains, pulling a plug out when my my fingers slipped behind the plug and gripped the pins. I was only 8 at the time and it threw me across the room into the opposite wall. I claim that's why I've never been right since :laugh3:
Exactly the same thing happened to me, at about the same age. The only difference was that my (Triang 00) layout was on the floor and I gripped the gas pipe leading to the fire with my left hand as I pulled the plug with my right... I can't remember how it felt now, but I must have invented the defibrillator half a century too soon!
Cheers,
Chris (still breathing...)
Wow, glad you are still on Earth and not orbiting it :o
I mean if there was an undetected fault in that gas fire.... at the very least some singed Papyrus... :goggleeyes:
Skyline2uk
Choosing such a small scale just before my eyes start to go.
Can't change now though - the forums for the big boys are not as good ;-)
Quote from: port perran on August 11, 2017, 07:42:13 PM
Spending an hour or so trying to trace a loose wire or bad connection only to find that by putting the plug in the socket things magically burst into life.
I had this at our annual show last year, being the electrics man I walked all the way back to my landrover (total 1/2 mile) in the drizzle to pick up my tool kit and box of fuses. To get back to find they had plugged into a spare unconnected extension lead...
This year I'll leave my toolbox in the hall, and check before I go looking for it..
Quote from: newportnobby on August 11, 2017, 08:35:51 PM
Without switching off at the mains, pulling a plug out when my my fingers slipped behind the plug and gripped the pins. I was only 8 at the time and it threw me across the room into the opposite wall.
Similar thing, similar age. Had a Lego brick with a light in it, to light up buildings. Worked off a 1.5V battery, if I recall. Anyway, I thought I'd get a much brighter light if I plugged it into the mains socket.
Of course the thing blew to smithereens in spectacular fashion and threw me across the room also.
However that was not as bad as the hiding I got from me father who had been watching the replay of the FA cup final in another room when the tv went off :worried:
Cleaning some point blades with isopropyl alcohol on a cotton bud, inadvertently getting some on my fingers and then touching a loco... result was a not so nice change in the BR Blue color where I touched it :veryangry:
I know from bitter experience it's not nice stuff to get on rolling stock, Mike :no:
Quote from: newportnobby on August 24, 2017, 10:31:30 PM
I know from bitter experience it's not nice stuff to get on rolling stock, Mike :no:
I see what you did there :beers:
Mistakes I learnt from?
OO/HO
:D
Checked an X-Acto blade once with my thumb to see if it was still sharp, luckily it wasn't stitches or a hospital run, but it was sharp.
My mistake was starting out in OO because I was told that N was too fiddly, expensive and there was not the range of EMUs. The last part is true but the Pendolinos are coming :thumbsup:
I managed to recoup a fair bit of the money I spent and have kept a circle of OO Kato track to run some of my late father's trains including a Blue Pullman. Plus OO was a good 'training' ground for N :D