what are people doing on their layout right now

SD35 · September 30, 2023, 02:48:51 PM

It's away for framing Chris.

Newportnobby · September 30, 2023, 04:01:05 PM

Quote from: nickk on September 30, 2023, 12:39:02 PMHopefully do a build thread of the layout if anyone can bear watching an incompetent build his first model railway since childhood (without dads help lol) and first in N gauge

Don't be put off. We all started out as newbies at some point!
You have a lot of experience here to draw on

nickk · September 30, 2023, 04:33:50 PM

Thank you and its most apprecieated

The Q · October 02, 2023, 03:20:14 PM

On Ludgershall change for Tidworth ( EM gauge) not a lot is being done I'm too busy on other things.

On Tiree, (N gauge), just started wiring up.

On Decoville, (H0e), the baseboards are almost assembled.

grumbeast · October 02, 2023, 06:50:52 PM

Getting nervous on Aberfilli, about to pull up the right hand curve ready to extend the staging, put in a crossover and add the new branch incline up to the mine. Its going to take a while but should make things much more interesting to run

KevTheBusDriver · October 08, 2023, 08:08:36 PM

Today I've been renumbering some locos - here's a shot of 5076 (ex-25035) - using Railtec Transfers. The others were 1650 and 3393 (I'll let you work out what those are...

crewearpley40 · October 08, 2023, 08:26:29 PM

Neat job there Kev @KevTheBusDriver

Looks great on your Walsall layout

Southerngooner · October 09, 2023, 10:55:25 AM

After a week or so's delay due to high winds and bad weather I'm now primed to paint the track on BL. The colour for the rails is mixed 50/50 and ready to put in the airbrush. I'm going for Humbrol 26 Khaki as this seems the closest to the colour I can see on most colour photos of the area. There's no "rust" coloured track to be seen. I might do the electric shed and oil tanks in rust as this would have been a new addition at the time I'm modelling.

I've moved both boards outside, and coincidentally Deb is giving the railway room another coat of "Biscuit" on the cream portions. We only finished the end of the building recently and while applying the new paint we found it was a darker, probably more correct, shade than the paint we used a year or so ago. We decided to repaint the other end and front at the same time. It was all supposed to be the same colour, and Dulux couldn't explain why it should be so different.

Dave

Southerngooner · October 09, 2023, 04:36:29 PM

So after a few hours of work I now have the rails sprayed and the layout back in place. Painting these by hand would have taken hours if not days. I'm now ready to begin the scenic and detail work, plus I now have a nice new cupboard to put all my books, CDs, etc into! If I could only work out the new way of adding a photo I'd show you!

Dave

5213 65J · October 13, 2023, 01:33:09 PM

I'm test running these Chiver's Fine Lines wagons now that the painting and decals are finished.

Foxhound · October 16, 2023, 12:45:38 PM

Quote from: Southerngooner on October 09, 2023, 04:36:29 PMSo after a few hours of work I now have the rails sprayed and the layout back in place. Painting these by hand would have taken hours if not days. I'm now ready to begin the scenic and detail work, plus I now have a nice new cupboard to put all my books, CDs, etc into! If I could only work out the new way of adding a photo I'd show you!

Dave

Use the big blue Reply button, Dave, then click on the text in or below the box that says
• NOTE: If you want to add an image to the gallery please use [REPLY] button instead

Works a treat. Must say I am slightly envious of the mancavern. LOL

Ed · October 18, 2023, 09:51:35 AM

Re-gluing some Kato track that I hadn't connected together properly. The unijoiner had connected but the rails weren't in the fishplate properly resulting in a bump in the track.

(The paint tin is just weighing it down while the glue dries)

(Note to self: Wear your glasses when laying track)

Ed

zwilnik · October 22, 2023, 02:58:45 PM

I added a bit of aluminium tape from the local emporium to a Kato re-railer and turned it into a powered re-railer today.

Longer project is to build some train cassettes using pairs of plastic L profile strip (can't get U strip of the right size annoyingly) and the same tape for power. Similar to some other ones I've seen people build.

Newportnobby · October 22, 2023, 03:08:26 PM

How about 2 x 'L' shaped pieces of aluminium set 9mm apart?
You wouldn't even need track then, just a solid enough base to make things rigid

zwilnik · October 22, 2023, 03:12:28 PM

Quote from: Newportnobby on October 22, 2023, 03:08:26 PMHow about 2 x 'L' shaped pieces of aluminium set 9mm apart?
You wouldn't even need track then, just a solid enough base to make things rigid

That's the idea with the tape. It's lined either side of the centre of the channel to provide power and there'll be either a v-shaped helper on the outside at the open end or a raised centre section like on the Kato re-railers. I went for the plastic route because I can make it from just 2 pieces (or 1 if I can find suitable U section) without having to carefully mount 2 metal L sections on some sort of bracket to hold them together.

Having said that. I do have the metal L sections (as that was what I tried first

) and it might be easier and more robust if I use the plastic sections as the bracket and fix the metal L sections in them as inserts for the power.

Here's a vid of the super simple powered re-railer btw.

https://youtu.be/JzZx9-VA-0k