Model Railway Forum

brian1951 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:37 pm I for one applaud your efforts, good luck with the build, i only hope i will feel the same in 7yrs time

Ha ha, not as much as I applaud you for what you did to your house! I would not have dared try that, even 30 years ago.

bulleidboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:12 pm Looking forward to seeing the build Terry - they can be assembled very quickly - but do read the instructions Barry

Thanks Barry, must admit I'm quite excited but I will take my time.

Good luck with the build Terry, looking forward to the pictures/video.

Richard

teedoubleudee wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:05 pm

bulleidboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:12 pm Looking forward to seeing the build Terry - they can be assembled very quickly - but do read the instructions Barry

Thanks Barry, must admit I'm quite excited but I will take my time.

The only reason I said read the instructions is that the cross members all look the same - which they are, but I recall they were all marked with a "X", and all of the "X's" had to be on the same side during construction. An easy thing to overlook.

bulleidboy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 5:32 pm

teedoubleudee wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:05 pm

bulleidboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:12 pm Looking forward to seeing the build Terry - they can be assembled very quickly - but do read the instructions Barry

Thanks Barry, must admit I'm quite excited but I will take my time.

The only reason I said read the instructions is that the cross members all look the same - which they are, but I recall they were all marked with a "X", and all of the "X's" had to be on the same side during construction. An easy thing to overlook.

Mine don't have Xs and can be fitted either way, but the centre spine and cross members are 6mm whereas the sides and ends are 9mm. Putting them together has been a very tight fit and required careful use of my rubber mallet. The instructions could be better and lack any kind of diagrams, but I will explain more in the video.

bulleidboy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 5:32 pm...... they were all marked with a "X", and all of the "X's" had to be on the same side during construction. An easy thing to overlook.

Ah yes, those blessed X’s - I remember them well. R-

teedoubleudee wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:04 pm

brian1951 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:37 pm I for one applaud your efforts, good luck with the build, i only hope i will feel the same in 7yrs time

Ha ha, not as much as I applaud you for what you did to your house! I would not have dared try that, even 30 years ago.

How did it go Terry, its been awhile now ?

brian1951 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 03, 2020 9:38 am

teedoubleudee wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:04 pm

brian1951 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:37 pm I for one applaud your efforts, good luck with the build, i only hope i will feel the same in 7yrs time

Ha ha, not as much as I applaud you for what you did to your house! I would not have dared try that, even 30 years ago.

How did it go Terry, its been awhile now ?

Well mixed results really Brian. I actually had some difficulty in building them, partly due to the kits and partly due to my ageing lack of strength! I had two boards same size. The first one after I had put it together wasnt completley flat because the ribs were not fully meshed. So on the second one I spent a lot of time "modifying" the ribs by extending the slots and made sure the completed board was pefectly flat in a "dry" run before glueing together. Even so I had to make extensive use of my rubber headed mallet and weigh it down whilst drying.

Lessons to be learnt here are that because these type of boards are laser cut they are accurate but are also an extremely tight fit so I would definitely recommend to dry fit before you commit to glueing them. Overall I am pleased with them as they are much better than I could have acheived if building from scratch. In the end it didn't really matter that the top of one is not perfectly flat as I have raised most of the trackwork above baseboard level to achieve an up and over layout. I am intending to start my own thread for this layout at some point which will include the baseboard photos that I'm posting here. In the mean time I really wanted to move onto the interesting part of getting something working.

To that end I now have a single inclined track shuttle branch line that is fully automatic and includes working crossing gates,road traffic lights and semaphore "Home" signals at the embrionic stations at each end. It also includes station announcements at each end and a horn blast as the diesel railcar approaches the crossing gates. To do this I have used the Block Signals SDCC1 shuttle controller in conjunction with 3 microprocessors, 3 speakers and 4 reed switches embedded in the track. I've yet to decide how to lay out the rest of the track which will include the usual goods shed, engine shed, signal box etc.

Forgot the photos doh!

Well done indeed, you will get there in the end. ( well thats what i keep telling myself The thread on your build will be nice to see. Regards Brian 1951.