A Venture into the Garden

JimG

Western Thunderer
This morning was spent putting in the rest of the screws.

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This was the last line of screws going in along the back of the two rectangular boards. I had used up the 200 box I got last week and had to get another box this morning to finish off these last screws. That meant about 250 screws had been put in and the power drill earned its keep this morning. :)

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And now the board tops have their second coat of protective paint - the wet sheen is just apparent on the closest corner. I also had a try out for my pensioner's height baseboards, seeing how easy it would be to run the layout from a chair - and it's just right. :) I'm now considering auto-couplers so that I need never get out of it - Alex Jackson's in 1:32 scale? :)

Jim.
 

40126

Western Thunderer
Hi Jim :thumbs:

Great work & I'm loving watching this evolve.

Can I just ask ?, Is the any reason why you haven't cut the board to fit round the brick posts in the wall ?.

Steve :cool:
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
Can I just ask ?, Is the any reason why you haven't cut the board to fit round the brick posts in the wall ?.

Steve,

I've always had the intention of re-planting some wall covering plant - not ivy!! - and that would require a bit of space between the wall and the baseboards. Also, the brick buttresses protrude by 9" so I would have to move the outer edge of the boards in by the same 9" so that I could reach to the areas between the buttresses - see the discussion with Steph earlier on in the thread. If I did move the outer edge in by 9" then I would get two pinch points at the buttresses where the baseboard width would be 2' 3", and that's getting a bit narrow in 1:32 scale.

I'm actually finding that a space of 23' x 3' is not really that much room in 1:32 scale - equivalent to 11' 6" x 1' 6" in S scale which I am more used to, or about 10' x 1' 3" in 4mm scale - so there is not as much room as might be expected. It was the reason that I gave up on the idea of G3. In fact I will actually be extending the lawn end of the station boards by about four feet to cater for the outer turnout on the first crossover in the station throat in the present design I've drawn up in Templot. The present plan drawn up caters for reasonable length trains and has a fair sized goods yard, so it should provide operating interest as a glorified terminus into hidden sidings (lawn area) when on my own.

Jim.
 

lankytank

Western Thunderer
Jim

I may well have missed it (it's an age thing), but in following this thread, I can find no mention of physical location, yes, I can see it's your back garden......... but even a clue to County would be of interest. And whether running rights are likely to be granted.....? :thumbs: :thumbs: :rolleyes: :)

Following with great interest!!!
Baz
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
I may well have missed it (it's an age thing), but in following this thread, I can find no mention of physical location, yes, I can see it's your back garden......... but even a clue to County would be of interest. And whether running rights are likely to be granted.....? :thumbs: :thumbs: :rolleyes: :)

Baz,

My location is in my personal information - click on my avatar to see it - a few miles off the M4 at Junction 18, a few more miles off the M5 at Junction 14. :)

Running rights will be granted once I've got something to run on. :) The station will be to ScaleOne32 standards but the ovals on the lawn will be universal Gauge 1 and I'm going to leave a generous six foot way on the ovals so that long 10mm stock won't foul stock on the other track.

Jim.
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
The good weather continues, so the next job was to get the roofing felt applied. Yesterday was pensioner day at B&Q again. :) Funnily enough, B&Q were the only local store to stock the mineral roofing felt - all the other trade suppliers - like Screwfix, Jewson, etc., only stocked the felt for use under tiles.

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The first job was to lay a full roll out and get it positioned correctly, then start gluing a few feet from the garden end.

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The last bit of gluing done at the garden end before rolling the felt on. This job had started to get a little bit messy by now as I was spreading with a flat plastic tool - I couldn't find a saw tooth edged spreader in B&Q.

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When the garden end was stuck down, the felt was rolled back preparatory to gluing the remainder down.

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...and the almost finished job with the complete roll stuck down. The only bit left to do was the triangular bit at the far end .

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This morning the felting was completed with the triangular bit being cut to shape and stuck in place, then the front overhang was folded over and stapled underneath - I had chamfered the top and bottom of the plywood on Tuesday to make this a bit easier.

As the good weather seemed to be continuing for a day or two, I thought I would get the extension to the station boards started in the hope that I might get it finished in a day or two. I plotted out the sizes of the extension board in CAD - it is an unequal quadrilateral with one right angled corner.

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So I was able to set up the shape on my nice new large workbench :):) using my spare venetian blind slats. The lengths were marked on the slats and they were set out to reproduce the shape of the frame and clamped. The right angle corner was set with the square.

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I then picked up the angles of each corner with the angle gauge and transferred them to the wood and cut them to length.

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I then finished up with four pieces - three seen here next to the slats and the fourth has already been screwed to the wall in the background. I had actually c*cked up here and the piece closest to camera was a tad short and I had to cut a new piece - I mixed up measurements when marking out the wood. But the short piece can be used as a cross piece in the frame, so not too much lost.

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The frame screwed together and supported by a temporary leg - the joints are nort too bad considerign they were all cut by hand. :) That's as far as I got today. Tomorrow promises to be as good as today, so I'll get the post hole dug and and get the proper post in, and use up my last bag of Postcrete.

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And here's the old dog - coming up nine - taking advantage of the sun and not getting in my way. :)

Jim.
 

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unklian

Western Thunderer
Just caught up with this thread. Great stuff Jim and I really appreciate your choice of gauge. I went the other way and chose a very simple G3 circle in a much smaller garden. I am impressed with your choice of finescale in the garden, perhaps I should have the courage of my convictions and do the same. I really don't see why Alex Jacksons shouldn't work in G1 either.
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
It was another good weather day today so I pressed on with the short extension to the boards. Apparently, the good weather spell is due to finish soon so I want to get the station baseboards complete this autumn and leave the baseboards on the lawn until next spring/summer.

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The hole for the post was dug, a post cut to length and all is ready for the PostCrete to be poured in. The big secaturs were needed to cut through a big buddleia root which zig-zagged back and forth across the hole - so a fair bit of time on my hands and knees with the trowel to clear the soil around it. Spades don't seem to be made with sharp blades these days that cut through roots. :(

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The Postcrete has been poured and set and the frame screwed to the post with everything nice and level. I then cut up the baseboard top from three pieces of the left-overs from the other boards. Unfortunately, I don't have enough left-overs from the felt to cover the top, so I'll have to take a few feet of the other roll I got. After this stage, the frame and the plywood were given their first coat of wood protection and they are now under cover of some polythene sheet to keep the rain off which is forecast for tonight. Tomorrow afternoon is forecast to be good so I should get the second coat of protection on then and the boards screwed down. With a bit of luck, Monday will be good enough to let me get the felt down, and that will be the boards finished. All this for about nine inches of the front end of a turnout that might get laid over winter. :)

I'm now making up an order to Cliff Barker for some track bits. :)

Jim.
 

JohnFla

Western Thunderer
Hello Jim, lovely workmanship as usual.

I'm curious though, why are you treating the boards before laying the felt, I would have thought the bitumen felt adhesive would provide its own weather proofing.

Regards
John.

PS I'm only thinking of your back :)
 

Les Golledge

Active Member
Hi Jim,
I notice that your garden gate is slatted, do you intend to cover the slots to keep the railway out of view of persons in the street.
Just a thought about security as I'd hate to here the brain dead morons had paid you a visit & wrecked your work.
Regards,
Les.
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
I'm curious though, why are you treating the boards before laying the felt, I would have thought the bitumen felt adhesive would provide its own weather proofing.

John,

I had a good chat with the person at Lathams about how to work with the plywood, given that it would be out in all weathers. He stressed that the sides had to be sealed and he also made a point about the plywood not sitting in standing water. I've seen how water can get under roofing felt through a hole or a crack and stay between the felt and the ply for long periods, so I opted to protect the surfaces and the sides with the wood protection, since I had bought a very large tin of it and there was plenty to go round. :) It might well be belt and braces - only time will tell although I will never know what would have happened if I hadn't painted it. :) But I have memories some years ago of a friend who pretty well gave up on his garden railway when part of it became unusable when the plywood base split and rotted and I don't want that to happen.

I notice that your garden gate is slatted, do you intend to cover the slots to keep the railway out of view of persons in the street.
Just a thought about security as I'd hate to here the brain dead morons had paid you a visit & wrecked your work.

Les,

It's actually not possible to see the layout through the slats in that gate since there is a large bush by the front of the house which prevents that. You can only see through the slats if you stand to one side of that bush and then you can only see the wall of the house. However, the thought of vandalism or theft is at the back of my mind. I am pretty fortunate that the area I live in has very few problems with vandalism or theft - I can only think of one instance in the twenty-odd years I have lived here when somebody decided to take advantage of the poor locks on the up-and-over garage doors and "did" most of the garages on the access road. The next day, they all sported security hasps and padlocks. :) The dog is a pretty good sentinel for anything happening around the house and she and I are here most of the time. But I suppose I have to accept the risk if I want a layout. :)

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The bush is centre left - in great need of a prune but my late wife planted the garden with berry carrying bushes for winter feed for the local bird life, so they won't get pruned until next spring - so more cover over the winter. :)

I got a wee bit more done today after the sailing.

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The supports and the undersides of the boards were given their second coat of protective...

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...then after an hour or so to get to touch dry, the boards were screwed down to the supports and the second coat of protective painted on the board tops. So all that's left now is to stick on the roofing felt and that should be done tomorrow since the forecast looks good for most of the day.

Jim.
 
Jim

great work, one day i will get round to doing mine, just a word of "caution" currently all of the 1/32nd RTR loco's and coaches have a wheel b-b of 40mm, usually referred to a standard gauge, the wheels are fine scale not coarse scale, but this is not the same standards are promoted by Simon Castens & Bob Hunter of 42.25mm, so you will not get anything off the shelf so to speak. Not a problem if you are kit or scratch building but if you were to be considering anything electric RTR then you need to bear this in mind.

Looking forward to seeing the curved section coming along

John

FSB
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
just a word of "caution" currently all of the 1/32nd RTR loco's and coaches have a wheel b-b of 40mm, usually referred to a standard gauge, the wheels are fine scale not coarse scale, but this is not the same standards are promoted by Simon Castens & Bob Hunter of 42.25mm, so you will not get anything off the shelf so to speak. Not a problem if you are kit or scratch building but if you were to be considering anything electric RTR then you need to bear this in mind.

John,

Don't worry. :) I've been modelling exact scale track and wheel standards for many years being a member of the S Scale Model Railway Society who adopted exact track and wheel scale standards about five years before ProtoFour hit the streets in the 1960s. So I'm well used to making or modifying wheels to get what I want. I've actually got a set of 1:32 scale Slaters wagon wheels in front of me as I type which await some treatment on the lathe. I'm looking at making up a setup for the lathe whereby I can machine the wheels on the axles. I've also been considering making a form tool, or getting one made, but modifying Slaters wheels hardly requires this. As for everything else, I model the Caledonian so I'm well used to the lack of anything RTR in any scale. :)

This spell of good weather seems to be ending by this evening, so I'm hoping to get on with other matters like track in the coming weeks and I then have to get a set of wheels available for testing, which in turn requires a chassis to mount them in. So I'll probably build a basic four wheel chassis for testing using the Slaters wheels and keep this as a testing tool. I actually ordered plain spoke wheels by mistake when I got them, which are not suitable for Caledonian wagons, so they can hide away on the workbench.:)

Jim.
 
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