Neil's HO workbench - Been back to Belgium

[Neil]

Though I'm principally motivated to paint, decorate and build cupboards in order to turn smelly hovel into a thing of taste and beauty I have also one eye on an August bank holiday deadline when the slice of Belgium makes it debut in Machynlleth. Therefore grey primer/undercoat has been applied, sanded and applied again to the baseboards.



Here we can see the fiddle yard (it's first appearance here) with a bit more clarity. It shares the same construction as the other two boards, but with a recessed deck to allow for a sector plate which will act both to close the loop and as storage. The deck was in the paint shop when the photos were taken, but the arc where it docks with the rest of the layout is obvious on the connecting end of the board.



I've also tweaked the track a little, in this photo all the fishplates are present including the insulating ones required for wiring up the converted to live frog diamond crossing.



One problem raised it's ugly head, my less than brilliant woodwork had resulted in one of the end pieces being some degrees off vertical, which gave an unwanted gap in the baseboard surface. I tackled this issue by cutting, sanding and chiselling a strip of softwood to fit.





Once shaped the homogenising effect of the grey paint has worked wonders in blending it in to the whole.



I'm now part way through glueing the track down in sections with PVA but the photography has yet to catch up with this phase of work.

 

[Tappa]

Excellent as ever Neil. Love the "fish shape" baseboards.

 

[Alan]

Echoing Geoff about the fish shape. Was that deliberate as it is a dock layout??

 

[Neil]

Did someone mention fish ....

 

[Neil]

There's a handy gap in the diy this morning while I wait for pollyfiller to set; time enough for a quick update on the layout. All the track is now laid including that on the fiddle yard sector plate so endeavours have been directed at point control. I intend to use toggle switches to throw the Peco points and use them to change frog polarity at the same time. These will be connected to the point by wire in tube running on the top surface of the baseboard. The ptfe tube doesn't respond at all well to glue, so I've backed up the sticking with stitching using button thread. One mill holes were drilled at either side of the tubes centre line, Evo stick impact adhesive spread, the tube stuck and sewn into place.



To connect the switch to the wire I'm making rocker arms out of some scrap brass. Because the Peco points have such a large throw I need to increase the throw the switch gives at the base of its toggle, hence the arrangement shown with the levers pivot at the far end of the switch from the connection to the wire. I've arranged for three holes so I can hopefully fine tune the throw.



Now waiting on an order of nuts and bolts for the pivot to arrive.

 

[Neil]

Still waiting, but I found one bolt of the right size in my bits box so I've lashed up one of the points to show how it all fits together.



It looks as though my calculations re point throw were correct; there's a satisfying click as the switch is thrown and the blades travel. Two more points to go and then it's wiring time.

 

[Neil]

In the fortnight that has elapsed since my last post I've had a tidy up and a rearrangement of stuff in my playroom so that I can put up the layout along one wall; working on the carpet had become tedious.



The sector plate has gained safety rails and a simple system of aligning tracks and feeding power.



On the rolling stock front I took apart the Liliput fireless loco in order to attend to the cab glazing.



The issue I had with it is that the large opening is fully glazed, which looks just plain wrong. The only evidence I've found for this is a plinthed loco, working examples either had the aperture plated with a small glazed window set within the plate or a plain opening. I plumped for a clear opening.



I cut away the glazing but left the surrounding bits as they locate the cab insert which covers the rear lights and circuit board. Here are before and after shots which should show the difference it makes.




Finally it hasn't been all play, I've been finishing off the aforementioned cupboards. One side butts up to the bedroom wall, I could have painted it or got out the wall paper, but I thought I'd do something different.



I thought I'd have a go at what the pretentious design programmes call decoupage or what at primary school was called cutting and sticking. In my collection of books is an album from 1960 called World Railways which gained sponsorship through forty pages or so of trade adverts at the front of it. I took it down to the local copy shop and came back with three quids worth of period adverts which I pasted onto the wall. Cheaper than wallpaper and a whole lot more fun.

 

[simond]

Bit of varnish to protect your handiwork?

Best
Simon

 

[Neil]

Yesterday was a bit of a red letter day as I finished wiring up Vischkaai and trains ran the full length of the layout for the first time. Also thanks to Dutch/Flemish speaking correspondents on the narrow gauge modelling forum the layout now has a name, the old Flemish spelling for fish quay. To check all was well with the electric knitting I set the layout up and bolted the sections together with the drivers side to the fore.



Fortunately there are few wires required to bridge the inter board joints so I was able to use my favoured 1/4" audio plugs and sockets along with twin cored flex.


Finally I couldn't resist a mock up of the building that will sit on the actual fish quay section of the layout even though it sits on the wrong face of the wrong track. The splendid structure, a most kind gift, is the work of David (Yorkshire Dave) and will set a suitable workaday tone for the fish quay contrasting nicely to the more ornate buildings of the town board.

 

[steve1]

Is that an Artitec structure?

Thanks

steve

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I was able to use my favoured 1/4" audio plugs and sockets along with twin cored flex.

I always use audio XLR plugs and sockets and like the 1/4'' you're using, they're robust.

The quai de poisson is coming on nicely - I can visualise it now with the run down buildings which exist in Belgium.

I even attempted a small HO Dutch harbour layout on this forum - Gone Dutch

Is that an Artitec structure?

Yes - they produce some wonderful buildings among other kits.

 

[steve1]

Thanks Dave!

steve

 

[Neil]

Over the weekend attention was turned to structures. First up, the bridge which will form the break between the scenic section and fiddleyard was mocked up in mountboard to check for fit and proportions. Though the finished article won't be a scale copy of a real bridge the design is heavily influenced by Sint-Michielsbrug in Ghent, though only the arch which spans the quayside will be modelled.



The second project is to create a waterside bar using a pair of Artitec resin moulded low relief building fronts. Here I have a head start as one of the resin facades was given to me ready finished by Yorkshire Dave.



By a stroke of good fortune I picked up a matching casting from the Ontraxs exhibition in Utrecht earlier this year which will form the other gable end.


Most of the traditional styled Flemish buildings with fancy gables have them at just one end, but I know of a few examples from Bruges where both ends have the full set of ornamentation. As the bar has entrances at both ends I thought it not too much of a stretch to similarly bless both ends of the model. The body of the building is a relatively simple build in styrene sheet, Will vac formed brickwork and a smattering of Auhagen window mouldings


The only real difficulty is that because of the shop front sub moulding fixed to the lower half of the resin ends the inner gables have to start at first floor level. So far it's been a very pleasant build both the construction and the research through holiday snaps and the interweb. Lovely place Belgium, I can't reccomend it too highly.

 

[allegheny1600]

Lovely place Belgium, I can't recommend it too highly.

Hear, hear!
I've only been once but I found Belgium to be a friendly place, fascinating architecture, wonderfully busy railways with a terrific selection of rolling stock (c. 2006!), lovely rolling hills in the south/east where I saw the perfect prototype for access to a hidden siding, all this not to mention chocolate and waffles! I was less keen on Bruxelles as typical for a capital city, it was very very busy and cosmopolitan but still interesting.
Anyway, nice modelling! I'm loving the building with the gable ends.
Cheers,
John.

 

[Neil]

ver the last week or so I've been tackling the cobbled streets and inlaid track of my particular piece of Flanders. The first stage was to fill up the area between and surrounding the rails with brick red Das clay.



Once set I dampened the surface and thumbed in a layer of the off white clay and levelled it off to just shy of the rail head. Once partly set (leather hard for pottery throw-down aficionados) the cobbles were embossed into the surface using this tool fashioned from a suitably sized old paintbrush.


It's a bit of a faff, but it does look better than the alternatives particularly if you want to do things other than plain straight lines.


Progress hasn't been swift but it has been very satisfying seeing cobbled street and quayside appearing from the plywood baseboard surface. Here's the state of play first thing this morning.


There are limits to how much embossing it's sensible to tackle at any one time; sanity, eyesight, the risk of rsi and clay drying times impose a natural limit. I've used the gaps in progress when waiting for one section to fully set so I can level the next up to it for other bits and pieces to drive the layout forward. Here one of the pair of O&K MV9 shunters shows off its new green livery. The Fleischmann models had been in works grey primer for over a year, now I have one in green and the other similarly coloured apart from a thing yellow stripe around the body at just under window level.

 

[Neil]

As Vischkaai's exhibition deadline (next weekend) draws closer I edge towards making it look presentable.

The bar nears completion but I may change its location. Here I'm trying it at the end of the row behind the tracks. The other buildings have solid mount card structures behind the facades which help to show how the mass of the finished structures will work.



I've also finished the cobbles on this section of the layout, they now stretch as far as the road which cuts across the scene from front to back. You can just see a corner of it (or its red sub strata) to the right of the bar. Also complete is the detail painting of the O&K diesels.


Just touching in lights, handrails and works plates has lifted the models.


Still a mountain of tasks to tackle; vaarwel.

 

[simond]

Neil

I'm liking your cobbles. It seems a much better approach than either embossed card, or moulded/vacformed plastic sheet.

I see that in some areas you have fitted what looks to be a checkrail, but how have you maintained the flangeways for the rest?

Thanks
Simon

 

[Neil]

Thank you Simon. The checkrails are just what the Peco point and diamond crossing come with. The flangeways for the plain track were mainly created by pinning some 1mm square plastic strip down before thumbing the clay in though for one section (when I didn't have sufficient strip I pressed the flangeway in with one of my spreading tools (bits of plastic). Both work, both require a bit of tickling up once the cobbles have set.

 

[simond]

Thanks Neil.

I'm thinking strip brass (32/31.5 O gauge) for the steel strip edges to the inside of the flangeways when I get to my quayside. I'm interested that you seem to have successfully avoided the hassle and expense thereof.

I may (am likely to) shamelessly copy your cobbles!

Best
Simon

 

[Neil]

Hassle and expense avoidance are happy by products, the main motivation for omitting check rails was my choice of Peco code 100 track. It's chunky stuff as it is, my hope was that by minimising any additional visual fuss and maximising the cobbles I'd minimise the overscale appearance. Obviously it's not as good as Brian Harrap's lovely P87 stuff, but I'm reasonably happy with it so far.