On my workbench........

[jonte]

Apparent as it may seem, it is not my express intention to invade every area of the forum with examples of knee-jerk modelling or half-baked ideas; more a genuine desire to contribute something not only worthwhile, but relevant to theme of The Great Western railway.

To this end, I submit this little fella for your amusement and interest, based on one that appears on page 90 of Stephen Williams' book 'Great Western Branch Line Modelling'.

I use the word 'based' as its creator - as per usual - is doing his best with only limited tools, skill and intelligence, so I trust you will bear this in mind while perusing.

Those of you who've been kind enough to express an interest in my attempt at doing a minor weathering/detailing of a Hornby Hall amongst these pages will probably be wondering why I'm fiddling with this when I already have a G.W. Themed project on the go. Well, you may also recall that I'd taken a short diversion to have a go at building a signal from bits and pieces lying around. Unfortunately, although it worked, it was difficult to 'clothe'; my idea of fabricating a removable brass jacket worked, but looked nothing like the real thing and was even chunkier than a Hornby Dublo offering. Thin slivers cut from brass sheet to imitate the lattice work of the prototype needed annealing to 'iron' them out but then had all the structural properties of thin card! Most of all, however, it was a Southern themed signal (pretty irrelevant here) so no amount dressing was ever going to disguise that. I've put it away for now with a determination to return to it in the future, as I really need to get back to the Hall, but I'm determined it's not gonna beat me!

Annoyingly, I still had the desire to produce a working signal, an itch that simply wouldn't go away, hence the example you see in these photos. I'm hoping it won't take too long to get it working - erm yes; my intention is to get it to work, I really am a glutton for punishment- so that I can get back to the real business of finishing the Hall. So, without further ado, here's where I'm up to after about a week.

Everything has been cut from thin K&S brass sheet, and the piece of punctured rail you see is a scrap of Code 40 bullhead from which the arm will be cut, pre-drilled with holes for the spectacle plate, pivot and mechanism - a piece of brass wire. A separate piece of shaped annealed brass wire has been formed for the lower spectacle plate and another for the top of the drilled spectacle plate ( apologies, forgot to photo them) but they really are minuscule. Incidentally, I've forgotten to include the usual penny or ten penny piece in the photos to provide a sense of scale. I'll try my utmost to remember to so in future.

I hope you find it of interest.

jonte

 

[jonte]

After some of the most frustrating modelling sessions I have ever experienced (well into the wee small hours of this morning), this was the result at close of play.

Once again I'd forgotten to include the pound or penny coin for scale, but by half past twelve this morning - following the odd hourly stints during the afternoon - I was pretty much past caring, so please forgive my perfunctory approach to the snap-shot-stuff.
Incidentally, the brass pin served only as a temporary pivot to gauge the level of the pivot tube with the lamp lens (although is just hanging there in the shots); the lamp - cut from the post of a broken ratio signal post - still requires further tidying with a nail file.

I have to admit that I was far from satisfied with the outcome and now that I've had (I won't say benefited from) forty broken winks, I still don't care much for it.

Amongst other little annoyances, the wire support is out of alignment, a victim of having to go through the motions of trying to straighten the pivot tube which had somehow also managed to run out of alignment in the straight ahead plane whilst soldering, the pivot tube itself being far too long for my liking. A shorter, more preferable one would require a remounting of the support wire, which for me is easier said than done. But these were merely the final nuisances in a line of other annoyances that saw me soldering/unsoldering, fabricating new pivot tubes ( what a pain in the .... cutting these to size is - easier to solder straight in longer lengths, but then they need cutting to size, a right pain with something this small an dainty; cut to the right size, they are then difficult to keep horizontal ! But of course, I'm preaching to the converted). Where was I? I could go on, but you get the idea.

As you can see from the photos, or perhaps not owing to their poor quality, the blobs of solder to the rear of the signal bear testament to the initial attempts at trying to fix a support for the pivot tube - which were all nice and straight, believe me - but then I had issues with accidentally gumming up the pivot tubes with solder, so that each had to be removed and the procedure repeated until the solder residue on the base meant that I had to find a new approach to the problem of fixing a wire support at the correct distance from the base of the signal. The solution, or the method I opted for to be precise, was to mount the base on 'another' base to provide a suitable 'Virgin' surface to solder to, but due to tiredness, frustration or just darned ham-fistedness, this merely introduced another variable to contend with and thus more opportunity for error. Consequently, it rendered my wooden block jig useless, with me resorting to the old trial and error method of alignment.

I didn't sleep much, pondering whether to remove the signal from it's new base and remount it onto a new base onto which I had would already have mounted and fixed the pivot tube and its support wire which could have been fabricated with ease 'off the job' as it were. Knowing my luck, however, I'd end up melting the signal base in the process and end up back at square one; which is the other option I considered: starting again.

Thoughts turned to using tubing of different diameters that could be filed and soldered to fit inside each other to give the curved effect of the original; problem here is that my filing just is 't up to the job, and then there's the business of trying to drill holes in a curved surface without a pillar thingy. Well, you've got to be realistic and accept your limitations. By the way, the signal base you see here is my second attempt. The first involved me trying to replicate the 'S' shape curve of the right leg of the one in the picture using heated brass. It worked o.k. but unfortunately, the pre-drilled hole became skewed in the process, and no amount of fettling get could get it to realign with its opposite number through which the pivot wire for the signal balance arm would pass. In the event, it was bent to you-know-what and was last seen attaining Escape Velocity.

After a couple of cups of tea, some measure of rationality has returned ( although, was I ever rational?) and I've begun to accept those limitations I mentioned. After all, whilst I'm trying to do my best to build a reasonably accurate model of the one in the picture within reason of course, it must also work, so perhaps if I can accomplish that, I can learn to live with all its little foibles. And who knows, maybe a coat or two of grime and filth will help to hide all the bits I don't like; perhaps I could even explain away the skewed wire support as accidental damage caused by a stray wagon or something?

Until next time, fellow Westerners.

jonte

 

[jonte]

Thank you kindly gentlemen for taking the trouble to read this tale of woe.

Apologies for rambling on.

Regards,

jonte

 

[jonte]

Building this makes me want to give up the hobby.



The spectacle plates have been on, off, on, off, ad .........

Too fine for soldering, the iron was switched off and out of the fridge came the cyano.

The first attempts, made from fine annealed brass wire (even when filed to an inch of their lives), were still too coarse, so out came the multi strand stuff which was stripped and dissected until a single 'hair like' strand of wire remained. This was twisted round a fine drill bit to form a loop that, in the case of the top spectacle, was trimmed with a fine blade so that only an arc of the loop remained (there was a finer e.g. of this but the glue obscured it so off it came!) Difficult to see, never mind glue, none looked right; this was my final attempt. I'm still not happy, but anything better is beyond my meagre ability. The glue, whilst carefully applied with a brass pin, still managed to accumulate into a glue spoil heap which I've done my best to clean up after each unsuccessful attempt; carried out gingerly so as not to fracture the fine wire spectacle plates or bend the wire pivot which had to be soldered on before the glue was applied.

Friction is holding the arm in position for the purpose of the shot, so if it's slightly askew this can be rectified.

Although I feel like consigning this to the bin for the sake of my sanity, I'll continue, even if it's just for the purpose of making it 'move' which will be valuable experience for when I buy my first signal kit.

Apologies for this indulgent display of negativity, fellow Westerners; I'd hoped to have done better.

Regards,

jonte

P.S. Sincerest apologies for the poor quality photos. jonte.

 

[jonte]

Thank you for your interest and likes, guys.

jonte

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Hi Jonte,

Nice work. I can understand the frustrations Still, it's a cracking piece of work. If you aren't in danger of supergluing arse to elbow, give your self a pat on the back

 

[jonte]

Kind words indeed, Jan, thank you.

I can't access my modelling den at the moment as the landscape guys are digging up my garden, so perhaps the lull in proceedings will do me good.

Not quite glued my arse to my elbow. More a case of not knowing my arse from my elbow

In fact, the only part of this calamity I've managed to get right so far is to include the penny in the photo for scaling; a valuable piece of advice I recall you imparting to me quite some time ago now

Thanks for dropping by, Jan.

jonte