Church Norton

[3 LINK]

Cheers Steve,

I must admit it's good to actually get on and do something constructive, what with work and the time it took to convert the garage, I sometimes thought I would never make a start.

Steve are you a member of the club down at Heene road in Worthing? It's just that I took an old friend of mine to the Bristol show and he is now a total convert to 7mm . He was a driver on the Southern region for 30 years but he is now in a wheel chair, but saying that he has a car and is quite mobile. He does not go out as much as he would like to and I thought this might be a good idea to maybe get him involved with the club.

Gosh it sounds like I am filling out a form for one of those dating sites .

ATB,

Martyn.

 

[Jordan]

I'm gong to kick your kneecaps in at playtime!

Glad to see everyone playing nicely....

Track so close to the edge of baseboards makes me nervous ... I take it there'll be some sort of raised edge along the fiddleyard boards?

 

[Dikitriki]

Hi Martyn

Your baseboards look very stylish - a veritable work of art .

Can you post your trackplan please.

Thanks

Richard

 

[3 LINK]

Glad to see everyone playing nicely....

Track so close to the edge of baseboards makes me nervous ... I take it there'll be some sort of raised edge along the fiddleyard boards?

Hi Jordan,

Yes there will be a " crash barrier " all along both sides and it will either be 3mm ply or hard board strips, I thought it might get in the way while I was track laying .

Hi Martyn

Your baseboards look very stylish - a veritable work of art .

Can you post your trackplan please.

Thanks

Richard

Hi Richard,

Errr, to be honest the only plan I have at present is the Templot one, and I am not sure how to go about retrieving it from the program . The plan is loosely based on Dymock with a few " additions " see plan below :-



The two turnouts to the right of the goods shed will be replaced with a double slip, the head shunt will be extended and there will be an additional siding just above the goods shed. On the down line there will be a refuge siding just before the start of the platform.

It is a fairly simple layout, but being the lone operator most of the time it should keep me busy ( less is more ) .

I learnt my lesson about ambitious track plans a while back, remember the Bristol show .

When I have more time I will try and draw up a plan for your perusal.

Cheers,

Martyn.

 

[john lewsey]

This looks really nice Martyn

 

[SteveO]

Cheers Steve,

Steve are you a member of the club down at Heene road in Worthing? It's just that I took an old friend of mine to the Bristol show and he is now a total convert to 7mm . He was a driver on the Southern region for 30 years but he is now in a wheel chair, but saying that he has a car and is quite mobile. He does not go out as much as he would like to and I thought this might be a good idea to maybe get him involved with the club.

Gosh it sounds like I am filling out a form for one of those dating sites .

ATB,

Martyn.

I am indeed. It's a nice little place with coarse scale, fine scale and S7 members. Let him know he's very welcome – as you are. We meet on the third Sundays of the month with alternating test track meets and layout building/modelling sessions. March's will be layout building but he can come along to introduce himself and bring a project along if he has one, or get plenty of help and advice. We have a website, but as I'm the one who looks after it, it's a bit behind... I have a few photos from this month's session still to put on.

 

[3 LINK]

Morning Steve,

That would be great, in that case I will come down with him to help with the introductions. Being on a Sunday might help my case for future visits, especially if I can book it before the wife has other plans .

ATB,

Martyn.

 

[3 LINK]

This looks really nice Martyn

Thank you for your kind words, with two baseboards now built it has brought it home to me just how much work I have ahead of me, still I am enjoying every minute of it .

ATB,

Martyn.

 

[3 LINK]

Not a lot as happened since my last update mainly due to life getting in the way of things, I'm sure you all know what I mean, unless your retired that is.

Anyhow the one thing I have done is re-named the layout, to be honest I was not sure that the name Selborne sounded right for the layout ( if that makes any sense ), so what with rule number one and modellers licence being brought into play, I now name this layout " Church Norton " to me it sounds a bit more GWRish and rule number one applies. Funnily enough Church Norton is situated just about 4 miles along the coast from where I live and is no more than a hamlet in size.

Well that's all for now, and as soon as I know how I will alter the title of the heading.

ATB,

Martyn.

 

[AJC]

I'm not sure how a place name can be 'GWRish' unless you think Domesday book was the work of Brunel! Church Norton sounds pretty anonymous, much like Selbourne, really. I suppose a reasonable explanation would be the north 'tun' or farmstead (a Saxon place name element) owned by some ecclesiastical landlord some time in the middle ages, probably until the Reformation. In other words, it could be more or less anywhere, Cornwall or Wales accepted (mostly, 'ton' tended to get reused for industrial settlements later on).

Adam

PS - Selbourne is another Saxon name, 'burna' which simply means 'stream'. It would be 'bourne' or 'borne' in the south of England, 'burn' in the north. So Sherborne (Dorset) is 'the bright stream' (sheer = bright) just as is Sherburn, (N. Yorks). See also Winterborne (Dors.)/Winterburn (N. Yorks) - streams that flow in the winter - much to the surprise of incomers!

 

[3 LINK]

Hi Guys,

Just a quick update, the 3 boards for the fiddle yard are now finished but I have not laid any track on them just yet.

So now I have had to decide as to what style of baseboards to go with for the scenic section, although the layout will not be an exhibition layout I still need to keep it fairly easy to take apart in case I have need to. As some of the boards are quite long I need them to be as rigid as possible and hopefully without too much flex, so I have decided to go for the " a la Barry Norman " method which is an open frame design using the " beam method ".

This comprises of basically two lengths of ply with blocks of pine sandwiched between the ply at between 12" to 18" apart, I have only put together the one beam so far just to see how practical this method is and see if there are any pitfalls to be aware of.

Apart from the cost, ie :- a length of 4" x 1" is a lot cheaper , it does appear to be very rigid and without any twist.

If there is a downside it is the weight, but saying that the frame will be open plan so without any baseboard top fitted this should not be a problem.

The pictures below are just to give you an idea as to what I am waffling on about





ATB,

Martyn.

 

[Steph Dale]

Martyn,

What thickness ply are you using for the beams? We built a 40' by 6' layout (in 4mm!) some years ago using 6mm ply and 25*50mm softwood, glued and nailed. I wouldn't say it was heavy; three of us could lift the entire thing...

It was also ruddy strong; taking all the centre legs out we could get the layout to stand on the legs at each end of the layout with something like a 1.5" sag in the middle under test conditions. In normal use we had one leg per 6' beam.

Steph

 

[3 LINK]

Morning Steph,

I have gone for 9mm ply with 25x75 mm pine blocks sandwiched between the ply, and already I can see this is a good way of keeping the frames rigid.

My main concern was to try and alleviate any twist and flex, so it is good to know that you have already tried and tested this method with such good results.

Martyn.

 

[Ressaldar]

Hi Martyn,

your chosen beam design should be very strong and twist/warp free, it also gives you and ideal 'seating' for the legs in as much as an additional block spaced from one of the end blocks automatically gives you a socket for the leg to slide into.





Hope this is of use.

cheers

Mike

 

[3 LINK]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the diagram, I had not given the support legs much thought up to now but that's a brilliant idea to incorporate the legs into the beam itself .

Cheers,

Martyn.

 

[Compton castle]

Any news matey? Have the navvies made a start??

 

[3 LINK]

Any news matey? Have the navvies made a start??

Hi Steve,

A bit slow of late what with the heat wave and the fact the beach is only a 10 minute walk away .

The fiddle yard is nearly finished and I have just ordered some tortoise motors for the turnouts, these will be controlled by a lever frame through micro switches hopefully.

Then it should be onto the more enjoyable scenic sections once I order some more birch ply.

I hope you liked that site I invited you to join, great photos considering they are over half a century old .

ATB,

Martyn.

 

[Compton castle]

Hi Martyn
Have a look at these I'm going for a nice small panel for RB
http://www.digitrains.co.uk/ecommerce/search/cbs-cobalt-switch-lever.aspx

 

[OzzyO]

Hi Martyn
Have a look at these I'm going for a nice small panel for RB
http://www.digitrains.co.uk/ecommerce/search/cbs-cobalt-switch-lever.aspx

IIRC, you can also get get them in blocks of five or six a a good price.

 

[3 LINK]

Hi Guys,

I did do a bit of research on the Cobalts and also servos before deciding on the Tortoise motors.

If I remember rightly the Cobalts had some bad press regarding their reliability, which turned out to be unfair because they were being used with a 16 volt transformer, even though it stated in their fitting instructions that they worked best at 9 volts !

And there were two benefits with the Tortoise motors over the servos in my opinion, 1) tried and tested over the years, so should be reliable and 2) the added benefit of two built in switches ie:- polarity, LED, etc.

I do tend to go for the tried and tested route hence why I chose the Lenz system for my DCC.

IIRC, you can also get get them in blocks of five or six a a good price.

Coastal DCC are selling six Tortoise motors for £75.49 at the moment which equates to £12.58 per unit .

ATB,

Martyn.