4mm Morfa - The race is run.

[Neil]

Morfa - Victory from the jaws of defeat.

A useful tip I have picked up about gear meshing is to insert a piece of cigarette paper between worm and wheel when setting up. Guarantees just enough clearance.

Tried it first time round, it didn't. Well maybe there were other cock ups in the mix too, but it didn't work for me. The recent successful meshing was dialled in by a combination of guesswork and luck.

Any chance of another inspirational video, this time with the 103 going round the layout?

If I stretch the definition of 'inspirational' to encompass 'shaky' and 'poorly focussed' then yes, here it is.

.... How's progress coming on the wooden trestles going?

Slow but steady, all the decking timbers have been re-cut. It's been a bit of a bugger slicing the coffee stirrers almost, but not quite, in half down their length even with the jig, and a double bugger that I could only use the wider bits the treble bugger being cutting all the dratted things to length and then lining them up on the template. If this version doesn't go well I'll be on the lookout for four reasonably priced Airfix girder bridge kits and some fanciful pretext involving teredo worms and an unexpected cash windfall in the British railways coffers.

 

[Simon Dunkley]

Morfa - Victory from the jaws of defeat.

Tried it first time round, it didn't. Well maybe there were other cock ups in the mix too, but it didn't work for me. The recent successful meshing was dialled in by a combination of guesswork and luck.

The key problem you had was the side-play: you don't want this on driven axles.
Also, don't get things dead tight with the fag paper, either.

 

[Neil]

Morfa - deck done (again)

Well I've been quietly badgering away with bits of coffee stirrers and some 6mm square beading to produce bridge deck mk.2



Here it can be seen in front of deck mk.1 (of bridge mk.3); all told I'm far happier with this revised component. I'll still be using the first version until I have all the component parts ready to assemble so as to interupt train services for the minimum possible time. While I cut and stick the never ending small bits of wood together I like to have a train circulating ; it's fun and keeps the motivation high. The last few days the engineers stock has come out.

 

[Simon Dunkley]

Correct me if I am wrong, or if I have missed it being mentioned before, but have you rotated the layout 90 degrees again?

 

[Neil]

Correct me if I am wrong, or if I have missed it being mentioned before, but have you rotated the layout 90 degrees again?

No Simon, once was quite enough.

 

[Neil]

Last weekend John and Tim came to visit; in and amongst all the railway related fun the spiders were chased away from the trackbed on Morfa and some trains ran.

Here's John's video of events ....

... and Tim's take on the same consist further round the layout.

I'm impressed by both; the picture quality is far in excess of that I managed and the sound adds another dimension.

 

[Neil]

.... Thanks for posting those video clips - superb (were they produced on a Flip?) ....

What's a flip?

 

[ant31117]

Nice vids, I love the going away view!

Ant

 

[Alan]

Whilst nothing to do with Morfa, last night on my friend Dave's big roundy-roundy 00 layout we had a Hornby class 31 going round (all be it struggling) with 21 (yes twenty one) maunsells coaches, 4 bogie luggage vans and 6 4 wheel luggage vans. We then substituted the class 31 with a kit built Merchant Navy with portescap motor, which with prototypical wheel slip fairly romped away. The whole lot occupying about 0ne quarter of the circuit.

 

[Neil]

Mmmm... 27 wagons, including Brake Vans .... Who can run the longest train on their layout..?

Seeing as the gauntlet has been thrown down, I thought I'd wheel out another metaphor and up the ante. As I've run out of freight stock apart from some very draggy shoc-opens and a brake van, I thought I'd go the mixed train route and stuff a Mk1 and two vans into the head end of the consist. I reckon that I'm now close to the failing point of coupling integrity. Quite a lot of my stock leaves a bit to be desired in the free running department, moving the train by hand gives an idea of just how much force is required to shift it and the amount of stress in the leading three links. The 24 makes relatively light work of it though it does noticeably slow on the sharp (2'-2'6") curve near the window. No videos but here's a snap of the ten foot train.

 

[28ten]

Even with chipboard scenery there is a sense of scale and space, less is more and all that.

 

[iploffy]

I took 12 coaches made by MTH into the back garden and did exactly the same thing, the amount of weight on the leading coupling was quite extreme and will tax the loco's quite well

Ian

 

[Simon]

Seeing as the gauntlet has been thrown down, I thought I'd wheel out another metaphor and up the ante. As I've run out of freight stock apart from some very draggy shoc-opens and a brake van, I thought I'd go the mixed train route and stuff a Mk1 and two vans into the head end of the consist. I reckon that I'm now close to the failing point of coupling integrity. Quite a lot of my stock leaves a bit to be desired in the free running department, moving the train by hand gives an idea of just how much force is required to shift it and the amount of stress in the leading three links. The 24 makes relatively light work of it though it does noticeably slow on the sharp (2'-2'6") curve near the window. No videos but here's a snap of the ten foot train.

View attachment 7802

Speaking as someone who has been lucky enough to have actually "visited" Morfa over its development, that last picture and both videos are great vindications of your approach to modelling.

A consistent and credible theme, an appealing prototype, fantastic restraint in the face of more than a bit of space and the pursuit of a "rationalised" layout that very few modellers have the guts to create.

Less is more but there's more to it than that - brilliant

Simon

 

[Neil]

After a spell of tidying and finishing other projects, the biggest being the kitchen worktop expansion program, I've had the mental space to deal with the next part of spanning the mighty Mawddach.

Yesterday afternoon I worked out the height I needed the trestles to be, so that the timber baulks on the deck would have the same top as the sleepers. A quick spell of fannying with the computer generated a simple template. Two of these were stuck to card with double sided tape to avoid wrinkles and smudges. One had timber blocks fixed to it with Evo-Stick contact adhesive to become the assembly jig.



Once all the first side bits are in and glued I weight them down with a small tin filled with copper coins. It's surprisingly heavy for its size.



The other template is the cutting jig, used solely to cut the bottom angle on the diagonal strut.



I can't see me constructing more than one or two pier assemblies a day, with the drying time of pva and the need to flip the assembly over in the jig to line up the lower tie bar and diagonal on the other side. Still I quite like these slow and steady tasks, they are easy to fit in and around other jobs. Meantime trains still thread their way through the debris of construction.

 

[Alan]

Good to see an update. Oddly earlier this morning I looked at the thread and wondered what was happening.

 

[Neil]

Guess what I did on Christmas day? Correct, a couple more trestles.

Here's one of the little blighters half way through, ready to be reinserted to the jig to have it's lower horizontal strut and diagonal fixed to the other side one the excess coffee stirrer has been trimmed back at the top.



... and here's one fresh out of the jig alongside one trimmed to the final height.



Now though they look neat enough I'm under no illusions about the accuracy of my workmanship, so I fully expect some minor variations in height. If any are spot on I shall shout 'hurrah' and raise a glass of the particularly potent plum and barley wine I was given on Saturday, too tall and it's a date with the sandpaper for the piers, too tall and thin card or thick paper shims will be the order of the day. I intend to cut these shims to gentle free hand kidney shapes a bit bigger all round than the piers. I can then feather the edges back once firmly glued in place with sandpaper, loosing the extra height in the layers of varnish that will eventually represent the depths of the Mawddach.

My hope is that having strategies in place for all possible cock ups will have a similar preventative effect that carrying a brolly on an overcast day seems to bring.

 

[Neil]

Go big or go home ...

Yesterday I went to Aberystwyth and while there picked up a copy of this years Model Railroad Planning. A soak in the tub saw a couple of the pieces read and some of it must have lodged in my brain because this morning I got out the 10L tub of matt white emulsion, the paint roller and set about the backscene.



The backscene had been painted a dull light blue in satin finish. It was tidier than bare mdf and hardboard, but that's all that could be said for it. The photo shows me applying the second coat of white which should do as a good base for the sky which I hope to do tomorrow.

Whilst waiting for the first coat of paint to dry I've continued the fascia round the Abertafol curve. I have two pieces to trim and fix (again tomorrow) then all is essentially complete.



You may also be interested to know that bridge pier production has been chugging along quite nicely. With eight complete and one setting under weight in the jig there's just one more to do before I can start to assemble the bridge.



Is 'full throb ahead' the diesel equivalent of 'full steam etc ...' ?

 

[28ten]

Are you going for the sunny look or the damp look with the clouds and lighting?

 

[iploffy]

and hello to you,or at least the back of your head(by the way who took the picture spooky!!!!!!) you remember the old saying about paint drying, less painting more train running please.

 

[Alan]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who rolled their sky. I also added some blobs of a grey/blue and white and rolled them in for my clouds rather than trying to hand paint them it worked reasonably well I think.