Control Panel completion

 At last another post, after a rather long gap. I have been working though.

Well, I eventually "finished" the control panel and this photo shows all the sections with DC supply on - up (green LEDs). If I throw the section switches to the middle (they are 3-way, on/off/on) they show red and down shows blue (DCC). Obviously it would be pretty crazy to have some with DCC and others DC. It's either one or the other. So I will be sure to double check before selecting, when in use. The picture shows a Compspeed controller which I had selected before knowing what type of motor Heljan would use in it's L&B MW locos. I have to change it because the Heljan's use a coreless motor and feedback controllers like Compspeed are a no-no. I'm proposing a blanking panel with 2 sockets, one for the DC controller - probably a handheld Gaugemaster analogue one and the other a DCC handheld. Not agreed on which model yet.

Here is an internal view showing a start with the wiring. The 2 "boxes" with holes bottom right are the 2 stabilized power supplies for both 12v DC (analogue track supply) and 5v DC (for all the relays and LEDs). I had to make sure there was enough power (current) available so counting all the amps total for relays and LEDs was very important. 2 of the 5 printed circuit boards are shown.

Here are all the Printed circuit boards (not yet fully wired)
and power supplies fitted to the aluminium panel (helps with heat dissipation) which is then fitted inside the box.

And here it is completely wired, including the toroidal transformer (used them before and they have been very reliable - over 40 years no problems!). So from the right hand side there is the AC mains input 3 pin socket and on the left are 2x25-pin output sockets.

All the LEDS need resistors so I built a separate Printed circuit board to wire them to, which made it very easy to then connect each LEDs "return" lead to its individual resistor which they all then connected to a single lead back to the 5 volt power supply. Kept everything wiring-wise tidy!

This all started from an idea. I had no  diagrams/circuits to guide me. They all had to be invented/created. But I did an apprenticeship in the 1960s in electronics and radio communications so it's sort of in my blood! We all have out "crazies"! It might look complicated but it's basically "many" of just a "few" identical circuits and lots of careful wiring.

The real test comes when I connect to the layout (yet to be started). I'm about 99% confident everything will be OK as I tested as I went along. 

The hardest part? Making the wiring to the 2x25-way sockets. This was done via an "intercept" Printed circuit board to connect all the individual wires to the 25-way flat leads that connect with a single click into their respective 25-way socket. I won't have to wait long to get trains running once the track and wiring is done. Keep dreaming Mike!!

Lynton Goods Shed

I started on the Goods Shed in January 2017 and it's now August 2017, 175 construction hours later and it's essentially complete, ready to plant. All that's left are the gutter down pipes and fitting the doors (those will have to wait for the layout as the south ones will be operated by servos).
So lets start:
The same construction method has been used as I had started on the Engine Shed and the Station building. 1mm Evergreen styrene"skins" and 2.5 x 4.8 (or 6.4)mm spacing pieces placed where the edges of window/doors are, plus a few extra strengthening pieces. 

East (road) side.

 Adding the additional ends and west side. At this stage I haven't added the 3.2mm "plinth" to allow for the additional height of PECO 009 track that Steve Phillip's drawings don't cater for.

The south face for the main part of the building is faced with Plastruct Concrete sheet, 91793 to simulate the rendering. It needed a white primer, as its base colour is grey, and then quite a few SR cream (at least my version of it - can't get Phoenix or other UK accurate paints here) top coats. It seems about right to my eyes and colour swatches from on-line forums.

The beams above the main door openings have been fitted and painted before "wallpapering" with the Scalescenes printed stone paper. Having done 2 previous buildings, it was much quicker, but because my photo paper is only 11" wide (US sizes) working out where and how joins were to be made meant I had to mitre the north ends. Doing that in paper is quite a challenge and it isn't absolutely perfect, but acceptable at normal viewing distances. There is also a butt join on the east (road) side but I've made it where the gutter downpipe will go.

 The internal platform was added at this stage. I took the measurement from the Brown, Prideaux and Radcliffe book drawing as SP's "bible" doesn't show that. The roadside doorways' vehicle "bumpers" were added. Also all the brick arches were made using a software program called "brick arch" (free online from a model railway club in South London - can't remember which one) and printed like the stone paper. It's excellent as you can choose radii, number of rows, and colours of both bricks and mortar. Took quite a few trial and error printings, but worth the effort. Highly recommended.

 The ventilator grills were added at both ends and the tops of the east and west walls were chamfered to take the roof flush. This is where my cordless Dremel drill was again used to speedy effect.

The inside of the east wall had a sliding door (not shown on any drawings and very easily missed when looking at photos). Credit to Ron Trill who pointed it out to me. I had to guess all the dimensions, but it seems to have worked out OK. It was an internal access to the outer lean-to building. Speculation as to it's intended purpose has not given a definite yet.

Showing the inner platform and also construction of the support beam above the doorway opening above the track. The 3.2mm "plinth" had been added before"wallpapering" and the additional depth can now be seen. The internal stone walls have been "whitewashed" - a very thin watered down coat of white paint so that the stone still shows through.

 

Some of the "wallpapering was done before adding the plinth, but it won't show once the ballast and ash etc has been added to the track.

Windows and doorways are now added using the same method as on the station.

The office door detailing for the window was taken by close examination of photos, but I think I have the vertical planking incorrect - according to the photos. I made them from SP's drawing before looking at the photo details! I didn't want to remake that window detail! The depth below the door steps is obviously too great but again it will be "hidden" once it is "planted" allowing for the ground depth detail. Well, anyway, that's the plan!

Checking clearances with PECO track and rolling stock. All looks good. Can't do it for the locos yet as Heljan haven't been able to deliver yet. So I'm hoping all my measuring has been accurate enough and Heljan have made their Manning Wardles accurately! At worst case I could add a bit more to the plinth as it will hidden under the "ground fill".

And now for the roofs. I made the main roof from 2mm Evergreen styrene (as per the station building roof) and the office/lamp room roof from 1mm styrene, with all the long edges chamfered. Looking OK. But fun was in store because I hadn't completely thought through the construction of the main roof. We'll see the problem in a few photos down.

The ends of the roofs had the exposed horizontal beams and part of the underside of the roof exposed. By using 2mm styrene for the main roof I didn't have that recessed view of the ends of the roof. I could remake it with 1mm styrene but I thought that wouldn't be strong enough without any internal bracing , which I didn't particularly want to produce - I'm learning about unseen internal construction! So the solution was to remake the roof with 2mm styrene and its length would need to be without any overhang at the ends of the roof. I then added 1mm thick strips of styrene at the ends so that I could also add the  vertical strips to create the correct look. Learning lesson? Measure at least 3 times and think it through! At least I hadn't started the tiling.

Now for detailing. 
The canopies above the loading bays each had 11 separate styrene pieces and were quite difficult to keep square.

The Dremel cordless drill with a routing bit, made making these supporting pieces and shaping them a lot easier than trying to file them.

Checking for fit. The corrugated roof parts come from ready made aluminium strips cut to length.

Primed in grey, lightly attached to a painting board. The corrugated roofs are not fitted at this stage.

The frames top coated.

Every modeller needs some encouragement!

Next tiling. I didn't fit the canopies at this stage as they would have been prone to breaking easily. The main roof could be completed, but the office roof could only go as far as the chimney line. Gutters were made, painted and fitted as per the Station building. But what to do about making the chimney. It's quite a complex shape and I wasn't confident I could achieve an accurate enough shape, so York Modelmaking came to the rescue again and produced a couple of bespoke ones. There was little difference in the cost of 2 over a single one. I was so pleased I made that decision as painting the first one I over sprayed with primer trying to cover in one spraying and filled all the mortar grooves!

The canopies were then fitted. along with all the advertising enamel plate battens. Theses were all cut to the correct lengths and spaced as per SP's drawing. The enamel signs were made the same way as on the Station building and glued on using Elmer's glue-stick glue - very similar to UHU stick.

By now the chimneys had arrived.
First coat of top paints after primer.

And finally fitted and the tiling on the office roof completed. I could now finally permanently fix the office roof to the building. The fire bucket bracket was made, painted and fitted. I had to guess it's shape as the 2 photos I had when zoomed in were not defined enough to accurately guess the shape. Buckets are from Bachmann.

The lean-to store at the back has been made, painted (with quite some controversy as to what the colour might have been - I quite like the green even if it may not have been used. Creosote seems to be the consensus.)

So what's left? The gutter downpipes which I can't complete until it's on the layout as I won't fix down the main roof until the track is installed and all clearances accepted. The roller door is made and the rollers are still "in my head" waiting to find someone with a miniature lathe so that I can turn them into grooved wheels to run on the rail. Otherwise I'll have to find a way to use my 240v B&D UK electric drill (powered through a step-up transformer). The south pair of doors have been checked for fit and will have to wait until "planted" as they will be operated by servos.

The next posting will be the coal shed. Subscribe for the updates. Thanks for viewing. We're slowly getting there!

Lynton Station Roof Part 2b - completion

Almost another year has gone by since the last post on the control panel and a lot has been achieved. The station is just about finished - just a few little bits to add. But I thought I would continue the saga of the roof. It really is a complicated shape made up of many individual parts.
The main part of the roof was completed in the first part of this section of the blog, so this will be the second storey, tiling and finishing.
I made the second storey as a completely separate unit as it was easier to work on like that.

Here is the second storey basic "box".

 Adding the LED light (Woodland Scenics - JustPlug system. Excellent). East side. Also showing the hanging slates that were produced to the correct size, especially for me, by York Modelmaking.

 Here's the West side

 The underneath showing the LED light for the north part of the internals room.

A more detailed look at the hanging tiles on the east (road) side. Getting the roof to sit correctly took a lot of fettling later.
Now let's look on the underside of the roof - Oh no, not more detail Mike!! Can't help it! It is very individual and differs from both Woody Bay and Blackmoor in the way the ends of the rafters appear. I needed photos of how they look and every one I had were in shadow and impossible to get the detail of their shape. I even looked on Goodle Earth where the road side of the building is well shown - except this detail! Tony Nicholson (L&BR TRUST) came to my rescue and very kindly took some shots that I was able to lighten the shadows and see what I needed - thank you so much Tony! 4,200 odd miles (from the middle of America) is a long way to go to get a photo.

Starting adding the rafter ends. They had 2 different radii shapes each, made with a conical router in my cordless Dremel micro drill. You can also see the planking - similar to how the main roof was made.

 Here is the complete underside of the second storey roof. 48 individual rafter ends!

Showing a corner detail, This was quite difficult to work out.

Now I was ready to start "tiling".

And this is the final result. Tiles are York Modelmaking N scale terracotta, which are the correct size for 4mm! Finials are from Narrow Planet - they are tiny and easily mislaid but really add that authentic touch! I bought the strip of 10 and I can only find 4!

The rest of the roof:

 York Modelmaking's N scale tiles in their sheet before cutting each strip and the first few rows on the main roof.

More rows and ensuring the second storey fitted correctly after trimming the ends of the tiling.

As far as I could go up the roof before completing the second storey as I wasn't sure at this stage how the apex of the main roof would match with the second storey's roof. Each end before trimming. There are the correct number of rows of tiles!

Another view with the second storey added for checking. Checking mating fits before proceeding with each stage is critical and must be done in correct sequence.

I didn't take any photos of how I joined the edges, but this is the description: I held a 6 inch metal ruler along the edge of the sloping tiles such that the edge of the ruler was exactly vertical with the edge of the plastic part of the roof joints. The ruler was then carefully clamped with a micro "QuickGrip" clamp and then, with a new blade in my Exacto No 11 knife, I cut vertically to the slope of the roof. It is actually an "undercut" so that the butting edge of the adjoining row would mate "exactly". That was the plan and in the main it worked. See the next picture - not actually the best edge. At normal viewing distance it looks OK.

 And here is the east side before finally adding the gutter downpipes and stench pipe.

A view looking along the east side (platform). You can just see the weigh control box between the 2nd and 3rd windows. The Electrical box further along is also modelled.

Lighting was added at the correct stage of construction.

North end door light. 

The Woodland Scenics H0 scale goose neck lamp which is just perfect for the north door. 

West side lights including the internal and external (under eaves) ones. Some light "creep" at some edges which have been corrected using Woodland Scenics light excluding black putty. Also the intensity has been reduced with the control boxes, one dimmer for each light.

East side and again the light "creep" has been corrected. All the JustPlug connecting boxes are underneath the station. I have now made a 2 plug and socket arrangement under the station building so that it could be removed if necessary from the layout.

And now: on to the Goods shed. See the next post. Thanks for following.