Southampton MRC show

Completely with an n gauge bias, I toddled off to Southampton last week to see New Mills, as featured in Railway Modeller in Sept 2009. It was splendid. No station, interestingly, but a main line and both steam and diesel shed/depot.

My pics are below, taken with my iPhone. A bit naff but okay. As there was something moving on the main lines pretty much all the time (a good thing!), there's a bit of blurring that a better camera would improve on. Must try harder...

 

  

 

Conditioning Sundeala

As per the instructions, I've conditioned the Sundeala which will top my baseboards. Instructions come with the boards, which I got from Alton Model Centre, or are available on the web site.

First slosh a good half a litre on each board, on the reverse (which I've assumed to be the side with the Sundeala logo on).

 

Then stack them on top of each other, wet side to wet side, thus:

Finally, drop a couple of baseboards on top to keep everything flat and in place.

And wait 48 - 72 hours...

Baseboard construction completed - again

Following on from the previous post on baseboard completion (!), this time it really is done. Cross braces are fitted and drilled to allow wiring to pass through. Here's proof:

Also, here's a close-up of a leg 'pocket' - the design is a fixed leg design with the leg being held in place with a bolt (not shown). I thought this was ingenious design on my part, but found out later that it's common practice. It even featured in this month's BRM layout construction article.

Also, here's a close-up of a board end, showing the bolt hole and alignment dowel fitted.

Next step is to condition the Sundeala boards before fitting, as per the instructions...

Totnes wins BRM layout of the year

I wrote about John Birkett-Smith's Ashburton a few months back - the scenics were awesome. John's larger project was featured in BRM in in 2009 and has now won the best Layout in a BRM poll. Photos are on John's blog and on Noel Leaver's Farnham MRC pages. Here's one to whet the appetite:

Interestingly there was a discussion on the running qualities of Totnes on the N Gauge Yahoo! forum here - defended by Jerry Cifford (who built Highbury Colliery, featured in Railway Modeller Nov & Dec 2009).

Baseboard construction completed

After some serious joinery work over the Christmas period the baseboards are finished. Well almost - the cross-bearers are not installed yet as I don't want to have them under the boards where point motors are to be installed. So I need to complete the track plan, which needed to be modified because of the space available (see here for details) and because of my misunderstanding of Peco track geometery (see here for more details but basically Peco SetTrack radius 3 is too large to fit on a 600mm board).

I've also bought four sheets of Sundeala board from Alton Model Centre to top the plywood boards - I'll pin these down shortly. Anyway, here's a photo of the four boards joined up:

I thought the bullet-style cabinet makers dowels would be tricky to fit, but in fact they went in very easily (with a tap from a hammer) and work really well. Purchased from Station Road Baseboards, which so far has provided a good service (I also got my adjustable feet there).

Next step: transcribe the track plan from XtrkCad to a large roll of wallpaper on the baseboard to make sure everything will fit - I'll use point temptates downloaded from this useful site - inexplicably they are not available from the Peco web site.

Loft flooring hiatus

I'm flooring the loft, hence little progress on the baseboards. They're cut to size and I've also cut the framing to brace the boards - just all needs gluing and screwing together.

Anyway, the loft is floored and wired for electric sockets - just needs to be connected to the mains. Lighting is temporary but sufficient for now.

A quick tidy up of loft junk and the boards can be transferred from the garage to the loft and then (hopefully quickly) completed.

Maybe some track will be positioned by the end of the year...

Layout inspirations 4 - Moorcock

Moorcock by Andy Calvert
Viewed at the N Gauge Society 40th Anniversary show 2007

I'd heard all about this layout on the Yahoo! N Gauge forum as it has legendary status. Was it worth all the fuss? Yep. A great example of N Gauge modelling - full-length trains, sweeping curves and great scenery.

Moorcock is still on the exhibition circuit despite the demise of its builder Andy Calvert. It also being reburbished - it's quiet old. Anyway, I didn't have my camera with me in 2007 when I saw it, but here are some great photos and a video on the N Guage Society web site.

Pictures are here.

Video is here.

Enjoy.