A change in direction

I have been a bit quiet of late as I have recently made the decision and have been preparing to retire and needed to focus on the financial side of life. I will retire in 12 July 2013 and I am looking forward to it as you can imagine. I had intended to carry on working until I turned 65 next year but have taken this decision due to the recent health issues of my prostate removal operation and the more recent attack of Shingles. The Shingles have not completely gone away and across the area affected I have varying degrees of tingling, ticklish sensations and even numbness in my eyebrow. I don’t know how long it will take for these to go away but as Shingles is caused by the flare up of the Chicken Pox virus lying dormant on nerves within the body when resistance is low and stress is high then the only way I can reduce my stress levels is to retire.

I have been doing some modelling though and I have fitted LokSound v4.0 decoders into two NSWGR D57 Class steam locomotives. I have a LokProgrammer on loan from Marcus Ammann and it is needed to change the sounds in the decoders. I am not fully happy with the sounds but I am very close. The main issue is the chuff, the D57 class having three cylinders with slightly different timing on one cylinder have a very distinctive beat, like a 1..2.3. I have a nice sounding chuff happening but I need to modify the sound scheme for the chuffs to achieve the D57 beat. The sound scheme is like a flow chart telling the decoder when and under what circumstances to chuff and when to drift (as in a certain reduction of speed steps I assume). The flow chart is very complex and is easily messed up but now that I am going to be retired and I can focus my attention on it for longer I will try to produce the D57 beat.

Whistles for our steam locomotives are also a problem but I have managed to find a reasonable whistle that is from the USA Heisler sounds (LokSound v4.0 -55452 Sound File). The chuff and other sounds are also from the Heisler. The Heisler has two ‘engine sounds’ or chuffs going on so I turned one of them off and then adjusted the chuff rate as per the LokSound v4.0 Manual for 6 chuffs per revolution. The whistle is interesting as it has a flow chart that depending on how long you press the whistle/function button it will give a whistle that tails off or cuts off, you can almost play it. It has a nice pitch and sounds a bit like it was recorded at night in a valley as there is an echo but I have heard similar with our locomotives as well.

The two D57s will get a work out this Friday night as the Ramblers are coming for a timetable operating session.

I have spent the last couple of nights setting up trains for the session which is quite a chore. The problem is we have had a few running nights where anything goes and it usually does so the trains were all mixed up and in the wrong locations. They are normally in the wrong locations after a timetable operating session anyway but at least they are just in the staging yard pointing the wrong way at the other end of the layout. There is something to be said for a layout designed to have all the trains back in their starting places at the end of a session but I prefer to have trains that go somewhere not round and round. There is a cost for everything in this life so you have to weigh up and make your decisions; circled back to retirement there.

I attended the Epping Club’s Exhibition on the long weekend and here are a couple of photos I took of the Whereisit layout, small but nice. I didn’t take many as exhibitions are not conducive to taking good photos due to the lighting and the fact that the trains keep moving (I take time exposure shots).

10 Class Crane loco 1052  in the loco depot

Water tower on Whereisit

Model Railroad Craftsman 5 ton yard crane on Whereisit

While at the exhibitions I learned that Geoff Knott was not very well and of course since then we have heard that he passed away. We have lost one of natures gentlemen and a great world class modeller. You will be missed Geoff.

Here are some photos of the layout Geoff and his mate Michael Flack exhibited at the last Epping Exhibition Geoff attended in 2012.

Abrasive block update - Amended

Here is an update on the availability and price of the Josco GarryFlex abrasive block.

In a comment by 'Biokeith' on my last post I was pointed towards Element14 which used to be Farnells as being a supplier of the block at a better online price of $11.60 and then a sliding scale downwards as you order more.

Here is the link.

Element14 also have a Trade Counter that can be found at:

72 Ferndell Street,
Chester Hill NSW 2162

Further contact information online at: Element14.

'AlbertM' also left  a comment to advised me that he had got a block at Fishers Discounts in ACT. I tried to find the abrasive block on their site but couldn't.

I have amended the RS Components company to Farnell above after a comment by Brendan who stated that RS Components has the abrasive blocks.

RS Components address is:

25 Pavesi St
Smithfield. NSW 2164

Back to the grind and a bit of a sad time

Last post I said I was going to investigate track cleaning rubbers and here are some findings.

I went looking for abrasive ink rubbers but couldn't find any other than the usual white pencil and grey ink rubber even in stationary stores.

I did a web search for abrasive rubber/blocks and managed to find a source for a 80mm x 50mm x 20mm 240 grit block from a company in Melbourne called Josco, the block is called a GarryFlex block. I checked their web site for Sydney suppliers. I found one, Total Tools at Cowper St, Granville, coincidentally near where I work, they have other stores in NSW.

I dropped in and they didn't have any but would order one in for me. It took a few days and I picked it up for $19.95. Now this sounds expensive but it is large and will last the lifetime of most layouts.

As to performance, it works very well and here is a picture of the block.

I took the block along last Friday night to the Rambler meeting at Ron's Werris Creek layout so that we could clean the trackwork as we prepare the layout for its first running session in a while. Now Bob Lynch aka Junior Bob also turned up with a similar 240 grit block that he had ordered from Micro-Mark. It also worked very well as you would expect. The Micro-Mark block is US $7.50 but you would need to factor in the pack and post costs. I have bought a number of items from Micro-Mark and the cheapest postage was $18. If several people got together for one order there might be a better rate per block landed here.

Well, that's about all I have been up to in the hobby for the last few weeks other than dismantling a layout my father and I have been building for him over the last several years. Dad and Mum are moving into an aged care unit and it is a bit sad to see them having to reduce their well loved possessions and furniture to fit into the unit.

Dad hopes he can do something layout wise in the Men's Shed the facility is about to build, fingers crossed for him. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos and we were just starting the scenery. The layout was designed to come apart into pieces but the track and wiring had to be cut where they crossed the joins. The layout is in storage at my daughter's place so hopefully Dad can get something going again even if not as it was.

Luckily some clarity

After nearly a week of cortisone eye drops every two hours (except for sleep time) my vison cleared. I am now taking the eye drops four times a day for a month. It is a very scary thing when confronted with something that could have a real impact on the hobby and modelling.

After my vision improved I was able to do some modelling and managed to build two Uneek 5 tonne jib cranes for Bylong and Cassilis goods yards. The Bylong crane will have to be removeable for a while as it will be too interesting for my 3 year old grandson who likes the trains. He was visiting recently and while I wasn't looking he decided that the arm on the Bylong Home signal near the tunnel should point towards the tracks. He got a stern talking to and after a minute of quiet upset on his part I spoke to him softly and we got on with running the trains.

Since Bylong hadn't been run for a while I decided to give the track its six monthly clean with a track rubber. Well, I have to say that the latest Peco track rubber is rubbish. A hard old small piece of Peco track rubber will clean rail with about one third of the effort of the new version. The rubber seems to have very little abrasive in it even though it does twinkle like it has. I am going to see what else is available on the market including visiting a real stationary store looking for some ink rubbers. Many years ago I had a box of a dozen or so pale green abrasive ink rubbers and they were great. I wonder if they still exist in this modern age?

I found a bit of time to put together an IDR Castings MLV kit and it went together very well. This model gave me an opportunity to use the handrail jig from Keiran Ryan Models that I bought several years ago. All I can say is well done Keiran, a very useful tool. The MLV had many brake pipes and handrails to be accurately bent and the jig just made it so easy.

Trackwork at Wollar - Mark 2

I spoke too soon, the photos of the ballasted trackwork in the last post were before the application of the waterbased glue. After taking the photos and doing the post I went back and applied the glue as I normally do, confident that I had beaten the baseboard swelling issue.

By now you will realise that I was wrong. When I checked on it the next morning the swelling and roller coaster track was back in all its glory and even more so. It was worse than the first time so much so that I didn't take a photo.

I thought for a while that I would have to rip up all trackwork platforms, buildings and scenery to replace the actual baseboards. The baseboards have been in the layout since about the mid-1980's and obviously were not good pineboard, not enough resin you would suppose. I have other parts of the layout that are older and the pineboard is still as sound as the day it was built.

I decided that I would give it one more go but this time it would be a waterless process. I carefully removed the track without damage, luckily, and then used the Bosch Multifunction tool to level out the baseboard again.

I gave the baseboard two coats of model airplane dope that I had bought some years ago to shrink tissue paper tarps onto wagons but didn't ever use. I then made a paper template of the area, transferred the shape onto 3mm MDF board and cut the shape out on my bandsaw. The MDF was also coated with the dope on edges and both sides. The MDF was glued down with Bostik Zero Nails and also pinned in place. The rough edge of the MDF gives the illusion that it is not flat.

The track was then spiked in place and the wiring redone after the holes were drilled through their original holes underneath the baseboard. There is a slight rise in tracks at the middle of the platform and this is due to the join of the two baseboards not being in the same plane, that is, not flat in respect of each other.

Finally came the nervous step of ballasting. This time though it was going to be waterless and I used an unconventional bonding medium, liquid hairspray. Now, many years ago I helped my daughter buy a small hairdressing salon and in the existing stocks was a  2 litre container of hairspray that could be used in a pump spray bottle. I did a trial and it worked well, so away I went. The next morning all was well as can be seen by the following two photos. Well, apart from the 'nice' cheap flowery smell! It's gone now. I will have to ask my daughter if the liquid hairspray is still available.

I managed to achieve this over a week with basically one eye as the other has been deeply involved in my attack of the Shingles and I am currently having cortisone eye drops every two hours as the eye has become blurry and I can't read with it at all. The eye specialist says that he can't guarantee that the treatment will be successful but I am hopeful as he said the majority of cases do well if it is treated quickly which is the case.

Trackwork at Wollar

The trackwork at Wollar has progressed slowly especially since last Friday morning. I have been battling with something in my eye and got to see an eye specialist this morning to find out that I either have viral conjunctivitus or shingles! I have been stressed recently with almost every facet of life presenting some issue or another. The doctor decided it was shingles so I now have a prescription and a return visit in a month. If I add up the eye wash, a visit to an emergency medical centre and todays visit and prescription I am out of pocket by about $306 until I get back something from Medicare and my health fund. Ok, enough excuses now back to modelling.

I removed the track to expose the baseboard bulges and pondered over how to level them out when I remembered that I had recently purchased a Bosch Multifunction tool with several saw blades. I crossed my fingers and used the flat square ended blade that is about 30mm wide. It worked a treat and I suggest that it could be a standard tool for baseboard work, for instance, I can see that it could also be very useful to cut slots or holes on the baseboard for undertrack magnets, point motors, etc.

I filled any baseboard imperfections and joints with Spakfilla, something I had not previously used for this purpose and found it worked well although it is best left to dry out thoroughly before sanding. I used a sanding block to sand it down and then laid 3mm cork roadbed. I followed this up with Micro Engineering Code 70 track. I didn't have enough of the un-weathered track and had to use a short piece of the weathered track much to my regret. I find that even though I try too remove the weathering back to bare metal I still have some difficulty getting solder to take even though I use flux.

That was where everything was up to when my eye trouble intervened. Tonight I ballasted the track and I used a tool that I have found very useful for levelling out the ballast to sleeper top height. It is an edge painter 'brush' that I found at Bunnings.

Here it is firstly showing the underside bristles.

Now in an action stance, less the copper bar weight I used to keep it upright for the photo (I take time shots and can't keep my hand still enough).

My Z13 now glides along as it shunts the Wollar sidings although I can now see a small dip just before the point in the near track. It is amazing what the camera picks up and shoves in your face on the monitor.

I hope that these two tools might be of some use to someone.

A Little Trackwork To Do

For a long time I have been ignoring a problem that now must be fixed. I am sure that the Ramblers have been being very polite in not mentioning it as well. The issue relates to repairs to ballast in Wollar at the front of the layout in the middle of the platform, right under everyones noses.

Here is the problem!

What happened was that when I moved the layout to its present location years ago I took out a section of track about 150mm long on each track crossing a baseboard join  so that it could be unbolted and moved. I replaced the track sections and re-ballasted the small sections of the tracks. I must have used the wrong water to PVA glue ratio, obviously too much water. The baseboard joint is of course below the two pieces of track and the watery glue got down the joint and then absorbed into the end of the pineboard (chipboard to some) and caused it to swell. Of course being watery the glue didn't hold the ballast too well so I repeated the process exacerbating the problem ( hadn't noticed it the first time).

So the next job is to rip out the track and replace it with some Micro Engineering Code 70.

What caused me to finally do something is that I had recently fitted a TCS KA2 Stay Alive into my Craftsman Models Z13 along with a Loksound v4 Micro sound decoder and a speaker (more than a little bit of 'shoe horning' there).

Anyway I took a video of 1307 traversing one of the tracks and got a real shock, talk about a roller coaster ride!

The good thing is that 1307 glided over the hump without a hiccup which it couldn't do before fitting the Stay Alive circuit.

I can't express how great these Stay Alives are in improving the running and keeping the sound alive when pickup is not so good.

The Stay Alive has to charge up for a few minutes when the layout is first turned on.

I have just fitted a second Stay Alive into 5139 a Tsunami equipped old Bergs D50 and it now runs nicely but I did find out one potential problem while running it tonight. I double headed it with a Trainorama C32 and the 32 doesn't have the best pickups which causes it to hesitate. The end result result was that 5139 kept pushing when the 32 stopped which then made it difficult for the 32 to start again with the 50 pushing it along the track. So the only answer is that any locos with Stay Alives in consists or double heading will all need Stay Alives.