Phil HaighIsland platform waiting room and canopies are under construction…
Time to get the fiddly canopies into the station buildings. And they are fiddly. Lot of measuring.
This lunchtime I’ve spent some time working on incorporating hanging lights into the Metcalfe platform canopies. It’s going quite well so far. Taken my time to work out exactly how to get the lamps where I want.
Platform 1 and the associated buildings contribute to make slow but steady progress…
Been installing ground signals on the layout this lunchtime. 8mm hole in the baseboard, ground signal from DCC Concepts in a 3D printed mount drops in (snug fit), all I have to do is run a cable to the signalling control board and do a spot of simple (for now) programming.
Just a quick Model Railway related post. I’ve started a new GitHub repository https://github.com/surfsoft/oo-scale-railway-prints which contains all the FDM 3D printing designs I’ve created to help with my model railway. The designs are created with OpenSCAD, STL files that are checked in are for OO scale but most could be re-sized fairly easily.
More documentation to follow.
YesterdayI did a lot of work in the office/railway room ready to return to work today, and found time to lay out an initial design for the last area of track to be laid on the main baseboards - carriage sidings and some engine storage lanes.
The “crossover to nowhere” will eventually lead to a motorised Peco turntable and steam depot, but I don’t expect to get to that until the back end of this year at the earliest.
These photos also give a closer look at the backscenes. When they get replaced I’ll cut the bottom pieces all to the same height, just higher than the tallest board, so that it looks neater and the eye is less drawn to them at all.
Backscene installation across the back is… complete. I hate wallpapering and this is exactly that in miniature. There are a few wrinkles here and there but at a distance they are not too easy to see. Once the scenery is in they’ll be more difficult to spot.
The first pieces used glue, then I switched to strong, thin, double sided tape. It may not last but I’m happy to have a second go in a few years time.
I’ve re-fit all the baseboards across the back here because I’ve decided to 3D print mounting brackets for the backscene boards. There will be a bracket at the bottom that the board clips in to, magnets in the back of the boards at the top that will line up with ones in the brackets on the sloped ceiling. This will make it hugely easier to install the baseboards, and easy to get behind the backscenes should the need arise.
This weekend I have been busy. In addition to using the router to cut the gradient into the branch line baseboards I’ve extended them by 50mm as needed and have added almost all the track bed.
The main lines are 5mm foam. The goods yard is 2.5mm cork on top of a sheet of 2.5mm cork, so that the ballast is visibly not as deep - the depth wasn’t needed in a yard. Hopefully I’ll get the last pieces of the goods yard track bed down later on and then during the week I can move on to laying the track.
All the wiring for the track, points, and decoupling magnets is already run so track should be relatively quick to do.
