Layout Brackets and Styrene Builds

Things did not go as expected this week.  I decided to watch replays of the Olympics during the day instead of doing  work in the shed.  I did take a few photos for a presentation and I did work on the notes that will go with the presentation, but that was about it.  We all went to Tuesday Nighter’s this week at Brendan’s place.  I think there was 8 of us venturing to the end of the earth (or at least you could see the end of the earth from Brendan’s place).  A couple of people were running trains on Brendan’s layout and the comments were that it ran very smoothly in slow speed.  The conversations around the outdoor setting were great and it wasn’t that cold either.  It was a very good night.

On Friday I decided that I needed to get on with building my Cassino Station building.  The first thing I needed to build was a station awning bracket.  These hold off the roof of the station awning.  I built two and went down to the shed and see how they worked on the building mock up.  Well as I had shortened the awning overhand, the awning bracket was two long.  Doh!  Of course I new that.  So I made two more smaller.  I took then back down to the shed and test fitted them and they worked a treat.  So I made two of them.  I quick check of the scale plan and worked out I needed 18 more for the station building and 22 for the refreshment room.  Ah!  I don’t think I want to scratch build that many.

On the left of this photo is one of the awning brackets

Another shot of a bracket

There are actually two needed back to back in this area

You can see down the platform, that these brackets support the roof fascia.

So I made a trip to the Club yesterday for our monthly meeting and I asked Greg if he could 3D print the station awning backets to the measurements of my scratch built ones.  He took one of the scratch built assemblies and he will look into it.  It might take a month for him to finish them among the other things on his plate.  As long I don’t have to build another 40 of them.

While at the Club I was checking out a few other things going on around the Club layouts.  I took some photos and I had an idea for a moving container gantry crane for a future exhibition layout.  I also spoke to some of the QR modellers and I now have some high level plans for a QR Silver Bullet 2000 and 2050 class railmotor.  The dimensions are not that prominent.  I was thinking about what I needed to do to scratch build one of both of these models.  I started some initial tests today, but I think I will have to rethink my intended process.

Some coal wagons and a guards van at the Club.

Grain wagons, ALYs and a low floor wagon.

I nicely coloured and weathered QLX

A model of a travelling crane that I need to scratch build for the layout.

Maybe this week I will get around to completing some lighting additions on Kyogle and Cassino platforms.