Progress Being Made

Early in the week, I think it was Monday afternoon, I went down to the shed and completed the install of the small baseboard extension I was making to the Clapham Yard baseboard to allow a small siding to be added.  This baseboard extension was screwed onto the existing baseboard, and allowed me to install the new set of points towards the end of Siding 7 in Clapham Yard, followed by the laying of the now two tracks at the end of Track 7.  Each of these two sidings is now capable of holding two narrow gauge wagons.  I bent up a paper clip into an omega loop and connected the set of points to an old DPDT switch.  I drilled a whole through the switch actuator itself, and threaded the paper clip though the hole and through the hole in the point throw bar.  It works like a charm.  I am thinking that I will not power the trackage after the points.  This will make shunting these sidings after the points all that more interesting for an operator, as the loco will not be able to drive through them.  The operator will have to keep a match wagon or two available to reach a wagon beyond the points.  I may not tell the operators of this requirement either. Hehehehe!

On Wednesday I went to Aurora Trains to pick up a can of some spray paint.  I also picked up 4 cans of cheap paint from supercheap as they had their 4 cans for $10 special running.  I was wanting to pick up some Silver paint and also picked up three other coloured cans.  Upon returning home, I found out that I already had a can of silver, what I actually needed was a can of Grey Primer.  You guessed it, that colour was not one of the three other cans I picked up.  I had been delaying painting some 3D printed water tanks for a couple of weeks, because I thought I did not have any silver paint available, when I had it all along.  What a dork!

On Thursday, I got around to doing the painting.  I painted 6 water tanks that Greg had 3D printed for me a few weeks back.  These tanks in various sizes look damn good.  I then turned my attention to 42 x 44 gallon drums.  I painted 18 drums silver, 18 drums red and the last 6 drums which I did not fit lids to were also painted silver.

I eventually started work on assembling some scratch built QR FJS wagons.  I had previously cut out the sides for 7 wagons.  But upon further investigation, I had made them all too high.  Well it was only in one direction that they were oversize I suppose.   So I finally gained some enthusiasm and went to the shed and fixed up the height issue on all the sides for all 7 wagons.  I made up the initial 7 boxes for the open wagon shapes and also made the bases for all of them before I called it quits.  

Later on in the afternoon, I rounded up three sets of 12mm bogies and made some bolsters for all 7 wagons and glued them on the wagons.  I drilled holes for the bogie screws and added bogies to three wagons.  I might have to go looking for some cheap 12mm bogies.  I used rubber bands to temporarily attach KD coupler boxes and took them down to the shed and tested the first wagon against my height gauge.  All perfect.

Next task was to attach some KDs.  I chose to use the KD #5 inside a box and added them to the wagons.  On first look, they looked awful.  The KD boxes stand out like a set of  protrusions on a dog.  I now went back to the that web thingy and checked out what MMR Arthur Hayes blog said and studied how he adds KD to his QR wagons.  Hmmm.  Arthur uses scale couplers and not no. 5’s.  He also sort of attaches the couplers directly to the wagon.  So I took the KD boxes off the three wagons that I added KD boxes to and then set about directly attaching the KDs via a screw and 3mm piece of tube and a piece of styrene to keep the coupler from jumping off over the screw.  I must say that they look 10 times better.  They are also coupled closer together.  So you can teach an old dog new tricks!  I attached bogies to two more wagons and now I have 5 wagons ready to be detailed with frame webbing from small pieces of styrene and then painted.  I might get around to adding this detail later this week.  I must ask Arthur where he gets his 12mm bogies from, as I will need a few to finish off the last couple of FJS wagons, let along all the other scratch built ones I will do, following the plans that Arthur gave me of the various variations to some standard QR open wagons.  I just need to remember where I put those wagon plans for safe keeping.  Hopefully they will turn up.

Today I could not get motivated to add any of the wagon detail.  I did go to the shed and started drawing up a near enough scale plan of the top deck, from Rocklea Siding, Clapham Yard, Loco Pilly and Fisherman Islands.  I have yet to draw in the Dutton Park set of points, and any of the track further north towards Park Road Siding and South Brisbane Interstate Yard.  I did have a bit of a clean up in the shed today and threw out a lot of paper.  I did find the track plan that I did do for Clapham Yard, Loco Pilly and around to Fisherman Islands and South Brisbane Interstate, but there has been much rebuilding of the tracks in all of these locations, over the various amendments that I did, so I just started again with a new plan.  I will find some time to study the original plan to see how much the final layout varied from the initial plans.

Unfortunately I’m back at work on Monday, but my daughter is now home for about 3 months as she finished school on Friday.  Her next task is to attend University next year.  I had last week off work so I could attend all the scheduled activities, breakfasts, suppers, other handover events at her school.