Building on This Long Weekend

I could not wait for this long weekend to creep up on me.  This marks the end of me being the acting boss at work.  Now I'm back to my day job, which was what I was still doing when I was the boss.  Saturday was an early start as I wanted to mow the grass before it rained.  The rain held off for most of the day.  At 3:00pm Brendan was having a modelling afternoon and a BBQ dinner for Darren, Geoff and myself.  We all got there around 3:00pm, and inspected his progress on his layout.  Brendan had pained the backdrop a nice blue colour (the day before we rocked up).  He is also scratch building his code 70 points.  His points including a couple of double slips look like pieces of fine artwork.  I could never produce anything that well done.  But I suppose soldering is his trade.  So after chatting for almost an hour we adjourned to his dining room table, cracked open a cold drink and started modelling.

I had brought along my two already created examples of RKFX wagons to show the guys.  My job on this day was to build a third.  Well it did not take that long, but by the time I left at about 9:00pm, I had created that wagon number three.  I also started cutting up a number of low sided spoil containers for the layout..  I do remember seeing a photo of a QR container wagon with two spoil containers on it.  I thought I might have stolen a copy of this off the internet to my PC for reference purposes, but I cannot find it.  So maybe I did not do that.  These low height containers are just like the Auscision spoil containers.  So I thought, why purchase, when I can just scratch build some of these containers.  I cut up the pieces for 8 bases and 8 pairs of long sides while at Brendan’s.  I had glued the long sides to four bases before I went home.  We had a very nice time talking, and modelling.  Thanks for organising mate.

Today I started early and I took the newly created RKFX wagon down the shed and gave it a quick run on the track and it did not derail.  The next step was to give it a coat of all over green spray paint.  I also cut the ends for the first 4 half height containers and attached these to the containers.  I tidied these up and gave them an all over coat of International Orange.  These will eventually be coated with Frosted Glass to dull them down and lightly weathered.  Who knows I might even drop a few into Aurora trains next weekend and see if anyone wants a pair or two.

The RKFX wagon painted and lightly weathered.

The RKFX wagon side on.

Four of the Spoil Containers

The main reason for setting up the modelling equipment in the kitchen today was to try and execute on last weekends promise of building some rail loads for the RKFX wagons.  I cut my 0.030” x 0.080” lengths of styrene in half - 180mm each.  I then stuck some pieces of paper on my work bench where they aligned to the walls on the wagons.  I then one by one, applied glue to the underside of these styrene lengths and then placed these onto the four pieces of paper.  The glue sticking the styrene to the paper.  I then applied glue to the next piece of styrene and placed it next to the first piece of styrene.  Then one by one, I added more pieces of styrene.  When I had 15 pieces of styrene, that was it.  I lifted the pieces of paper up off the modelling table and let the whole assembly dry.  I then took the load down to the shed, and applied by rail brown paint to it and voila, I had a nice rail load for my RKFX wagon.  

The second of my rail loads

So after a while, I started on the second layer of rail with my second load.  This was also painted and has now been added to the first RKFX wagon.  The plan is to create a third and fourth layer of rail and maybe then start on at least two and a bit layers of rail on a second wagon.  The two layers of rail load so far has taken just over one and half packets of styrene.  I think I might have to buy another two packets of styrene to complete the second wagon’s load.

The RKFX wagon with two layers of rail loads

Tonight while watching the tennis, I will complete the next 4 half height container flats.  I will then start cutting up some more styrene for the next batch of containers.

I also attached two backboards on Fisherman Islands

My new step at Clapham Yard.  I stood on this to take the previous picture.

The north step at Fisherman Islands

The south step at Fisherman Islands

The Step at South Brisbane Interstate.

New 44 Class Gears

Well I decided to try and replace the gears in two of my clicketty clacketty 44 Class locos on Saturday.  I had to re-acquaint myself with the process of removing the bottom of the bogie, but that took about 3 minutes to check out Darren Lee’s post on a facebook group and all was good.  Screwdriver, plyers and voila.  Off they come.  I purchased 48 gears and they arrived on Tuesday this week along with my AMRM.  The new gears are certainly larger than the ones I am replacing.  I replaced the gears in the first loco, put it on the track and it ran awfully.  The loco now binds.  There are some quite large jumps as certain wheels go round.  It is an absolute disaster.

I did the change to the second loco and I get the same results.  I replaced the gears with the original ones and it now hops all around the layout.

I spend half a day doing this, testing it and I’m quite upset with the results.  My mate PK replaced the gears on his 47 Class during the week and he reports that the loco is running well.  The last time I replace the gears, the results were very good.  I can’t believe that the gears are the wrong ones, too large or have their own issues already.

Following further work today on the first loco, it seems that years of thumping down the track has damaged other gears in the loco.  Oh Well, it looks like two of my 44 class locos are now to be consigned to rotten row.

Also today I thought about picking up some styrene from my local hobby shop - Simon Says and trying to create my own rail for the AKFX/Y wagons that I built the other weekend.  I picked up three packets of 0.030" x 0.060" which I will use next weekend for building the rail load.

Fixing Stuff Up, and Some Loco Tuning to Occur Next Week

This week, it has been back to fulltime work.  I did get away slightly early on Friday (if you call after 4:00pm early), a consequence of me being the acting boss for 5 weeks, as I could not knock off too early.  I did get to the shed and grab some wagons and a 1720 class (actually 1770 – James Cook) and got them ready to take to the Club on Saturday for a run.  When there I ran a small train of about 6 or 7 wagons around the 12mm.  The track there was dirty and my train could not run without running the track rubber in front of the train even though the track was also pushing a track cleaning car.  The track there needed a good oil with Wahl oil, but the club does not use that.  I do use the Wahl oil and I think my 12mm track runs sh!t tons better than the club layout.  Maybe it is the environment that the Club shed provides, with a huge roller door right next to the HO Club layout and all the dust and dirt coming in through that door.  I’m also certain that there will be many modellers that will say 'never oil your track', but I can certainly say that it helps with conductivity and there are plenty of articles about that discuss the types of solvents and oils to use on your layout that work.  Wahl oil is certainly one of the good ones.  I just need to buy another container of Wahl oil as mine is getting low.  It has taken a number of years to get down to this level, but I need to acquire another bottle.

The running on the Club track then identified that I had one KD coupler without a spring, one bogie screwed too tight and another wagon that had its couplers about 2mm too high.  The bogie screw issue was rectified at the Club, but the other issues were deferred to the Shed today.  Following actioning these few little tasks, I then decided that I needed to continue on from last week and build another two extra wooden steps for the train room.  This time for both corners of Clapham Yard.  So out came the saw, drill and screwdriver and voila – 2 more steps.  

After the work, I moved to the 'Play' part of the day.  I ran about 12 trains in the timetable and now the layout timetable is reset to 10:30am in the morning.  There are about 5 trains mid run in various locations around the layout and there are about 3 others that are due to start at exactly that time.  So whenever I eventually schedule the next session the layout is all ready to rock and roll.  I did notice that two wagons on one of my stock trains had skidded wheels as the train made its way around the layout today.  So this was fixed up.  I think these skidded wheels came about when I hit the bottom half of these wagons with my 'Frosted Glass' weathering spray can and maybe locked the wheels up.  These wagons do look good after a dose of that spray.

One thing I noticed today in the timetable is that two trains were scheduled to follow after each over and were actually two consecutive timetable cards in the timetable.  So I did a bit of a change and merged these two into a single train.  So I adjusted the timetable cards later this afternoon.  This is very similar to what I did over the last few weeks following good feedback from Anthony on the last running day.  So late this afternoon I actually completed adjusting the timetable cards sequence and everything will be ready for when the next lot of timetable cards are printed out, sometime later this year.

I also ordered a truck load of 44 class replacement gears during the week, and they will appear early next week.  So I know the first two locos that I will fix on my layout – 44100 and 4468, both in a bad way with wheels out of gauge and a huge clicking sound coming from them.  I have another couple of 44s also exhibiting some clicking but not as bad as these two.  Maybe 4498 will be close behind the first two locos.  I also noticed that one of my 48 class locos (an old powerline) has absolutely no traction whatsover.  I was pulling 5 wagons - mostly Camco ones.  I think its old traction tyres have gone hard after maybe being dipped in Wahl oil.  I will have to look at that next weekend.  I also have a section of track in Cassino Down Yard that has lost power.  It seems to get its power from a point blade and if I hold the point blade against the stock rail, trains move in that section.  So I must not have a power jumper from the actual track bus on that section.  Another job for next weekend to investigate and fix up.

AKFX Wagons and Scratching Round Here and There

So during the last week, there has been a rather large collection of photos shown on some facebook sites of NSW and other state’s wagons at Kyogle and Acacia Ridge in particular and some of these had some AKFX wagons loaded with rail.  Well, I did some digging and found out that the AKFX started out as an SAR SGMX (4 letter code) wagon.  It also appears that this wagon is very similar to the WAGR WOAX.  I have 2 WOAX wagons in traffic and I could use them as a template for making one, or two or maybe three AKFX wagons which I started building on New Year’s Eve late afternoon.  

I was going great guns until I worked out on Tuesday afternoon that I needed some 0.030” x 0.030” styrene to help construct the end bulkheads.  Well I thought that there would be no shops open selling styrene on New Year’s Day, so I went to the next best thing – Raymond!  Of course he had some.  Lefty dropped a packet into my letter box at 7:00am in the Wednesday morning when he went to the local shops for the paper, and probably a nice cream bun for morning tea.

Upon a second look at the model, and some of the photos that had been posted, I thought that 0.020” x 0.030” styrene would make better end wagon ribs, so I jumped into using that size styrene which I also had.  I did this on New Years Eve (Tuesday night) before I saw an email response from Raymond.  

Early on New Year’s Day we went to Ikea for breakfast along with every other person in Brisbane.  My main aim was to check out some low stools to sit on for the shed, slide in wire baskets for my storage trays, some low steps to help see the top level of the layout, and maybe anything else that I could use the Shed.  The current wire baskets they are selling do not match the size that I have already got in use.  Who changes these things?  Anyway when I got home, I decided to cut up some 3mm MDF and make a shelf in my storage tray holder.  I cut these up and then decided to put another piece of 3mm MDF on the top of these trays.  Now I can store something on top as well.  I will eventually get around to gluing these in place to stop them from moving, but that is a task for another day.

So on New Year’s Day, I completed the second AKFX wagon.  Both wagons run pretty well on the tracks.  So late on New Year’s Day, I put the first wagon through the paint shops.  I had some green paint, so I gave it an all over covering.  On late Saturday afternoon I hit the green with my Frosted Glass and it came back from being like a toy to a more like a weathered model.  I then hit the wagon with some Yellow Oxide, Indian Red and Matt Black from my $2.50 can supply and the wagon has come up a treat.  These colours were painted from about 700mm away from the model and the wagon has received a very light dusting and it looks like a nicely weathered model.  So I started work on running the second wagon through the paint shop on Saturday afternoon.  It has received it’s green base coat.  But that is as far as it got.  I will complete the third AKFX wagon at an upcoming modelling night.

On Saturday morning, I did a round of the hobby shops.  I picked up some styrene from Austral Modelcraft and two lengths of 12mm track from Aurora Trains.  So when I got home, the two lengths of track were installed in Clapham Yard tracks 7S and 8S giving a 900mm long sidings, and the existing track from those sidings has been consolidated into Clapham Yard track 6S, giving about a 550mm long siding.  So all have now been lengthened and are now ready for use.  I will get around to adding some toothbrush bristles to these tracks to ensure that wagons don't run away when left there.

After lunch I decided to start running a few trains.  First was the narrow gauge shunt from Clapham Yard to Acacia Ridge Yard.  One of my new wagons, had had its couplers raised by the addition of some metal washers above the bogies, as is coupler height was too low.  The next train was the steel shunt from Rocklea Sidings back to Acacia Ridge Yard followed by an engine run around.  I did some maintenance on a set of points that had previously given me trouble in track three at Acacia Ridge Yard.  I added a power jumper to one rail and soldered a fishplate to ensure power was not a problem with this set of points.  I then added some check rails to one rail on a curve in two locations using some code 83 rail I had lying around.  This was super glued into position.  One length of checkrail was about 30mm long and the other was about 50mm long.  Running the shunt loco back and forth through this location produced no issues.  I then added loads to the ballast train that I was to run next.  But I pulled up stumps as it was quite hot in the shed and the cricket was back on TV.  I will resume running trains in the timetable next weekend.

On Sunday My plan was to make a small stool out of some 90mm x 45mm pine I had laying around in the shed.  I layered two lengths on top of each other and then put some 12mm ply on top to stand on.  So these create steps that are just under 200mm high.  Just like a bought one and at no cost.  The first step is about 650mm long.  The next two are about 430-450mm long each.  I've given then a quick test and are OK to use.