April Meeting

A good turn out this month with lots of modelling taking place.

Firstly a photo of various models, Nigel Cliffe's fine scaled 04, Nick Mitchell's LMS vented van(2mm Assoc. body kit), two chassis and Nick's LMS Van (N Gauge Society body). In the foreground is a Peco N-6.5 wagon on Microtrain wheels.

A close up of the 04 and Nick's LMS vented van shows what can be achieved in 2mm, firstly by fitting fine scale wheels to a Farish 04 loco, see the 24 March 2008 blog for further information. Secondly by a well painted 2mm Association body kit on an Assoc. chassis.

This picture shows Nick hard at work on a Chriss Higgs etched chassis which is being prepared to fit under the N Gauge Society LMS van body seen in the top photograph.

This beautifully curved handbuilt point is by David S for his layout based on Goathland station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Here you can see four track gauges being used to hold one of the switch rails to gauge prior to the soldering iron being applied. This layout is one which is being prepared for the Golden Jubilee Challenge. More information about the Challenge can be found at the 2mm Scale Association's web site and also other blogs, links to the right of this item.

Nigel spent the evening carefully cutting out a card building side onto which he stuck the photo reduced, 4mm scale to 2mm scale, building paper. Here we see the window/door chads being pushed back into place to hold the paper folded over into the reveals, whilst the adhesive dries.

The final photograph shows my progress on laying in some narrow gauge track to Marks Quay, here working on the point where the dual gauge track diverges into separate tracks. The roller gauge to the right was an Association 9.42mm track gauge but I shortened it in the lathe by first drilling a hole right through to take a 12BA bolt, then parting the gauge off in the middle and reducing its length until it was 6.5mm gauge. The bolt then holds it together.

It would have been easier had I planned this at the start of the layout instead of some time after all the standard gauge track was already laid. Never mind I feel it will be worth it in the end.

Details of the next meeting can be found to the right, or on the 2mm Scale Association website calender.

March 2008 Meeting

Very quiet meeting this month, only three members modelling. David (S) was working on the first piece of point work for his layout based on Goathland station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, see post below (28 Feb.'08). Using the Versaline Track system (available through the 2mm Scale Assoc. shop) of etched chairs, it is a curved point which was drawn up using TEMPLOT.


David (E) was laying track insitu on his Golden Jubilee Challenge Layout and Stuart was working on some etched windows

Nigel demonstrated his and Nick's DCC controller, see post below (21 Feb.'08)

We shall convene again on the 17 April, and if you would like to join us contact David (E) for further information.

Towards a Farish replacement wheelset

Back at Christmas I had a chat with Bill Blackburn on the topic of replacement wheels for new Farish mechanisms. I have a class 04 chassis waiting for conversion to 2mm. I made up some 7mm dia wheels from Association castings, but rather than turn a stub axle, I bored the centre to ~2mm diameter to fit the Farish insulated bushes. A carefully measured boss was left on the rear of the wheel. The wheels where then pushed onto the Farish axles (with their plastic insulating bush) to achieve correct back-to-back with the Farish stepped axle.

This week I finally got round to sorting out some crankpins and reassembling, as the photo shows. I had to make up my own crankpins (14BA) and spacing washers as I haven't got a tap in my collection which matches the Farish crankpin (I think it might be M1, which is a standard size, but my metric sets run out at M1.6).

The rods are still full Farish thickness, the wheels need balance weights, and, for a Class 04 the spoke profile is wrong (though the spoke profile is suitable for an 03 and most of the other small BR shunters). Having taken the picture, I can now see that I've forgotten to file the head off one of the crankpin screws (job for tomorrow).

So, its the proof of concept. Its an open question as to whether its worth pushing into production as an alternative to re-profiling Farish wheels for their more recent locomotive designs.

Trouble at Train Table

Following on from the last post about adding the backscene to the layout I soon discovered that I could not place stock onto the train table with the buildings in place, my fingers were too big!


What to do? I could have made a longer train table but felt that it would be difficult to line it up correctly with the three tracks which might require taking up track and relaying it. Not wanting to do that I added a second pivot hole to the existing train table, in filled the gap and extended the tracks to meet it as shown below.

This means that the train table overhangs the baseboard and cannot therefore be left in position when packed into its travel box. It has to be removed at the end of the running session and now lives underneath the layout with the stock and other bits (I will explain this when I describe the travel box). A thorough workout at Keen House showed that the train table is now usable so I can proceed with the rest of the layout.