Glad it was useful Pete, I've another to assemble for my siding too. Thanks Gary for both posts, I appreciate you taking the time to draw those up. I think it's going to require some contemplation because even the most simple of electrical tasks goes over my head. The extent of wiring for me in the past has been two wires to the controller and insulfrog points! I want to go down the electrofrog points route to give me better running but I'm seriously out of my depth! Matt
Nice work Matt, the wagons are gorgeous especially the SPV very subtle. For the buffer stop sleepers have a look at thin coffee stirrers approx 4 - 5 mm in width, can easily be thinned to the correct width, and "stained" with a marker pen. Paul
Hi Paul, Good idea with the coffee stirrers - your post came about ten minutes too late though! I think I'll use plastic strip as per below, just need to decide whether to sacrifice some C&L sleepers for the chairs or not... Also, thank you for your kind comment about the stock - here are two more that are nearing completion: Matt
Hi Matt great little layout project you have going on here Re the electro frog points they are no harder than insul frogs just put a insulated joiner after each “V” rail I’m away st the moment so only have my phone to get the diagrams but look look up the Peco site it did have all the diagrams These is also some within Platform1 in a thread Keep the posts coming like what your doing in a small space
Matt, can I ask what method of point switching you are going to go with ?? Will you be using 'wire in tube', or solenoids, ie Peco or Seep motores, or Cobalts/Tortoise ?? If you are going down the wire in tube route, I would recommend this method that I have used on my layouts... The slide switch changes the points and also the polarity to the frog. Both frog rails need to be insulated, as shown below. This is how it looks on my layout Industry Lane... I decided to run the tubes above the baseboard and lay the track on 3mm 1/8" cork bed. The yellow tubes are RC car aerial tubes and the wire is 1mm diametre piano wire. Cheers, Gary. ps. Great work on the wagons and weathering.
I have found that the RC aerial tube is now a thing of the past. Can still get the stuff, but your local shop might not stock it as the new RC stuff uses a new frequency (can't remember what) but all it requires is little stub aerials, thus no need for the tube. I just used styrene tube, could use drinking straws, but they might be too large in diameter, they also might get hard to find soon too. Cheers Tony
Love the weathering on the wagons Matt, what method did you use? The method Gary describes for point switching and powering the crossing "V" is not as difficult as it may seem, there are only the three wires to solder, and as the layout isn't too long, all the point switches will be easily to hand. Cheer's, Pete.
Hi Pete, I used a combination of salt weathering and masking fluid applied with a sponge to represent the "rust". Both can be a bit hit and miss but with luck you do get a convincing representation of random rust spots, at least to my eyes anyway! Cheers Matt
Pointless post alert! But significant to me in that I've cut the first piece of cork underlay tonight. I'm sure you'll agree that the complex piece of track it is for is impressive! You'll also note that I've started adding chairs to the plastic strip sleepers - I sliced these from some spare C&L track. Fun times! Matt
That's great Matt. Whilst you have three points on the layout and you are running DC, I would recommend a Gaugemaster CDU (Capacitor Discharge Unit). Most out puts on dc controllers is up to around 12 or 14 volts. The Seep solenoid motors will require around 16 volts to switch smoothly. Good to see that the toggle switch you have is a return to centre switch. Most important as you don't want to burn your motors out. Cheers, Gary.
Can I recommend you don't use the SPDT switches for your point motors, 99 times out of 100 you will remember to return to centre, but I guarantee you will forget once and thats all you need. There are switches that look identical to these but are sprung to return to centre automatically. I found these on line. SALECOM T8014A-SEBQ-H SPDT at £1.12 each. Aternately use a stud and probe system (Google stud and probe point control-much better than I at describing the method ). Cheer's, Pete.
Matt, I would agree with Pete, re the switches, you will forget once and it will cost more in both time and cash to resolve a burnt out solenoid issue. Kim
Hi Pete and Kim, Thanks for your comments - I think that the switches I've bought are sprung and return to centre - I'll check them tonight. Matt
Hi all, Well, with only 7 days until the expected arrival of the baby, this weekend was taken up with trying to finish off some outstanding DIY projects around the house which left little time or energy for modelling. I did find a box of kitbuilt stock in the utility room though...not sure why they were there! Here's one such item from a Parkside kit. I think some more underframe weathering is required though. Can anyone recommend where I can get suitable decals for my recently completed brake van? CAO/ZTO markings ideally. All the best Matt