Convention report part II or 'Dude, wheres my layout?'

In this part, here's a bit more of an irreverent look at the convention.

Thursday night we arrive after a quiet drive down from Palmy. First job is to register at the hotel, then off to the convention site to drop off the 1/3 of the layout that I had transported down. The first question, was 'Oi, wheres my layout' (in a text to Cabbage). A bit of a cock up on the communication front, but rectified next morning.

Friday morning dawned clear and sunny, leading to questions about whether we were actually in Wellington. Rolled up to the convention center to be greeted by what looked like the tail end of the million mustache march, turns out it was only Morris and Postelwaite near the door. Get the layout set up. plug in the DCC boxes. Ta dah, there is a short. spend 5 minutes isolating it, then realise I had twisted 2 wires together for tidiness. Take 10 minutes to get the booster talking to the main box, and finally discover that the 2 jump throttles have flat batteries....Apart from that the layout runs nicely. Graham from Auckland turns up and brings his locos along. The Df is 'entertaining' to get onto the rails, and the Dg with sound goes quiet. This later requires surgery on the last day. Can you believe that I didn't take any photos?

The layout attracts plenty of interest, mostly for the construction methods, but also for the track work and models. It also serves as a focal point for all discussions Nz120 and a few others.

The clinics are interesting, but I skip the layout tours. Entertain Brent Hopley instead, who has his 9mm layout at the convention, and is in charge of the hall for the afternoons.

'Damn photographers straying on the tracks...'

This is a part of a much larger layout. All the locos have sound, and I watched while a Wb had the decoder put in. The decoder was larger than my Cb.

The SIG on Friday night was a small intimate affair, bolstered by a few hangers on. First up we all had to escape the larger NZR SIG (at one point I was considering feigning my own death to get out of the room). After a wide ranging discussion on a variety of topics it is suggested that we aim to meet again in 2 years time at the next convention. In that time, we aim to achieve a few things.

1) Get more people making models (it seemed a bit redundant to try to get more people into the scale, as that's what everyone says).
2) Aim to make it easier to get hold of all the bits required to build wagons and locos in the scale.
3) Aim to have a freemo layout based around the MMW end plates come together at the convention to run trains.

Nothing really earth shattering here, but I'm a bit of a believer in baby steps. Now, the 2nd and 3rd aims are ones that we can lead (and I have some ideas for the fremo layout), but the 1st one is up to the rest of you.

To infinity and beyond!

Well that was the quote for the convention, Thank you Mish.

The micro modules were on display with plenty of interest being shown by all scales, the idea of the interlocking ends was a complete hit, 4 pairs of ends were sold including 2 pair to NZ Finesclaes for an NZ64 scale table top layout. Had to break down the examples at the convention to meet demand.

So for the next convention lets see if we can get together and make up an NZ120 layout and run some real trains, so let's take it to the next level and see if we can go "To Infinity and Beyond"

More ends are going to be cut as soon as I can get down to Orrsum next week, the cost has been set at $10 each $20 for the pair.

There is no standard length or width only that each module end is one of the cut ends available through this blog, what you put between the ends is up to you.

With as little or as much track and scenery as you like, some suggestions have been bridges supported on the tables on each side, large shunting senses like Marton or Whareroa and balloon loops for turning.

So let's see what you have

To Infinity and Beyond

2012 Convention report's I

Well, back at Schloss Dandruff tonight, with the car unloaded and the train room to clean up, what was the news from the weekend.

Well, there was allot of it, so much in fact that I'm going to split it up into more than one post.

Overall, I found it to be a very good convention. The venue was great, big enough so that everyone was not tripping over each other, but with some nice wee areas to get away from others for quiet chats. as well as that, Cuba st with all its cafes was just around the corner, so I didn't dine in at all. However reports suggest that the on site food was very good anyway. There were a wide selection of clinics which were all well attended (depends on your definition of 'well' I guess). The only beef I heard was a lack of non stop coffee and tea, which if that's as bad as it gets, suggests that it was very successful. Thanks to the organising committee for putting in the hard yards before and during the convention to make it the successful event that it was.

Well, first up, what everyone will want to know about, competitions. The entries were of a very high standard, with some stunning locos (with the eventual winner being an amazing piece of work). As well as the Uga and J5 I decided to enter my 30' clerestory and 47' vans. These were also tarted up a bit prior to leaving last week. Saturday morning I get a text from Amateur fetler asking (from Taupo) 'How are we looking in the competitions?'

'Tiny'.

The competition room appears to be a most secretive area, with the door shut for most of the 2 days. However late Saturday afternoon the door was open, and those who had not gone layout touring ambled in to check the results.

'Well done, you shall be rewarded with a place of honour above the work bench'

'Pack of losers! back to the layout with you!

In all seriousness, I was very happy with the results, as I had not expected to score so well. The J scraped into the gold category by 0.31 of a percent, but its written down, so I don't care. It placed better than other S scale models . The other 3 were in the mid 60's, but again, still good enough for bronze. Not bad for 'layout models' with not much extra work done to them.
I'd also like to thank Amateur fettler and Cabbage for doing the grunt CAD work, so that all I had to do was assemble it. The problem I now have is that the next 19 sheep wagons that I do will have to have the same level of detail.

I'll post the judging sheet marking scheme and comments when I receive them in the mail, so that all of us can see where the shortcomings are in modeling in a smaller scale, and which areas need to be addressed to increase the competition scores to compete with the bigger guys.

So, was the J5 the best Nz120 model in show?

No.

I was beaten by B 0-4-4-0's line side hut which he had knocked up

'The very deserving inaugural winner of the John Rappard trophy'

If you are not here

Well, since by the time you read this I will be in Wellington talking crap (everyone needs a skill), here are a couple of photos of my competition entries.

I think its done, added the hand brake linkage and handrails the other night. There's some things that I would like to change, but that will have to wait for the others. Can't believe I need to do 15-20 of these...


Again, just about forgot to add the handrails, and have since cut the side chains short.
Oh, and there are 2 guards vans as well, but not as well made. It will be interesting to see how they get graded (and if the dreaded optivisor comes out)

All things being equal I hope to try some blogging from the convention itself, we'll see how it pans out.

2 days to go

Well, things just amble on here at Schloss dandruff. I feel I should be more worried about the convention, but so far its a bit blah.

The clinic is 1/2 finished, hopefully it will be a small crowd and I'll be able to get everyone around the bench to see what I'm doing. The competition entries are done, just have to see about the supplemental information required (which appears to be none).

I'd provide some pictures of the finished models, but maybe next week.

(last night, while doing some final touch ups, I noticed that I had completely forgotten the handrails! Bugger)

Some rambling thoughts on Micro Modules....

It all started out with a random email from the head druff which sparked a discussion between Am fet, Cabbage, and 0-4-4-0T at the Tuesday night special interest group in the Lower Hutt club rooms for the Hutt valley model railway club which got the creative juices bubbling away.

Cabbage woke with an epiphany at some ungodly hour, not wanting to incur the roth of the rest of the family on a Saturday morn, went straight to the computer to get the ideas into cyber space.

The first iteration went out some crazy time of the morn for comment, which started the furious discuss over the hours between second breakfast and elevenses.

Between Cabbage, Am fets, 0-4-4-0T and the head druff the ideas flew around.

We could all agree on a standard 300mm wide end board with a centrally located single track in free-mo style and no legs just setup on tables

By lunch a workable design was pretty much there and by second lunch Saturday Am fet wrote "Okay, enough pontificating….I say lets cut a couple and see what works and what doesn’t in real life."

Monday rolled around.... on the way home from work Cabbage stopped off at Bunnings got a 1200 square of 17mm ply to drop in to Orrsum Lasers services. A quick chat to Paul Orr who was happy to check over the drawing and chop up the sheet of ply during the week

By Friday Cabbage had a pile of cut end and a bag of ready made dowels to play with over the weekend

Amazing just how many bits came out of the sheet

Bash in the dowels to locate the keys.... idiot proof

Evan a one handed man could do it

The ends slot together with the keys

the bit missing here is the locking toggle

which turns about the hole in the centre of the key

locking the module ends together

Track locating slots to align things between modules

Add some blue foam and vela..... Micro Modules

Interestingly enough if we scale these up to 64th

they are the same size as one track minds

And by sheer fluke the cut out in the foot allows for easy stacking

The modules Cabbage knocked up over the weekend were 300x600mm but the idea is the length and shape is entirely up to the modeller, the laser cut ends are supplied and you go nuts in between.

The first track layout design out of Cabbage's head was Whareroa, again, made up of two sections and ending up as 4x1.

Sunday Morning

Well, it was a day and a bit yesterday. First up was the ceremonial loading of the car with the layout. I managed to get 2/3 of it in and the rest will head down next Thursday night. First stop on the way south was Paekakariki. Time to get the camera out for some shots. As I didn't pan really it was just point and shoot, though there were some buildings that I concentrated on.

This is a relay shed of some sort that was there in the time period I am modeling, though it was then painted white ish. Also the ex ORB Drewry DSB (near equivalent) shunting wagons at Steam Inc. Closer to the camera, the balasting is 'interesting' No sleepers visible, but not up to the tops of the rails, and there are 2-3 different grades and shades I can see. Will be 'fun' to model.

The station itself. most of the ray track on this side has been removed.

Looking North, and the area of interest here is the hill on the left, and how tall and what shape it is. I've looked at other old photos and this one just adds to the confusion (which I though I had unconfused). Maybe I need a GPS reading from the loco shed and the top to work out just how tall it should be.



The Air-rail shed. With the building of the new rolling stock shed you can no longer easily (at all?) get to the other side, so I will have to go off old photos that I have.

After this wander round, I paid a visit to the home of Scenic textures (well, technically, its a shed and a cupboard). A cuppa and a chat with the proprietors was very enlightening thanks to the local knowledge, and hopefully I'll have some better leads on some of the important buildings on the main street ie the old Pub (and I'm happy to reward in wine if they pass on their preference). Looking at the hills from the coffee table also reminded me that google maps does not do 'ups' at all well, and I may need to rethink that side of the layout. A major plus is that when i need to do the scenicking, I'll be able to order with instructions 'Oh, just what you see out the window will be fine...'
While I do wish I could have stopped for longer, I was on a deadline and so next it was off further south...

A wide ranging discussion was had, but we can't discuss some of it, though the opinions expressed about the scale with the largest following in this country were a surprise to me. Skepticism was also expressed about the chances of getting my competition models done in time for the convention, to which my reply was 'Well, I better start writing that clinic as well...' And while photos may make it look like I was holding court, I was meerly the only one sitting on that side of the table. Also of note in that photo sitting on the table to the right of me. This is something that Cabbage Industries has come up with based on a brainstorming session a few weeks ago, and which he may like to post comment on.