More 4' by 2' Madness

Am_Fet writes (again):

Over the few days since the last work session with Cabbage I have been using idle moments in between work (Switching the KiwiRail Radio Network to narrow band) and home life to work out the dreaded "What to do next" list.  It looks like the next move will be to get the backdrop in and maybe mock up the cheese store in cardboard to see how it all fits in visually.  Plus I've been looking at the loco and wagon list and plotting where each piece is coming from.

Interestingly enough, I came across a PDF I had squirrelled away from MR of a 4' by 2' layout and I think its worthwhile sharing here:

When I first saw this, it screamed "West Coast Coal".....so I went hunting around Drews blog for some inspiration:

Cor, that will do!  Drews pic of DBR 1213 shunting some HLC coal containers at Reefton in the rain would make a great start, maybe adding in the old coal loader at Rapahoe:

....although the Reefton loadout might also be "adequate " for a small layout:

So, what do we need?  A DBR would be something out of the ordinary and an interesting kitbashing project (although a DC would do just as well).  UK wagons are readily available and I think there are some HLC molds around somewhere (I know DB has a few).  Would it be worth investigating how to make everything "wet" by using a light misting of glosscote on everything?  SOme white lighting instead of warmer yellow?  Muted colours? Handling just coal could be a bit boring as well, so maybe some Ub wagons with some interesting mining equipment onboard?  Or some general container traffic could be put in as well?

Or maybe Peters Wb and some Q wagons.....Hmmmm....Did I mention I had another 3 of these modules to use for something?

Patea in the Round

Am_Fet surprises everyone and writes:

I have been the benefactor lately of stars aligning and items being thrown up by the eddy currents that hide things in my house.  In this case, the items made it virtually impossible to not make a start on a simple layout designed primarily to beat the inertia this time of the year can bring.

The item that fell immediately to hand was an old 1200 x 600 module built by a friend but passed on to me when he forsook modelling NZR for the joys of North American Gargantuans.  Thanks to Cabbage and his magical work van (layout moving a specialty), 3 of these modules were soon tucked away in the mysterious layout building facility located deep in darkest Stokes Valley.  Secondly, the Taranaki Mystery Box (on its second region wide tour) divulged a complete circle of well battered but passable setrack curves set to some astonishing radius and enough MicroTrains bogies to run an entire OM fleet (once the designer finishes the etch.....breath is bated as we speak).

So what to do.....obviously a simple loop on the board was the way to go, but what story to tell?

Scribbling quickly came up with the answer;  Using the photo on plastic shell techniques described previously, how about a model of (wait for it) The old Patea Cheese Store?  (I know!  Colour me surprised....).  Model it fromthe station side rather than the river and I could recreate this pic of Drews which fired my imagination a few years ago:

So, the goal was decided:  Model the building as the centerpiece with the train looping around it in an almost incidental style....put some pretty photo backdrops on, maybe a full proscenium arch, populate it with accurate train consists and it would be enough to keep the interest going for quite a while methinks.

SO......despite an impending overnight outage at work that had me finally crawling into bed at 0430, Wednesday night was set aside for the MMW/Batchbuilt layout building machine to meander into action.  Armed with a scale printout care of the KR CAD gurus and their lithograph machine (which disappointingly printed out slightly too small) we quickly laid out the track and held an impromptu planning meeting:

Track laying was slower than anticipated due to endless wrestling with the track geometry, fishplates and a soldering iron, often all at the same time (KIDS:  DONT TRY THIS AT HOME).

Once completed, Cabbage pulled his masterstroke;  several rolls of double-sided foam tape bought for an incredibly low price from TradeMe.  And is this stuff great for tracklaying?  Does the Pope s**t in the woods?

Highly flexible it is to, and works a treat in going around even the sharpest of bends.

So here we are at the end of the evening (GoogleEarth style view?)....track all stuck down and immovable with nary a nail in sight.

Thanks to a handy car battery, the first locomotive has circled the track....admittedly with a little smoking, but it looked prototypical.  Pity about that SD9 that melted a wheel (gulp).

So there we have it.  An evenings work with the result being a quick easy plaything to keep your modelling mojo warm during winter.  I can remember back when we both had more hair, I handed Magikan a piece of 10mm chipboard with similar dimensions.  He responded by quickly putting down a loop to run his LPA wagons around.  At the time I think I dismissed it as not worth pursuing, but having played with this idea for a week now I'm suddenly not so sure.....could this be the quick and dirty way into Nz120 modelling for those who like things "In The Round"?

Saturday morning

Well, nothing particularly exciting happening here, well, not compared to the DCC-ing of old models.

One thing that arrived in the post during the week was a new addition to the DCC system.

Testing the Digitrax DCC panels I picked up cheap last year was successful,which was a relief. I may have a rethink about their positioning simply due to the way that Digitrax does things with the system.

With the NZ dollar going downhill I must order another one before the currency collapses completely (thus making my company far more profitable. Its a horrible two edged sword).

DJ Jazzy Jeff gets another spin - now with DCC - Pt 1

DB burbles: Hey Jeff: the early 90s called and they want all their Direct Current locos back. ...And weren't you famous for 5 mins back then?

DJ 3067 was the second real NZ120 loco I ever built and it's held up well given that it's more than 20 years old now. That's about the time Will Smith became a megastar, leaving DJ JJ at the figurative alter. 3021 is not a lot newer, but it is considerably straighter and squarer.

It's been more than 15 years since this pair turned a wheel in anger because they're built on straight DC chassis (although I've used them once as analog locos running on DCC). Not only would the Kato EF6x Japanese Electric chassis be called "non-DCC friendly" in todays terminology, but with my DJ loco sides and ends glued directly to the thinned metal frames, "unfriendly" is too kind an adjective for my DJs. The would be like saying Hitler was "unfriendly" toward a certain religion whose name begins with a J.

Its a Catch 22.  DCC was the wave of the future 15 years ago, so if these babies are ever going to be useful again, they are going to need to be decoderized somehow - even if that requires blowing them up and starting again.

Boom

So that's what they look like inside.

I started with 3067 because it was in the worst cosmetic shape - on account of having been previously opened up way back in the dark ages to fix something or other. The construction methods seem a bit laughable compared to DX5293. Way back then, the frame halves were filed down as thin as possible and balsa was contact glued on top to extend the long hood "walls" up higher, provide a roof, and even for side sills.

Attached to this was paper (LOL) for the external hood sides with doors made of scribed plasticard. The cab is balsa with paper cab side cutouts added and the roof is plastic. It's hokey, but as I say, it worked.

To atttach a decoder we're obviously going to need somewhere to put it. Up in the top/rear seems like as good a place as any so we'll remove a little tab of metal to make some more room with Mr Dremel, who will also make a hole to run wires down to the motor which will have to be electrically isolated. This vaguely shown above.

So with that surgery complete the decoder was then wired to the motor (orange and grey wires) and to the frame (red/black - I drilled holes for some small screws to attach them to the frame - fancy schmancy), and while I was in there I soldered in a light up as well:

After testing it on a track, it seemed that the nice surface mount LED shown above (stolen from an Intermountain SD40-2W) was dead, so I replaced it with one a nice bright-white LED previously removed from a Digitrax decoder.

Note that I made extensive use of Kapton tape (that thin orange tape that comes in abundance when you buy most Digitrax decoders) to isolate the motor from the frame and also any exposed wires and solder.

On the programming track

Crikey. After screwing it all together, it seems to work! This loco was pretty popular in the Otaki to Cass era, so it must have quite a few miles on the odo - I was amazed at the amount of fluff in the bogies.

But after blowing the cobwebs out, it still runs well, and at a surprisingly 'scale' speed...and even the light works! And as you can see, the body is still pretty much intact. Yay. Victory for the common stupid man. In an upcoming edition we'll do some cosmetic tidying up.

Power to the People

DB returns with a video confessional.

Although I've posted quite a few pictures of my locos here on Motorised Blogdruff over the years, I'm embarrassed to admit that most of them don't do anything other than collect dust and occasionally pose for pictures.

I was as surprised as you, dear reader, to learn today that my two Kiwirail phase 1 painted DXCs didn't even have decoders in them. I've had the decoders for absolutely ages, but never got around to installing them.

So, I did. And man, is that process a pain in the rectum.

The light board on Atlas locos is sandwiched between the frame halves - unlike the Kato ones which you can clip out and slip in the DCC board in seconds. Not so on Atlas models, where the frame halves need to be unscrewed quite a lot to release the old board. This makes the trucks/bogies fall onto the floor. Then you use your third hand to detach the motor from one or both frame halves to allow them to separate. Then the plastic hex nuts that match the loosened screws fall onto the floor also as you prise out the light board (like a contortionist entering a small car through a barely open window while carrying a large suitcase)  while carefully ensuring that the loco frame halves don't disembowel themselves and spill motors, gears and bearings onto your increasingly cluttered carpet.

But that's just the start of your trek, dear viewer, for these clever geniuses at Atlas are always thinking ahead and have now placed 4 microscopic copper detachable "frame clips" on the corners of their light board to ensure the highest levels of electrical conductivity. These are attached to the board itself and go on the inner corners of the board (while the clips are not shown in this stolen picture, you can see on the lower board the silvered contacts with the holes that the clips clip into)  :

Standard installation procedure is to prise the four tiny clips (which have a little indentation that fits that hole) off the old board with a knife blade, watch several of them ping off into space, scour the carpet. Find all but one. Install the three you have onto the corners of the new decoder board. Swear a little as another drops on the floor. Find both of them. Get all four installed on board. Try to lever new board back into carefully separated frame halves while somehow getting the two motor contacts to line up and slip through their contact holes. Knock two clips off board and onto table during this step. Watch helplessly as they bounce off table and out of view onto floor. Swear some more. Repeat about three times.

Nevertheless, within an hour later I had quietly exhausted my supply of curse words and shortly thereafter had two DXs with decoders installed. With frame clips. Aiyaaa...

So finally a review - the Atlas Dash-8 powered chassis runs extremely well.

The DXCs, the DFT  and the DI are my favourite locos at the mo. My DCs, DBR and DA all run horribly fast and with some erraticism (and no eroticism). I may need to get some slow speed Atlas motors. My DGs barely run at all (weird as they are new Kato PA1 chassis with new decoders), my old DFs run ok, but look tired, my DJs... have never had decoders. Until today, but that's another story.

Live from Dandruff Labs....

I think we need to demand a new judging category....

(Apologies for the blurriness)

Gaining a New Perspective...

Am_Fet screams "Eureka!" and blogs:

Over the last week or so I've been reading a lot of Lance Mindheims writings in his blog and thinking about trying out some of his techniques.

The one that most intrigues is the idea of using photographs of buildings to make models.....simply get a decent photo, print, and paste on to the side of a styrene "shell" the correct size.  Voila, insta-building!

The biggest problem with this, of course, is trying to get usable pictures, which usually means those taken pretty much side on to the subject, a lot like this series I did in the industrial back roads of the Timaru Harbour Board area:

(Checkout here for the full flickr set, feel free to download what you need and use.)

So what if you cant get a decent side on picture?  What if you are forced (through reasons of geography) to use Google Street View?

Well, gentle reader, there is a way using electronic trickery, just as Uncle Lance said there would be.

Exhibit A is this picture from Google of the NMACo warehouse featured earlier:

Hmmm, not very straight at all.....the trick is to use a tool like Paintshop Pro X that features a (wait for it) Perspective tool.  I opened the above photo , pressed the corresponding buttons and before I could squeak Salvadore Dali it was done.  A quick burst with the crop tool left me with this exceptionally usable pic:

A bit of quick work with copy and paste would remove those pesky wires, but apart from thats its ready to go.  Simply print and paste.  Look a bit flat?  Print 2, cutout the columns and laminate the layers, of course.

If I can convince Drew to get me some nice pickys from his office window the next time he rolls through Patea, I 'd quite like to give yon olde cheese store a go as well....

 Verdict?  Exciting in its possibilities, and well worth a look.