Dikitriki
Flying Squad
Hi,
Back outside. With the weather set fair, it struck me as a good day to do a bit of painting on the boards. In the end I chose to use some green concrete paint. I'll let you know whether that was a good decision in a couple of years .
I also needed a new strimmer, but that's another story. We wire brushed the top surface to get rid of droppings etc, strimmed and raked the grass (rare Smartie points there) and painted the edges of about 1/4 of the route, one coat before lunch, one coat after.
The centre was left unpainted to provide better adhesion for the ballast glue. It does mean that there is no reason that we can't lay track on this section....apart from the fact I don't have enough, nor any ballast, or glue come to that.
We had managed to get outside the previous Wednesday and cut the board edges into a gentle curve, a job that we had not managed to do last year.
We have started to mark the centre line of the inside track.
While we were painting the boards, the human dynamo, Allan was finishing off the cable trays for the steaming up and stock storage areas.
looking at the bottom picture, you can see some white stakes in the ground to the right of the poles. This marks the edge of the level concrete pad that the steaming up area and stock sidings will stand on. It extends 2 ft beyond the right tracks, 2 ft at the back (nearest camera) and extends to the fence. The idea is that the steam up area is on the left with 2 tracks, and there is room for a couple of benches against the fence, and the stock area has 3 sidings with plenty of room to move around and between the tracks. It will all be at the same level when the heights have been adjusted.
I reckon 3 more days to finish the boards, then the concrete pad, then the viaduct.
Richard
Back outside. With the weather set fair, it struck me as a good day to do a bit of painting on the boards. In the end I chose to use some green concrete paint. I'll let you know whether that was a good decision in a couple of years .
I also needed a new strimmer, but that's another story. We wire brushed the top surface to get rid of droppings etc, strimmed and raked the grass (rare Smartie points there) and painted the edges of about 1/4 of the route, one coat before lunch, one coat after.
The centre was left unpainted to provide better adhesion for the ballast glue. It does mean that there is no reason that we can't lay track on this section....apart from the fact I don't have enough, nor any ballast, or glue come to that.
We had managed to get outside the previous Wednesday and cut the board edges into a gentle curve, a job that we had not managed to do last year.
We have started to mark the centre line of the inside track.
While we were painting the boards, the human dynamo, Allan was finishing off the cable trays for the steaming up and stock storage areas.
looking at the bottom picture, you can see some white stakes in the ground to the right of the poles. This marks the edge of the level concrete pad that the steaming up area and stock sidings will stand on. It extends 2 ft beyond the right tracks, 2 ft at the back (nearest camera) and extends to the fence. The idea is that the steam up area is on the left with 2 tracks, and there is room for a couple of benches against the fence, and the stock area has 3 sidings with plenty of room to move around and between the tracks. It will all be at the same level when the heights have been adjusted.
I reckon 3 more days to finish the boards, then the concrete pad, then the viaduct.
Richard