S Port Dundas

JimG

Western Thunderer
This is the basis for my sort of scattergun although I'm still in the same scale, the same era and the same railway company. So that hardly counts as scattergun in this forum. :) After last year's Yate exhibition, I was looking for an S scale layout to appear at this year's show in February and I couldn't get one, so I decided to build a "quickie" to supply the need. We had had Maurice Hopper's "St.Juliot" layout at last year's exhibition and I thought I might aim for something similar - about twelve feet long , very portable and which sits on two tables. Maurice's layout is designed to pack up into a small and portable pack for carrying around on public transport but I didn't want to go to that length, and set my aim at small and portable enough to fit in your average car.

So the following plan evolved - just under twelve feet long on four baseboards...

PortDundas-001.jpg

...a dock layout which gives an excuse for all types of freight traffic, no passenger facilities and no need for more than one or two small locomotives. Work was started on the track and baseboards, and this was the reason for starting the Caledonian dock tank last year.

The baseboards were made from a sheet of 4mm ply left over from the Banavie Road baseboards and built in the same way using hot glue followed by bandage on the joints, but using much shallower support parts - now 70mm deep.

PortDundas-002.jpg

The track was also built off the board, using PCB sleepering and Code 80 FB rail salvaged from an old S scale dog track made many years ago. This was the main formation under construction.

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All the track will be inset in cobbles, so all the sleepering is rather sparse since it will never be seen.:) There is continuous check rail on everything.

However, around about summertime, I realised that I would never get the layout into an exhibitable state by the beginning of February, so the work stopped with all the track and baseboards built, and we didn't have an S scale layout for this year's exhibition. :(

However, fellow club member - TimC of this parish - suggested that the layout might be a suitable project for the club, so the baseboards and track were dug out and dusted down, and work started on them again to get the track laid on them and get fittings like locating dowels fitted.

Jump forward to the present, and the four baseboards were set up in the club last week with all the track laid and ready for testing.

PortDundas-004.jpg

I have used 1/8" cork as a base and the track is held down by plenty of No.2 brass CSK wood screws through the sleepers. The intention is to cover the whole area of the cork with cobbles and I'm giving a fair bit of thought to how we are going to achieve that (note the plural "we" for a start :) ) . I will be powering the pointwork with servos and I'm waiting to get some MERG servo boards to control them before getting on with track testing.

It was not practical to set up two tables at the club to support the layout, so I cobbled up a spine for it to sit on, supported by two cheap B&Q trestles.

PortDundas-005.jpg

The beam is about nine feet long and consists of three, hinged parts so that it folds up into a rectangle about three feet long by a foot wide so that it will fit easily in a car. You can see one of the hinged joints between the trestle and the baseboard. At present the baseboards just sit on the beam, but they will be screwed or clamped at the ends of the beam.

Tim has started work on the buildings and his building research has given the layout a name. He dug up some very early Scottish industrial architecture at Speir's Wharf in Port Dundas in Glasgow. This was ideal since the buildings could be reduced proportionally to fit a small layout without losing their distinctive character. Here is a URL to a picture of buildings at Port Dundas - the ones in the centre distance are similar to the ones Tim is modelling.

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/imageview.php?inum=TGSE01388

The NLS also has the city OS maps of Glasgow online and the following one covers a part of Speir's Wharf (top left) and shows some of the railway trackage in the area.

http://maps.nls.uk/view/74416680

Port Dundas was the the main centre of industry in the city in the early part of the nineteenth century and the port was on the Forth & Clyde and Monkland canals. The canals were the main method of transport to and from the city until the advent of the railways, and the Clyde was opened up for the navigation of large ships to Glasgow.

PortDundas-006.jpg

A closer shot of Tim's building work showing his plywood shells for the buildings. These shells will be covered with a thin layer of DAS and a representation of Scottish industrial sandstone impressed and scraped on to it.

Jim.
 

Scale7JB

Western Thunderer
Brilliant looking project, I could quite easily have been dragged into 'S' a few years ago..

What's the theory behind the bandage on the baseboards?

JB.
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
What's the theory behind the bandage on the baseboards?

It's a method I got from Dick Ganderton some years ago. Dick had built baseboards using thin ply sheet, well braced and using glass fibre tape and resin to reinforce the joints, after using hot glue to tack everything together. Dick had got the idea from building a Mirror sailing dinghy. :) I used this method on a set of baseboards I made several years ago and it worked extremely well, but the glass fibre tape and resin were quite expensive (more expensive than the wood if I remember) and the rather quick setting time of the resin made construction a bit of a race against time for every resin mix. :)

Since then, I've done a bit of experimenting with cheaper materials - using bandages or plaster joint strip for the tape and PVA or Cascamite as the glue and all have worked well, but I think I might settle on the last arrangement I used on this layout, which was a combination of stretch bandage and self adhesive plasterboard joint tape with PVA as the adhesive. It also works well with poorer quality ply supplied by places like B&Q.

The advantages are that you get can get a very light structure which is quite rigid and the standard of workmanship doesn't need to be too high to get a good end product. All the bits are tacked together with the hot glue gun with a reasonable standard of fit. The bandage/glue mix is then applied to every joint line and the board is laid face down on a flat table and weighted so that the glue sets hard with the board flat and square. The only thing where taking a bit of care helps is cutting the support strips straight. Getting the ply sheet cut into strips on a commercial saw is the best way of achieving this. I have cut the strips at home using a hand held circular saw and a straight edge, but you have to be very careful to get a decent end result.

I also found out with an earlier set of boards that repair is easy. I damaged a corner of a board and I was able to repair it by patching the broken area on the inside using hot glue, and then applying the tape/glue mix over the patches. It was a bit like repairing balsa and tissue model aeroplanes. :) The tape and glue joint is used a lot in the theatre where I believe they use hessian strip for the tape.

Jim.
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
I thought I had done a blow-by-blow account of making baseboards on my Banavie Road thread and was going to point to it, but on checking I found that I had pretty well skipped over the construction. :) So here's a few pictures of the construction of the present board - temporary kitchen table stuff. :)

PortDundas-007.jpg

The top and the sides and ends are tacked together in place using the hot glue gun. You can just detect the short tacks of hot glue on the right side. I aim to get these outer parts fairly straight and square, hence the wooden straight edge in the foreground and the weighted down square for the end at the far end.

PortDundas-008.jpg

And a big jump on to the final setting of the board, with all the support parts tacked, then taped and glued down and laid on a flat surface (thick MDF sheet) and weighted down to set.

I had previously used a self-adhesive plasterboard joint tape from B&Q as a tape but when I went back to get some more for this project, I found that they had changed the product and the strands in the tape were now a quite brittle material which tended to break when folded, so not much use for imparting strength to a joint. :) I obtained some 50mm gauze bandages as an alternative, but they proved to be quite difficult to handle when trying to place them in the corners of the joints. I had also obtained some crepe style bandages in error and they also proved to be quite difficult to handle - the stretchiness being the main problem. :)

I than had the idea of combining the two...

PortDundas-009.jpg

....to give...

PortDundas-012.jpg

The self-adhesive plasterboard tape controlled the bandage and allowed it to be handled and placed quite easily, and, with the gauze bandage, the adhesive got through the gauze to allow the combination to be stuck in place until the PVA glue was applied.

PortDundas-010.jpg

And now a picture of the completed area with the bandage/tape combination stuck down with the PVA glue.

PortDundas-011.jpg

I used a mix of crepe tape and ordinary gauze tape on these boards and, contrary to what I said above, gauze bandage is my preferred choice because the adhesive on the tape gets through the bandage to let it be used in placing the tape.

Jim.
 

TimC

Active Member
When it comes to modelling buildings I like to find a suitable prototype (or style thereof) and an afternoon trawling through the search engine on the 'RCHMS' website looking at 'warehouse' / 'wharf' provided a number of possibles for the layout. Jim has initially planned a River Clyde location but we found a group of buildings at Speirs Wharf, Port Dundas that seemed an interesting mix so it was to be a Forth & Clyde Canal setting instead.

Link to images of selected buildings:
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/sit...t+dundas+52+speirs+wharf+wheatsheaf+building/ (You can click on each image to see a larger view).

After scaling up from the images, we decided to lose a storey off the taller warehouse and its attached longer structure (this is to be stage 1 of the construction). Even so. the hipped roof on the tall warehouse will be removable to keep the packing height down on the baseboards for transportation. Both structures will be modelling in stone but whether it is rough or dressed has yet to be decided.

The buildings have a frame of 2mm ply covered with DAS modelling clay which will be scribed in due course. I prefer rolling the DAS out with a rolling pin and laying it on in large sheets rather than spreading out pea sized blobs one at a time! The clay is a real pain to handle when it gets too wet so its a fine balance with applying water to keep it from sticking to the rolling board (a plain glass kitchen board - for modelling use only :thumbs: ). PVA is used to ensure good adhesion to the ply.

Here is the progress to date:

DSCN2070.JPG

DSCN2072.JPG

The joins in the 'sheets' of DAS needed a bit of filler here and there to tidy it up after a good sand removed any obvious joint lines. Our clubrooms are not famous for their warmth so the DAS has dried out quite slowly and consequently there are hardly any drying cracks. All the windows have now been squared up and checked that they were all the appropriate size (thats what those 3 bits of plasticard were used for in the above photo - check gauges).

I've also laid DAS on some scrap ply to use as test pieces for scribing and painting. Thats the next stage before I attack the building itself. It will also set the style of the stonework too.
 

lancer1027

Western Thunderer
Hi Tim,

I know that Speirs Wharf is now appartments. The whole length of the building was refurbished and has a Pool/Gym with a steam room and a pool table for all residence use. I know because my daughter rented one of the appartments last year.

I will be watching this with interest:thumbs:

Rob:)
 

Wizard of the Moor

Active Member
I've also rolled out DAS into sheets on a marble chopping board for laying onto the MDF shell of buildings. After a couple of experiments, I found that covering the chopping board in clingfilm and then rolling the DAS out on top of that made the handling significantly easier.
 

TimC

Active Member
I've also rolled out DAS into sheets on a marble chopping board for laying onto the MDF shell of buildings. After a couple of experiments, I found that covering the chopping board in clingfilm and then rolling the DAS out on top of that made the handling significantly easier.


Yes, I think that maybe is what I'll do the next time too. It will help in the handling of large sections as well as getting it off the board.
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
Next job for Port Dundas was making the split axles for the pug which someone else is making. I'm probably holding him up so getting these produced will leave no excuse. :) I haven't made split axles for a while and I couldn't find my jig, so I spent a bit of time on the milling machine with an offcut of 8mm alloy and made a new jig. I also turned up the parts for two three-section axles from 3mm silver steel, with the centre sections hollow and with spigots on the outer parts. I also turned up some insulating washers from plastic knitting needle, but I think I will punch them out of styrene sheet in future - much easier. :)

PortDundas-013.jpg

A closer shot of the axle jig..,

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The support for the axles are 2mm wide slots - bottom left to middle right in this picture - and a 5mm ball nose mill is run through the slots at 0.4mm depth to give and approximate 45 degree face for the axles to sit in; basically a "V" block which will work with the 3mm axles for the pug and the more usual 1/8" axles for my other locomotives. the other slots at right angles give clearance at the joints.

PortDundas-015.jpg

The two axles clamped up with a layer of cling film over the alloy guide to avoid the Araldite sticking everything together. I had forgotten how easily Araldite seems to get everywhere, including my fingers. :) You can also see the excess Araldite oozing out of the relief hole in the closer centre part.

PortDundas-016.jpg

...and the final result with the wheels just pushed on to the axles till the taper just starts to bite. There is about another 1mm of push fit to go. The axles have been finished to length - 25.25mm for these wheels.

I had thought of trying the kite rod method, but I didn't have any kite rod to hand and wanted to push ahead and get the job done, so it was back to the old ways. :) I'm also not sure if I want the ends of the kite rod showing at the axle ends but until I try it some time, I can't really say. :)

Jim
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
The elephant in the room for this layout is the cobbles or, more accurately, the setts. There is a requirement for about twelve square feet of them in and around all the trackwork and up to the quay edge. So I thought it best to start looking at how we were going to try an cover that area. I had a look at how Richard (Dikitriki) did it on Heyside, where he used square and rectangular brass tube to impress individual setts in DAS modelling clay. I had some of the same tube, but it would be a bit big for S scale setts and I thought about another possible way of doing it...

PortDundas-017.jpg

...by machining up a plate with an area of setts to make an impression in the DAS. Here is the plate being machined in the mill - about a quarter of the way through doing the actual setts.

PortDundas-018.jpg

...and the final plate before cutting the tabs holding it in place.

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The plate after removal. The sizes of the setts vary between 4" and 12" long and 4" high. The lengths were chosen at random while drawing the plate up by taking all the cards from four to queen out of a pack, shuffling them up and dealing them out to give a sett length as I worked along a row. I had thoughts of programming my HP35S to do the job but I suspect the result from cards was just as good, and a lot quicker. :) The setts were also arranged so that the plate could be used in either orientation, and this only required a minor adjustment in the top row of setts to make that work.

PortDundas-020.jpg

I also turned up a wee knob and soldered it on to make the handling easier.

Now for the first experiments on DAS. I rigged up a small bench on a piece of Contiboard with two bits of spare venetian blind strips and a roller consisting of a piece of 1 7/16" brass bar. This was a setup to get a reasonable flat bit of DAS to work on by rolling it between the strips with the bar on the strips.

PortDundas-021.jpg

And now for the results.

PortDundas-022.jpg

The impression from the plate itself is quite good, but the real tricky bits are the joints, especially at the ends. I also found out the hard way that it is almost impossible to go over an impression accurately, as the one in the centre above demonstrates. :) But I managed to get a good longitudinal joint top right

PortDundas-023.jpg

More tests show that the end joints are very obvious and I think I shall machine up another plate and leave the border parts off one end of the plate to avoid the obvious heavy effect of the duplication. I will probably do the same with one of the longitudinal edges even though they don't demonstrate the duplication so obviously.

Onwards and upwards. :)

I also want to let this bit of DAS harden and try some paint on it
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
What about making separate DAS plates like the old Linka system?

Scott,

That thought crossed my mind as well. :) Maybe a two part mould with the machined plate free to move so that I could eject the DAS slab. First, I'll see how I get on with getting rid of the duplication of borders on another plate.

Jim.
 

Steve Cook

Flying Squad
Impressive stuff Jim and Tim :)
I have to say Jim, I enjoy watching you use your CNC to tackle most of the modelling tasks that cross your path, have you programmed the bugger to make the tea yet? :))
Steve
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
I have to say Jim, I enjoy watching you use your CNC to tackle most of the modelling tasks that cross your path, have you programmed the bugger to make the tea yet? :))

So far, I can stir the tea. :) At 7000 rpm, I dare say I could get the Binnie effect. :)

Jim.
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
Jim, not sure if you have a 4th axis for your mill but if you do you could make a roller version of the die and avoid the problem of end matching. A jig would probably be needed to keep the runs parallel.
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
Jim, not sure if you have a 4th axis for your mill but if you do you could make a roller version of the die and avoid the problem of end matching. A jig would probably be needed to keep the runs parallel.

I have got a fourth axis and I had a thought about a roller as well. :) But I've would have to go and think about the Gcode for that. :) I'll machine another rectangular one as above with modified ends since I can do that quite quickly to see if it will work better or, more accurately, if I can handle it better. :) I'm having some thoughts about a better way of applying the die to the DAS, i.e. better locating and more even pressure - in other words, taking as much of the human element out of the operation as is possible. :)

Jim.
 

Bob Reid

Western Thunderer
How about getting some flat rubber laser cut with the repeating pattern Jim and attach it to a wooden roller? I've cut a similar thing recently for an "artist" for rolling patterns in clay....
 
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