Scattergun Johns very varied workbench

[allegheny1600]

Hi Again!
Around Christmas just gone, we lost my dear Auntie Kay who was the grand age of 95 so it was inevitable really. Anyway, she kindly left me a sum of money and I really wanted something 'big' to remember her by. My good lady Bev, was very explicit in stating that she didn't want anything for herself so I was free to choose as I liked. The most impressive thing I could come up with was going to be an ESU T16 (BR94 0-10-0T) but really, it would have been just another loco!
Fortunately it was not yet available but I had hovered over the "reserve" button a few times when this came up, the Trix H0 scale model of Hamburg's Dammtor station.
A quick consultation with Bev who was supportive and I made my offer. After a while, it was accepted and yesterday a rather large box turned up.


Getting the two kits out revealed just how big everything is.


That's a standard size dishwasher and worktop in the background!


What a model it will make!


Looks like the previous owner has made a start, this facade has been "weathered". Yes, that's a 12" rule!


Oh dear! That's an awful lot of plastic parts in there and that's just one box! Apparently there is some 9Kg of plastic here.

I have been doing quite a bit of internet trawling and have found a few very good sites where owners have made detailed descriptions of how they proceeded, thank goodness for that! I need such help!
Fortunately I do have a fair resource of my own photos I took, never dreaming that I really would need them someday.
The instructions suggest that between 70 - 90 hours is required to build this monster but I understand from other builds that it will take considerably more than that to do it real justice, like painting all the interior, fitting lights, catenary and so forth.
Wish me luck guys!
John.

 

[allegheny1600]

Hi All,
As threatened in my first post, anything can happen on here! What modelling I have managed to do is all too often for other people, as indeed is this 'piece' but for once, I managed to photograph the process.
My club (Leigh) has a rather nice colliery layout called "Bickersleigh", a contraction of Bickershaw and Leigh and one of my dear colleagues, Roy had been trying to make a curved turnout for the hidden sidings - out of old pieces of set track! To be fair to him, he had done a good job - given what he had to work with.
However, the starting point was simply not good enough (who on earth had suggested using set track?) so I decided to build a working turnout from scratch, using copperclad and rescued code 100 as it had to match the remainder of the layout. Due to the position of this point, it is critical to the operation of the layout. All this and there is just barely five weeks until our exhibition so I couldn't hang around.
I had no time to mess around with 'Templot' and I can't use it anyway so I simply made the measurements required by taking a 'rubbing' of the old point by pressing hard all over a sheet of A4 paper!
Once at home, I added some additional working onto this;

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Really rough, eh?
I didn't even have any 4mm copperclad sleeper strip to hand so I used 7mm stuff instead. I actually thought it might be thicker and help match the original Peco code 100.

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About an hours filing produced a reasonable crossing vee;

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I stuck the sleepers to the paper with Pritstick and left them overnight then started soldering the vee into position;

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I had quite a bit of trouble making and getting the wing rails for the vee set into position, I don't know what I did wrong there but carried on with then setting the switches into position, from where I could then calculate where the stock rails fit;

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A couple of steps later and the point was more or less ready!

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I used 'marigold' gloves while I scrubbed all the flux off (in the sink, with boiling water) and of course, safety glasses while I gapped the sleepers and it was ready to be taken to the club. I gave it a quick test by rolling a selection of wagons through beforehand and thankfully even that big gap at the vee, doesn't seem to be a problem (fingers crossed).
All I could get done at club was lift the old point and fit the new but it seems to work okay. Just have to motorise it and wire it now.

What do you think of my first point, please? I had a group tuition at the Manchester MRS where I got less than half a P4 point built and that didn't work and that's all I've ever done (apart from plain track). My only special track building tools were a code 100 roller gauge and the American RP25 'Standards Gage'
Cheers,
John.