TUESDAY AT CHARLES

Another convivial evening sampling a variety of continental cheeses, one or two which had been skulking in Chas' garage for a couple of weeks, and were finally persuaded to appear for the evening.

Cholesterol levels on the rise!

It transpired that Tuesday the 28th of June was also Pats Birthday - so that got toasted...

On to serious stuff. A week or two ago Pat voiced a wish that the crane on Cardigan would swivel on demand. This is the crane in question: 

Charles took up the challenge, and last night produced the basic drive and mounting:

a 10mm diameter motor with a gear box which will have a belt drive to a pulley attached to the axis of the crane under the baseboard. The whole thing is less than 3" x 3"....

 

Next on the exquisite list, Colin brought along his latest 009 loco to show us the lining that he had done on the bodywork (all done by hand with a bow pen)

The complete locomotive was scratch built apart from the chassis, using a variety of bits of wire, pipe , brass and plastic card...

Oh, and real coal!

Couple of days of bad weather last week, and I was at bit of a loose end, so I did a little bit to the Teifi Gorge.
Cut some 3mm ply to make backscenes, fixed them to 2x1 for strength, and then screwed them to the boards using 'T' nuts and 6mm bolts. Then decided bolts were too fiddly, so I soldered wing nuts onto 6mm threaded bar, and used them instead. It makes removal much easier.

Really only need to remove them to paint or apply a pictoral landscape, and then they could be left fixed in place.
Anyhow, undercoated everything with white emulsion, and then gave it all a coat of white non-drip gloss (except for the inside which will be scenic).
That was a day or two ago. Today I had a go at assembly - ten minutes to put together (excluding power) and then another ten to break apart and store. Took some pics while it was up....

back view showing the fixing method











front view of the layout with the quarry in place

Looking down the length of the layout from the Cilgerran end. Still an awful lot of work to be done, but slowly getting there. October 24th will be its first outing, at the National Woolen Mill at Drefach Felindre. - We will probably bill it as 'Work in progress' !!

Apologies to Roger Howells, organising the Hermon Model Show on October the 25th. He wondered if we would be interested in exhibiting. We would love to, but as it is the day after Drefach Felindre, we are busy packing up and then other commitments kick in. Maybe next year, Roger...

Tuesday 21st - Colin and Pat came round - No Chas, as his computer was poorly and he was waiting for the PC doctor to come and render first aid...

We thoroughly enjoyed Jan's thank you present, a very delectable vintage Californian Merlot - but before that managed to get quite a bit done on the modelling front. Several niggles had materialised during the Login Show, so they were sorted out ready for the Aberaeron do.
Then it was a bit of work on the neglected Teifi Gorge layout. Pat got to grips with the static grass applicator, Colin wielded a paint brush loaded with gray acrylic, and I did a some hedging and tree work.
I put two of the boards up today just to show progress - Cilgerran, leading through the gorge to Forrest quarry. Temporary backboards in place to check for fit.

And from the other direction:

Evenin' all!
The Aberaeron Show is looming large, and we have pledged to take Cardigan/Boncath along to the Show in Llwyncelyn Hall on Sunday August the 9th.
Llwyncelyn is about three miles South of Aberaeron on the A487 from Cardigan - the hall is on the right-hand side opposite the filling station and stores - free parking in a large field next to the hall.

Anyway, cricket was boring this afternoon, so I got out the lighting pelmets that we have for the layouts, and thought I would tidy them up. this is Boncath in the early days:

Lighting is provided by strips of LEDs powered by a 12 volt transformer, going through a dimmer switch, to give daylight reducing to night-time.

On the left you can see the two strips of LEDs and the aluminium (aluminum for our US readers...) bracket arrangement holding the pelmet








In the right-hand picture is the dimmer switch.
As usual, we have tried to keep expenses to a minimum - the pelmet and shelf are uPVC soffit board strips that were spare from a roofing project. The dimmers came from China via Ebay.





Last two pictures are the pelmets with the appropriate name boards fixed to them, with the Cardi-Bach Society Logo at each end.

The next Tuesday meeting we will probably have a test run ready for the show...!

If you have been following this blog, you may have seen one or two pictures of little narrow gauge locomotives - I should mention that these are all made by Colin - 'scratch built' is the phrase used.
Colin uses copper pipe, plasticard, wire, and assorted pins and nails. The smoke stacks and steam domes he turns from pieces of brass on a small lathe.
Last night we met at his house, and he had a small N gauge layout set up, which fortunately is the right track gauge for the 009 locos that will be running on the Teifi Gorge Railway.
Here are some of the fleet:

 To give you an idea of the size, here is a picture taken of the larger of the saddle tanks during construction:

A very successful week-end was enjoyed by the Chuffer Duffers! As members of the Cardi-Bach Railway society we took our layouts along to the Joint open week-end held by the Society and Peter and Dawn Towns, owners of Login Railway Station, to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the opening of Login Station.
We set up in the Marquee on the front lawn, where the old railway track used to run.

Kilgerran: (courtesy of Emyr Philips who now owns it)

 It used to be connected to the Cardigan layout but due to different levels it was too awkward to operate, so its place has now been taken by Boncath.

Boncath layout:
Seen here with Patrick setting out the stock .













And finally we've got Cardigan, the layout built by Patrick and Colin, that started the whole thing off:

These pictures were taken just half an hour before the event kicked off. (Only Pats pictured - Colin and myself are too shy) Our heartfelt thanks to Peter for hosting the week-end, Dawn and the ladies for endless tea and cake, and also to the readers of our blog who made themselves known to us. Thanks also to Jan and Rohan for the kind contribution to our Tuesday evening, and Mike Edwards for coming all the way from Llangadog to help out on Sunday morning.
More photos of the event can be seen on facebook - loginrailwaystation (I've not linked it, 'cos I don't know how...)

Picked up Pete Towns trailer yesterday in readiness for carting the layout to Login. As I had a spare day I took the trailer up to Mikes in Llanddeusant to collect some timber. Mike was his usual hospitable self - many thanks for the coffee and cake Mike - and we spent an enjoyable couple of hours. Back home and unloaded the timber by five, so with an hour or so spare I did a bit of modelling.
Finally finished Login North Ground Frame cabin - not quite like the restoration that Pete has done to the real thing, but artistic license prevails. Here is my humble effort:

Also did a little bit more to the Quarry board on the Teifi Gorge layout - bit of undergrowth around the tunnel mouth, and some rushes/reeds/bushes on the river bank:

 

Now waiting for Colin to arrive, load up the trailer and off to Login to set up for tomorrows 'do'

Sorry everybody for being a bit tardy in updating the blog... no excuse.
Last Tuesday we congregated round at Charles place, where he treated us to his usual eclectic collection of  videos and humour garnered from t'internet. Then he demonstrated a kinetic sculpture (for want of a more detailed explanation) that he had built using ball bearings and aluminium - it's a sort of perpetual motion machine (until the batteries exhaust) that delivers ball bearings to the top of a tower via a perforated wheel. They then roll down a helter-skelter and queue up to get onto the perforated wheel again... (you had to be there to appreciate it)
There was also a remarkable Camembert that positively dribbled onto your cheese biscuit.

This past Tuesday we just had a trial run of assembling the Cardigan/Boncath layout ready for the Week-end event at Login Station, taking place on Saturday and Sunday. Hope to see you all there!

No photos of the last two Tuesdays, as I never had the camera with me. Sorry!
More posts after the week-end.