Goodness me!

After a famine comes a feast - Three posts in a week...
Tuesday Chuffer-Duffers last night. We met here in the garage/workshop and managed to get quite a bit done, making up for the last couple of weeks.
Charles had modified his belt drive mechanism for the Cardigan yard crane, and while Pat and I made some alterations to wiring connections at one end of the Cardigan board, Charles and Colin assembled the crane and its 'works' at the other end.
This is the crane in question:

(Geraint Bowen the yard foreman is keeping an eye out for traffic whilst the testing is under way.)

In the nether regions of the board we have the 'mechanism' - an exquisite example of Charles engineering skills:

And it works!
A momentary switch on the side of the layout allows the crane to turn in either direction at a convincing scale speed thanks to the tiny gearbox attached to the 3 volt motor.
Videoing is beyond me, so to see it operating you will have to wait until our next show...

After pats on the back all round, we went into the workshop and got to work on the Login layout. I had already made a start on the contouring, and given everything a basic coat of dirty green. Rail was measured and cut, wire-in-tube fitted to the points, and Pat and Colin our erstwhile gandy dancers laid track.
Next move is to paint the sleepers and rails, and then lay ballast.
Status quo:

Exhausted after all that strenuous work we repaired to the house for bowls of Cawl (made with Mikes excellent mutton), bread and cheese, and washed down with the usual beverage of choice...

I'll try not to leave it too long unyil the next post!

Still at Hermon...

I forgot to mention - also at the Hermon show, Patrick brought along his latest layout. Yet to have a name, it's an N gauge continuous loop, ostensibly in the American West.

He took us by surprise with this, building it in a fortnight!

Not the best of pictures, as I took them in a hurry at the show, so a lot of the painstaking detail cannot be appreciated - lights in the carriages, the trading post, indian encampment... anyhow, here are the snaps that I took ('snaps' - that shows my age and lack of the grasp of technological terminology) 

 

 More in a day or two.

It's been several weeks folks, and I do apologise for not keeping things up to date - though quite frankly, there has not been a great deal to report.

UNTIL TODAY!

Yes, today was the Hermon model show, organised by Roger Howells, so in thanks to Roger, we have graced our headline with his picture. An excellent show, with a really varied assortment of examples of what the local modellers are capable of - farming, war-gaming, railways, haulage vehicles, aircraft, historical warfare, and much more. I wont show pictures on here, as no doubt Roger will put some up on the Hermon website.

We ourselves showed our old faithful, Cardigan and Boncath, as the original locations would be so familiar to the public - and so it proved. We did more talking than operating!

Just a couple of pictures of Patrick setting up before the venue was opened. Here he is with Cardigan:

and sorting out Boncath:

We had a most enjoyable time, and met some fascinating people. Thanks go to Roger for inviting us, and we hope to make it again next year! 

PROGRESS ON LOGIN

 

From Wikipedia, the term 'Gandy Dancer' is a slang term used for early railroad workers who laid and maintained railway tracks before the work was done by machines...

 

Last night our gandy dancers finally laid track on the main Login baseboard:

 

 

 

 

So - watch this space! (not too closely...) 

Latest news on the Teifi Gorge -

The sawmill has had a shed erected over it to protect it from the elements, and lighting has been installed so that work can take take place outwith daylight hours.