Another week, another ChufferDuffers...
This Tuesday we descended on Pats, and managed to catch the Chief boiler-maker hard at work in Chessboard Engineering's workshop. Our lensman was quick on the draw with his trusty Brownie and managed to snap Patrick hard at work putting inside detail in his Railbus:

The Railbus now sports seats along each side and at the back:

 

Plus there is a dashboard for the driver (no steering wheel, obviously...) Yet to be fitted is the drivers seat, and an appropriate person sitting in it. Also a variety of passengers.

Some of the aforementioned people can be seen here in various states of colour, and some waiting for limbs to be fitted (the limbs in question can be seen on the left of the picture, and to the left of the figure lying down):

After loosely fitting the roof Pat put it into service on the Maes Y Gof layout to give a demo of its running ability. I still haven't mastered the art of adding movies to the blog, so you'll have to be content with still photos:

The jury is out on whether the guard is talking to a small cat or a large rat... He appears to be admonishing it for infringing some railway bylaw.

I took the opportunity to grab a photograph of Pats  weathered tank wagon, tucked up in the top corner by the goods shed:

Also while the camera was out and the layout lights were on I took a close up of Evans the smithy hard at work in the gefail:

No 'show-and-tells' from either Colin or myself this week, so we retired to the works canteen to view a few DVDs and indulge in some home-made duck pate with hot french bread and salad, plus a tincture of French red.
All in all a most pleasant evening!

Toodle-pip,
Shaun.

The weekly meeting of Chuffers - We convened here at Llechryd last night, just Colin pat and myself. We are sorely missing Chas, hopefully his health will improve and he can once again attend our little soirees.
No time last night for niceties, it was into the conservatory and crack on with the Login fiddle-yard. We had enough track and space to have three stock tracks. Here are a couple of shots of the lads hard at it:

The conservatory is great for the space it affords us, but unfortunately the lighting is limited. We have to rely on table lamps and a twin lamp pedestal fitting. We managed though, and we were more than satisfied with the result:

The missing sleepers are not going to be an issue, as this section will not be on public view (and quite frankly we could not be arsed bothered to stick them back in...) Next job is fetch the Login Layout from Login and have a trial run.

Other highlight last night was a 'show and tell' from Chessboard Engineering Works. If you recall from the last post (scroll down a bit if you've forgotten) Pat was making a rail-bus from a donor Lima chassis. Grafting non-stop until the small hours, Pat has done stirling work to produce this:

Still work-in-progress, the roof has to be finished and dummy mudguards added. More pics:

There is actually a fan behind that radiator grill...

I trundled over to Login today to visit our associate member Peter, as he had lots of progress to report on his portrayal of the Lynton & Barnstable Narrow Gauge Railway.
One of the stations he is depicting is 'Woody Bay' and he had a Bachmann resin model. However it looked under-sized, so he made a card mock-up to 4mm scale:

The difference is obvious!
Here it is roughly in place on the embroyo layout:

The line leaving Woody Bay drops off to the right, and true to scale Pete has tried to match this, with his line terminating in a fiddle yard:

The fiddle yard is seated on rolling shelf castors, and slides back and forth holding several lines of stock. This is the tray (without any track fitted, of course )

Peter had set up a loop of track to act as a running in circuit for the new L & B locos, and so far they have all behaved very well, though the track has to be perfectly flat to avoid wheel slip. Immaculate slow running, but they are sensitive to the slightest gap in the track. More updates from the Login branch of the ChufferDuffers as and when. 

After our evenings work we repaired to the dining room for railway videos and Mexican enchilladas that I had made, together with the usual embrocation. Unfortunately we lost track of time, so my abject apologies to the Chuffers respective wives for keeping the menfolk out til gone eleven...
Sorry!

Next week at Pats - by then he will have probably started another loco...

G'night,
Shaun.

The Chuffers met at Colins last Tuesday - no meeting the previous week as we had a Cardi-Bach meeting at Login, when the official opening of the museum/heritage centre was discussed. This will most likely be on the morning of Tuesday May the 14th. Hopefully it will be opened by the Chairman of Carmarthenshire County Council, who has intimated he would like to perform the ceremony before he retires. ALL ARE WELCOME...

Back to Chuffers. Herrington Light Industries have been busy in the interim period and Colin gave us a working demonstration of his motor powered turntable, soon to be fitted to one of the Teifi Gorge stations. Here are two shots of the said turntable, one with it seated on its temporary housing:

and the second picture shows the 'gubbins' underneath the turntable itself. It's a geared motor from one of the Chinese outlets on Ebay - £3 or thereabouts - (the exact same motor from a UK marine model dealer is advertised for £20) makes you wonder, doesn't it. Oh, and it was post free from China.

The motor is cunningly 'switched' to the layout controller, so its rotation can be controlled. When the loco is lined up to the track, switch back, and you control the loco not the turntable. All clever stuff!


Meanwhile, down at 'Chessboard Engineering' another locomotive power unit is being manufactured for the Maes Y Gof layout.
Using a donor chassis that Pete Towns gave to Pat, he is making it into a rail 'bus' similar to those that were used on various Irish Railways. Here we have two views of the embryo body section sitting on the adapted chassis and motor. This is a rear view:

And turning it around this will be the driving cab and dummy engine and radiator:

On the Teifi Gorge, I have fixed the 'White Hart' in position next to the mill in St Dogmaels, with a length of fencing in front to protect any departing inebriates from rail operations.

During our evening at Colins we were treated to an excellent thick soup and garlic bread cooked and served to us by Colins wife Marianne. Chuffers evenings don't get any better than this!

Next week the meet is here in Llechryd, and the boys are going to have to adopt their 'Gandy Dancers' persona, as the plan is to motorise the Login layout, which to date is just a static display. Hopefully we will take it on the expo circuit later in the year - but first we are going to have to build extra boards to fit around it to incorporate a fiddle yard and continuous loop.
I have made the boards - next job is track laying!
These are the three boards joined up all ready for work to begin...

Should occupy an evening or two...

(I must prune that buddleia bush)
Nos da,
Shaun.