Good evening, and welcome to out blog. Still under house arrest, and warden Drakeford seems bent on keeping us safe at home. It could be worse - we live in a lovely part of the Country, and the weather is fine (so far...)
No Cardi-Bach news, although there is some interesting stuff about our neighbouring old line, the Rosebush line. It ran from Clynderwen to Fishguard, via Rosebush until the turn of the 19th/20th century, when they ran the line through Clarbeston Road directly to Fishguard.
A lady who lives in Clarbeston has the old GWR signal box from Clynderwen in her garden, and doesn't want it...

Enquiries are afoot to see if the Rosebush gang would be interested. Seemingly it would have been mounted on a brick base. Provenance is hard to establish, but GWR affectionados say it is what it is.
So there.
We would like to offer an honoury membership to 'joppyuk' of Suffolk, who used to live in Eglwyswrw  (egg-loyz-sewer-roo) but was dragged away to the land of carrot crunchers.
He very kindly made a donation to the museum in the early days, and has been a follower of our blog from the beginning.
Which segues nicely into this weeks blog...

 Not a great deal to write up about in the modelling department, so we will start off with a narrow gauge snippet from Colin, who a year or two ago took a trip up to Aberystwyth, and visited the Vale of Rheidol workshops. They were rebuilding the Talyllyn loco No.3, 'Sir Haydn'
Built in 1878 for the Corris Railway, Talyllyn bought it in 1951 for £25. In 2015 they sent him down to Aber for a refit.

Col managed to get these pictures of the boiler and other bits and pieces being refurbished:

After rebuild Sir Haydn was transported back up through Midwales to Tywyn, and back home to the Talyllyn Railway in time for Founders Day, in May 2018.
(Photo courtesy of Ian Drummond)

More mundane matters - 
Dodging the lock-down road blocks, and running the gauntlet of the Dyfed-Powis Heddlu, I called round to Pats to catch up on progress.
The 00 layout has now been ballasted, with a variety of grade and coloured ballast material, stuck down in the time honoured fashion with 50/50 PVA and water, plus a few drops of washing up liquid.

Although it's hard to see in the picture, there are tinges of green, particularly on the rails (in front of the station, if you look closely) We can't reason this. Water quality? the surfactant? I haven't experienced it when I've ballasted, but I don't use soap - meths instead.
Also I don't use proprietary ballast. I use washed sand instead (cheap)
Anyway, in the background Pat has worked on a card rendition of a country inn, cobbling together two buildings and adding timber framing as well as appropriate signage:

Moving onto the scenery, the tunnel mouth and roadway are slowly taking shape-

And if you turn around, this is where it is all constructed (!)

I do like to see a nice tidy workstation...
As this is the kitchen, it all has to be cleared away in readiness for prepping the evening meal.


No such problem with the Teifi Gorge extension, as I now have it in the garage.
Using the  support frame I showed in the previous post, I was able to work on the underside of the board, and put the point motors in place:

As you can see, the track is now in place, except for the two sidings. If we look around the back of the board, the four points now have SEEP solenoid motors in place, and wired up-

These are now waiting for a CDU, an electronic doofer that gives an extra shot of power that is needed to operate the point solenoid. (I showed a close-up of one in the last post)


And that, I'm afraid is it for this week - no video - I was going down to take one of the setting sun and the bridge, but looking out of the window, I've left it too late...sorry!


Cherrio till next week.
Thanks for your company, stay safe,

Shaun.

(Thats not really Pats kitchen - it's in the annex, and used as a modelling room) 

Hello, and welcome to another ChufferDuffer post.
Although we are still under lock and key Society members seem to be staying cheerful, and we have had a couple of photographs circulating around the group illustrating what some people are getting up to. Some of you may have already seen these, but for those who haven't - 
Society Chairman Emyr has been practising topiary with the privet hedge behind his house, and is creating a Cardi-Bach engine. The chimney has yet to catch up with the dome!

Meanwhile up in North Wales Phil Hawkins has also been sorting out his hedge - taking advantage of the Ffestiniog shutdown, he has been able to spend some time clearing the ivy and tidying up his hedge that borders the railway track.
Shown below we have a couple of before and after pictures:

Notice how quickly the rails have collected a coat of rust through lack of use.
That's it for Society news - if anyone has anything to add, click on the pencil at the bottom of the blog and jot down a comment.

One interesting fact about the old C-B line, every station between Whitland and Cardigan had a level crossing except for Kilgerran - there the line went across a bridge instead.
Not a lot of people know that... (or perhaps they did)


On to modelling -
Pat is progressing with his 00 gauge layout, with all the points now operating from either the front or back of the board, to make it easier to operate when at exhibitions. The contours are building up, and the platform lights operational.

 I haven't taken any progression pictures, but did manage to grab a quick video with the phone:

Back at home I have been doing a little bit more to the Llechryd extension of the Teifi Gorge.
Following Colin's track plan I have stuck down 2mm closed cell foam to form a track bed, and made a start on some of the scenic work.

In the background is a model of a factory that Patrick came across in an old box of bits and pieces (one of several boxes that Pat has squirreled away...) He thought it might pass as a representation of the old tin-plating works.
As the works closed at the turn of the 19th century, no-one knows what it looked like, so we have a tin-plating factory!

(I know that's a hideous green - I forgot to colour-correct. It's only base colour anyway...)


Going into the conservatory I finished work on the point motor that I was installing on the 7mm layout.
I use a cunning support leg to hold boards on the vertical - first used back when we were constructing the Crymych layout, it fits on to the end of any of our boards and allows work to be done without having to go underneath on hands and knees:

Back on the flat after the point was wired up to a CDU and a switch, it operated perfectly.
Couple of pictures to finish showing the CDU hiding behind scenery, and a couple of the point in question.

Still loads more to do on this layout, but slowly getting there!

Thanks for visiting the blog, and don't forget you can leave comments below by clicking on the pencil.

Bye for now,
Shaun.

Good evening, and once again welcome to the Chuffers blog.
10th of May and we are still in a lock-down situation. Bearable I suppose for those of us fortunate to live where we do, but I hate to think what it must be like living in an apartment, or stuck in one of those high-rise tower blocks...
Look on the bright side - we are allowed out twice a day from Monday...   I can't speak!

But this blog is about happier things than pandemics, so lets crack on with 'Chuffing' activities-

Getting the Teifi Gorge extension out of the way first - not a lot to show you. I've been busy experimenting with the river, and general scenics, but nothing that is worthy of photographing. What has happened is that the four points, or turnout have arrived:

These, horror of horrors, we had to buy - something we hate doing, as precious pennies are better going towards French Red Laughing Water... however, Colin shared the cost with me, and Pat donated the remainder of the track.
All we have to do is get together and fix it down! - easier said than done in these troubled times.

I met Pat and Mary today (at a suitable distance) to collect a file of photographs showing Pats latest achievements. We met halfway between Llechryd and Cilgerran, along the banks of the Teifi :

Which was nice.


You may recall that Pat has built a model of a railcar - in 00 gauge, a gauge that so far we have not embraced. Not to be thwarted, Pat promptly built a small 00 layout!
It is almost what is recognized as a 'shunting puzzle' by model railway affectionados.


Incomplete at the moment, but fully functional:

And to prove its functional, here is the railbus on a quick (very quick) jaunt along the rails:

Here in Llechryd I was playing about with the new layout, and was a tad enthusiastic operating a point. We use a method called 'wire in a tube' - plastic tubing is buried in the board, and a thin piece of wire passes through, and pulls or pushes the point mechanism. I pulled too hard, and the wire came out. and you can't put it back. end of W-I-T operation...

Ferreting about in the back of the 'come in useful one day' drawer, I found an electric solenoid point.
With the help of Alf, the mobile rail-mounted crane, this was installed on a spare patch of ground:

The local builder was then tasked with the job of putting up a suitable shed to disguise the point. Just a shell at the moment, requiring a bit more titivation.

Among the pictures on the memory stick that Patrick passed on to me today was this one of Colin, Mike, and myself, taken at our first showing of the Teifi Gorge layout at the National Woolen Mill in Drefach Felindre back in I think, 2015

Staying with the Teifi Gorge layout, I'll finish this blog with a video of a goods train leaving the yard at Cilgerran, going down to the dock-side at St Dogmaels, and ending with a shot of the Canol Lan.

Cherrio,
Shaun.

Hello, and a warm welcome to the first blog of May.
We are still under lock and key, and I'm sorry to say that yesterdays exchange at Checkpoint Charlie did not go according to plan!
Colin and I had arranged to meet (2 meters apart) at the crossing point, AKA Llechryd Bridge, but somehow we missed each other...
I returned to base, fired up the car and risking the wrath of the Dyfed-Powis border guards drove deep into forbidden territory. Having evinced an exchange of documents, I got home safely.
Progress on the Teifi Gorge extension could now proceed...

We have decided to make it Llechryd Station, as I have put the river on the wrong side for New-Castle Emlyn - plus it gives us scope to expand further, and create a stand-alone layout for future use.

Also we could incorporate the Llechryd Tin-plate works, the line supplying pig iron, and taking finished tin-plate to St Dogs for export.(The works closed around 1820, but we won't let that bother us too much...)

After cutting out the river, and making a rudimentary channel, rough hillside contours were made from cardboard:

This was then covered with plaster-of-Paris bandage:

and when dry painted appropriately:

The track plan that was delivered by Colin during our abortive meeting was put in place to check for fit:

Station at the bottom, tin-plate works at the top. The position of the two darker tracks will be decided when we eventually get together.
Across to the right, the track curves around to go through the gorge towards Cilgerran;

We were a tad sceptical about the severity of the curve - would it prove to tight for our stable of locomotives?
To that end, I made a template and put up a test board with some old track, showing the same curve profile.
I connected it up to power and a controller, and put our little engines through their paces.
I am relieved to say that they all took the bend in their stride, even the couplings stood the test, as you can see in the two short video clips below:

Seen here pulling (and pushing) a train of three coaches:

And there we have it - this week-ends offering from the ChufferDuffers, more to come in a few days no doubt.
One thing that did come through last week however, from the foothills of the Black Mountain was a photograph from Chuffer Mike of their first calf, born last week (just two days old in the pic)

Hope you are all keeping well,

Cheerio.

Shaun.