Hello! A warm welcome to the first Chuffers of August.

 

We met here at Pentrecagal last night, and actually knuckled down and did a bit of railway modelling - or to be exact, brushing up on previous modelling. Kilgerran Layout has been brought out of hibernation, and in readiness for a public showing on August 15th in Cilgerran hall, we thought we ought to see if it still worked after being laid-up for the best part of four years!

 

Getting ahead of myself here.

First of all was a 'show-and-tell'. Colin has made a tipper wagon in 009 gauge (it doesn't tip. Colin disappointing us) This is the brake side:

and if we turn it around, the tipping side:

Working or not, it is still a work of art, you have to agree.

Patrick meanwhile has been beavering away at making an 0 gauge cattle wagon from scratch (and coffee stirrers) We may have shown parts of this previously, but Pat has cunningly made an operating access ramp, making the hinges from the insulating sleeve of electrical wire, and a strand of wire.

Not good images, but I think they illustrate things:

Back to kilgerran layout. The track and scenery required a lot of cleaning - several spiders had taken up residency, and quite a bit of dust around. Gentle vacuuming and an overall airbrushing with matt varnish brought things back to life, plus refreshing the meadows with static grass.

Tracks thoroughly cleaned, loco's given a quick once over, and everything worked... after a fashion...

A faulty transformer, and a couple of dry soldered joints were put right, and things are on track (!) for the Show.

At Cilgerran Hall! - 

Where we first exhibited as the ChufferDuffers back in 2012 (Pat and Colin had shown Cardigan as a work-in-progress at Aberaron the previous year) This was the Cilgerran Show:

It was marking the 50th Anniversary of the closure of the Cardi-Bach, and we had Cardigan layout connected to Kilgerran. (Rowan Atkinson can be seen peering around in the centre)

 

We went on to show various layouts at 30 exhibitions over the next eight years (missing two due to Covid). Mostly it has been the three of us when possible, and checking my records, Pat has been in attendance at every one! Thanks must go to his wife Mary, as she filled the gap at least three times if not more.

'Teifi Gorge' has been the layout exhibited the most, closely followed by 'Maes Y Gof'. 

We've made a total of 9 layouts over the years, (actually make that ten, as there is one more layout yet to be finished, once more an 7mm NG layout) 

They are all still extant, except for 'Dyffryn Y Tyllau' an 009 rabbit warren which was last seen in pieces at Hermon tip!

Here it is before the axe fell. A nightime scene, instead of the usual pale blue and cloudy sky...

And there you have it - a potted history of the Chuffers last ten years...

Just to finish, a quick video of us testing out the Kilgerran layout last night, before settling down for some well earned quaffing, plus a chicken jalfresi...

I guess that's it for this one.

Hope to give you a report on the outcome of the 15th C-B walk and talk, plus the showing of the layout.

Cheerio,

Shaun.