Scottish Supermeet 2018

The Forth and Clyde Area Group and Grampian Area Group joined forces to stage the 2mmSA 2018 Scottish Supermeet in Perth on 21 April. We were pleased to see several new faces from Scotland and particularly happy that several members from south of the Border made the long trip north to show their support.

Jim Watt brought his Kirkallanmuir layout, seven years in the making, for its first exhibition outing. Here he is setting up the layout. The triangular sections of the legs fold flat against the end parts for easy transport; each of the three baseboards can stand independently, which allowed Jim to work at home on one section at a time.

My photos don't do justice to the layout, which is in full running order, with buildings and scenery partly complete. Some more shots are in the August 2017 blog entry. Jim's own account of the layout's development on RMWeb is also well worth a read.

 

Jim had over 100 scratchbuilt pre-grouping wagons in use on the layout ... that's over 200 2mm scale Alex Jackson couplings! Not to mention the rakes of Caley coaches and the stud of scratchbuilt black and blue engines.

John Galbraith of the Grampian group had his new layout Glen Ammen, with a freelance plan and models of real buildings. The goods shed is a Great North of Scotland design from Mintlaw on the Buchan branch. The window frames are from modified commercial etches (an arched section at the top was cut off).

The station building is based on Careston on the Forfar to Brechin Direct section of the Caledonian. Again, the window frames are etches; the rest of the building is scratchbuilt.

Some nice scenic work has been started as well, including this model of a bridge. The water in the burn has not yet been modelled.

 

David Long had a new layout with him, Ashton Fold, with the track hand-built by David on individual ply sleepers procured from Chris Denning, formerly of York Modelmaking.

 

The entire structure is from MDF. The framing is from 4mm sheet,  with the baseboard of 6mm sheet. Although the large cuts were made at the supplier, David cut all the rest with hand tools, with enviable precision.

The view from underneath is even more daunting - no place for untidy wires to hide! Point motors are from modified servos, with the servo part removed so they work as stall motors., held in aluminium channel frames. The copper foil busbars are tell-tale signs of DCC control. Like at least two other layouts on display, David was using an NCE Powercab controller. The green board at the right hand end is a frog juicer.

Nigel Cliffe found plenty to discuss with David. The trackwork is beautifully delicate.

 

Alistair Mearns was shunting Sauchenford, which was appearing without its fiddle yards basically as a shunting plank. Alisdair Campbell's Black Five (from the 2mmSA kit), next his Caledonian signalbox, is the subject of this shot.

Mick Simpson had Callaton, with some new scenic work (the recent Gordon Gravett article in MRJ on making puddles with microscope slides has inspired a part-complete experiment next the VW Camper). The Farish Class 40, renumbered but not yet weathered, was working freight while a DMU ran a passenger service. Mick showed how scale shunting speeds and DCC sound can lift a cameo layout into a different class. Fascinating to watch.

Roy Bremner was manning Tony Heywood's circular test track.

Laurie Adams was demonstrating and explaining his new etched track components as well as his point rodding etches. A 2mm magazine article is in preparation, and Shop 1 already has the components in stock, although they are not currently on the website. Contact the shopkeeper (or Laurie) directly for more details.

Jim Watt gave an illustrated talk on his building construction techniques for Kirkallanmuir.

Nigel Cliffe had his latest wheel manufacturing components available for inspection - a watchmaker's jewelling press, adapted using brass anvils to hold the wheel tyres concentrically to receive the plastic centres from steel pushers, and in a second operation, insert the axles squarely into the wheel centres, accurately spaced from the pinpoint, without damage. 

Stephen Harold ran the bring-and-buy stall, here with 2mmSA chairman Andy Hansen and Mick Simpson snapping up the bargains.

Thanks particularly to Jim, John, Mick, David, Laurie, Alistair, Tony and Roy for providing layouts and demonstrations, to Andy, Graham, Simon and Stephen for handling various admin tasks, and to Alisdair Campbell for once again organising the whole affair. We're already looking forward to Perth 2020 !

April 2018 meeting

This month saw us back on the north bank of the Clyde in Scotstoun. Almost a full house for FCAG: Alisdair hosted and Andy, Alistair, Graham, Jim, Stephen, Simon and Gordon attended.

Jim had brought his signalbox for Kirkallanmuir to let us see the LED lighting, powered by a button cell, and very nice it looked too. (See his RMWeb blog). The search for colour perfection continues however. Kirkallanmuir's public première is at the Scottish Supermeet next weekend in Perth - see the most recent 2mmSA newsletter for details of where and when, or if you're a member based in Scotland, the recent e-mail from Alisdair.

Andy has progressed a little further with his plans for Aberdour: a full-size plan has been developed from the Ordnance Survey 1:2500 map.

Graham surprised everyone by showing the results of odd evenings since Christmas with a soldering iron and a pile of Stephen Harris 16T mineral etches ... all still awaiting their axleboxes, brake gear, wheels, buffers, and couplings, that is to say all the fiddly bits ... but steady progress towards filling Sauchenford's colliery sidings nonetheless.

 

The Group's Gartcraig layout emerged from years in storage to be handed over to its new owner Gordon:

 This month's talk, from Andy, was some thoughts about the woodwork for baseboards, supported by a series of "blast from the past" photographs. He started out with a brief description of his own first essay in small scale modelling - Lomond Bridge, which although not finescale, and reflecting traditional techniques of the time, taught him many lessons.

Typical braced  2 x 1 (20 x 45mm) softwood butt joints and 6mm MDF surface all screwed and glued (PVA Glue). This is 300mm wide x 1.5m long. Still light enough to carry around and in two sections giving 3m X 300mm (10’ x 1’) when erected. Half the size of Sauchenford.

The top was 6mm MDF glued and screwed to the frame, with trackwork glued on a cork base.

Gluing using several different clamps and weights produced a very sound structure.

Scenery can reinforce or even replace baseboard structure - for example this viaduct.

Showing bolted connections between boards. The piece between the boards would be a template to ensure all holes are in the correct alignment. These can also be used to attach support legs.  Control unit to user choice hangs from the boards with space for spare stock below the scenery and access for wiring etc.

When Andy joined the FCAG group he saw how the late Colin Brady had built baseboards for his Ballachulish layout, using the techniques described by Barry Norman for his 4mm Petherick layout in his "Landscape Modelling" book (would you believe, first published 32 years ago): the 2"x1" softwood frame is replaced by lightweight beams made from pine block spacers sandwiched between 4mm plywood strips, with diagonal strength members and a top from 4mm ply.
 

Ballachulish baseboard construction. Sadly Colin did not have time to finish his layout, which was possibly a bit large for one person to set up. The partly laminated / braced plywood base board is similar with adjustment to the Sauchenford baseboards.

At the time the Group was planning its current layout Sauchenford, and as a new boy Andy was immediately assigned the job of producing the baseboards. Birch ply was used with an emphasis on careful planning - a cutting list of parts was made and a plan of how it would be produced economically from the standard sheet size. This allowed the larger cuts to be made at the timber merchant, easing transport as well as reducing the space required to make the remaining cuts at home. Don't just make the cutting plan one morning, and rush down to the timber merchant the same afternoon - live with the plan for several weeks before cutting anything, revisit your design decisions, and if there was a reason behind them, write it down on the plan, you are sure to forget it otherwise ...

The cutting list and plan

Marking out for cutting - Anthony Yeates here seen wielding the pencil, before he escaped to the warmer south.

4 mm plywood can be cut using a Stanley knife, here demonstrated by the late Colin Brady (foreground) and Alistair. Cut away from your fingers and, er, use a steel safety ruler! Andy's fine cut band saw, seen in the background, is a dream to use, cutting rapidly and leaving a very fine finish.

The parts cut ready for gluing. Spacers are from 16mm dressed softwood.

Parts glued and clamped together for alignment and to prevent warping.

Left overnight the parts are ready for assembly; they were pinned and glued to ensure accurate alignment.

The assembled fiddle yard baseboards with inserts and end parts as required. Connected using modified hinges with removable pins. Front boards strengthen the structure.

Fully assembled base board awaiting construction of the model; this image was at the 2mm Supermeet in Keighley a few years ago.

At this point Andy paused for breath, and the talk was immediately hijacked by all and sundry to talk about their own baseboards. Jim described how he'd used 4mm ply for bracing on Kirkallanmuir but found it too flimsy and had remedied it by adding 9mm strips later. However, 4mm sandwich beams had worked well for board sides, allowing the top to be recessed by dropping the level of the inner skin. Kirkallanmuir's legs have triangular flap strengtheners which fold away for transport. Alisdair fetched down his mini-layout for comparison, described in a previous blog entry. Graham waxed lyrical about his boards for Macduff, cut from ply sheet using a router, a technique described by Peter Kirmond for his Blea Moor baseboards in MRJ 148. The disadvantages during manufacture are fine sawdust, noise (ear defenders necessary), and the outcome was very stable boards.  Stephen talked about the laser-cut ply baseboard kits available from White Rose Modelworks, which we'd seen at a NEAG meeting some time back. Very precise, square boards as a result, and great time-savers.

Lunch was then served. Grilled bacon, a time-hallowed FCAG tradition, had unexpectedly been banished due to 'Elf an' Safety - the Clean Kitchen (Scotstoun) 2018 regulations - so our rolls were filled with sliced ham, grated cheese, crinkly salad leaves, and cherry tomatoes. These were munched with polite but mostly silent concentration by the group members, each lost in their own nostalgic reverie for the bacon rolls of meetings past. However, a more animated discussion broke out as the cakes appeared. Simnel fruit cake, matured for months apparently; no explanation was offered of what simnels are, but they taste good. Then there was a complicated pistachio and spinach (aye, ye'll no' find thon in the Lidl) sponge, with what looked like green O Gauge ballast topping the icing. It also more than passed the taste test, and little was left of this by end of day. And there were rock buns. And tea and coffee. So all was well. In an unguarded moment, Jim was even seen to drink his tea from a Highland Railway Society mug. The Caley Railway Association hierarchy will be informed.

Sauchenford, however, decided to act up and required a bout of determined track-cleaning before smooth running was restored. After that there was more head-scratching over how to simplify our cassette fiddle yards: basically, throw away the sector plates and slew the approaches to fit the cassettes in, and use plugged connections for reliability.

And that was that. See you in Perth next Saturday, we hope.