There were a few centimetres of snow on the ground at ESME's Almondell premises for our December meeting. Steven, Alisdair, Alastair, Alasdair, Martin, Andy, James and Graham attended. The main aim of the meeting was to make some concrete progress with our engine-shed micro-layout. There is to be a coaling bench with a raised track, and much discussion was devoted to how the vertical curves of the approach section of this track could be kept sufficiently gradual to ensure good wheel contact.
Most attendees were in their winter plumage of multiple fleece layers. ESME's heat pump works well, we are told, if the pump is running well before the room is used ... less so if that is not done ... however, at least this winter we don't have to keep the windows open for health reasons. Alisdair and Andy kept themselves warm by arguing about whether the cork surface should be disturbed. The rest of us huddled over our soldering irons.
Andy then attacked the baseboard with a saw and freed a strip of ply, complete with cork, so it could be prised up at one end, forming a natural transition curve in the vertical plane. After that we started to solder dropper wires onto turnouts: two wires to each rail section, in an attempt to improve reliability.
Martin is proceeding quickly with his own project, a BLT based loosely on the track layout at Barnton, in the Edinburgh suburbs. He is much enamoured of the latest design of Finetrax turnouts, having built six in a weekend.: he reckons he can now take one out of its packet and have it completed in a mere 25 minutes. The turnout on the right with interlaced sleepers was produced after studying Jim Watt's Kirkallanmuir series of articles in the 22SA magazine.
Alasdair recently added an Elegoo SLA 3D printer to his existing filament printer, and has used it to print a North British open wagon with integral W-irons from his own design. He is pondering how to deal with bearings for pinpoint axles.
.He was also wielding an interesting and very precise gripping implement with a natty soft-pressure squeeze-to-lock, squeeze-to-unlock action. This turned out to be a microsurgery needle holder. Alasdair's is a German-made model by S&T . The business end is to the left. eBay seems to offer similar implements with a range of manufacturers and qualities.
Another of his handy tips is to use a strip of closed-cell foam to hold a variety of drills in size order, glued under the lid of a plastic tub which lives in his toolbox. Larger drills sometimes fall out but the smaller ones stay put. Very convenient.
That's all for this month. Next time we will exceptionally meet on the first Saturday of the month, on 7th January. Thanks for reading this far, and have a happy Christmas and New Year!
