Last saturday hosted the usual get together of the Forth and Clyde Area Group, at our usual meeting place at the premises of the Edinburgh Society of Model Engineers, near Livingston. Numbers were increased on last month's gathering with ten attendees present. We boasted a full compliment of the Al's, Alisdair, Alastair, Alistair, Jim, James, Andy, Graham, Simon, Stuart and Martin.
Work progressed on the Group layout - Jim spent most of the session hidden beneath the board, still working on the electrics.
There was a steady stream of quiet, and awfully polite, cursing as droppers magically detached from the rails, and a section that would be towards the back of the shed turned out to have never had a dropper soldered at all. Whilst not quite complete at the meeting - Jim has reported that, after some faultfinding relating to a short, a loco has now ran across all the wired sections successsfully under power.
Jim had also brought along the finished Water tower, pictured, in-situ, below:
On the theme of Mearns Shed, James was working on the control system. As a paid up member of MERG, he was working on the boards and other sorts of electronicy trickery required to make the Group's own, dedivated DCC Control system.
For those previously as clueless as I - thank you Google... - MERG is the Model Electronics Railway Group - a companion group to many of the scale societies whose purpose is to advance and support the use of electronics in model railways. They provide, much as we in the 2FS Association do, publications, journals, advice and kits to support this aim. A new member they may have found...
Sold as a "pocket money kit" by MERG, both the DCC control unit and handset retail (through the members shop) for around £35 a piece. Whilst requiring some assembly, the kits are (I am assured by James) easy to put together, with excellent instructions. Given some DCC systems can be in excess of £400 - my own Prodigy Express set me back ~£200 - this seems a devent way in for, not an awful lot in the grand scheme of things.
Alistair continued to sketch ideas for the backscene, taking measurements for a technical drawing to assist.
There was much discussion about the upcoming "Scottish Locomotive Workshop", namely appropriate models for construction. Andy had brought along a Fencehouses J38 etch he'd sourced some years before, which was admired by many of the Group - some even trying to work out how to convert to another, similar locomotive for their prototype. The recommendation of those organising and mentoring the Workshop were for one of the RTR conversion etches offered by the association.
The discussion continued around which of these was most suitable for a number of the members needs and/or interests, the J94/Austerity tank being brought up on a number of occasions, allowing me to show off my current WiP and discuss moving forwards with the flexing gearbox and body, which led on to some more discussion on 3D Printed bodies, their pros and cons - particularly relating to weight of the loco. One compromise was perhaps to use something like the P&D Marsh cast boiler/saddle, or an ex-Farish body, and 3D print the cab/bunker. With the detailing kits available from RT Models it was felt this could be a good way forwards. However, with the recent Bachman/EFE Rail annoucnement of a J94 and Association conversion etch TOS, this discussion was put on the back burner and other prototypes discussed in a similar vein.
Talk of 3D Printing segueways nicely (almost like I planned it), to Alastair who continues his production of 3D printed wagons. Regular readers will remember last month Alastair had been working on the 3D CAD for a NBR 3 Plank wagon (no judgements, we're a broad church in FCAG, well, mostly no judgement...) This month he'd brought along some of the initial prints.
The eagle eyed reader may notice towards the rear of the photograph are prototye prints for an NBR Brake van (daigram no. escapes my memory suggesting I should start taking real notes...). Alastair explained that these still required the underframe to be developed, as the wagons run on an identical underframe to his previously shown mineral wagons, but the CAD work on this was ongoing.
As well as showing off the 3D Prints (which garnered a great deal of attention from the rest of the group), Alastair was working on a turnout of the PCB sleepered variety.
Talking of turnouts (I'm getting good at these segueways), Alisdair was also working on a turnout - in this case a Finetrax one which shall be framed with descriptive information to display the finess of this scale for the various shows that we attend with the Further North Roadshow.
The look of surprise was at being caught actually doing some modelling at an Area Group Meeting...
Stuart, who models in N Gauge, admittedly using the British Finescale Code 40 range for this scale (see, I said we're a broad church), continued work on his Cotton Mill buildings.
Stuart had chosen to construct the shell of his buildings in 2mm Acrylic sheet to provide a rigid frame, the white colour seen inside is actually the protective backing paper from the acrylic sheet, not yet removed. A template was then applied and the windows marked, allowing the protetive sheet to be removed in these areas only and provide the detail of the windows themselves.
Next, texture is skrawked onto 1mm mountboard using a pen, and if necessary a scalpel to give the stonework. It was this long and laborious process, which does provide exquisite results, which Stuart was engaged in during the meeting.
Stuart announced to a stunned audience that this was his first building he'd ever made. Talk about diving in at the deep end...
Talking of the deep end - Simon, one of the founder members of the Steamboat Special Interest Group, had brought along his pair of Clyde Puffers, well, one Clyde Puffer and one Admiralty Victualling Inshore Craft, which were progressing beautifully.
Unhappy with certain aspects of the kit, Simon had fabricated masts, propellers and the likes himself to enhance the detail on show. Alisdair, another founder member of the SSIG, recounted how he'd lost, then found mangled the fine etch of the aft-handrails to many pained expressions of those listening.
One of whom was Graham (yes, it's getting more tenuous). Graham, once again relieved from press officer duties by this Junior Assistant Intern writing, was continuing work on an LNWR van which he'd been building, on-and-off (by his own admission, more off) for several weeks. The underframe was mostly complete, with the body well underway.
Finally, I, Martin, was working on a whole host of things. I'd spent the weekend before the meeting with my in-laws, who graciously gave me a corner of the kitchen table to sit and work. And so, I'd managed to churn out 14 wagons of various types and designs
The first activity was to roof the vans. This is something I'm not particularly good at, however, I like to think I improve with every attempt, and by van no.6 it was starting to look the part. Hopefully, the forthcoming trip to the paintshop will hide some of the sins. I also fitted the upper bogie blocks(?) for the three LMS 57' non-corridor coaches currently plodding along on my workbench, these being the parts from the Assocation bogie etches which fit to the coach bottom and house the nut to secure the bogie to the underframe.
Between the various discussions, interviews for this publication and photograph taking, I also made a start on an LMS 16 tonne brake van from the now out of print Associatione etches. I have two of these and two 20 tonne brake vans to attempt, but found that my 25W soldering iron was struggling slightly with the brass, and so decided to retreat until my 50W iron is recovered from the in-laws...
If you've read this far, thank you for your interest.
Places are still available for the "Beginners Loco Chassis Workshop". The suggested build is one of the RTR conversions from the Association website - further information is in the Association Newsletter.
Our next meeting will be Saturday 9th September at 11:00 at Almondale. We do welcome visitors and strays from other Area Groups if you find yourself in the Central Belt of Scotland on that data and fancy meeting some like minded modellers - we don't (really) judge and we've mostly stopped biting visitors... Contact details can also be found in the Association Newsletter.
