Some thirteen members - Alisdair, Alastair, Alistair, Chris,
Jim, James, Nigel, Graham, Simon, Stuart, Andy, Steve, and Martin - braved the
snow filled carpark and sub-zero temperatures to assemble at the premises of
the Edinburgh Society of Model Engineers this weekend past. The occasion was
the first Forth and Clyde Area Group meeting of 2025. Each of the attendees was
buoyed with new spirits and resolutions that this year more modelling would
take place. Projects old and new were discussed, and in amongst it all, some
modelling was partaken.
Mearns shed was in attendance. The performance at Perth last
year was still under discussion, with various changes to the scenic and
operation under discussion. Much of the discussion this month surrounded means
of disguising a "bulge" in the backscene where the wiring and other
do-dahs for the lighting runs from beneath the boards to on top.
After much deliberation, a cardboard mock-up, some sawing and a second mock-up,
a three-story tenement back was chosen. This will be at an angle to the
shed, with a passageway between the buildings. The backs will face into the
yard - one can imagine the faces of children and adults alike, pressed to the
glass and watching the goings on in the shed, the locos arriving, coaling up,
taking on water and departing again. What adventure awaits beyond the portal of
the road bridge? Where do those magnificant locomotives go to? What strange visitors will come to the depot next...?
(Enough of that McIntosh...)
As well as the central attraction, there were several
individual projects going on around the room. Alastair was working on trackwork.
He is making turnouts from PCB sleeper and rail (forgoing chair plates), using
the associations jigs. He has printed scale drawings from which he cuts his
timbers to length then inserts them into the jig, clamping it in place ready
for soldering.
At the next table along, Martin was also working on turnouts.
He has been experimenting with different means of construction, bringing along
some Work in Progress. He built his first PCB soldered turnout last year but
fell afoul of the 10thou height difference between PCB sleepers and easitrac
sleepers on that attempt. He then encountered issues with the etched chairs and
put everything away, only returning to turnout construction this last week.
He has two experiments on the go - the first is a repeat of
the previous PCB construction, well, a mirror image, which will be chaired in
some form to keep the rail at a consistent height. The second. inspired by an
article in the magazine from November/December 2023, is made from the ABS strip
and unpegged easitrac chairs available in Shop 1. The purpose of both is to experiment and see what's
possible, Martin expressing a desire to make more progress in 2025 than he
managed in 2024.
Stuart was working on his next set of buildings. These
have progressed somewhat since last pictured on this very blog. He continued work
and was discussing weathering - opting for using a physical brush rather than
an airbrush.
Graham was working on his laptop, continuing his foray into
3d CAD, whilst Chris discussed methods of painting for his Midland 4F - made
from the Mike Raithby "kit" previously available through the
Association. Chris had tried painting the loco previously but had encountered
two disasters. First was a fall from height, causing some of the delicate parts
to ping off (fortunately, the drop and pinging all happened within a handily
placed bucket, but one can imagine the heart stopping feeling!), and secondly,
when applying a topcoat of spray paint, it had bubbled and gone
"horrible", requiring stripping to start again. Some words of
advice were passed on from the Chairman with respect to the "right"
paint to use.
Jim was in the process of re-motoring his venerable CR439
class. This scratch built locomotive, from before at least one member was born,
was one of Jim's first locos built in 2FS, and is mechanically sound - the
change in motor being its only flaw. Jim spoke about the construction
techniques he had used 50 years ago, including a compensated chassis made from
phosphor bronze that came apart around the wheels.
The loco has lost some detail over its life (but haven't we all), and Jim spoke
about a need to potentially repaint it at some stage, but it was heartening to
see the innards look comfortingly like the author's own attempt at the loco
class.
Jim is using "cheap Chinese Motors, 12 for £10"
that he had found online. He had previously re-motored another venerable loco
in his fleet, a small 0-6-0 Dock Tank, and had brought that along to show. The
reduced size of the motor, just a 6mm diameter one, and the chiselling out of
some of the lead in the side tanks of this loco, has allowed the fitting of
stay alive circuitry and two tantalum capacitors, seen below, all wrapped in
cigarette paper to prevent shorting.
Alistair was working on a track plan for a small layout - taking measurements
from the track book handily brought along by Martin, and the table of key
measurements from the Association Website.
Andy was working on an old N Gauge Society kit he had found
sequestered from a time before he had seen the light of 2FS. Whilst they
are overscale compared to true 2FS, the NGS kits do help fill up a wagon roster
and provide the base for some interesting prototypes not available in our own
extensive kit range, or in RTR form.
The Chairman himself had brought along some supplies of Plastikard - though had
apparently forgotten his glue and spoke about making bridges, but seemed to
spend most of the meeting circulating, practising the royal wave and deigning
to speak to us mere mortals.
Simon was working on some MERG goodies - particularly
setting himself up to build their DCC base station and not one, but two
handsets. Mearns Shed was mostly operated using James' MERG DCC system at
Perth, and several of the operators from that show have since joined MERG and
purchased the system for their own layouts. At this meeting, Simon was working
on the connector module - this allows multiple connection points for handsets
into the DCC Control module.
Nigel was hard at work, with vice and solder - but I forgot to ask him what
exactly he was working on. Even zooming in on the original image doesn't give a
huge clue...
Talk over the course of the meeting turned to 2025 and beyond, Model Rail
Scotland just over a month away, the Derby expo in May and whisperings of a
Scottish Mega Meet sometime in the latter half of the year. (Though this might
have been an attempt to light the proverbial rocket under some of those with
layouts that haven't really made much progress since the last in 2023...)
It is worth noting that Peter Kirmond's excellent "York"
- a 2FS scale model of York Station in the heyday of the LNER, and Railway
Modeller Cup Winner for 2023, will be present at the show and is a must see for
viewers interested in any scale!
But before then, our next meeting shall be at the usual
time, in the usual place on Saturday 8th Feb. I write this at the end of every
blog, but, with sincerity, we are a friendly bunch of mostly like-minded modellers,
and we welcome any visitors, new members or people interested in 2FS but
haven't quite taken the plunge.
