A lot less legs

With the last of the steel posts having been cemented in, today the temporary wood supports were removed.
Next on the agenda will be cutting the last of the Villaboard and then some fine tuning before screwing it down.
Getting closer to track laying all the time :>)

top and bottom

Dale and I cemented some more baseboard posts in between the constant showers this week . Shaping up to be like last year ... a warm November and cold and wet for most of the summer.

Tonight I started on some Col Shepherd kits recently purchased.
Col's roofs have a series of saw cuts in them to enable the purchaser to remove much of the wood in the centre. This helps any tendency for the carriage to be top heavy when completed.

 Here is a shot of them under way.

They will be used for another FS, a BS and an MHO.... well, that is the plan!

We have been busy

Well, when I say WE have been busy, I mean Dale has been busy and I have dutifully carried the tools and held things under instruction as befits my status.

All holes bar one have been dug, some of the permanent steel posts have been cemented in, the crosspieces and edging has been completed around the oval and about half of the Villaboard baseboard has been cut to size.
Looking forward to having it completed so track laying and scenic work can begin.

FO progress

Still some way to go but the windows have been installed. Waiting on my supply of CA to arrive to continue with adding the centre dividers.
Here is one of the four. Still couplers, buffers, handrails and some seats and passengers before it will be finished to the initial stage. Fine details can wait.

regards
 Bob

Layout progress

The steel base for the double track oval is starting to take shape thanks to the efforts of a friend. It is now on temporary wood supports. Observers will note that there will be a viewing height to suit everyone. :>)
Still a lot of work to go but the end is nearer. It will be good to have a layout once again where we can watch the trains run unhindered..... having only a few feet between the buffer stops at each end of your trackwork can get very frustrating.

Unless one had a covered area similar to a double garage then the great outdoors was the natural realm of O gauge.... often with an indoor section for storage and/or a small branch station. Who am I to argue with a proven concept?

Coupler rivets

Last night I said a bad word as my usual attempt to hold a Kadee coupler box together by creating a weld around the edges with a soldering iron failed. Of course the spring went west leading to an interesting time examining the floorside debris ( must find that vacuum cleaner again soon). It doesn't often happen but when it does it makes me wonder why the coupler box could not have been designed to lock itself.
Thoughts of finding suitable screws and wouldn't it be nice to just rivet it entered my mind once again, to be quickly dismissed as usual and then just get on with the job.
Hang on......rivets??
Sometimes the obvious finally hit me in the back of the head.
I had some plastic rod that looked about right.
Touch the hot iron to one end to form a head, wait a few seconds, insert from bottom of box in hole (one not being used to attach said box), cut off at top with side cutters, mash down other side of rod with iron until flush with top of box, voila!
You could make 2 rivets if you like but one is enough to enable attachment now or at a later date.
Why didn't I think of this years ago ?? Well, we won't go into that :>)

Photo above shows one rivet installed in coupler box and piece of plastic rod with one head formed ready to do the next coupler.The coupler is one of the new scale head, long shank couplers. Apart from the long shank the best improvement for me is the hidden spring in the head making it harder to loose.

September ramblings

I made it to the 50th anniversary AMRA Sydney exhibition. Plenty of O scale on display so I had little time to take in the other scales.
Arakoola displayed the 2 rail with minimal flanges approach with the latest in commercial products and some very nice scratchbuilt items of rolling stock and structures.
Trainsville and the new AMRA O gauge layouts showed off the advantages of the 3 rail with practical flange size approach.
There were also some nice O scale narrow gauge layouts on display as well.
It is interesting that the most modern rolling stock was present on the 3 rail layouts... that is if a 422 and a U  set can be considered modern. Hopefully we will see the younger generations modelling what is relevant to them one day instead of trains only relevant to their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. 
Trainsville is still to my knowledge the only exhibition layout that can truly claim to be Australian made. There is little in the way of the parts used in its construction that was not produced in Australia.


Overall the exhibition organisers and presenters can be proud of their efforts.
It is disappointing however to still see the running of models from different countries on the same layout. It does nothing to improve the displaying of either model.


In an attempt to get at least one passenger train ready for the new layout I have been assembling a 4 car set of Ron Fox's FO carriages. With the addition of some tie wire and chain store jewellery chain for the end railings and tie wire, jumper wire and pop sticks for the truss rods I have been making some progress.