fifteen minute modeller

fighting procrastination fifteen minutes at a time

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Test track #5

11th June 2018 / / 0 Comments

My posts are like buses at the moment, nothing for ages and then loads of them. Almost there and the circle is complete. I cheated and decided not to bus wire it as I thought it was overkill and just wanted to get the track running so as to get all the Z locos tested and ready to sell off. I’m still a little sentimental and nostalgic about the Swiss stuff but really want to concentrate on being able to purchase the new and pending Kato stock for my layout that I shall be building. But in building this dual gauge it does give me the seed of and idea for a true metre gauge/standard gauge layout someday in the future.

and finally just a glimpse at a full circumnavigation of said circle via the wonders of a 9v battery. Can I hear distant rumbles of thunder?

The very last thing to do is find a suitable rheostat switch to place in one corner.

Until next time..

All change..

10th June 2018 / / 8 Comments

It’s been a year since arriving at my current spot and now is the time to finally sort out my space. It’s the first time I have had the time and a space to be able to mould to my plans and so I have drawn up some ideas to help me decide what goes where. Now normally I’m guessing that most people have a reasonable amount of room to set up their model railway but in my case I have about 7 feet along a wall for layout and about the same for a bench, so some might think rather compact. With a bed the usable space becomes even more restrictive but then the challenge of how one goes about deciding the optimal use case is part of the fun for me.

First of all everything needs to come out and the room prepped for a coat of paint it’s been a bit of a drawn out process picking the colour as I wanted something darker not only to reduce light levels in the room but to also make a bit of a backdrop for taking photos and maybe some video in the future. As it is a north facing room light levels are lower but this works to my favour in that going for the “low key” effect a darker hue reduces the reflections. I know this is not necessarily railway modelling related but I definitely subscribe to a holistic approach and taking into account things like room environment is maybe something that is not given much though in the genesis of a railway room, it is as much about a bit of theatre as just a room to run a railway. Also I will probably only get one chance to setup as I want as the disruption of reinventing it would be too costly and time consuming.

Much of the room furniture needs to be configured to the need and as such I’m unlikely going to roll up to Ikea and return with a flat-packed solution. Due to the limited space I have measured up the workbench and desk to allow for a comfortable work height and depth and as can be seen from plan the idea of a fold up extension is to give me a good depth when modelling but can be folded away to not interfere with layout operation when I am playing trains! The idea of having to get out and put away may be onerous to some but for me it will be a help in that my natural tendencies to clutter and chaos will be curbed.

So now that I have the plan in place and have mocked up with CAD (and that’s cardboard aided modelling) I need to get on with the doing. Over the next week I’ll be making a start and will post on the progress.

Till next time

Reading Room #2

5th June 2018 / / 0 Comments

MRJ #263 has been out in the wilds for a while but now falls on the workbench. Another cracking issue, not every article is to my liking which is pretty much across the years content but as I have said before just because it may not be to my taste there’s still a lot that can be taken from the articles and the authors, even if it’s looking at a picture composition and how it could be learned from with my own photography. Case in point is the London Road article which is no where near my modelling interests, period or scale, but the quality and detail just draw one in and the story of the railway and its formation. The there’s Llangunllo mk2 micro-tastic layout.

finally a great *editorial and for anyone interested the TOC.

Until next time..

©️Cygnet Magazines Ltd

Test track build #4

3rd June 2018 / / 0 Comments

The circle is now complete with both rails in place and glued down using just simple PVA glue with bluetack to hold the ends in place. I was surprised at how quickly it cured as I thought I was in for a lengthy wait before I could get on with the next section. I didn’t mark out the circle fully and completed the curves by site with one corner flattened out a bit but I wasn’t bothered about the accuracy with this only being a test track. One mistake I made was forgetting to wash off the inner rails flux in the excitement of moment, but I’ll remedy that with a soft wire brush and a damp cloth. I probably don’t need to do it but I will go round with a file and ease out any bumps though there are very few luckily. I amaze myself that it turned out so we after such a long absence of any kind of modelling. However if a jobs worth doing etc…

The next task is to drill holes in the board for feeder wires, hot glue these wires, and then terminate at a switch that can select between analogue or DCC control. I need to get this switch and a bunch of electrical connectors so I guess that means a trip to the model shop, what hardship!

Lastly a shot of three different scales on one piece of track. The Z stuff will soon disappear and who knows what might happen to the 009 loco. I also need to look into some better lighting for taking pictures and for seeing the workbench. I also find myself wanting one of the those bench mounted magnifying glasses or maybe just a new set of normal ones from Poundland. In fact there

Until next time..

Test track build #3

1st June 2018 / / 0 Comments

With having a couple of days off with other stuff going on today saw the completion of the four track panels bar a bit of fettling to get the rails to match up at the joins and the inner 6.5mm track fixing down I made a start on that too. I had considered using some road bed but felt it was a waste of time as this is only going to be used occasionally.

First rail laid down for Z tester. I didn’t bother with gauges and elected to use a cheap set of digital calipers to measure the gap holding rail in place by the age old method of fingers remembering to remove them just before it got to burning point. Tomorrow I’ll have all inner rails added and plan to glue down the track.

Till next time..

Test track build #2

29th May 2018 / / 0 Comments

Ok it took me slightly longer than 15 mins but keeping the momentum going. I have moved on from the first iteration and now building the ‘proper’ track in sections to make it manageable and also allow for some expansion. I’m building it this way as I found that from the previous straight piece it was easier to build the outer rails and then cut the isolation gap before attaching the inner rail for Z track.

Once I was happy with the alignment, well almost happy as it’s a little bit of a squeeze to get it to align I went and washed off with washing up liquid and an old toothbrush to get rid of any flux residue. Just need to make the last two panels of track before I can glue down and electrify.

Ironing out the rails

28th May 2018 / / 0 Comments

Arrgghhh, I started out last night writing this post almost getting to end when virtually all my hard thought prose were wiped off the face of the planet. When will I ever learn as this is not the first time I have been stung this way and thinking that writing the post in the WordPress app on my mobile device is a good idea. So from now on these posts will be hand crafted away from the web and then pasted in at the last moment. In this day and age I’m surprised that this still can happen and that web coders can’t have a back button on the WordPress app but that’s going way off topic.

Ok, so finally something to show for effort and not just a blathering post about thoughts and plans, and what magazines I have been buying. As the observant of you will notice yes this is a bit of dual gauge track, but don’t look too closely at the soldering! It’s been some time since I last picked up the iron in anger and had to go through all the faff of digging out all the required bits and pieces such as solder and flux etc and then remember what temps I needed to set it at. That being said I have finally managed to light a bonfire under the mojo and get cracking with project 1 here at 15minutemodeller headquarters. Also in this pic is the baseboard knocked up to start this project off. For once no lengthy planning sessions were carried out in order to ascertain the optimum design, no 3D mockups to waste some more time creating cutting lists that would have made the builders of the Cutty Sark blush. No this was literally two lumps of batten chopped up and a chunk of ply grabbed from the wood pile and screwed and glued together in a blink of an eye. Unheard of? Yes! It’s certainly not beautiful but certainly functional if just a bit on the heavy side but then again I wasn’t going for experimental lightweight forms.

Now the reason for this test track is two fold; firstly to act as a 9 millimetre-ish and I say this as I plan to be able to use it for both my Kato stuff and also for some future 2mmFS plans as they can share the same gauge with no problems it’s only when switches are introduced that it becomes a bit sketchy. Yes I Know I said I was forsaking all other distractions but the reality is that I know I am never going to be able to limit myself to just one thing and also my plans for 15minutemodeller have changed to allow for my inveterate rubber gauge tendencies and hopefully more will be revealed over time.

Then the reason for the second and narrower gauge is to accommodate the testing my collection of both American and Swiss Z scale that I have now finally decided to liquidate. In order to put the locos on a well know auction site I need to check to see if there running ok as it is an not insignificant amount of time since I last took them out of there boxes and ran them. Plonking and extra rail on the test track to facilitate this is no real extra effort and who knows whether it might be of use in the future. Just after building the board rummaging through the boxes I uncovered the rolling road I brought many moons ago, in fact not just one set but two, jeez that was a time of way too much money and little sense although in this case it paid off as going forward I will be using these to run locos in, but then there is something relaxing about watching a train trundling around a track. We’ll see how long the test track survives after the locos it’s built for have left the building.

Just as a side note one can build hand laidback with nothing but a set of callipers either manual of digital and you don’t need fancy brass gauges in order to build something operational, points/switches may be a little more challenging but not impossible. So to get the very rusty soldering muscles going I built a very small section of straight dual gauge from a recycled point I made for another project years ago, to test out the workflow needed to build the full circle and I’m glad I did it as it point out some failings in my thinking about how I was going to put things together.

It’s great to smell the aroma of 60/40 again and now that I have the platform to build on I just need to get some metal down.

Until next time..

Swag mags

23rd May 2018 / / 0 Comments

Whilst away visiting my friend Andy in Wales we had a day out to the mixed traction gala at the Seven Valley Railway. Having walked down through the Seven Valley Country Park, a lovely shaded path next to the railway and the river Seven with some great places to stop and take pictures of passing trains, we arrived at Hampton Loade for tea and cakes. After a flurry of activity of passing trains my attention turned to the bay platform where there’s a few wagons on display and one of which has a little shop inside it. In there I found a stack of MRJ mags way bigger than I could either afford or more importantly carry back to the car. So I selected out around a dozen and handed over the princely sum of a fiver. On talking to the man in the shop he said that lots of people come with lists of what they want. Doh! Why didn’t I think of that! Oh well better armed for next time.

I love the old MRJ’s and although it seems aimed at the larger scales there is so much to take from the content even if it’s not my cup of tea. Anyway some nice bedtime reading to keep me going and until I can return with my list I will take inspiration from some great modellers. So until the next one.. when I promise to have some modelling to show.

Reading Room #1

22nd April 2018 / / 0 Comments

Model Railway Journal #262Thought I would start off a sporadic thread of things that I read which mainly consists of magazines. The one constant since coming across it when I was a member of a club is MRJ or Model Railway Journal. After all the other mags falling by the wayside I still get it virtually every issue and when at model rail shows I am even collecting the back issue numbers that I haven’t got. There is all ways something of interest even if the theme is not really my cup of tea as I like to think I can learn no matter what the scale it the techniques.

To this months edition is case in point. The lovely layout of Orford by Paul Clarke after a downsizing move had to replace his Debenham 7mm Layout with something much smaller. Just oozes character and detail and then there is more from Gordon Gravett on road surfaces on Arun Quay. Plus there’s a bit of 2mmFS but a bit beyond me. I love going back and browsing through my old collection when there’s a quiet moment and one of the few things I haven’t sold, donated, or scrapped. Long may it continue.

Restarting the restart

21st April 2018 / / 2 Comments

Oops, it’s been over two months since my last post and although there’s been no noticeable activity on here there has been progress in the background with some rationalising of the model rail empire in order to make way for new items that are more in line with the direction of my modelling for the moment. With the weather changing for the better now is the time to get outside and do any dirty work needed. I will be posting about that nearer the time I start out as I have a load of work to do on my room first to covert to a proper bedroom railway room, such as painting and decorating, building a workbench come desk, and some shelving. Like most things house related there are a bunch of other things that also need to happen and that’s before I have to get stuff done out in the garden, but following the mantra of fifteen minutes a night means a little progress is still progress. Little things can be tackled whilst waiting on the big things.

So what’s with the new plan? Well actually it’s not that new and after thinking that I had a lightbulb moment I realised that I had already visualised it for a previous project. However they do say that good ideas float to the surface, or something like that, and it is as good to me the second time around. The idea revolves around the layout having two halves with a rural section and an urban section. I can’t claim to be the originator of this idea and I originally saw it on the Oops, it’s been over two months since my last post and although there’s been no noticeable activity here there has been progress in the background with some rationalising of the model rail empire in order to make way for new items that are more in line with the direction of my modelling for the moment. With the weather changing for the better now is the time to get outside and do any dirty work needed. That will come in time and I will be posting about that nearer the time I start out as I have a load of work to do on the room first, such as painting and building a workbench come desk and like most things house related there are a bunch of other things that also need to happen and that’s even before I have to get stuff done out in the garden, but following the mantra of fifteen minutes a night means little progress is still progress.

So what’s with the new plan? Well actually it’s not that new and after thinking that I had a lightbulb moment I realised that I had already visualised it for a previous project. However they do say that good ideas float to the surface, or something like that, and it is as good to me the second time around. The idea revolves around the layout having two halves with a rural section and an urban section. I can’t claim to be the originator of this idea and I originally saw it on the late Carl Arendt’s site some time ago and although not the exact idea I contemplated it certainly sowed the seed of the current plan. I have scaled back over iterations as I started out with a rather ambitious plan, but I have been trying to encourage focused and achievable modelling and rain in my expansionist tendencies. I did get somewhat zealous in my desire to simplify ending up with the idea of just having a circle of track as I diaorama but realised pretty quickly that it wouldn’t be very fulfilling in operational interest but could allow for testing out some new skills in a small limited space in the future.

Effectively this is just a roundy roundy layout with the yards in the visible sections rather than hidden away from the onlookers gaze. It is a designed to just watch trains and with a bit of automation one can sit back and imagine sitting on the platform watching the world go by with maybe a cool drink on a hot summers afternoon. I tried designing the plan for Kato Unitrack but found that prohibitive cost of just a simple track plan was going to add up to far more than I was prepared to pay. The Unitrack system though is great for starting out and enthusing the young in my view and bit by bit an empire can be built. So that leaves me the option of using Peco code 55 finescale track with handlaid switches. This not only makes for swift progress in the bulk of track laying but also allows me to have custom geometry to squeeze in a little more detail or lines where the Unitrack wouldn’t allow. After quite a absence, I need to brush up my Templot skills and draft out the preliminary idea. I find that it is a great assistance to seeing how the railway fits the room (meaning the actual room and the room on the board) as the 3d world doesn’t always match the reality, my last plan being case in point as it looked great on screen but was never going to fit the space in a month of Sundays.

I am going to attempt shorter posts but more often with a round up probably on a Sunday in order to make it easier to keep up with this blogging malarkey, something along the lines of blog concisely and blog often. It takes me what seems like days to write a post but really what most people myself included want to see it pictures of progress. I hope to have some exciting news for next weeks episode so stay tuned and till next time..

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