November saw our largest ever attendance with 9 people sitting round the tables for the usual mix of work and chat.

Gareth brought his latest creation, a SECR F1 class based on a 3D print. It is powered using a Dapol Terrier chassis in the tender. He was also planning his next project, an early GER loco based on a Micro Ace 2-4-0T.

Alan brought along some of his recent wagons to show us. Simon, meanwhile, was working on some 21T Mineral wagon kits whilst cursing the designer for putting the sides so close to the sprue. My project this month was removing the numbering from some Revolution Class B tanks ready for the new sheet of numbers which John Isherwood of Cambridge Custom Transfers has kindly introduced.

Nigel was working on the trackwork for his new layout, Drws-y-Nant, with Alan watching keenly.

Dave was troubleshooting a terrier kit, where one gear wheel was catching on something. Guy, true to form, was building a Sand Hutton wagon kit in 1:13 scale and our newest member, Chris, brought along a selection of the 200 hundred or so coaches he has built since the late 1980s. These are built from Bill Bedford and Mallard etched sides.

If you live in the Sussex area and would like to join us, please drop us a line - our details are in the newsletter or you can email via the "about us" link on the top right.

Gosh, it's been a long time since we did an update.  To remedy this, I brought my camera along to the latest meeting in order to snap what people were up to. Apologies for the picture quality - I spent some time getting the settings right for deep depth of field and the first picture came out fine but for subsequent ones I somehow managed to change the settings. Ho hum....

Alan brought along the Agricultural warehouse that he had been working on for the previous few months. The interior is detailed but alas can't easily be seen. Alan was also working on an experimental piece of flint walling and is seen hard at work with Gareth and Nigel in the background discussing something (probably why all GWR locos look the same).

Gareth brought along his latest locos, two SECR H Class 0-4-4Ts (one in wartime grey) plus a SECR J Class 0-6-4T.  The bodies are scratch built in plastic and painted and lined exquisitely. Gareth was also working on the lining of his SECR coaches, ongoing now for what feels like the 12 years it took Hercules to complete his labours. Perhaps this is the penance the Delphic Oracle give to people who put N Gauge mechanisms below their scratch built locos?

Nigel brought along his scratch built model of Epsom, which you may have seen mentioned on RMWeb, so we could see progress "in the metal", so to speak. This is being built for the Epsom & Ewell Club's model of Lewes in 1886. Nigel was also lettering a Hawksworth BG that he had resprayed in Maroon. He also showed us plans of the probable successor to his layout Llangerisech, but I will leave Nigel to share details with you when he is ready.

Off-camera, David was doing some proof reading for the Association and Dave brought along some useful plastic storage/stock boxes which he had saved from being burnt and was generously sharing amongst us.

I was assembling some more DG couplings, but I also brought along a 3D printed Ferry Van, bought from Shapeways (Rail 3D), with which I was having difficulty removing the print lines on the end despite much filing and sanding. The advice was that where fine print lines remain, a thin coat of Klear brushed on is sufficient to fill the gaps. I will be trying this and will report back. In the meantime I took a quick snap of the Ferry Van sitting on the part built underframe I have had etched for it.  Due to the width of the body the underframe uses custom wheelsets on 13.7mm axles kindly ordered for me by the Chief Shopkeeper (thanks David).

That's all for this month. Let's not leave it so long next time.

Although the Western Region has a reputation for doing things their own way, the Southern must run them a close second. When Mk1s were converted to air braking the usual arrangement was for both vacuum cylinders to be replaced by smaller air cylinders in a slightly different position but using the existing rodding.

However the Southern Region did their conversions completely differently drawing, no doubt, on their extensive experience with air-braked EMUs. They used a single air cylinder mounted on the centre-line of the underframe working pull rods that ran under the bogies even when Commonwealth bogies were fitted.

A few photographs of vehicles were located but establishing the exact nature of what went on in the murky world of the underframe was not easy. Both the Bluebell Railway and NRM Shildon have vehicles believed currently to have this brake arrangement but I was unable to obtain permission to crawl underneath and take pictures. In the end salvation came from members of Western Thunder and the Yahoo BR Coaching Stock group, in particular Mark Brinton who kindly provided schematic drawings and answered my incessant questions, and to fellow Wealden Group member Guy Hamilton-Fletcher who helped me make sense of it all.

With all this information I was able to draw up a single piece etch to represent the visible bits of the brake arrangement. The test etches used here proved to be usable, with just a few tweaks made for future batches to adjust the height and provide better mounting points.

The v hangers and vacuum cylinders were removed from the Farish coach and the etch glued in place along the centre-line. The air cylinder and reservoir were turned from plastic rod in a mini drill. The reservoir is mounted on the floor but the cylinder had holes drilled in the end and simply hangs in place on the etch (the lack of a solid mounting point not being obvious in the gloom).

This is set 18, a 3 coach set used on Oxted line services in 1968 made up of TSO, BSK and CK. I have modelled four coaches with the TSO being in both green and blue/grey for variety. The coaches will eventually form part of an 8 coach set used on the Uckfield service - it's where the Wealden Group meet so seemed appropriate.

Other work involved reducing the overscale roof ribs, restoring the periscopes on the BSK, removing top end steps, fitting in-line brake shoes, adding corridor connectors (cut out using the Graphtec cutter as per Nigel Ashton) adding warning flashes and a set number to the green TSO, adding the below-underframe end steps and vacuum hoses to the outer vehicles, renumbering, repainted roofs and a bit of weathering.

The test etch also included pieces to detail the standard Mk1 underframes and optionally convert them to the equalised variant and/or air-braking, but I haven't yet got around to trying those out....

The November meeting is our last of the year (as Christmas tends to get in the way).  As usual there was a lot of interesting discussion but a lot of activity as well.

Nigel and I are working on converting a pair of Dapol Britannia 4-6-2s. That's Nigel's on the left, with standard Association bearings soldered into the Dapol bearings amd reusing the Dapol gears. Mine on the right will utilise the new Association bearings and gears from the shop. Taking the Brits apart was not easy and required glued joints to be broken.

We have come up with some etched parts for the bogie, coupling rods (fluted and plain with the ability to have both as several locos did), balance weights, plus a couple of pieces which will hopefully allow us to utilise the majority of the Britannia valve gear. You can see the first test etches below (excuse the poor photograph - the light in the room is not the best).

I am going to check the fit of the coupling rods and Nigel is checking the rest. If it all works we hope to do the same for the Schools. That's mine on the right below with the Dapol Pannier on the left (both also in pieces). Nigel also has a Schools to convert. The Brit and the Schools are both diversions for us as neither fits with our main projects, but this is a hobby and it does us good to do something different once in a while.

The Schools came apart with much more grace. The bearings are the same diameter as those for the Pannier - they are longer but that is irrelevant to us - so I ordered an extra four for the Schools.

Alan was lining a Maunsell coach built from a Chis Higgs etched kit.

Guy was building track, or rather re-building track due to a series of unfortunate incidents.

David was assembling DGs, here seen doing the most fiddly bit - fitting the tongue.

Nigel also had his test track and I managed to snap a few locos as they whizzed round

There's been little posted by us recently but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy. Here are a few of the things we have been working on.

No posts from me for a while as I have been re-wheeling various Farish wagons (spurred on by a recent stint helping Nigel exhibit Llangerisech). The quality of these wagons is such that often there is little work needed other than swapping the wheel sets (leaving more time for weathering) but that leaves me nothing that is particularly finescale to report!

Whilst the Bachman Farish MK1 coaches are generally of this high standard, the bogies have one problem which lets them down in my eyes - the brake shoes are in line with the bogie frames rather than the wheels. This is the standard BR1 bogie after fitting with 2FS wheels (click for a larger picture):

The Association provide an etch of brake shoes that could be made to fit with a bit of effort, but as I have rather a lot of coaches I wanted a solution that needed minimal effort on my part, so I came up with the following etches:

There are two different types, one for use with the NEM pockets on the coaches (for inter-rake connections) and one for the outer ends of rakes where DGs are fitted. The only difference is a gap for the NEM pocket and the loss of the brake cross rods at this end. These fold up quickly to give assemblies like this:

The moulded brake shoes are easy to remove from the bogies with a couple of cuts with a scalpel. The assemblies are then glued inside the bogies locating them accurately using the raised boss where the bogie pin holds the bogie in place, like this:

The finished result looks something like this (I would usually paint them before fitting but left them in the metal for illustrative purposes):

I think the improvement is worthwhile but I'd be interested in the views of others. Assembly and fitting takes about 15mins per bogie. The cross rods are visible from some angles but once painted and weathered I doubt anyone will notice them. I'll know they are there!

They are not perfect - the folds that position the cross rods are still out after two test etches, but this is hidden and it all lines up with a bit of tweaking so I am quitting while I am ahead. I had also hoped they would fit the Commonwealth bogie and they nearly do but need a bit of filing to make them fit perfectly. As the inner brake shoes are invisible on the Commonwealth bogie it may be worth creating a simpler design for this (if I have enough Commonwealth bogies to make it worthwhile).

The older bogies on the Farish Suburbans (with the moulded Rapido coupler) require some minor modifications before these etches will fit and even then there is no raised boss for location so it would have to be done by eye, presumably fitting the wheels before the glue sets in order to check for clearance. (These older bogies are not as good as the new type and I am going to consider replacing them.)

I am not going to sell these commercially (the time spent rectifying the minor faults and providing instructions etc. would make it uneconomic) but if anyone wants some at cost on an as-is basis let me know via the Wealden group contact email and I will order enough when I order mine.

Here's a few snaps of our latest meeting:

Here's a few pictures of our latest meeting. Click on a picture to see it in more detail.

Nigel had set himself quite a task in getting Llangerisech ready in its 1930s guise for the AGM/Aldershot show so, when at one of our area group meetings he said he was running a little low on non-Great Western wagons, David and I volunteered to build a few. Well, how hard could it be?

That meeting was at least two months ago and I still haven't quite finished, though the only things outstanding are couplings and a few tweaks. In that time Nigel has re-wheeled a 2P, scratch built a goods shed, finished off several rakes of coaches, plus Lord knows what else!

Still, I have learnt a lot, and thanks to my new RSU, I actually enjoyed building kits for the first time. The pictures show the wagons I have built on my scenic test track. I am helping Nigel operate Llangerisech on the Saturday, so if you are going and have any questions please pop along and see us.

Edit 10/10/14:

I subsequently rescued a second LNER open that had been put to one side due to me messing up the underframe. When I had finished the other wagons I found I had enough bits to make a suitable underframe, albeit 10' rather than the 9' I had intended. To help distinguish this from the other similar wagon I decided it would get a tarpaulin and the finished model is shown below on its own and with the other opens, a couple of which now sport loads.

Am I alone in making more progress in the immediate aftermath of an area group meeting than in the whole of the rest of the month? Following yesterday's dose of Wealden inspiration I finally got round to tweaking the single Turnout Operating Unit (TOU) on my "scenic test track" and spent a pleasant half hour running trains back and forward through the turnout. Simple pleasures, eh?

This TOU has been an ongoing saga (though other Wealden group members will probably tell you that applies to anything I touch). It was built initially for servo operation but converted to manual operation when the servo board I was using gave huge over swings at start-up. After building a fascia I didn't really want a piece of brass operating rod protruding through it, and having enjoyed the delights of running trains using Engine Driver on an Android phone, I wanted to control the turnout and magnets using DCC too.

The TOU (below) is based on Geoff Jones' idea of telescopic styrene section.  The droppers from the switch blades come down the tubes in the middle which have screws that slide in the slots just visible to provide plenty of scope for adjustment. The dropper on the right is soldered to the metal L section as this switch blade has a tendency to lift. The screw on the left is left over from when the TOU was worked manually - the operating rod came through the brass tube just visible on the extreme left.

There is a microswitch on the right hidden under the screws). This is worked from a screw just visible to the front right of the servo which is fixed to the slide bar and which can be adjusted so that the microswitch throws reliably. The microswitch also provides the return spring for the slide bar so that it is only necessary to precisely adjust the servo for one direction of travel. You can see the servo arm peeking out from underneath where an attached screw presses against the microswith screw and moves the slide bar. Much simpler to do than describe!

The Team Digital Servette (above) drives the servo. This was purchased as it has a Relay with a separate DCC address that I planned to use to work the electro-magnets but when doing this I experienced occasional twitches of the servo when the magnets were operated that threw the switch blades to a different position - not what you want when propelling wagons over a turnout! These twitches were intermittent, perhaps 1 in every 10  - 20 throws, so debugging was a convoluted process. To start with I swapped to a spare NCE Switch-It that I had lying around (below) which switches relays that control the magnets.

This on its own didn't help and after wrongly suspecting the proximity of the devices I eventually discovered that it was due to the leads from the magnets passing close to the servo. After moving the Switch-It to the other end of the board so that the magnet wires completely avoided the servo, the problem disappeared. What I should have done was experiment to discover just how far away the wires needed to be, but by this point I was just pleased to get it working!

The picture below of the under side of the board shows the Switch-It at left, the magnets centre and the TOU and Servette to the right (plus a lot of messy wiring).

Adjusting the swing of the servo was a doddle using JMRI and the adjustable dropper tubes made it easy to get the throw of each blade exactly right. I have set up a small panel in Panel Pro which makes it easy to control the turnout and magnets.

And with that done I can get back to the fun stuff:

The reeds need tidying after being upside down for the above adjustments but I am quite pleased with the colouring. I am in the middle of creating trees for the background using dried stalks based on the Fencehouses article in MRJ though I really need to do the line side fencing first.

But for now back to the N2 underframe...