O gauge points

 A quieter reflective period. And a pile of points. This is totally old school stuff, none of your plastic sleepers and an bottles of solvent. Straight into the hardcore toxic metals. It's also a fairly budget method with Peco points over fifty quid a pop, this is mostly Code 124 rail that I bought off a Bring and Buy at Telford decades ago and some Marcway sleepering. The whole lot based around some EM Society plans blown up to 7mm scale. Cost per unit not much more than two or three quid. The hours though would wind the cost up considerably especially as I'm a little out of practice. 

All ready to go now.

Saturday Ramble: Finishing stuff

  The TT has left the building (Cue: Viva Las Vegas).

Sometimes we are not very good at finishing things off. The new is always too tempting and starting is always easier. With commissions this won't cut it; there is a deadline and the impetus must be maintained. For most this is a hobby and that way of thinking is outrageous. I agree. So let's consider that aspect for a moment. Is the object of all this the process? Or is it the completion? In most cases this is a pastime, a way to while away non-working hours in a relaxing way, so is completion even necessary? After all, we are only doing this to pass the time not achieve a target. 

What does this have to do with the TT? Well that did have to be a target and yet, there were several times where I thought it not worth finishing; I'm still far from happy with the end result. In the cold light of day and a return to the bench, there are quite a few things that had been pushed to one side, the above from Mr. Hill from parts fished out of my Wills bits box - the his and hers privies. I can only surmise that the bit on the left is for the dog. This had been hanging around for a while so looking for easy wins and low-hanging fruit, I finished this off first. The first post TT project completed. The next is an O gauge point in copperclad and 124 FB, again for Mr. Hill, this now at the tie-bar stage having been basically tested with a wagon. Then onto some lower pressure magazine things. 

All these need finishing off after they have been started.

Nothing in particular

 It's been an interesting sort of a week.

Lunch at Pecorama, yes it's open.

New things happening on the layout/kit build front. New developments in wire and tube operation.

New Milton show

 

I hate the New Forest. I'd never been there, but I hated what I imagined it to be with queues of traffic and people leaning out of car windows looking at ponies. 

So it came to pass that Mr. Hill and I headed through the New Forest to a hitherto unknown show at New Milton. A chance taken. There was a traffic queue and a pub with a sign which read ' you're stuck in traffic, you may as well come in'.    Nice. 

We found the show despite some interesting signage. High points on the listings were Harlyn which I'd not seen for a while and Marley Potts (above) from ex-Newhaven bod Ian Forsyth. This was actually a little gem of a show with plenty of new stuff to see and some interesting ideas to boot including the 'column change' sector plate (below) which was a neat little idea. Catering was cheap, entertaining and top notch, we even got free cake later on. This is what all shows should be like: not too big, good mix, hospitable, good parking and free cake. 

The return trip was worse with Down from London types who had never seen a horse before all stopping when one stood in the road (horse not pony). I know what a horse looks like, they wander down my road every morning. If you wave your arm around encouragingly, they'll soon move on. The DFLs just queued, looked at it and took instagram photos. All my worst fears realised.

Show 9.5

Parking 8

Catering 11

Rucksacks 0

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Drovers Brook at Bredgar and Wormshill

Third year in a row with three different layouts, this time with Drovers Brook, the home layout that never leaves the house. A bolt-on to the other attractions on site and organised by Kerry at Invicta Models. No steam running outside due to the dry conditions which was a shame. However lots of fun stuff (fairground organ excepting) plenty of chat and badinage and a barrage of insult throwing across the aisle with Pete and Roger on the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association stand. All topped off with an excellent, but not cheap meal in The Windmill at Hollingbourne before the motorway-heavy drive back. 

Drovers Brook behaved pretty faultlessly and appeared with the quickly bodged Rhiw lighting gantry and facia boards with the name blacked out to avoid embarrassment. 

 

Saturday Ramble: Lightening the load

 Sometimes there can be too much. Sometimes you just want to clear the decks and sit in the sun, especially at it has made a rare appearance this summer. The TT:120, done to the best of the brief if not my satisfaction. The trio of BRM projects moved through quite swiftly and submitted to Warner Towers. Suddenly there is nothing; though this isn't quite the case. Hidden under the debris are projects  long forgotten and yet now taking a new urgency.

There are a number of items that have been on the bench both physically and metaphorically for probably a year. Honestly these all need to be finished. The target therefore is to get all these done and clear. This, as well as a few tidy-up and addition bits to both Rhiw 2 and Drovers Brook; the first of these, above, was to get a walkway over the as yet to be added point rodding. This probably comes with the Ratio kit, but as I bought it for a fiver from the Croydon club stand part-built, I had to make my own. This probably sums up the general  direction of travel now; I make things from scratch and scrap, and fix up old discarded stuff. There's more pleasure to be had from actual modelling and rescuing than I've ever got from buying something, especially at the eye-watering prices that are to the fore now. We are steadily losing this. Yes I know this is a well-worn moan from the older guys but when a very well-known younger modeller pinged me and asked if I knew where you could buy 3D printed tie-bar plates for a bridge he was building, and I replied '20 thou sheet and some micro rod', you do begin to wonder. That though is a whole other can of worms and this is about me working through bits. I'll line them up in due course.

In the meantime Drovers Brook heads toward the Bredgar and Wormshill event on Sunday. Not an exhibition in the true sense, but a bolt-on to all the other things that are happening. We'll all be in the engine shed, which may well be cooler than outside, or unbearably hot.

Consolidation time.

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