Various Bits and Pieces 1
Rick Fletcher - NSW Australia

Updated 18 Jan 2017 (edit 21 March 2017)

    Of "Sugar Cubes", Gravel, "Goop", Commands and Cabs.    


The "sugar cube" speaker is shown to the left with the enclosure built from 40 thou styrene around the 4 sides (8mm high)
The oval bit is the rear of the speaker and the mesh covered front side is flush with the bottom of the little box.
It is important that the rear of the speaker is completely enclosed and AIR TIGHT. Here I am sealing the inside edges with
Canopy Glue using the point of a T Pin to pick up Canopy Glue from a puddle in the middle of the piece of teflon.


The plastic cement used is shown as the back of the baffle is cemented in place. Edges trimmed when dry.
One end of the speaker box is drilled (#70 drill) with 2 holes aligned with the solder pads on the speaker.
Flexible brown decoder wire is used to conform with the decoder colour coding.


Please ignore the crappy station building (the Bergs kit is not crappy but I built it 100 years ago and could have done a lot better!).
The platform surface is the result of a bit of experimentation. The final product selected was Uni Sand which is a very fine sieved sand
used in laying pavers. The 20kg bag should last a coupleof lifetimes. I ran it through a very fine sieve to further refine it.
The timber platform facing was achieved by routing the platform edge to the width of a sleeper. Then scribing the horizontal divisions
in the solid maple platform with a woodworkers marking gauge (shown above) to simulate the timbers one above the other.
Similarly the timber edging at the top was scribed with the same gauge. The whole lot then painted gray and weathered (yet to be done).

The edge timber was masked off and the top surface painted with dilute PVA glue. Sift on some sand using something like a tea strainer as
uniformly as possible then add some very dilute PVA (30% glue, 70% water and a few drops of detergent as a wetting agent)
by using a pipette. Just like laying ballast.



The track above needs weathering and ballasting but some experimental work has begun using the US modeller Lou Sassi's technique
of GROUND GOOP (some of which is shown between the 2 middle tracks). The Australia constituents are:

  • 1 cup Sculpt It (from Officeworks) - a papier mache product
  • 1 cup Vermiculite (gardening product) - I have further refined mine in a blender (used only for modelling!)
    (I am going to investigate blender processed Kitty Litter in place of Vermiculite - I am not happy with some of the ingredients in the latter - TBA)
  • 1 cup earth coloured latex paint
  • 1/3 cup white glue (PVA)
  • 1 capful of concentrated detergent
  • + enough water to give it the consistency of peanut butter.
  • Keeps for ages in a sealed plastic container.

 

NCE DCC equipment as used on "Brolgan Road". Power supply to the left and Command Station to the right.


The NCE Procab - converted to Radio which allows untethered operating


The simpler and cheaper NCE Cab-06 (Radio)


And finally, here is "Charles" the German shunter receiving a Loksound decoder in the cab roof.