*Fy Merlen Bach*

Winter is coming…The phrase that spawned hundreds of cringeworthy internet memes. To me it means that any model making I do will be confined to the basement of our little house. There will be no baseboards built, and no models spray painted. Because it will be too cold to work in the garage. There will be days when it will even be too cold to walk down to the garage, let alone work in it. 

So, like a student cramming for an exam. I need to get some things ready for working on in the dark days of winter. First up, is “Merlod Bach” or Little Pony. My version of the LocoRemote “Tiny” that I was inspired to buy whilst reviewing the real thing at the National Railway Museum in York, whilst on vacation in the UK.

I decided to go with a new name. A Welsh name. Principally because I had been inspired by the foundry at the National Slate Museum in Llanberis, and wanted to keep the Welsh theme going. The Ffestiniog Railway has Welsh Pony, and I thought Little Pony was an appropriate name given the diminutive size of the real thing.

With the temperature being a balmy 55 degrees on Sunday I gave the main body parts of “Merlod” a coat of primer.

And so it begins

Tiny comes 3D printed in Black, and I am certain that I don’t want a Black locomotive. If steam locomotives aren’t Black, then they’re Green. 

As you know, I’m in America, so the chances of buying a can of GWR Brunswick Green are next to impossible. Even more vexing was the fact that my local hobby shop only had Tamiya Green paints. Dark Green seemed the simplest colour to go for. So the boiler and water tank were sprayed Dark Green, the other parts Black. Then it started to rain, curtailing my painting activities for the day.

Colours.

Only the major parts were sprayed as I’ll test fit the other parts before I decide when, how, and what colours to paint them.

But with the main body parts sprayed I couldn’t resist the temptation, and I just had to test fit them to see how “Merlod Bach” was going to look in Green.

I think it’s going to look quite good. Don’t you?

*My Little Pony*

Scribblings and scratchings on the paper…

Planning a true micro layout in such a large scale really is the proverbial “quart into a pint pot” challenge. It would be easy to go over the four square feet limit and and produce something micro in spirit. But it is the four square feet micro layout limit that is the true challenge. Let’s see how things work out. The first thing is put together a couple of “inspiration sheets” something to draw on for ideas.

Inspiration sheet 1.

Sheet 1 has a couple of my holiday snaps from the foundry at Llanberis, which are the real inspiration for the layout. The others are Google Earth screen shots of the DeWinton Works in Caernarfon. The foundry was in the square building. There is even a plaque on the wall outside that marks its historic status. As a brick building, to me it doesn’t have the character of the stone built foundry at Llanberis.

What really grabbed me though was the arrangement of the single storey buildings along the road. Fitted tightly between the road and the riverside. I was told that these buildings were also part of the DeWinton works. But that could just have been a story told to me by a local taking my money for parking there, as we took a trip on the Welsh Highland Railway. In my minds eye, I can see an interesting layout based around these buildings with cutaway walls around the outside so you see into the buildings and watch the train pass through various store rooms etc; much like a dolls house. At 7/8ths inch to the foot scale we are in dolls house modelling territory. It would be an interesting crossover between the modelling spheres.

Inspiration sheet 2

Sheet 2 shows some interesting scenes at Horwich and Crewe works. Having the railway run between buildings, inside and out appeals to me. This would be an avenue I’d like to explore. The tiny wagons in the images makes me wonder if the wagons I have aren’t too big. Smaller wagons would have a positive effect on my T.L.U. Making them shorter.  

Toying with the idea of Chris Mears overlap concept. Indoor foundry and outdoor scene.

Now I just start scribbling, putting bits together. It’s so very difficult with no idea of sizes of things. It’s almost like I need to build the loco and wagons and some structures to get a feel for things. Making little tools is fun. But it doesn’t contribute much to knowing the size of the layout. 

Do I run the track around a corner?

I think I have an idea of what I want to do. It’s just getting the elements into a coherent whole now.

Sprouting ideas

That was a lot of information to process in that stream of consciousness that holds the key to this next layout. So let’s break it down.

A minimum gauge railway. So we are talking 7/8ths inch to the foot and 32mm gauge to represent an 18” gauge line.

The purpose of this railway is to transport materials and finished items around a smaller sized foundry. Items like signs, gear wheels, and window frames. 

The trains would be short, one or two wagons, Wagons would carry materials such as casting sand, patterns, perhaps coal and iron ore for the furnace as well.

A particular project I’m interesting in for scratch building is one of the foundry waste wagons/tippers like those built by Sir Arthur Heywood for his Duffield Banks works. One is preserved in the narrow gauge museum at Tywyn on the Talyllyn Railway. There are drawings by Mike Decker in Volume 1 of James Waterfield’s excellent study of the work of Sir Arthur. There was even a similar sort of wagon at on display at Llanberis.

Waste tipper wagon of some description at the National Slate Museum.

One absolute must for the rolling stock on the layout is that the wagons must run on curly spoke wheels, I find them very relaxing to watch as a wagon passes.

Even at rest, I find curly spoke wheels calming

With the concept solidifying, it’s time to start to take a look at what I’m getting myself into.

What have I got myself into?

Just what have I got myself into? This is an extremely sobering image. What you see here is my LocoRemote kit of “Pet”, driver Alf, and a couple of wagons that I made back when I first dabbled in 7/8ths. They’re all big. Alf himself is about 6” (150mm) tall. My standard T.L.U. (Train length unit) that I plan my layouts around will be 18” inches (450mm). I like trains to be able to travel several times their own length on a layout, three times is the minimum, four is better. At three TLU’s the baseboard should be four feet (1220mm) long. I’m getting my first inkling of the size involved. My visions of what I can fit in a micro layout space need to be re-evaluated as I start proper planning.

Germination.

To refresh. I have seen these two things. Yet at the moment they are nothing more than unrelated holiday snaps.

Disparate scenes with no link

You are probably thinking to yourself. “I know what it is! I know his next project!” But I don’t. I am enjoying trips on the Ffestiniog Railway on holiday, and fighting the urge to buy a Kato/Peco “Prince” in 009 from the Harbour Station shop. Then when I get home, I’m preparing Bontoft’s for exhibition. I’m not thinking about the next project. 

Having got Bontoft’s ready in plenty of time, my idle hands needed something to do and so I tried making tools in 7/8ths inch scale. The work I’ve done with Bontoft’s made me ridiculously confident in my abilities. The tools were described earlier in the blog. You can refresh your memory here.

Tool time

Still, there’s no link forming between these tools and the other two images. 

Yet. 

Fast forward a week and I’ve now completed the Randolph show and I’m brimming with enthusiasm and confidence. I’ve got to do something. 

I have to create. I laid out some O gauge track on a board based on an old Neil Rushby boxfile layout from years back. I rued not buying Prince in 009 a few weeks earlier. I stared at a blank baseboard. I looked at nearly every piece of rolling stock I have hoping that something would leap out at me. I have to build something. That I can’t get a spark of inspiration to build something is so frustrating. It’s “writers block”. But for model railways.

Thanks Neil Rushby

Eventually my brain stopped working. I had to sit down and relax. I turned to YouTube and one of my favourite TV shows of all time. Time Team.

If you’re not familiar with the show. A group of Archaeologists have three days to conduct an exploratory dig on a site somewhere. The show ran for 20 years. For 20 years families would spend Sunday evenings watching a group of people digging in a field. Items of national importance have been found. History books have been rewritten, and some unforgettable television moments have been broadcast. It’s a show I can lose myself in.

On this particular day, I re-watched the episode from the Blaenafon in South Wales. Their task was to find the World’s first Railway Viaduct built in 1790. It carried a horse worked line that moved coal to the first Blast Furnaces. Twenty-five years later, the viaduct had disappeared. The show is a remarkable exploration of what the Industrial Revolution did to the landscape.

As a part of the show, they set up a small blast furnace inside one of the original buildings to recreate the iron making process. It was a small furnace, only a few feet high, not more than two feet in diameter yet they produced enough iron to make a railway wagon wheel.

The penny dropped.

This small portable furnace had produced enough iron to make a wagon wheel. I remembered the furnace at the museum. It was, what 12 feet tall? It too was only a few feet in diameter. How much iron would that produce? There were patterns of all sizes around the foundry walls. Window frames, gear wheels, even signs. 

Within seconds an entire concept flowed out of my brain.

“AminimumgaugerailwayservingasmallfoundryMakingthingslikewindowframesgearwheelssignsandwagonwheelsTherailwaywoulddelivermaterialslikesandcoalandironoreCouldbetransportingfinisheditemsbetweenthefoundryandtheblacksmithsTrainswouldbeshortoneortwosmallwagonsHowaboutoneofthoseHeywoodfoundrywagonsliketheoneinthemuseumatTywynIalreadyhaveaflatwagonbuiltCurlyspokewheelsDammitifyouwantedtobecleveryoucouldputredLEDsinthemodelfurnacetorepresenttheglowfromtheironmaking.”

It’s a good starting point…

 

Tool Time

You will see the new name and web address for the blog and wonder what’s going on. 

Those with long memories, may remember that my first steps in large scale modelling were in 7/8ths inch to the foot scale. But I was overwhelmed by the size and details, and stopped working in the scale long before this blog even started. 

Now that my 16mm scale layout is ready to go to shows, and I’ve absorbed what I can do in 16mm scale. I felt the need to try my hand at some 7/8ths details. I don’t know why, I just felt the need to do this. 

I found some dimensions, and made a large screwdriver, using a couple of thicknesses of styrene rod. The handle was shaped with a file from 1.6mm rod, and the shaft from .75mm rod with the flat tip sliced off with a sharp blade. The end of the handle was drilled out with a tiny drill bit, the shaft inserted, and fixed with styrene cement. All this was done under the view from an Optivisor.

A scale 18” long large screwdriver

I had made a screw driver. I had made a flipping screwdriver! A pretty good looking screwdriver at that. Bolstered by this success, I tried a spanner, (wrench to my American friends). With just as acceptable results. This was cut and shaped from a 2 x 6mm strip. The camera eye is unforgiving in the image. But to me it looks great.

A big old spanner. One for about 3” nuts and bolts.

I’m making tools! I’m starting to feel pretty good, so I carried on. Another smaller screwdriver. The screwdrivers were actually easier than I thought. I followed this with a smaller spanner. Then a couple of crowbars (pry bars) followed. These were actually quite challenging, as the styrene strip was being heat bent almost as far as it would go. Then to finish it off, a Sledgehammer, which was an absolute piece of cake considering what I’d already made. 

A 7/8ths inch scale tool wagon?

After a break for the weekend visiting friends and running in a 5K (1st in my age group, thanks for asking) I added a wood clamp and a tool box. The wood clamp was measured from one that the friends we were visiting had weathering away in their front garden. The tool box is rather more conjectural being made to a size I thought appropriate of about 18” long. Eighteen inches in 7/8th’s is about 33mm. Sizes of items are difficult to get used to.

It was a conscious decision to make the jaws of the clamp open and offset

The tool wagon, it contains full size tools I don’t even own,

There we go, a selection of 7/8ths inch to the foot tools. Made just to see if I could do it. It certainly gives me a sense of achievement. The wagon the tools rest on is the first wagons made for my abandoned 7/8ths inch layout.