Garden Railway Forum

Might be interesting to have a 'none currently' option under size of your garden railway for those of us that run our stock on club layouts and those of others.

I don't like the hinged roof or the battery box under the cab roof that was fitted to my Silver Lady when new so I got a different battery and moved it inside the body in one of the fake water tanks and filled the cab roof holes with milliput. The roof is now held in place by magnets. Search 'Steam...

Hi all, My Lady Anne has a couple of screws on the roof that I'd like to make less visible. I'm talking about the screws that hold the battery case to the underside of the roof, and the screws that hold the roof panel to the hinge. I could simply paint over them, but do people fill them with anythin...

Is this under the same management as the Chycknell Valley Light Railway? If so, can't wait to see what you have in store...

I'm with you there Tony, total waste of steam oil in my book. The oil is emulsified with the water immediately after a run, but by the next day it will have separated into clean water with oil on the top. Simple to then drain only the water, then top up with oil. Presumably not much help if one pla...

I'm also a Solidworks user, but it's equally, if not more expensive than AutoCAD. I just log into my work account during evenings and weekends.

How do you think a SloMo-equipped loco would do for "mainline" running? When I run by myself, I love the idea of shunting a couple of wagons back and forth at scale speeds, but at club running days I'm pretty much stuck doing continuous running at constant speed. I'd be concerned that the ...

https://gardenrails.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=10959&start=15#p124131 In that post Graeme (GTB) sent me a useful resource that gives equivalent, and close to equivalent paint codes in various standards: http://www.e-paint.co.uk/Colour_alternatives.asp I ended up painting my Lady Anne in RAL30...

A very pleasant afternoon yesterday running at a local garden centre layout, which is very generously open for public running. Attempting to share via Google pics in light of changes in photobucket policy: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YHslRa9wAbkbP1052 In other news, a passenger was spotted sniffing ar...

Guys, is this the printer you are using? http://robox.cel-uk.com/ I might be able to get one through work for projects as we need to make boxes to house PCB's, etc - can it do stuff like that as the plastic boxes need to be durable? Cheers, Tom Why on Earth would you buy a 3D printer to print plast...

I had the chance to run on a ground level line yesterday evening, courtesy of the BC Society of Model Engineers. Their layout is somewhat temporary, as they are planning to completely rebuild it starting in a few weeks, and the current layout has some hills that made steady running very challenging....

Well, despite my showing up on Sunday armed with tools and ready to apologise to families for cussing and swearing as I irond out all the teething issues, she ran like a dream. Certainly, far better than I could have ever asked for. Lots of compliments were received and I left beaming from ear to ea...

I had excellent communication with the new owner at the end of March, and successfully received an order at the end of April, for what it's worth.

Thanks for the comments gents. And now.... it lives! https://youtu.be/WpswBdNiDuo In truth, this was the 4th attempt. On the 1st try, steam leaked poured out of the 'T' that connects the superheater to the cylinder inlet pipes. In my defense, the instructions specifically mention not to overtighten ...

Ta-da! Now all I need to do is test it and start the fettling/adjusting process. I might get the chance to run it on blocks this afternoon or one evening this week. Unfortunately I wont be able to run it on rails until at least next weekend. Pretty pleased with it. Bending up the pipework in a way t...

A bit more progress. The plan was to paint the boiler wrapper and than proceed with the build so that I can steam test the loco. However, I realised that the fancy 2K paint has a pot life of only 8 hours or so once you mix the components, so I'd be wasting a $35 can of paint just painting the wrappe...

We're back in business! Canada Post managed to lose the first replacement bush that Roundhouse kindly sent out, so a further replacement was sent and received last week. This allowed me to finish the valve gear and take a first stab at setting the timing. Needless to say, the first attempt was a com...

Lamptops and plugs out of the 3D printer. The plastic lifted at one corner which has lead to some distortion, but I have three usable sets, so I'm happy. 20170410_090927-1.jpg The printer I used is fairly basic, so gives a rough surface finish, but with some primer and sanding I think they'll be fine.

Just for the hell of it, my full 'train' as it stands: 20170408_152834-1.jpg The coach received it's insulated wheels and buffers courtesy of Garden Rail Specialists. As luck would have it, I had to leave he 3D printer at work making a laser enclosure over the weekend. It was fairly trivial to add m...

Thanks all. Good to know the paint on the frames should be ok. Yep, the crank was removed and straightened. Bizarrely, pressing it on as far as it wanted to go resulted in it becoming crooked. I pressed it on with a vice as far as I could without it getting crooked, tightened down the screw, and tha...