Quarantine lockdown blues...

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captrees
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Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by captrees »

OK, who has more spare time now that they don’t know what to do with, and how is your modelling kingdom going?

My project, being one of the slower layouts ever to be built, is suddenly in fast forward again as we suffer the current lockdown in Oz. It’s all in the detail, those fiddly little jobs that had been postponed indefinitely for a rainy day. The bride, who volunteered once to be in charge of painting people, chimney pots and washing lines, bought a cheap lot of 100 unpainted 00 gauge people off ebay as a present. Turned out to be 114 pieces, 17 of which were naked women. I can always paint clothes on them, says she, and thereby got the job.

So I thought I’d share the moment. I was painting the insulators on my telegraph poles. Now my painting isn’t up to the real detail. I mean its not up to the wife’s standards, she who can paint ties on men, and polka dots on ladies blouses. (See pix.) No, my insulators look like a flock of seagulls have been roosting on the telegraph poles for weeks. And painting brown paint over the white afterwards only made most of the insulators brown again. So you have to ask yourself why would anyone do this? Well its because we now have the time and not the money. After all, painted little people cost $2 or $3, and telegraph poles don’t look right without white insulators.

Then there’s the benches to be made for the sitting people. In an entire afternoon I made 7. Its not just for Oxenholme Station. They are needed for the cricket field, the park, and the back gardens too. Lots of wire bending with long nose pliers and placing strips of cardboard on the wire with UHU and waiting for them to dry while holding them with the pliers. And having to start again because I didn’t wait long enough to put them down and the glue hadn’t dried, and they collapsed. Target was 40 benches. Only a permanent quarantine lockdown will meet that target.

I wasn’t happy with the signal box. It was originally made out of a matchbox and an Oxford diecast car case. (The clear plastic one, turned upside down so that the base became the roof.) The masking tape used instead of paint always looked like masking tape, and the thing needed a proper roof and a repaint. Now I’m still using up mostly household paint that was left over from an extension we did a few years ago. What should have been cream, or a sort of light yellow ochre, in the light of the Railway Room turned out a bright garish yellow. And the new roof was too big. The signal box looked like a sort of Swiss chalet that you might find in an African country.

And that’s just the last 2 days. When I have repainted the signal box its time to make more hedges, stone walls and fences, using rodent mesh wire. I have had more success with that in the past…..

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Ironduke
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by Ironduke »

Holy Moly! The wire for the benches would be difficult to bend the same every time.
captrees wrote:17 of which were naked women. I can always paint clothes on them, says she
Capri pants!

But all good work I reckon.
captrees wrote:how is your modelling kingdom going?
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captrees
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

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Ironduke wrote:Holy Moly! The wire for the benches would be difficult to bend the same every time.
You're not wrong Ironduke. 2 pairs longnose pliers reqd. Wire is some green decoration wire of the wife's, ex-Spotlight. So no need to paint, but tie wire would be easier. You will note that most benches are lopsided. :lol:

Most of the wire in the layout is rodent mesh from Mitre 10. As used for window frames in the now repainted and reroofed version of that signal box. Cut it into strips and it makes great fencing, and feed some vegetation through it and it makes passable hedgerows. It also forms the basis of hillside scenery to be covered in plaster bandage.

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Thats a good looking Amtrack loco btw.
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captrees
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by captrees »

I thought I'd share her indoors's quote of the week.

"I bet Rod Stewart doesn't make his wife paint all the little people."

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Now a question. These things came out of a Hornby train set. What are those little marker posts in top middle of the photo? The gradient markers top right are one thing, but these have arms at right angles. Mileage markers?
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GeraldH
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by GeraldH »

captrees wrote:Now a question. These things came out of a Hornby train set. What are those little marker posts in top middle of the photo? The gradient markers top right are one thing, but these have arms at right angles. Mileage markers?
They are mileage posts. I think they originally came with transfers indicating various distances.
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Bigmet
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by Bigmet »

[quote="captrees"]I thought I'd share her indoors's quote of the week.

"I bet Rod Stewart doesn't make his wife paint all the little people."

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He has alternatives. Maggie may do it?
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by End2end »

captrees wrote:I thought I'd share her indoors's quote of the week. "I bet Rod Stewart doesn't make his wife paint all the little people."
Maggie might......er...i mean ....May. :lol:
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Bufferstop
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by Bufferstop »

The marker posts would have the distance in whole miles from the start of the line with one two or three dots beneath it for the quarters.
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Bufferstop
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by Bufferstop »

I've come back with a PS.
Brown insulators; some were! They were made from the same clay as earthenware sewer pipes. There were black or dark grey ones as well, they were usually the taller cylindrical ones with a screw off cap under which the wire could be connected to insulated flexible wire within a cable which went down the pole and underground. You can use that fact to excuse any less than perfect painting on your own part.
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Flashbang
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by Flashbang »

There were generally three major types of UK railway telegraph pole insulators that I have encountered as an S & T engineer on the railway from 1964. Pole routes were slowly being removed then and multicore cables were placed in lineside cable routes called troughing or via suspended aerial cables on the poles.
Pole arms that I saw had ....
White China/Porcelain pots. Generally acting as through supports for wires and also used for termination of line wires. Some were produced in a sort of brown glaze colour but those are not that frequently found.
Black composite or white China pots with a screw on 'Jam Jar' style lid where a termination of line wire to a dropper wire is made inside the jam jar top. Usually the space inside the Jam Jar pot was filled with a compound to help seal the joint from water ingress.
Red pots usually of China/Porcelain which were used on wires that carry over 50 volts and typically 11O volts and very occasionally mains at 240 volt. Frequently this was used for distant signal battery charging.
Just for Info... Pole wires were tensioned by using the "Ping Pong" method. The wire was clamped in a special wire vice which was also strapped to the pole arm. Then by flicking the wire which is under tension the time taken for the Ping to Pong (out and back) was time measured and the wire adjusted tighter or slackened before being clamped to the insulator pot. All very technical! :D
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Bufferstop
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by Bufferstop »

As part of my training at the GPO we had to build an overhead route of four poles on the field at the back of the training school. We had to do the tensioning with the little wire "vices" and Salter style spring balances. There was one fellow there from the Norwich area where due to the high water table there was still far more overhead in use and of course he'd seen it all already. so when it came to ripping it all down he was sent up a pole in the middle and the instructor had a word with the two of us who were either side of him. "get up the poles quick as you can and the moment matey has got his belt fastened start cutting". The effect of chopping at random the tensioned wires on either side of his pole, had him bouncing from side to side and hanging on for dear life. He was rather white and very quiet when he got back down.
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Roger (RJ)
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by Roger (RJ) »

The devices for holding the wires and tensioning them was called a "Ratchet and tongs" iirc. I did my overhead training as a "youth" at Glen Parva training school, Leicester.
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by Bufferstop »

I did my overhead training as a "youth" at Glen Parva training school, Leicester.
Ours was at Monkspath in Solihull. At the time the field at the back look out into open country, surrounded by houses now!
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captrees
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by captrees »

End2end wrote:
captrees wrote:I thought I'd share her indoors's quote of the week. "I bet Rod Stewart doesn't make his wife paint all the little people."
Maggie might......er...i mean ....May. :lol:
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End2end
Thank you End2end and Bigmet. She needs the encouragement. Here she is in action. Changing the school uniforms from red on the original to navy blue.

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That's me on the platform, second from the left, apparently.

(Too much time on our hands, Sigh.)
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End2end
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Re: Quarantine lockdown blues...

Post by End2end »

Reminds me of the "Just William" stories. :D
My barmaid on the other hand looks likes she's drunk half the pub! :shock: :lol:
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