Wordsworth - 00 Loft Layout

[End2end]

Chin up Mike. I haven't even started installing any of my PM1 point motors yet. Got any tips for installing them?
....and to be honest no one wants to see photos of a hammer meeting a baseboard
Thanks
End2end

[NakatsuHime]

Please don't post depressing stuff about point-motors.

I need happy fluffy thoughts going through my head to get me past the installation stage of mine.

[Dad-1]

There is something to be said in favour of those standard
Peco motors ............ I just wish superglue could hold the
polarity switches to them !!

Geoff T.

[Bufferstop]

I just wish superglue could hold the polarity switches to them !!

Araldite Geoff, that's what you need. CA glues soften when warmed, two part epoxies harden.

[NakatsuHime]

There is something to be said in favour of those standard
Peco motors ............ I just wish superglue could hold the
polarity switches to them !!
Geoff T.

I'm using the Peco motors, but not needing to wire any polarity switches. They seem pretty rugged.

Although my layout has no space for ponds, I did see that water stuff. Looked interesting, so it's good to see the results. Very convincing indeed.

[Dragonfly]

From my first- and second-hand experiences, point motors are tricky. Even the "clever" expensive ones such as Cobalts fail, and need replacing. And to be honest... they fail and need replacing about as often as Seeps, from what I've seen. But Seeps are cheaper and easier to replace. When you get a dud, it's not such a kick in the teeth. So in all honesty, if I weren't primarily a wire-in-tube kind of guy, I'd stick to Seeps any day. Sure, there's a loud click, rather than the quiet and gradual motion, but I'd prefer that, personally.

[Bufferstop]

if I weren't primarily a wire-in-tube kind of guy, I'd stick to Seeps

Now there speaks a man after my own heart!

[mikem64]

Hi Gents,

First I must apologise for my outburst, not very professional.....

You know when you have that feeling everyone & everything is out to get you, that's how I felt the other day. Now calm & relaxed was it all that a big deal.

Thanks for all the comments & support guys, this is where being a member of this forum comes in to it's own, you are reminded you are never alone & support is there.

Before moving on, End2End asked if I had any tips for fitting seep point motors, yes I made myself 3 templates/jigs which makes the whole process easy & I will be using them again myself went I can find which box has my motors in them, actually tip right there, if you have many storage boxes write on the outside what each box contains.

Regards the jigs, I made one to help me solder the point motor leads, one to help me drill the hole through the baseboard from above, finally the 3rd helps me center the seep point motor & pre dill the screw holes. I'll get some photos later showing what they look like.

With regards the scenery, yes I managed a little more plus had a few trains running which is always good for morale. The scenic work at present is still around the church & pond area which is coming together lovely. I feel this version of Wordsworth is dare I say nearly perfect with the balance of track & scenery, the old version was a little track OTT.

So lets have a look at the handy work to date.


Work continued on the outside edge of the dry stone wall.


I've got one of my favourite buses parked in the lay-by


This bus looks good from any angle, the scenery helps to set the picture.


The green grass & shrubs spring around the far side of the pond.


General over view of the area being work upon.

That's it for now, I'll be back with more soon, maybe you want to see some trains running, well a short video is being put together showing Durham School on Pullman duties & the new LNER j50 on freight.

Until next time.
Mike.

[End2end]

Regards the jigs, the 3rd helps me center the seep point motor & pre dill the screw holes. I'll get some photos later showing what they look like.

I've soldered all the motors already and drilled through the baseboard before laying any track but the 3rd part, Yes please.
As soon as I saw the police box in the first picture I had the Doctor Who theme tune starting in my head - "OoowwwWWOOOOOOOooooohhhh"
The pond water looks really good and murky with a sense of depth.
I did notice theres a hole in the wall. Will that be an up and over stile?
Thanks
End2end

[ColHut]

Mike,

How old are the Cobalts? Plenty of discussion on Rmweb & elsewhere. Is it worth contacting the manufacturer who I believe is now on your fair shores, and asking for assistnce? It might help other people if the matter is a systemic one.

regards

[Bufferstop]

Mike I think it might give you a little boost. Last night I did a search on google looking for railway related down loadable kits. At a guess I would say that between 10 and 15% of all the hits coming up pointed back to your Wordsworth site, I didn't put "free" in the filter, and I never did get to the end of the list. I think that's quite an achievement.

[Dad-1]

Bufferstop,

Mike is a legend !!

Geoff T.

[End2end]

Surely you mean M.I.K.E.
Modelling Ingenuity , Knowing Excellence.
Thanks
End2end

[mikem64]

Hi Gents,

I'm flattered by the comments & the pep talk does help, so thank you.

I'm not sure if I broke a mirror lately or something as things have not improved. I've not been able to work on the layout as I've been having PC issues. About a month ago one of my hard drives failed, I suppose I should count my luck as this hard drive was dedicated to storing all my MP3 files, all gone now.

Then the PC whilst booting up gave the blue screen of death.....WHAT.....

Tried fixing this with my windows disk but that couldn't find any issues, so ended up doing a full install again from scratch. I thought this had fixed my woes but last week I'd just finished working on one of my new kits, saved the file & powered down the PC for the day.

Next time I logged on & went to the kit design folder there was a blank icon with loads of computer garbage as text, turns out the file got corrupted which took ages to remove.

Then the stupid PC did it again, yes another kit design, always after I'd worked on the file & saved it back to disk. So the desktop PC going to tip to be crushed & im digging out my wife's laptop, not the best but it will get me going again until I can get enough funds after Christmas for a new all singing & dancing PC.

Just adding my software onto the laptop so by the weekend I should be up & running again. Having to write this update on my wife's iPad, what fun that is......

Well that's how things stand at present but as they say that's life.

Down but NOT out.
Mike

[mahoganydog]

Hi Mike,

What you describe sounds like a damaged or corrupt hard drive. The only cure is to wipe it and test it in an external caddy and see if it has any errors. Another issue is that if you only wiped the part of the drive containing the OS; if you left the other partitions alone you are basically leaving the fault there to recur (I speak from experience here). Whenever I have to wipe a drive I delete all the partitions and do a full format which can be a pain if the partitions are write protected.

WARNING TO ALL; DON'T wipe a drive just because Windows won't boot, your data is still there and if you wipe the drive you lose the lot, permanently. It is easier to replace the hard drive and put the existing one to backup status in a caddy so all data can be salvaged easily which is what I always do now.

2nd WARNING; ALWAYS have an external backup because if the hard drive suffers a catastrophic failure data recovery is an expensive option you don't want to take.

Jim