Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Tracks of my Tears

Well, the track laying is going sloooowly as I'm now spiking the rails down after gluing with Pliobond. It's driving me crayzee I must admit so it better be worth the effort. The bullhead rail and chairs arrived so I've put all the chairs on the rails ready for gluing. The rail is code 75 and the chairs are 4mm but the ballast will come up to about half way up the rail so the scale and rail size shouldn't be noticeable. This will be installed as Hill Top's loop. I also purchased some Uneek point rodding, adjusters and balancers which unfortunately, were not what I expected. The rodding and rodding chairs are OK but the adjusters and balancers are cast in relief so they won't be making it onto the layout. Instead, I ordered some etched 4mm parts from the guys at Wizard so we'll see how they look. Hopefully, the scale won't be too noticeable. There's a lesson here.....never, ever procrastinate when buying stuff. I was about to buy the rodding and ancillaries from IR Models when Ian shut down the business. Damn!! Hence the search now for suitable replacements. With a bit of luck, Ian will find a new owner for his etches and I'll be able to get what I need. God knows what I'm going to do for signals if this doesn't happen.
In the meantime, to keep myself from going mental, I built some backdrops for the layout out of 3mm ply. Here's how it looks

Near the roller Doors

The Other end

I've also ordered some Kadee uncoupler magnets for when I finally get to install the track and points. That is if I don't lose my mind in the meantime.