2mm Modbury

[Ian Smith]

" ... Two for Joy ..."

Being extremely pleased with myself for managing to produce something that (to me at least) looked like pheasant, I decided to see what else I could produce ...


The outcome is a pair of magpies !!! Once again, the core of these is a piece of brass wire, this time a piece of 0.3mm with some much finer wire wound around to bulk out the body. Once again, solder is used to blend in the body to the bare wire necks. Once happy with the general shape, a bit of bending and careful filing produced a body, head and beak. A small flat was filed on the rear of the back and a tail was added from a short narrow strip of green Rizla cigarette paper. Once happy, the birds got a wash of white enamel all over, then a blue-black was mixed and applied to head and neck and tail - the tail being slightly bluer. A hole drilled in a couple of fence posts at the front of the layout (near a pair of cows so that the public can be more easily directed as to where to find them), a touch of canopy glue on their mounting pegs and "Bob's your uncle!". Incidentally, I perhaps should mention that each bird is just under 3mm long (tip of beak to end of tail).

Thanks for looking.
Ian

 

[Joe's Garage]

Always something amazing to see when you post Ian but these are quite something....nearly constitutes a "murder" of magpies!!!!
Lovely
Julian

 

[WM183]

Oh my word. I love those! They're immediately recognizable as magpies, and they bring life to that little scene. Wow!

 

[Ian Smith]

Edwardian Modbury gets dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century!!!!

No, I've not got baulk road track with overhead electrification! However, we do now have available some fancy electronics!

But first a bit of background. While Modbury has now been to several exhibitions, one problem does regularly recur - the fiddle yard operator (at the Newton Abbot end) gets involved in talking to the punters and as a result the trains stop moving. Obviously, with Modbury having a total length of only 10' it is not impossible for the main operator (at the control panel at the Plymouth end) to go to the other end of the layout and service himself as it were, however at busy periods (usually the very time that the fiddle yard operator gets involved in such conversations), trying to get from one end of the layout to the other and back again is problematic.

So to the solution (hopefully). My good friend and fellow Midland Area Group member, John Russell, being and electronics guru has devised and developed a couple of boxes of electronics to allow end-to-end communication. At Tuesday nights meeting he kindly demonstrated said gubbins, and sent me away with the bits and bobs to complete the project.


Firstly, a pair of identical circuit boards (this one is the "slave" for the Newton Abbot end). After making up the box for the "master" and following a conversation with John I removed the rotary switch on the slave as it is currently surplus to requirements for that end. The "master" also has a pair of power leads coming off the socket to allow connection to a 12v power supply.


A couple of small boxes into which I had to fit the electronics gubbins were also supplied, as was a cable to connect the two circuit boards together and allow them to talk to each other.


After an hour or two drilling and filing, I had holes in the relevant places to match the rotary switch (only on the "master"), the display and the button on the circuit board. I also found it necessary to drill some holes above the buzzer to help let the noise out!

With the two boxes connected and power supplied to the "master" box, the rotary switch can be turned clockwise to select 0, 1, 2, ...8, or 9, or anti-clockwise to select P(assenger), F(reight), or E(mpty road). As the knob is rotated (on the "master") the selections are shown on the display in red, when the display shows the required selection the button can be pressed which will instigate communication between the two boxes, causing the "slave" box to illuminate it's display with the selection from the "master" (also in red) and sound a buzzer to alert the fiddle yard operator that he needs to do something. Once the fiddle yard operator has set up the request, he can press the button on his box which will change the displays on both boxes to green and sound a buzzer on the "master" to let the control operator know that everything is ready.


The knob on the "master" has been rotated anti-clockwise to request a P(assenger) train to be made ready at the other end, the button has been pressed causing the request to show up (in red) on the "slave" and sound the buzzer at that end.


The fiddle yard operator has made a passenger train ready and has pressed the button which has sounded a buzzer on the "master" (control panel) end and set both displays too green.

The next phase will be to dream up what the 0 - 9 indications might be used to request, eg. 0 - Cattle Train, 1 - Stream Railmotor, 2 - Pick-up Goods, etc. Although I think for our next outing at Loughborough in August I might just stick to using the P, F, and E indications to see how effective the concept is.

Thanks for looking,
Ian