An 0-4-0 loco from card - for the Skarffe Lt Rly - another vid Amazon PWM vs homemade

[JimRead]

Hello MG,

Thanks for your comment, you are quite right, after failing to make anything in, 2mm, 3mm, 4mm and skipping 'S' I went to 7mm and found it to be the cheapest of all the small scales. I am able to make something fairly reasonable for peanuts.

Cheers - J

[Mountain Goat]

I went into 7mm narrow gauge for that reason, and I may even do it for half peanuts.
It is easier on the eyes in this scale, and I do have a slight advantage in narrow gauge in that I can fit my trackplan in a smaller space.
I have seen a lovely card built 0 gauge loco on Youtube once crawling away on its owners space saving layout. I have a small a space saving oval under construction as I find I am not so keep on end to end layouts unless the trains have a fair length to run along, but that is me personally.
I have also seen a rake of beautiful HAA wagons made from scrap tin cans in 0 gauge on Youtube made by a tallented man. It is interesting!

[JimRead]

Hello MG,

Thanks for the reply it is very interesting to find out how people came to what they do at present. I used to take a 12ft 7mm layout around the shows, after running up and down it all day and then having to drive sometimes 100 miles it became very irksome.

I started my first very small one in 2009 took it to a show in 2010, it was a revelation, I can do everything from a sitting position. I have 2 chairs in front of it so I can chat to visitors and operate at the same time and then drive home feeling quite refreshed.

Yesterday I built another controller and it's slightly better than the previous version, bit of a delay in making the video I promised for this thread hopefully sometime tomorrow.

Cheers - J

[Mountain Goat]

Hello. Yes. Small is easier. I have not got mine running yet as I have not been in a hurry to until I build a backscene in which the control panel will be part built onto.
The size of it is about as small as I want it to be without being so small that I have no room to run trains, so it takes up a size of 2ft wide and just under 7ft long mounted on two boards.
On these two boards I have an oval of track with two passing loops and a siding. I have also made the trackplan so that if I want to I can add another board.
Small is a bit of a compromize, but I fully understand how heavy layouts can be when trying to move them as when one builds a permanent layout, one is not normally lifting the thing, but start building a portable layout and at first all seems light enough in weight, but mine started to get heavier as soon as I started to add more "Structure" to it with its inbuilt legs. It now has holes in it to reduce the weight at almost every opportunity!
I do not fancy making something out of lighter weight materials as if I am going to make something and put so much effort into it, I want to build it to last. I have never actually finished a layout so I assumed that a small layout that if we move house, would be a better proposition as I could bring it with me. I also assumed that a small layout would be easier and quicker to build. Uhmmm.

[JimRead]

Hello MG,

My first baseboard was made with square construction, it warped in a couple of years.

The second one I made from 1/4" plywood in 1982 used geodetic construction. I gave the layout to Soilhull MRC, after some years John one of the members then took it out of the club. I met him at a show in 2016, he'd still got it and it hadn't warped.

This is what I do now from 5.5mm cheap plywood


There is a simple test for warping with the board on a carpet put your foot on it and try to twist it, if it moves more than a few millimetres it will warp!

Made like the above they will not twist more than 2.0 mm. And I can pick them up with one finger, with all the stuff on top they are easy to carry about even up stairs, which I do sometimes at shows.

Cheers - J

[Mountain Goat]

I made the mistake of getting free wood that had been dumped in places. (This was due to having no income at the time). Now while out walking found some wood that had floated in from the sea. I did get a little warping as the wood was drying out. As it was just this one piece of wood that is effected, I had a slight twist of about 1mm or just over, but in the winter when the air is damp, it goes back the other way.
Now there are two approaches. The first is to build to a design which prevents warping as you have done by using the diagonal cross members, and the second is to build to a design that allows a little warping and the design caters for it. As long as the track lines up between the boards we shall be ok. (Ok, extreme warping can happen, but is unlikely with my current design as though the main framework is down to about half an inch thick or just over, the wood has a depth of around three inches so it should not warp too if it does.

I had to come up with a solution to warping along with expansion and contraction issues as my track being homemade and on a small board happens to have only a few railled joints. (I do have fake rail gaps to give a narrow gauge feel, but these only go so deep in the rails).
The solution is instead of bringing the track to the baseboard edge, is to set it back a bit and use seperate track sections to bridge over the baseboard joints inbetween the pairs of boards. This has worked for me and it allows for plenty of movement.

What I have not yet done is build into my design to allow the layout to stand on very uneven floors. It does work ok when set up on the tarmac drive which is all over the place and it seems stable enough even if one of its legs is in the air, so I may just bring a few pieces of wood or books etc if needed. I had considered to make adjustable legs but as it seems ok so far, I have not done so.

I use bicycle seatpost quick release bolts to join the boards together and they can if required hold them firmly together... A little too tight if I am not careful.

As I have legs folded up into the layout I can't use diagonal cross bracing, but I am stiffening up the boards while making the scenery as the scenic contours are being made from wood in a kind of "Make it up as I go along" fashion, while making sure there remains space for the legs to fold into the layouts frame. It is a slow process but I am in no hurry.

Baseboard design is interesting.

[JimRead]

Hello MG,

Thanks for the explanation very good of you to take the time to do it.

Cheers - J

[JimRead]

Hello all,

I finished my chassis I like to make one get it running and then make the body.


1/. Ready to glue the motor between the frames. I glued the pivot in using a pair of tweezers from the corner shop bent to make a clamp.

2/. The connecting rods ready to be drilled and a bit of copperclad PCB sheet cut to take the pickups. Sadly the worm and gear you see here didn't work very well, my fault I suppose, I had to break out the motor. Fit a small Scalelink 40:1 W&G pack up the motor cradle with some thin card, I glued the motor back in with Seccotine, just the right stuff to use for a job like this.

Cheers - J

[Mountain Goat]

Very nice.

[JimRead]

Hello MG,

Many thanks for your comment good of you

Cheers - J