As it is over 3 weeks since I last blogged I thought I had better update you on what has been occuring whilst I have been spending countless hours ON MY OWN in the garage,,, I'm thoroughly enjoying this self isolation stuff,,, and am getting so much done.
If you click on the whatsit above you should see that we now have bouncing signals,,, and even better they come with Delayed Uplift,,[whatever that is!!]
Now I thought tram overheads were the stuff of satan but that was before I leapt into the deep end of the signalling pool,, ho ho,, the fact that they are up and working is something of a miracle,, they came so close on a couple of occasions to becoming wallpaper!!
Mr salesman at the exhibition when I bought the clever little box of tricks told me fitting them was [and I quote] "a breeze",,, really,,, I did consider moving to Skegness on a couple of occasions just in case it helped getting the things up and running,,, but a breeze it was NOT!!
In fairness life would have been much easier if I had built them on the workbench as self contained units,, got them working correctly and them dropped them as a unit into a suitable hole in the baseboard,,, but as track was laid about 20 years before suitable servo controlled systems were available [for a tight fisted Yorkshireman] that just was not possible.
The end result was that I had to fit the servo's and all the associated linkage under the baseboard on signals that were already in situ,, but we got there in the end,,,, and then I had to programme the breeze laden microprocessor that doe's all the clever stuff!!! For a digital Luddite like myself this is always going to lead to problems,,, it got so bad I had to get my coffee laden wife in to assist on a couple of occasions,,, that's how bad it got,,, luckily she is one of the few people who qualify's for my variety of self isolation.
That's not all,, we now have a finished D2 and a Q7 just waiting for a Cilit Bang bath and then it is off to the paint shop,,, now as I have mentioned before painting is not my forte,, but after the tram overheads and the digi-whatsit signals I am quite looking forward to a session in the paint shop,, at least I know I don't like painting so it will not come as a surprise like the overheads and signals did.
Due to the current bouts of Kung Flu I am having a concerted effort to finish off some long term projects that have been gathering dust since the last century!!! [fact,, both above were started in the late 90's] and another result of this clean up regime is,,,,
a John Day model of a Fordson Q7 bin lorry,, ugly as sin,, but lovely in it's own little way,, and during our recent sojourn to Malta I saw one,,, still running,, heaven,,,
and here it is,,, about as aerodynamic as an upright piano but for me it has buckets of character.
It will sit beautifully alongside my LYR Hughes heavy and the GC Zeppelin!!!
Ugly is the way forward without a doubt,, it gives me so much pleasure,, when compared with overheads or signals!!!
Now 3 weeks is a long time to not blog,, but there has been another reason for my absence from the ether,,,,wait for it,,,, YES,,, after approximately 10 years of doing exhibitions in nothing more than it's undercoat the tram has been treated to a satin finish topcoat,,, and very nice it looks too,, it certainly looks better than it did,,, but to be honest that is not difficult.
Take care everybody,,, and can I share a guaranteed way to alleviate stress,, during lockdown ensure you are never more than 2 centimetre's from an operating bottle opener,, it works,, I have tried it!!
