Lockdown Project: Fix the APT

On the top of a cupboard, I have a wooden model of the Advanced Passenger Train.

Produced by Space Models for use in travel agents, these models have become popular among APT fans and are generally worth a couple of hundred quid. As an APT nut, I had to buy one when I had the chance. In fact, I have two - well both were bargains at the time and have increased in value over time.

My model is better than the one in the NRM, but a fall from its perch meant I needed to carry out a few repairs. This job has been around for a while, but now it is done.

Job 1: The bogie sideframe on one end had fallen off. These are plastic and should be separated by a couple of rods. Those on my model were badly deformed and wouldn't glue back in place anyway, so I dispensed with them.

Slackening off the screw that holds the wooden model to its track allowed the sideframe to slot back into place. Tightening it up again clamped the part between body and track, hard enough it wasn't coming out easily. Quite how it fell off in the first place is a mystery.

Job 2: On the top, the pantograph had come off in the same accident.

This is a whitemetal piece and locates on top of wires running through insulators. I drilled out the holes and with a little superglue, this fitted back in place nicely.

Job done - it felt a little like an episode of The Repair Shop, but in a good way. Now I just need to dust the thing more often and be careful.

Lockdown Project: Sorting magazines

This is definitely one of those jobs that is "saved" for when time is plentiful.

My collection of magazines from the Double O Gauge Association has been spilling off the bookshelf for a very long period of time and finally something has been done.

I'm sentimental enough that I like to keep a copy of everything I've ever had published. Since I edited the DOGA Journal for a couple of years, that means there was always going to be a reasonable pile to hang on to.

 

Editing this publication lead to me becoming a web person in the late 1990s. At the time I used to have to produce camera-ready artwork for the printers. This I did at work using the 600dpi laser printers out of hours. My boss was OK with it, I even quietly installed a copy of Pageplus on my computer to do it (I worked in IT, we had admin passwords. And I only used it on one machine at a time so we'll assume concurrent software licencing). 

When the part-time web person left, since he knew I could do a bit of graphical stuff, I was invited to take over the role. A bit of a challenge, but after a couple of days with a teach yourself HTML book, I took the role on. Eventually, the job became full time and after a few years, I left to run the local council website. 

My point is that you never know where your hobby can take you. 

This is something I try to explain to anyone wanting to get their name in print. Society journals are always looking for material. You don't get paid, but the discipline of turning out an article is a good grounding if you want to go further. 

As I worked my way through the magazines, even I was surprised to see the wide range of toy trains topics I'd written about. My "to keep" pile was fatter than expected. Taking the photos for the annual modelling competition each year added many issues too. 

A few articles were removed to the box files of interesting reads and the rest went in to recycling. To be fair, as with all society mags, there's a lot that will never be of interest again such as meeting notes and appeals for volunteers, but there are some gems in there too. 

The bookshelf looks a lot tidier too.

Lockdown Project: Rail clamps

I've never run the garden railway as much as I should. Starting any session always involves messing around chasing fishplates that aren't conducting electricity, or LGB track sections that have magically disconnected themselves.

The worst area for this is along the back of the oval. Fixing this involves crawling between fence, pond, pear tree and rose bush. Basically, a whole load of no fun.

So, last year I bought some rail clamps. And because I now have plenty of time, I fitted them.

The track was lifted, fishplates were brutally removed with pliers and the rail ends polished with Brasso using a Dremel and felt pad. The shiny metal was cleaned with Cillit Bang and loads of water as the polish can leave a coating.

Then I clamped up 5 ft sections, carried them to the site and joined everything up again.

Only the difficult to reach areas have been done so far, but the results were impressive - trains ran straight away - so if expansion in the sun isn't too much of an issue, I'm going to do a lot more.

Lockdown Project: Flashing light

With plenty of time on my hands, I'm going to try to be motivated enough to work through a few projects that have been kicking around for ages. I don't know about you, but I'm finding staying focused on anything tough right now and have to resist the urge not to watch rubbish on TV when I'm not working.

Anyway, I have a flashing warning light that I picked up for a fiver at a car show. It attaches to your roof with a rubber sucker and has the hallmarks of a cheap 1970s or 80s accessory. Cheaply made, I'm sure it was sold as a safety aid if you broke down.

Tatty chrome and a busted battery box in the base seemed to be the main issues. While the chrome is beyond me, I reckoned the wiring would be fixable.

First job, remove the old box. No problem there, drilling out a couple of aluminium rivets saw the plastic bits and other remains removed and in the bin.

For some reason, power was to come from 3 D-cells. I wired one compartment out of a 4-cell AA battery box and connected it up. The bulb is a special old-style torch bulb that includes a flashing unit. I guess this is a bi-metallic device as part of the filament. I tracked a couple of these down on-line.

I was particularly pleased with my connection to the body - a hole drilled through a rivet and the wire poked through this with a blob of solder. All connected up, the unit worked, but not very reliably. I wasn't happy with the switch. Even afer a bit of WD40, it didn't seem quite right. Until it exploded.

Maybe exploded is putting it a bit strong, but falling apart into several pieces isn't as exciting, and the Interweb is all about excitement isn't it.

The rivets holding the switch in position were drilled out and I set to, to repair the slider with superglue, bracing the joins with the thinnest plastic sheet I had. This was glued and trimmed to shape later. Once happy, the unit was rebuilt with brass bolts. I did the connection to the case this way at the same time as there wasn't any point in trying to hide the repair any more.

A quick clean of the chrome with some Brasso and the lamp is ready for service. After a few seconds warm-up, the light starts to flash. It's a bit intermittent to start with but seems to settle down eventually. One day, it will live in the back of my Beetle as a decorative item. If I ever get the car back on the road that is - it's a bit harder to fix than this!