I would like to wish you all the best of the season, have a safe , enjoyable and relaxing time. Ray ..read more

 As the title says, I like to find useful tools and use them, although this last part sometimes takes quite a while. Here is my latest find, a small vertical drill. I had been drilling holes through the brass signal posts for various detail parts, handrails, ladder supports, etc. by eye using a cordless Dremel motor tool and a 0.45mm drill bit. I knew I needed something better and I saw someone post on the Aus7 Modellers Group on Facebook about a small vertical drill he had bought but without a link to it. An ebay search found three that were of similar size with what looked like the same ..read more

 Well, my last post was my Christmas one in which I said that I would try to post more often, but that didn't work. I am now seven months further down the track and thought I had better explain myself. By Christmas last year I had finished putting together 22 HO NSWGR signal kits for the North Shore Model Railway Association for their Blue Mountains club and exhibition layout. These signals were about equally divided between those for Katoomba and those for Valley Heights. A number of the signals were very specific and required modification to the posts with extra signal mountings, lamps ..read more

Christine and I would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year. May all that you hope for come about. This would have to be the longest break between posts for the blog. I have almost sat down to type several times, but life has become a bit complicated in the last six months. I have managed to do a couple of things on the layout as well as make some signals for others but the main situation is around a now eight-month-old puppy. The last pup we had was in 2003 and it is amazing how you forget how much work a new pup is. We have just about got it toilet-trained and it ..read more

 As we now know the past two years have disturbed the normal supply of many things. Among those have been my goto servo control boards from Tam Valley Depot. I have used Tam Valley Depot Singlet IIs, Tam Valley Depot Quad-Pics and a Tam Valley Depot Dual 3-Way board. Tam Valley Depot's owner Duncan McCrae stopped production due to ill health and at about the same time, COVID-19 hit the supply of electronic parts. Tam Valley Depot has since recommenced production but only a small part of its range. All of the above servo control boards are no longer being made. As a result, I began a searc ..read more

Way back in June 2011 and July 2011, I did several posts on my build of an Anton's Roundhouse kit (click on the links above or see the old posts list to the right and down). Well, I finally decided that I needed to finish it, only 10 years late. The problem that stopped me originally was the large rear windows that were wrong, or at least based on a plan and some photos I have of the type. I measured the existing window frames of the model and worked out that I needed to modify them to get the windows anywhere near correct. The problem is that the roundhouse is designed to go with the Anton 75 ..read more

My Casula Hobbies Z19 arrived a couple of days ago, a lovely little model and it runs really well. A big well done to Joe and his technical team. Casula Hobbies Z19 1954 fresh out of the box I had ordered 1957 but received 1954 for some reason, perhaps too many had ordered 1957 and I missed out. I don't mind though as 1954 is the same Baldwin tendered version with cut-out cab and cowcatcher. Given the COVID-19 situation, I wasn't up to taking it back or going to the Post Office to send it. Christine and I had our booster shots today and we won't be getting out and about until two week ..read more

  I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Christmas and New Year ..read more

Several years ago the layout gained a mysterious short circuit even though I hadn't been doing any wiring or trackwork recently. After a lot of searching under the layout and checking the track for closed rail gaps, I called in the big gun, Marcus Amman. Marcus spent an afternoon with me checking all the same things and we still came up with nothing. At this point, it was decided that I needed to replace the NCE EB3 circuit breaker board as the EB3 boards were known to be a bit flaky. So, three NCE EB1 circuit breakers were bought and temporarily installed in the wiring. Now what I mean by tem ..read more

 As we all do, the search for a good and easy way to clean track can cause us to try all sorts of things. Of course, one way is to use the Peco track rubber or other brand, another is to use what used to be known as an ink rubber (eraser), a slight abrasive was bonded in the rubber. I have noticed that these are very hard to get anymore which is a pity as they were better than the Peco rubber. I am not going to get into the argument about the abrasive rubbers scratching the rail head as my track is long past protecting from that potential issue. One thing I have always done is to use a 38 ..read more