Hello again.
My modelling mojo has returned once again. I think its down to a combination of things, shows, steam railways, and quiet weekends have all helped. Using this new apparent enthusiasm I have once again turned my attention to the never ending point rodding for the layout. Its been something that has slowed progress on the layout to an almost standstill. Below is the next installment in the long running saga of Highcleres point rodding, some of you might have already seen some of these elsewhere on RMWeb...
I took another approach this time. A section of rodding roughly 2ft in length is 4 rods wide and I didnt really fancy the idea of individually soldering 5 rodding stools every scale 6ft or so. This meant a rethink to try and speed things up a little so above was the beginnings of a different approach, a 0.3mm thick length of Brass which has 0.5mm wide x 0.7mm deep slots with a 0.7mm pitch milled into it.
This Brass 'comb' was them cut up into sections which could hold 4 rods, which in turn was soldered to a short length of 2mmSA PCB sleepering. For cosmetic purposes (is anyone really going to ever see them for real?) I then soldered 2 etched stools to each end.
The point rodding (0.4mm square stuff from MSE) was then easily slotted into place and the whole thing was held together with a little solder. Care was taken not to hold the soldering iron in place for too long so to unsolder everything (it happened a couple of times which was a pain).
Ok, so not the best quality photos (taken with my phone) but this is the impression the point rodding gives. This particular section still needs to be painted then stuck into place properly (its resting on top in the piccies). To me, this is a mini milestone as producing rodding using this method has made it so much easier, so much so that the rest of it doesnt look anywhere near as daunting to me. Sadly though I didnt produce enough of the bits so it will be back to the beginning soon to produce some more.
I hope it looks alright and is worth all the effort?
Missy
- 12
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