Sunday, April 23, 2017

All on a Tilt!


I shouted myself a long weekend so I had Friday off and went down to Jaycar to pick up some wire.  On Friday night, a few of us ventured over to Geoff’s place for a sausage sizzle followed by a modelling night with a few poisons of our own taste.  I started off the night, fixing an old CPH railmotor trailer that fell off the layout the previous weekend and had a smashed end.  That end was glued back on, so it is almost as good as new.  I then cut up another 4 tarpaulins.  However, the big activity for the night was making a shed for the backyard of one the houses on my layout.  But this was going to be no ordinary shed.  This one has an operating door.  I have recently been motivated by some of the photos other modellers have been posting on the many Facebook modelling groups.  Some have put together their own sheds.  One was a shed used by something like a rural fire brigade and it has a tilt-a-door installed in the open position and it looked pretty damn good. 

Now I just had to go one better.  My shed, has a tilt-a-door installed but, it can be closed, or it can be moved into the open position.  I am pretty proud that I can do this.  I drew a quick little sketch on Thursday night about how I thought it might work, and on Friday I put this into practice.  The operating mechanism went through two revisions, and the second is much better.

On Saturday afternoon after attending a midday soccer trial for my son, I went to the shed upon return.  I made up about 9 of my power supplies with my newly purchased wire and three have been co-opted into service to power three of my fettler camp incinerators.  They go wonderfully from track power supply.  Following this, I resumed shed construction.  I cut up two concrete bases and painted then grey.  I then cut up more parts for a second tilt-a-door shed and sprayed these as well as the original shed.

I just need to construct a roof for the sheds and they will be ready to place on the layout and I assume they will be a one in a million item with an opening tilt-a-door.

This afternoon after attending a school working bee until early afternoon, I went back down the shed and did a few more simple tasks.  Some of the wires around Fairy Hill Loop from the top level baseboard were hanging down too low and they spoil the scene.  So I drilled a few holes in various beams and the upper baseboard and a few zip ties have been used to pull them out of the way.  Much better.

A while back I purchased some illuminated traffic arrows and a police car blue flashing light bar from Brendan.  Well like most things in my shed, they just sat around for quite some time.  So out they came and they have been tested and I now have a position for them on the layout.  The arrows will go on a work truck at a work site.  The blue lights will go on a white car that I purchased quite some time ago and also has headlights and taillights that illuminate.  So all these will be wired up, off one of my power supplies and can be turned on by visitors from a switch in the facia.  However that is a task for tomorrow.
The shed with the door closed.  The current handle is just temporary so I can open and close it.

Voila, the same shed with the door slid back.

The view from above, with the door open.

The view from above with the door closed.

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