11.6.10

Still alive....

Someone said to me the other day "the blog's a bit quiet lately, what's happening with the cave?"

April and May were 'post free', this is the first time this has happened since I started "the Works", and pretty well 'everything else modelling' took a back seat due to some fairly serious ongoing health problems with my parents.

The cave did get a bit of a kick along today thanks to some help from my mate Lindsay, who also helped with the slab pour, with his help we were able to get both end walls sheeted in less than 2 hours. This bit of progress has inspired me to get a move on and get the thing locked up as soon as possible. Thanks Lindsay - again! Next stage with be to insulate and sheet the roof and seal things up to satisfy the bush fire requirements for my area.

3265 is finally a runner with the help of Marcus Amman and Ray Pilgrim who both played a part in it's commissioning. I have learned that Romford tender wheels are most DCC unfriendly. The hub of the wheel is actually wider than the tire and touches against the lip of the top hat bearing in the bogie side frame causing all sorts of short circuit problems. Wheel sets were replaced with SEM axles and all is well. Thanks Marcus for ID'ing the problem and Ray for your 'programming persistence'.

Not much else has been happening on the bench of late, unlike my counterparts North of Narrabri and at Splitters Swamp Creek, some very nice rolling stock work there Blair and Geoff, if you haven't seen it yet check it out from my blog list.

I'm off to Epping tomorrow to give Ron a hand on the Eureka stand, so stop by and say g'day if you're around.

Cheers