Hexworthy dry-run

Ahead of its first exhibition next month I thought I should do a dry-run of setting up the layout in its exhibition format. You may remember the exhibition fiddle-yard, which was fitted to the layout for testing. 

Although only completed a few months ago, I found several issues, including the track being completely dead - traced to a loose wire. Also the rails didn't line up well with the station board, maybe I didn't do a good job first time but a soldering iron soon fixed that. More seriously, the "latch-release" lever didn't release the alignment latches effectively making the traverser difficult to use smoothly, and the far end latch didn't always engage. Investigation revealed that the dowel across the board rotated by the lever was starting to split, while the dowel that ran along the board to release the far latch didn't slide smoothly. 

I found some 10mm dowel so used this to replace the rotating shaft across the board, this should be have much more torsional strength. The operating lever was beefed up too. The latch release lever for the near latch was re-fixed, and the connection to the second dowel made with a screw through a slotted hole rather than a bent paperclip. 

The dowel operating the far latch was removed and the holes opened up more so it moved smoothly. As well as the improved connection to the lever, a spring was added to pull the release away from the latch when the handle is released, ensuring the latch is free to engage. Hopefully these changes will make the mechanism robust enough to work through exhibitions. 

I also brought the supporting legs in from the garage, having dusted off the spiders, their webs and nests. These were made for Awngate and haven't been used for several years, they consist of a pair of folding trestles and a pair of L-section beams that span between them, bolted in place. The front beam is inverted with a flat top, the lip of the rear beam prevents the layout slipping off rearward. The assembly is sturdy and still seems to do its job well enough, although the beams are just 4' long, but Hexworthy is 4' 6" plus the fiddle yard - close to 7' in total. As the boards are rigidly joined the overhangs either end aren't really an issue, but I could make some longer beams provided they still fit in the car. 

The trestles are 2' wide, the layout sits with its front to the edge of the trestles. I have a longer drape that could cover the end of the trestle better, it's held with drawing pins and trapped in place by the layout. This set-up doesn't take long nor take up a lot of space in the car, and as seen it can serve different layouts. The height is about 3' 8", with track level at 4' for this layout.