Tuesday 1 March 2016

"A Place for Everthing..."


As I look at the clutter that has accumulated on the current work location on Philip's Creek, I am reminded of my paternal grandfather's favourite saying, "a place for everything and everything in its place".


 I never knew the gentleman, he died about six months after I was born. But for most of his working life, he was a workshop manager in the NSWGR Electric Car Workshops Chullora. He was apparently nicknamed Basher Bill, not for his pugilistic skills but rather because, to use the slang of the time, he would 'bash on' or 'ear bash' his staff about the need for tidiness around the workshop.

I know what I should do, but progress at this time is slow and any non productive work seems to be a mis-direction of effort. Looking at the mess and knowing the challenge to find the tool that I need at any point at time, I was beginning to think that perhaps there was some form of genetic mutation between my grandfather and I.

However, I recently found an old poor quality photograph of young Bill in his workshop around 1912 when he was in his early 20s. His hobby was different but the clutter and congestion on his work area looks familiar. It would seem that his passion for cleanliness came later in life, more from experience than genes. Therefore, as someone now in his early 60s, it obviously means that I'm a slow learner!!!





However, to move away from family history, the purpose of this short post is to provide a few photos of the construction of what probably the final module of Philips' Creek.

Actually, module has been cleaned up slightly since these photos were taken. The empty peco point boxes have been thrown out!



Track laying is proceeding slowing but the work to date has been fairly conventional. I summarised my basic construction technique of gluing cork directly onto styrofoam in an earlier post  http://philipscreek.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/moving-forward-at-last.html The 50mm wide strips of double thickness Bunnings cork tiles continue to work very well as a track bed but trimming and cutting with a band saw makes life a lot easier.

By the way, who said DCC made for simpler wiring? I have yet to complete the wiring underneath the module and it currently resembles a tangle of vines in a tropical rain forest.  But at least all of the points will have a direct electrical feed into each.