Ideas, Projects & Ramblings from SteamyDave…!!!!
493rd Bomb Group Museum Debach Airfield, Suffolk, England - Home of Helton's Hellcats Station 152 USAAF 1944 - 1945
Debach was one of the last 8th Air Force heavy bomber stations to be occupied by the American 8th Army Air Force.
Debach is situated 3 miles north-west of Woodbridge with some of the sites located in the adjoining village of Burgh. The pronunciation of Debach was always a problem for uninitiated Americans, who invariably referred to “Dee-bark” – locals have always pronounced it as “Deb-idge”.
Visit their website www.493bgdebach.co.uk . See opening times
Today I visited the model railway exhibition at Thurston Sixth, Beyton, nr Bury St. Edmunds. Great show, plenty of parking space. A good selection of displays and trade stands. I have uploaded some photos into a gallery here.
The date for next year is Saturday 26th September 2020
I have visited the museum several times this year. There is always a warm welcome from the volunteers there, along with a nice mug of tea or coffee and lovely homemade cakes and sausage rolls.
Every time I visit, I always find something new to look at – sometimes it is a completely new building full of more artefacts, vehicles, and things of the era. The website says it takes about 2-3 hours for a tour, but quite honestly, you can lose yourself in a time-warp in every room.
The museum obviously documents and presents the time that the American air force was based at Debach (and many other bases in East Anglia), but also you get a good glimpse of what life was like in the 1940s in England and specifically Suffolk. The "Home Front" building show how typical homes would look, and you can see lots of familiar objects and logos of products that have survived over the years. There are stories about the local land girls, and I believe they hold a 1940s American themed barn-dance in one of the grain-stores which stands where the original hangers were.
Sunday 28th September was the last Sunday open day of the year, and it was the "Jeep and Vehicle"day. It's the first time I have visited on this event, and there was so much to see. Along with the regular exhibits, dozens of other WWII vehicles arrived and were on display. A great collection of Willys Jeeps lovingly restored and preserved, along with a whole host of other American war vehicles. There were a few British vehicles hidden amongst them, but they all had similar colours so blended in with the crowd.
Around 11am, about 30+ of these vehicles went on convoy including a bit of off-roading and run along the local fields/tracks. It really did look like the Americans were arriving again, just as it would have looked back in the day. The tour took about an hour to complete, and thankfully every vehicle returned without mishap, break-down or getting stuck in the mud (it had rained heavily recently). On return everybody headed for a cuppa, although I’m sure those Jeep guys & gals are a hardy type.
The weather on the day was mixed, mostly bright with the occasional quick shower. There are plenty of buildings to head for if the rain starts. There is access to the top of the control tower. I went up there to take some over-view photos and realised how windy it was on the day. The sturdy railings gave peace of mind, but the videos from my camera have the background soundtrack of "wind over microphone".
Along with all the exhibits and things to see, the museum reminds us of the lives of the airmen and support staff based so far away from their families and homes. Many stories about the people based there can be found at the museum or their website. A fitting tribute to all who were based there and those who maybe didn’t make it back home. In fact, a tribute to all the forces from all nations who sacrificed everything for us.
I have added some more photos to the photo album here.
During lockdown, I had the opportunity to support the NHS by 3D printing some visor components
BT had a scheme whereby 3D printer owners could print the visor frame, which could then be delivered to BT where they constructed the visors and delivered them to local HNS hospitals and other places that needed them.
I was able to print several hundred parts.
I noticed this butterfly in my shed a couple of weeks ago. Closed up on the door. Thought I'd see if it was still alive, and to my pleasure it opened up. Thinking it shouldn't still be in the shed, I moved my finger towards it and notice it was attached to some cobweb. Untangling it, it was happy to climb aboard and seemed quite happy staying on my finger.
It opened its wings from time to time, which made holding the phone and trying to get the thing in frame and focus was tricky. I didn't know just when it might fly off!
I tried to unload it and it flew about 6ins and closed up again. After loading the mower into the car, I went back and as I approached it once again, it flew off into the breeze.
Hope it was the right thing to do.
HOe scale is HO scale trains (1:87 3.5mm/ft) running on 9mm (N gauge track). This forms a narrow gauge track with similar proportions to the 2ft gauge railways found around the world and especially in the Welsh Mountains.
Someone mentioned putting a model railway inside the top of a 9 drawer chest, with the lid that opened up for access. I was looking at my coffee table and decided there was enough height between the bottom and top to install a small N gauge or Hoe mini layout with buildings 1 or maybe 2 stories high. I wanted a small mountain/tunnel, so found a 3D printer design of a mountain, and with some chopping and scaling I was able to print the mountain is 4 sections, with a height that will fit within the table with the lid down. ;-)
The layout consists of one main loop with effectively 2 passing loops. The tunnel on the left west side (3D printed!) has single line working, but with the other loops, 3 full trains can use the layout running from 1 simple DC controller.
The centre loop is also the loop to the maintenance yard. This consists of a turntable (wide enough to carry 1 loco and 1 wagon) and then feeds down to a traverser which has 4 stops along its length. Off each side there is room again for 1 loco and 1 wagon, or 2 wagons. This gives a good availability of stock to be able to manipulate on this small layout.
I forgot that I had the glow-in-the-dark luminous printer filament in the printer when I printed "Magic Mountain" and a few of the test carriages!
There isn't enough daylight to make them glow normally, but with a bright light on them, and then viewed in the dark, they have a ghostly appearance!
The mountain is mostly painted, but at night, the tunnel does seem to have a slight glow.
After seeing some of these bodyshells of FaceBook groups, I fell in love with the idea, so luckily Santa delivered a couple and also the Kato 11-105 motorised chassis then ride on. The chassis is N-gauge, double bogies/pickups but single bogie drive (so 4WD, not 8WD.
Assuming that they will fit through the tunnel when the track goes down, the class 35 diesel shunter will do the heavy work on the mainline, and the class 153 Sprinter will perform a shuttle service between the East and West stations.
Described by David the designer (not me!)...
Narrow gauge 3D printed products available through Shapeways and designed by me.
Includes my popular range of 009 mainline diesel caricatures.
This is the second design of the bracket to hold the stepper motors for the raising mechanism. Rather than dangle off the legs, they are now supported from underneath with a triangular bracket. This not only strengthens the support for the motors, but helps the motor sit upright and also adds a bit of strength to the table.
They might be a bit over-engineered at the moment, but they will work for testing.
The sockets for the threaded rods now go into a rubber mount. Not fully convinced yet. Initial testing showed there wasn't enough current to go to all 4 motors at the same time, so I will revert back to having 1 motor driver board for each motor. This will need a little bit more wiring as I can no longer daisy-chain the motors.
I'm currently re-organising this website. It's a bit of a muddle at the moment. Sorry about that!
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