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James May is the Reassembler 28th December 9pm BBC4


Paul.Uni
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Absolutely . Flying Scotsman trainsets only ever came with "system 6 " track. I suppose he could have got the set and run it on existing track he may have had.

Ahem! If I (James) may.... I spent 18 years working for Beatties Leeds branch, and as a large retailer of model railways, we often got ex catalogue or export sets to clear out and I remember the Flying Scotsman sets well. They did indeed contain Super 4 track and some, though very few, even had the teak effect clerestory coaches inserted into the box tray instead of the Thompson coaches! Another gem was the Salmon bogie bolster wagon which had 2 R600 straights held on with rubber bands and was cheaper than 1 single R600 section of track! Many locos we returned when the 'chuff' failed and the Dads were gobsmacked that it only needed the sandpaper arm bending in a bit.

Happy Days indeed, and great to remenice. Somewhere on the site is a post I started about Beatties which generated some fine reading!

Edited by pippindoo
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And yes, assembly by one person will take longer than a production line as each person in the production line will specialise in a particular part of the assembly and will do it o many times that in the end they could probably do it in their sleep!

 

The production line operative doesn't have half a dozen people hanging around demanding they say something interesting to camera either.

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  • 2 weeks later...

An amazing extra to the Dansette was not mentioned at the end of the excellent program, the auto mechanism to turn the pickup from the 78 RPM Sapphire pick up side to the correct 45RPM diamond pickup side, whilst still playing the record,........ did this occur automatically,  and if so where is the sensor to tell the mechanism the wrong type of stylus had been set?  We should be told before the scandal of Stylus Gate gets out of hand and the BBC are accused of faking the playing of 45rpm records.......

 

Or could it be Mr May put the pickup on the wrong setting, and stopped shooting to flip it over? :scratchhead:

 

Stephen

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An amazing extra to the Dansette was not mentioned at the end of the excellent program, the auto mechanism to turn the pickup from the 78 RPM Sapphire pick up side to the correct 45RPM diamond pickup side, whilst still playing the record,........ did this occur automatically,  and if so where is the sensor to tell the mechanism the wrong type of stylus had been set?  We should be told before the scandal of Stylus Gate gets out of hand and the BBC are accused of faking the playing of 45rpm records.......

 

Or could it be Mr May put the pickup on the wrong setting, and stopped shooting to flip it over? :scratchhead:

 

Stephen

He could of course have done what I did and put a LP/45 stylus on both sides of the turnover cartridge. TC8 IIRC on my Dansette.

(Just in case one got damaged!) Then spotted it showed 78 which would confuse the viewer.

 

BTW you could get sapphire or diamond for both speeds, The diamond lasted a lot longer but cost more.

 

Keith

Edited by melmerby
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I watched the Dansette episode and I've seen a couple of others including the Hornby loco one. I enjoyed his presentation and the insights into the history and significance of the devices he's reassembling but I was constantly frustrated by so rarely being able to actually see what he was doing or the particular bit of the thing he was talking about.

 

It's not a tutorial and I'm not expecting to know how to do it but, when he's talking about something he's holding or working on I really really want to see it.  It's obvious (because you could often see it in the long shot) that the director had one camera, I think on a Steadicam mount, covering close ups of his face as well as his hands and another as the master shot, plus I think a fixed camera giving a very wide shot but for something like this you really need a camera dedicated to the actions. It can be shot on two operated cameras, though three would be better if you want to focus on the personality as well as what he's doing.

I accept that for this show there was limited opportunity for later pick-up shots but it was heavily edited so there should have been far more material available to the editor. 

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  • 11 months later...
  • 2 years later...

I think it's now become a Christmas staple on BBC Four.

 

They also had The Joy Of Train Sets on last week. So both should be on the iPlayer if you haven't got a copy already.

 

Christmas TV in 1980 included The Great Railway Cavalcade: Rocket 150 at Rainhill

 

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/e97babaf4d9c4f108d2e5523b0e0b661

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p011vfz4/the-great-railway-cavalcade-rocket-150-at-rainhill

 

 

 

Jason

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I watched it last night and, though I generally enjoyed it, once again found it incredibly frustrating that he'd be talking about or doing something with some small component and there wouldn't be a close up of it so you often couldn't see what he was talking about.

To shoot this sort of thing adequately you need one camera showing the subject and what they're doing and another focussing in detail on what they're doing, it's very basic technique for any kind of demonstration whether it's cookery, gardening or something like this. What you don't want is a close up of the demonstrator's face while they're trying to show you omething.  9/10 for James May but 3/10 for the director.

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Did not see this originally, so a happy watcher of repeat. Personally not concerned that it did not get into 'YouTube' like detail - that cannot have been the purpose. 

 

Thanks also to Jason for reminder of 'Sets' which I had seen, but was happy to watch again. And could watch again, so add to the annual Christmas watch list.

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3 hours ago, Pteremy said:

Did not see this originally, so a happy watcher of repeat. Personally not concerned that it did not get into 'YouTube' like detail - that cannot have been the purpose. 

 

I agree that it didn't need the sort of detail required for a how-to demonstration, but when he was describing what he was doing in some detail I really wanted to see that and often couldn't. The golden rule is to show the viewer what they'd be looking at if they were in the room.

Edited by Pacific231G
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On his Drive Tribe YouTube channel he is currently doing a repair of an old Hornby Castle, got to the end of part 2 and it's not running yet, awaiting upload of part 3 so its a new video set, anyone else seen it ?

 

 

Paul

Edited by Paul80
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