Son of a biscuit-eater! After the pre-Christmas tidy-up, can I find the parts for the "problem" class loco?!?
Meanwhile I put some "Quik steel" in the tender chassis of "Lion", thinking to mount a tension-lock coupling, but it was too low, so I went back to the old idea of a bar across the buffers. So far, not so bad... but then there was a mystery short-circuit. It took ages to trace it: the screws holding the chassis together were coming out and touching the backs of the driving w
A K's cast white metal kit for LNWR 'Problem' class 2-2-2 "Lady of the Lake". Retrieved from the fabled Round Tuit box and still on the vacuum-packed cards. Silly me, I've fixed the footplate before fitting the driving wheels, so this is going to be fun. One of the bearings still needs opening up with the broach, but has twice come unglued from the chassis.
The tender is going together slowly: I'm fitting a Tenshodo spud bogie with about the right wheel spacing. The wheels themselves are a
I like the Skipton show, so I was pleased to be invited to take Leighmoor Bois there this year. Bearing in mind that Hornby-Dublo went out of production in 1964, you can always expect problems but there were only a few. Those blasted speed bumps and potholes had the stacker boxes bouncing around in the trailer to such an extent that they caught on the baseboard edges. Fortunately the trains still ran. One of the fiddle yard roads sprang a short circuit which wasn't there when I tested the layou
My Hornby-Dublo 3-rail layout at the Woodvale Rally last weekend.
12' x 6', seven baseboards, three of them scenic. Hornby-Dublo track throughout, with some cutting and splicing: rod-and-tube across most baseboard joins. Almost entirely Hornby-Dublo stock, with several repaints and nevershuddas. Buildings mostly Metcalfe, with some Superquick.
The Woodvale Rally is now at Victoria Park, Southport; a smaller site but superior facilities. The ground is still wet and uneven, though.
With the entire layout rotating, there was the problem of how to transfer power from the static baseboard to the revolving track. The technical term for this sort of set-up is "slip rings". I call it a bodge job. Looking for a cheapo way of doing this made me think of cake bases. Phoning round local wedding party organisers drew a blank until one of them mentioned her supplier: a shop only a couple of miles away. I bought two 18" wedding cake bases, stuck masking tape around the edges and then c
Finding a way to motorise the Lazy Susan was harder than I'd expected. Places like Halfords and auto repair shops no longer carry stocks of spares: their efficiency is my delay.
I found toothed belts at a local lawnmower shop. The pancake-style motor came from a model railway exhibition. The spring... I had trouble finding a spring until I tried a real hardware shop where the owner said: "How many do you want?"
Using a strip of Meccano did give me a certain satisfaction. Unfortunately th
This is my new layout, inspired by a Max Bygraves song.
It started with a Lazy Susan given to me as a Christmas present. This turns on some very nice ball-bearings, so the obvious thing was to build a layout on top of it. This is made of foamboard braced with balsa.
The track is a circle of Peco 009, the trestle bridge is an old Heljan/Con-cor N gauge USA kit, the scenic base is oasis blocks, the rockery is Faller Spachtelmasse and Hydrozell, the ground cover is electrostatic grass and W
