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The Bachmann model of the Highley yard crane is quite an attractive little model, but let down by the solid resin castings of what should be spoked wheels. The computer generated pre-production images showed the wheels as properly spoked, but by the time the model came out the decision had presumably been made to do them as rather crude solid wheels. Incidentally there isn't a lamp growing from the top of the crane! My initial plan had been to cannibalise some replacement wheels from one or other yard crane kits, but unfortunately none of the ones I had (set aside for future projects) were close to the diameter needed. I then thought about scrapping the Bachmann crane in its entirely, while retaining the rather nice base, but that seemed wasteful. I decided to bite the bullet instead and see if I could turn the solid wheels into something useful. First one up was the larger casting, which handily enough had already snapped off its locating spigot. I thought about fretting about the gaps between the spokes, but unfortunately, the moulded spokes don't correspond with each other on both sides of the wheel. My initial assumption was that there ought to be six spokes on the wheel, and that the toolmakers had got it wrong! I therefore laid out a paper template and worked off that. However - typical, isn't it? - I've since turned up this photo that I took last year of the real thing: So there are seven, not six. The approach I took was to drill away a quadrant of the wheel at a time, preserving the hub, add one or two new spokes, allow the glue to set, and then carry on to the next quadrant, gradually replacing all the spokes. I wasn't sure how the resin would hold up, but it turns out that it's easily strong enough to cope with quite a bit of drilling and filing. It took about two hours to do the whole wheel, but it wasn't difficult at all, it just needed to be done slowly to allow time for each spoke to harden in place. I had a yoghurt carton which allowed me to do a six-spoke template very easily, but you could set out as many as you need with a protractor. For the smaller wheel on the other side of the crane, I took an easier route and just drilled out the space between the spokes. Again this was done with care, but wasn't difficult. The wheel snapped off its spigot easily and was then glued back on once the work was done. The spokes were white plastikard, and where I'd drilled away the resin, it had turned yellow-ish. So I painted the wheels matte black for the time being although I may come back to them with dark stone or rust. The next thing is to work out how to rig the crane! It appears that the real one is presently unrigged, so that's no help. The two wheels are offset from the centreline of the jib, so I presume the rope or chain wouldn't go round them. Presumably the main one is just a flywheel, to keep the gear turning smoothly when the crane is being operated.

A quick update on this project. The chassis is now pretty much done barring a few odds and ends like couplings and attention is now turning to the superstructure. Again there is not much to say about the chassis build - it went together as per Nigel's comprehensive instructions... although I do prefer to get things running and tested at the earliest possible stage whereas the instructions save the installation of the worm until quite late in the day. One part that did prove niggly this time was the brakegear etch. I don't know why but having had no problems with this part on the Manor, it caused the Hall's chassis to jam and it took quite a lot of trial and error and tweaking to get the coupling rods to stop hitting the brake blocks and finally discover that the back of one of the crankpins was also hitting one of the etched cosmetic springs. I also discovered while trying to trace a squeaking noise that the front end of the footplate was sitting too low and the front splasher was fouling the driving wheel flanges so it was quite difficult to turn the leading axle by hand. Surprisingly this seemed to be having little effect on the running. This must be down to the chunky motor and the high gear ratio in the drive train. Anyway that issue has been sorted by adding in 15 thou of packing to raise the front end a little. The wobbly middle tender axle seemed to be not too much of an issue when the Hall was tried on St Ruth. I was hoping to pad out the bearings somehow but having measured the pinpoint dimples I'm now less convinced that their depth is the main problem. They are most definitely bigger in diameter though, hence the extra play in the axle. Padding the bearings doesn't seem to be a very easy option and attempts so far have been unsuccessful. It has now had some 36SWG phosphor bronze springs added which should resolve the vertical play but not the fore and aft movement. We'll see how it goes. Having done most of the chassis jobs I then immediately set about attacking the body. I was anxious to not allow myself the excuse of leaving the loco in its factory finish ad infinitum (i.e. like the Manor) and given that it said 'Great Western' in large letters on the tender side, it would have been very out of place on St Ruth. Work on the body so far has included removing the Dapol etched plates - I was worried about this job but they pinged off with relatively little fuss when subjected to firm pressure parallel with the cab sides and applied to their top or bottom edges using a small screwdriver, the hope being that Dapol's glue was weak when subjected to shear forces (it worked anyway). Another bit of uncharted territory was erasing the pre-1948 elements of the livery. Having read up on the subject, I tried using T-Cut. After over half an hour I'd only erased perhaps half of the Bristol coat of arms on one tender side so I gave this up as a bad job. It also left a very gloss finish and a 'ghost' where the printed crest had been. After trying white spirit and IPA on a cocktail stick with little discernable impact I finally resorted to more severe methods. Some time back I'd managed to buy (probably by mistake) a pack of No. 15 Swann Morton blades. These are small things with a convex curve to their cutting edges. Sticking a new one of these in the scalpel and carefully dragging it across the lettering showed immediate progress and the finish left behind was not terribly different from the original Dapol finish. It's still taken a lot of time but I'm very pleased with the results. In some places I've also used some tiny strips of 1200 grit wet & dry to even out the finish. I've also attacked the firebox lining but have concentrated on trying to remove as much of the orange as possible, which has been tricky where the lining paint has slightly 'missed' the moulded band. I'm less worried about removing the black. There are also some very inaccessible bits of the rearmost band that I've left alone. Time will tell whether these come back to haunt me. ...Which reminds me... I still need to remove the buffer beam number. The moulded handrails have been pulled away from most of the boiler. Some of the knobs popped out of their holes nicely, others snapped. I didn't have much choice here because one of the knobs had already snapped so I needed to gain some clearance to be able to fix that. I'm still not too happy with the size of the joggle on the left hand side of the smokebox but I'm not sure what can be done short of replacing the entire handrail which I don't want to do. Finally the moulded coal has been cut out of the tender and the edges cleaned back to allow a real coal load to be added. I've taken this back flush with the insides of the tender moulding so a small strip of the original 'coal' remains but hopefully this will be covered up when the real coal is added. A couple of photos in its current condition.

The ex-SECR brake van kits are very nearly complete now. Just a few minor paint touches to fix up and some varnish and weathering to go, and they will be finished. I have used the Cambridge Custom Transfers sheet 2b/c to add the lettering on the two vans, although some of it was just guesswork as to where it should go as there is a distinct absence of good photos of them in BR days (non-preserved state). They have both ended up as van S55476/DS55476 but I can doctor one of those numbers later.

In my first post on the modular fiddle yard design I mentioned B8 turnouts had been chosen for the fiddle yard. There is very good reason for this which I can now show. For several weeks I have been working on a few designs for 2mm finescale flat bottom turnout construction fixtures. I started off with Templot to create the turnout drawing then imported this into Autocad as a DXF. This is where the fun began as I had to change some sleeper spacings in order to incorporate a 'hidden' moving sleeper to change the turnout. While this is nowhere near accurate, it suits me and removes the headache of soldering thin wire to the switch blades, feeding them under the baseboard surface and connecting to some sort of operating unit before it even connects to the motor to change it! The above is what I came up with. Some of you will notice it looks like a carbon copy of a Fast Tracks turnout fixture. This is no coincidence as after speaking to a few firms based in the UK I soon realised it would cost from £150 per fixture and all they would do is create a part from my drawing. The risk going down this route was my drawings may not be as accurate as I thought despite my best intentions. I then spoke to Tim Warris of Fast Tracks and he said there would be no problem converting my drawings into proper working fixtures but he would require a sample of rail to ensure the tolerances were perfect. This was sent off to Canada and two weeks later I had a package with my four turnout fixtures, a 'Frog Helper Tool', No8 and N010 frog/switch filing block and a 'Stockaid' tool to file away the foot of the flat bottom rail: While not cheap, I know these are exactly what I wanted and have been tweaked by the guy who produces these for a living to North American prototypes. These tools will likely last my whole modelling life and hopefully produce hundreds of turnouts. They are designed to work in exactly the same way as their American counterparts in that you have several key copper clad sleepers which slot into the machined pockets, the flat bottom rail slots into the grooves ensuring the 9.42mm gauge is maintained perfectly to allow you to solder the rail onto the copper clad sleepers. Once this has been completed you can proceed with removing the turnout from the fixture: The next stage involves a laser cut sleeper base which I have also designed from the same drawings as the fixtures. The few I have at the moment were samples created by Tim Horn and look fantastic but I have since edited the drawing to take the laser kerf into account. This sleeper base is glued to the bottom of the rails: This leaves you with a working turnout and all that is required is a few cuts with a jewellers saw to isolate the frog from everything else so it can be switched. The photo above looks really rough as it is a test turnout and I went a little crazy with my rotary tool while removing blobs of solder from the PCB sleepers. In future I will use a lot less solder and fill the isolation gaps in the PCB sleepers before painting to ensure all the sleepers blend in. This photo shows how much different the turnout is to an American one which is usually created with Tim's fixtures and looks miles better than the Peco Large radius code 55 turnout. The turnout I have built here is a B8 and will be the smallest turnout I will use on any layout. My other fixtures allow me to build C8, C10 and D10 turnouts too so I'm well covered for the future. The lighting isn't great but you can just see the subtle overhang of the class 57 on the curved road of the turnout. This is acceptable to me for a scenic section but I will likely use B8's exclusively in my fiddle yards. This turnout was a rush job but I reckon if I take my time and am careful with the solder I can build a whole turnout in around an hour. I have ran a few wagons and locos with 2mm finescale wheels through this test turnout and they are as smooth as silk. There isn't a bump over the frog and the travel over the switch blades is flawless - Something I never quite managed building by hand! I am currently waiting on an order of rail from the 2mm Association shop which should hopefully arrive tomorrow. If all goes well, I will be demoing these fixtures and tools on the DEMU/Scottish Modellers stand at Model Rail Scotland over the weekend. If you fancy a little look come and have a chat. Cheers Martin (NB: I have no connection with Fast Tracks other than a happy customer)

I have another 8F to do a sound fitting so I thought i'd show how I fit the excellent ABS-230 speaker in the tender First remove the weight and prise off the plastic supports. using a razor saw cut down the rear weight fixing pillar flush. Drill some holes in front and behind the centre wheels. Cement in two small fillets of 1mm plastikard to seal the bottom of what will be the output chamber for the speaker - a couple of nicks in the corners will allow the pickup wires to pass through. Using two layers of 1mm plastikard build up a framework then cut a baffle/top with a nice big hole. Note slot for the rear tender top mounting cut to match where the old weight finished Bond in place fit speaker using "black tak" some more black tak around the inner edge of the tender top seals and prevents vibration Feed two fine black wires through to the loco for the speaker connections and Robert is your Mother's brother

There's been no modelling done in Kernow Towers for some weeks now, because of recent changes to our feline demographic. We've always had two cats in our household for many years, but sadly our 15 year old ginger female had to be put to sleep a few weeks ago due to deteriorating health. We decided to get a new kitten a couple of weeks ago, and in order to manage the introductions to our existing cat, the room that 'Callow Lane' is normally kept in had to be completely re-orientated, and the layout put away upstairs. Coupled with that, the recent leak in a hot water supply pipe embedded in plasterwork immediately the other side of my hobby room has required the clearing out of part of the contents of that room, in order to allow the carpet and floor to dry out. CTMK and I have also been much preoccupied in managing the introductions of the new kitten to the existing cat, a process that is both delightful and fraught. However, there is always RMWeb, and this morning, we appear to have gained a new convert... Here he is in his more normal environment..