Leaderboard

Tweedale has acquired a temporary appendage. Ultimately it will form part of a small tabletop modular system seperate from the Tweedale theme, but for now it provides a run round loop for the layout, which allows operation with just one loco rather than the usual two. The plan below shows how it fits in with the rest of Tweedale... I've tried to keep the length of the run round loop as short as possible. With a capacity of 2 short-wheelbase wagons, a small turntable at one end and a wheel-screaming 6 inch radius point at the other, it just fits into 18 inches. The photo below shows the standard end pieces that will be used for the modular system. The piece at the right is the master, on which a short length of track has been carefully centred. Other end pieces are then made up so they fit the master and their rails align. In theory they should all then line up with each other, and any number of modules could be plugged together in any configuration. One end piece has been glued to the new baseboard at the left, and the other one at the top has since been attached to the main layout board. I never fail to be amazed at what one can get away with in 00. The point is a case in point (so to speak), and breaks nearly all the rules of genteel point construction. Two parallel straight lines were drawn 16.5mm apart on a piece of paper. On another piece of paper the curved rails were drawn with a compass. The latter drawing was then glued on top of the former and the straight lines traced through onto the top sheet where covered. Sleeper spacing was marked every 10mm. That gave me the template for the point. With no transitions, a sharply curved point blade and a crossing angle of about 1 in 1.8, it sounds like a recipe for disaster, yet it actually works. A bit of tweeking of the check rails and the Bachmann 0-6-0 Drewry shunter lurches around it with no trouble at all. Those curves are no place to be pushing wagons though, so the loop will be purely for the loco to run around its train. The point mechanism beneath the baseboard is shown below. The slide switch provides appropriate power to the point frog. A hole was drilled through the knob of the slide switch and a piece of brass rod glued in, and passed through a hole in the baseboard to the moving-sleeper tiebar on the point. There is enough springiness in the rod to cope with the difference in throws between the slide switch and the tiebar. Scraps of wood and bamboo skewers complete the mechanism. The point will be manually operated by a knob glued to the skewer at the right. Turntable in the next blog. Cheers Alan.

As a break from layout building type stuff (wiring mostly), I decided to turf a kit out of the modelling cupboard that has been there for a while. It's the 'Steam and Things' kit for the Weston Clevedon and Portishead Rilway Drewry Railcar. I'm building it for the WCPR group, having done the Fordson tractor for them a couple of years back. As you may know I've scratchbuilt one of these in EM for my two WCPR layouts so I'm quite familiar with the prototype. I have to be honest here and confess I don't like building stuff in 7mm. It freaks me out a bit. None of my tools work. At least this has 1/8th" axles so I can use my reamer! The kit describes itself as more of a scratch aid kit of parts and I'm not finding it the easiest thing to build. So far this week we've got the body built and more or less complete. The sides have been reinforced with strips of scrap etch to keep the tops and bottoms straight and there's been quite a bit of edge seam soldering. Steps are done and just need attaching to the (presently) quite rudimentary chassis. Thankfully I've got some photos so can add all the brakes and control rods which are missing from the kit, along with quite a few other bits and pieces. And before anyone says anything, yes the wheels were only 2ft in diameter. Hopefully this won't take much longer to do as I'm itching to get back to 4mm!

A key requirement of modelling the post war scene is to have plenty of stock still wearing wartime liveries, a task that is progressing well on the loco front (with the Grange, 42xx and Austerity in black), but nothing on the coaches. So over the past couple of nights (with very little real modelling time to finish the DCC conversions) I have made a start on a few resprays. First of all what is wartime brown? There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer, ranging from almost red oxide to all over GWR chocolate. Most likely it was based around the latter with varying amounts of red oxide added to make the paint last further. As such I am not to worried about the exact shade, more to the point I actually want variation between batches. I aim to achieve this by a combination of different paints, and different primers. The first attempt is Triumph/Rover Russett Brown (Halfords) sprayed over white. In each case the body had lettering and logos sanded down and a light coat of Games Workshop Skull White primer. This was then sprayed with the brown, with lots of thin coats alternating between the 4 coaches in question between coats. So far sprayed is a pair of unmodified Airfix B Sets, I thought long and hard about correcting the fictional guards window on one side, but in the end left it. If there is not an accurate model by the time Brent is finished I will be commissioning etched anyway... This will for, Kingsbridge No 2, for which photos were published in the late 40s showing the Set in this livery. Next was the LH D95 i built the Christmas before last, and finally a Mainline Sunshine Stock Third bought off Tim Easter a few years back debranded that has been sat awaiting finishing ever since. All now need the black ends reprinting, drop lights picking out (still mahogany I assume?) and the roofs reprinting grey (as does the rest of my sunshine stock, and my Hornby colletts). The plan for the latter is a combination of modern image grey paints to get a prototypical mixture of different shades, with Virgin Grey, railfreight grey and BR roof grey in the mix to start off only thing is I need enough time to clear one end of the railway room to set up the spray booth, and still have enough child free time to actually do the spraying (something which is at a premium!)

A class 27 and class 14 on the heritage line. The class 27 bringing in two LMS coaches to collect the visiting public. Taking them on a journey up the heritage line to the next heritage station. The class 14 is shunting a few wagons in to place to show the visiting public how sidings were used and the process of shunting and uncoupling. Two class 08s are seen in the still images as is a Jinty in the loco shed. I have also added some pics of the old advertising signs I have added to the scenery. These were printed off the Internet, weathered with soft pastels and glued on with pritt stick. I again used the soft pastels to make rusty marks running down the wall from the old signs. The signs look old and weathered because the layout is set in present day, but the station was in use during the 1930s up until the 1980s. https://youtu.be/58ICUpMoI5M

Well, a month on and we've made more progress. All the track (approx 180 metres) for the lower level is now down, electrified and tested. In addition to the existing Guagemaster cased twin track unit, a new Gaugemaster twin track UDS controller has been bought to replace the old Duette (which I'm using to run the slow action point motors and to motorise the turntable). 4 trains can now run simultaneously which will please the younger family members! The layout is currently divided into 43 electrical sections, with any one of the 4 controllers able to run any section. Apart from the time it's taken (plus over 500 metres of wire) it's a very simple system. The picture makes it look much more complex than it actually is and any faults are quickly identifiable. The west end of Clapton station (Clapton West box) has also had point motors fitted to the 22 points it controls. Next step is to ensure "resilience" to the sections that will be below the high level baseboards. This includes 9 road and 2 road storage sections, plus a further 30+ points. The track has multiple feeds per section and all points will include polarity switching. The higher level baseboards will be designed to be removable in case of serious issues. I've also been very aware of the need to lay track carefully to ensure smooth running and I'm pleased to say that 30-40 wagon goods trains pass over all the junctions very well (so far....). No scenery yet..... I'm not intending to do much on that front until all the basics (track, wiring and point motors) are installed and working correctly. Following that, it's down to installing point motors in the storage yards and other sections that will ultimately become hidden.

A while back I started a project to use the Hornby GWR Castles Tintagel and Wellington to convert to Berkeley and Nunney Castles. Berkeley Castle has been covered previously, while Nunney Castle has sat waiting for me to work out how I would deal with the new design of nameplate Hornby have been using. I started by snapping the glue connection between body and splasher, to remove the existing name plate. After slightly distressing the brass beading around the edge of the Hornby plate, the Modelmaster's etch was glued into place. This follows the usual method of cutting the plate away from the mounting bracket. Once dry the excess brass (circa 1mm on each side of the plate) was then filed back to match the new etch, with a touch of filler needed to tidy up the gap between old and new etch before gluing back onto the loco body. Moving onto the cab sides, the rivets were carefully scraped off to give a flat surface to glue to etch to. About half a mm of printing also needed to be removed as the printed plates were a fraction bigger than the etch, which was then glued into place. Finally the buffer beam, numbers were removed with IPA and replaced with HMRS transfers. the 4000g Collett tender was next up, with the removal of the underframe lining (along with a touch up with some black paint). As per Berkeley Castle a little extra work was needed to convert the loco to tender drawbar to match loco and tender (using the leftovers from the previous loco). While the tender was on the bench a Lenz Gold was fitted (nice and easy) and the coal load removed ready for its real coal replacement (at some point) There is still one final job remaining, the area below the nameplate still shows the "Castle Class" plate from Wellington. My lining ability isnt great (and the need to repaint means matching Hornbys "GWR Green" which is nothing of the sort... My plan is to commission a transfer exactly the size of the plate, coloured in Hornby green with lining in place. In the mean time I can live with the small error...

It's been a while as the summer gets in the way of modelling but I'm back in the loft ironing out the faults and checking my part finished projects. 37033 passes 407 in the bay at Meanach.

Well managed to go to the European Model Ex in Brum and catch up with a few friends and have a good beer. Time short to do anything else but someone once told me , just do a bit at a time its all progress. So the two images are of a small water tower and level crossing kit built today . they have just been plonked onto the layout for the picture. They are Auhagen plastic kits which are great value. But a little bit of progress ...

I finally managed an hour of modelling late this evening after the baby finally went to sleep, (so much for making it to the Chipping Sodbury Club as planned...) Anyway, with the weather as cold as it is, I didnt fancy a trip to the garage which means it was not possible to do the remaining work on the H26. That left a choice between starting the A20 Large Window All First (and having to finally form that tumblehome), or renumbering my second Hornby King. Given the title of this blog post it is clear which option I went for..... Today I received some 70% concentrate IPA Alcohol (from Amazon) which having read good things elsewhere on RMWeb that it is possible to use this stuff to remove printing without the shinyness you get with Microsol etc I thought I would give a try. After trying varying concentrates less than 70% without any success, I used the IPA neat from the bottle (100% IPA can be a good paint stripper so be careful!) After application I tried rubbing with a cocktail stick as directed with no success, instead having to use a dull scalpel to gently scrape off the old lettering. Unfortunatly it did still leave a shiny patch (so a coat of satin varnish will still be required), however it shifted a lot quicker than on my other King using Microsol. In fact I did find later on that a combination of the IPA first to remove the bulk, followed by the Microsol to shift the leftovers worked rather well. The footplate lining was removed using the same method, except for those parts over rivets which refused to shift. In these places the lining was simply over painted with a tin of Humbrol Satin Black. New transfers were added (HMRS) and it now awaits name plates (ordered from Modelmasters in their Black Friday sale.) I have removed the splasher / name assembly from the model to start working out how the hell I am going to fit the new name. At the moment I am thinking I will cut along the inner edge of the Hornby plate to remove the mount and splasher from the plate. then glue the new one in place behind it. I do wish Modelmasters would just include a transfer for the lining (or better yet the splasher as well) so you can directly replace the Hornby... While the model was on the work bench I also got on and completed another critical task, taking the model apart to fit a DCC decoder. I was pleasantly surprised how easy the job was. a Lenz Gold was soon plugged into position and it is now ready for testing... While looking for the decoder I found an ESU sound decoder with two wires broken off that I had been trying to fix a couple of years ago. Now on the bench to have another crack at soldering them back on (before testing to see if I have fried it or not with my rubbish soldering!) If it works, it will get reblown with King sounds and fitted to King Richard I (otherwise it will probably get a TTS decoder). I want a couple of sound locos for my daughters to play with, and TTS should be perfectly adequate for that. Just so long as I dont end up wanting more full fat decoders for myself..... One final note, I am now running out of G W R / G crest W HMRS transfers, but have 2 full sets of Great crest Western. Does anyone modelling the pre war period have the opposite problem with lots of unwanted G W R / G crest W transfers want to swap?

After finally getting the baby to bed at half 11 last night there wasn't much time to work on the coach, with the corridor ends, roof detail and buffers now added. I did find the castings a little poor quality, lots of flash and requiring a lot of straightening on the corridor connection. It looks like the coach body isn't quite sitting square on the chassis yet, so that is the next task planned. Then it's a choice of sorting the interior or cutting those gas tanks to size

Hmm.. July 2015... apparently that's when I started on this particular project http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/100931-riveted-oil-tanks-in-2mm-scale I've not said anything more about it on here since then... mainly because until a few days back I had no idea whether or not it was going to succeed or fail. Rather than theorising further about whether this would or would not work as a 3d print I decided to take a punt and had it printed when Shapeways had a free postage offer in the spring. The result looked OK but I still didn't know whether it would work as a model when painted with metallic siver - a finish notoriously unforgiving of surface defects. To cut a long story short it took 3 rounds of priming and sanding the tank I decided to go for the top coats. Although I'd given the tank a day in the summer sun to cure any uncured resin, I still chickened out of using Alclad on this one. Instead after perusing the Tamiya stocks at my local Hobbycraft I went for a coat of gloss black (X1) followed by metallic Titanium Aluminium (X32) which seemed to have a nice fine particle size, at least looking at the bottom of the pot. Tests on some scrap plastic tube for comparison with previous Alclad tests looked promising. The end result on the tank looked rather snazzy, although rather too loud to be left like that. After decals (from my own artwork to make sure they lined up between the riveted seams), varnish, weathering and a lot of 'knitting' to get the whole thing put together, it went on parade at the Association AGM along with the Air Ministry tank and a Stephen Harris 35T tank and won the John Barker trophy. A few photos from the build below. The last couple show the tank qith primer before any sanding and then with its gloss black coat. I didn't take any when it was in unweathered silver. Pity really.

Hi everyone, Just found my way on to the site. Presently building a model of Camden MPD with modified track plan owing to the usual space restrictions in 00 gauge. Started from scratch in the garage 4 yrs ago as a solo modeller so progress is fairly slow. To date, the track is laid and wired for DCC operation.Some ballasting has been done. All points and diamond crossings are hand built using copperclad sleepers and code 75 rail. I started to build a reduced size engine last year but that was a disaster as the glue used warped everything badly. To help things along iv`e scratch built the Ash Hoist and am 90% into the coal tower both made in plasticard. Ladders need to be fitted to the coal tower and the small control cabins made then both stuctures sprayed and weathered. Iv`e included a few pictures of the two models.