Leaderboard

Still fine details to attach and dereliction around the base, came out a bit more corroded than I wanted, and needs a matt varnish. Thanks for looking.

So I've not added to my blog recently but have been busy. The major scenic work is complete and I'm just adding little bits here and there. This means I can get on with weathering stock and locomotives. Meanwhile an idea is growing in my mind for my next layout. The wife says this one has to go first which is fair enough as I live in a small house, but this will be some time away, I'm thinking O gauge!!!! I've took a few photo's of how it stands at the moment.

I've done a bit more on the little 0-4-0 ... if you haven't seen any of my previous posts it's based on a heavily chopped up Hornby "Smokey Joe" body. I wanted to use a livery which bore some connection with the Corris Railway, even though in my version of History the Corris "main line" would have been replaced by standard gauge. The idea is that my little loco is working one of the remnants of the lines feeding the "main" line with the products of the few remaining slate quarries north of Aberlefenni. The original livery of the Corris locos is open to some question, at least the exact shade, so I have plumped for something like Indian Red, though it will eventually be weathered fairly heavily so the exact shade is not that important. I have done lining by hand many years ago with a bow pen, and the result was reasonably good although it took me ages correcting blemishes; this time around I decided to take some short cuts and use computer decal printing paper. I created the artwork for the lining in Adobe Illustrator and printed the results, allowing spare pieces in case of mishaps. The first mishap was not using enough acrylic varnish - result the printer ink washed off as I soaked the decals.. Second time lucky with a bit more varnish and patience while the varnish dried properly. Having applied the decals I mixed up Humbrol colours to match the plain areas of the decals. Here's the result so far. The photograph is very much warts and all!

In between lurching from crisis to crisis at work, I've been making progress with the 43xx chassis. Or is that as respite from the crisis at work... The kit is of Mitchell vintage and must be fairly old since the label on the box has it supplied by Slaters. That's going back a bit. The prototype will be 5311, since I've a very nice photo of it at Wells. Anyhow, I mentioned on some other post that I've made a start on the High Level hornblocks. After that I made up the coupling rods, making sure to allow plenty of solder to try and disguise the layered construction. I then prepared the frames by drilling the CSB fulcrum holes using the High Level jig, then removing the cut outs. After some deliberation I also removed the springs, with the intention of fixing these to some form of keeper plate. I folded up the frame spacers but surprisingly had to fettle these before they'd fit into the chassis frames. With everything nice and square and using a combination of my Avonside jig and some good old fashioned tapered axles, got everything soldered up. I had to do one of the hornblocks twice as curiously I allowed it to drift off from its position. The CSB fulcrums are WD handrail knobs and after fitting these in the pre-drilled holes, I was pleased that the additional holes I drilled in the spacers to let the wire pass through are in the right places. I temporarily put some 11 thou guitar wire through and everything seems to line up nicely. After taking a few snaps, the horn blocks have been dropped out and everything given a good scrub clean. I'm quite pleased with how it's going. Edit grammar and typos

OK so this list is as much a reminder to me as to anyone else of stupid things not to do when doing any work on the railway- if you ever see me doing any of these things please SHOUT at me before I damage something or someone: 1. Don't do anything when in a hurry or tired - if you do then one of the other things listed below will happen 2. Paint must dry before you touch it - unless you like fingerprints everywhere 3. Pressfix transfers are sticky and amazingly they stick to each other if you pull them off the backing sheet to "take a look" 4. Glue sticks things together even if you don't want them to so be careful where you put it 5. Conductive materials conduct electricity so don't use them as insulators 6. ....and of course insulators don't conduct electricity 7. Whitemetal bends and breaks easily and doesn't like a hot soldering iron 8. Metal gets hot when you put a soldering iron on it so be careful what is touching the other end 9. Sharp knives are sharp and cut through skin - the resulting blood spill rarely looks good on models and even less so on the kitchen floor and finally 10. Always put your glasses on - your too old not to! Sigh.... Oh..my wife has told me to add 11. Read the instructions BEFORE attempting anything

Regards Charlie