Stoker

To be completely fair though mate, whether or not people do or don't complain about RMweb probably doesn't have much impact on Covid or the Russian offensive. But by all means, if you'd like to lead by example and give up complaining until the world is finally at peace, then who am I to stop you? Be the change you want to see in the world! You can do it Dudders old mate, I believe in you!

I saw your initial video about these when you posted it on youtube, and I have to say they've come out looking really good! They're a nice fit size-wise for the Baldwin. May I ask what you're using for wheels?

I'm in touch with a handful of chaps who used to work in the industry, and stuff like this comes up in conversation occasionally. A photo of Fowey was being discussed and the powerhouse just happened to be in the background, so it got a mention - I remembered that you'd asked about these buildings so I took the opportunity to ask. One of them was an electrician, and the old electrical system at Fowey was a maintenance nightmare, so he was involved in doing a lot of upgrades which included taking things like the battery house and powerhouse out of circuit.

Lifesaver Neil, many thanks!

Would anyone happen to have one of these they'd be able to put a ruler to? I'm looking for the wheelbase and wheel diameter. Cheers.

If anyone is interested, I've now found the answer to this question. That building was the battery house, it stored just enough juice to keep the harbour running and the lights on during occasions when the generators were shut down. Also it seems that by the 1950s, possibly earlier, the water tank was removed from in front of the power house and substituted for a larger tank up the hillside.

Did you take a look at the Tralee & Dingle chassis? IIRC those wagons were about 15 feet long.

In my opinion N scale stuff doesn't work well for 4mm narrow gauge, it's just a bit too small. Compare N scale wagon chassis to a proper 009 kit and the difference is quite obvious. Narrow gauge was small but it wasn't THAT small. You might be able to get away with it in 3mm scale, or 1:120, but that's about as big as I'd go with it. I'd say your best bet would probably be to look at Dundas kits here. Their range has a number of wagon chassis, I'd wager at least one of those would be suitable.

As a Cornishman, for me it's the Trevithick loco. It was the first locomotive in history, I think no more needs to be said. Trevithick also invented and demonstrated the first road locomotive in 1801. Between his static engine, rail and road inventions, he could be said to've been the most influential inventor in all of human history. It's a crime that he isn't credited.

A lot of that is due to the model not being hollowed, which uses not just considerably more material, but more time. This slows down not just the model you want to print but anything else they fit on the same build plate, as they often do multiple orders at once. Shapeways likes to keep their printers as productive as possible so if your model stays on their build plate for a long time, you're essentially holding up their profits, and so they charge a premium for that. There's also the matter of cleanup - Shapeways has guidelines for making their life easier, and some people just refuse to follow it, resulting in a complex cleanup process and yep - more time. My hope is that the model will be reasonably good value for money as I've made sure to hollow it and keep support material cleanup to a minimum. We'll see. Worst case scenario, if Shapeways can't do it then I'll print it myself and just mail them to the people that want them.

Trevor, thought you might be interested to see a progress update on the Muir Hill LH1 loader that I've been working on. There's still a fair bit to do on it, such as the grilles and finishing off the hydraulics, as well as some small nuts-and-bolts detail, but there's enough of it done at this point to be able to show it off. It's been a bit of a tricky task as I basically had to scale it almost entirely from photographs, apart from some leading dimensions I was able to find on google. Despite this I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out, and will no doubt print one or more for use on my own layout when that comes to fruition. These machines were ubiquitous in the industry in the mid 50s to mid 70s (possibly even before then) and a preserved example can even be found on display at Wheal Martyn. The finished product will be quite tiny in 4mm scale - approx 42mm long, 17mm wide, and 25mm high. If the cost is not prohibitive, I think it will make sense to have it available to be printed in a batch 3 or 4, each in a variety of "poses", such as bucket tilted up, bucket raised, and bucket tipped. This will allow for some photographic/scenic variety, as the mood strikes.

Blimey I wish I had a long lost brother who'd kindly just appear to me from out of the bushes, bag of authentic Burngullow clay in hand. Jokes aside though, yes there genuinely are piles of 1960s era clay still sat in the dry! The bagging house next to it also still has a couple of 2 CWT hessian sacks full of clay that never got loaded onto a van, and the smaller dry next to the Frank Parkyn dry still has clay on the pan that never got shovelled into the linhay. Quite remarkable, just left how it was for the last 50+ years.

Winter is actually the best time to go to Burngullow West or indeed any abandoned clay works in my experience, due to the seasonal foliage reduction! It's probably a bit more overgrown since I was last there just over 6 years ago, but you should still be able to see quite a lot. If you drive down to the terrace by the bridge you'll find there's ample room to park, and from there you could theoretically just walk straight onto the site, not that any law abiding man would do that. There's also a small lane that runs behind the settling tanks, and if you go down that you'll come across a gate which provides access to the Frank Parkyn dry that has the square chimney... not that you'd hop such a gate, good heavens! It's a lovely gate and I highly recommend that you stop and admire the gate. But if you were to hop such a gate, just as a for instance and in theory, I'd think you'd be smart to bring a clipboard with pen and paper, trundle wheel (if you're interested in taking some longer measurements), tape measure, high viz vest, and hard hat. All very cheaply acquired, excellent "credibility props", and it gives you the tools to measure things out. Anyone who sees you will simply assume you're some kind of surveyor or consultant and leave you well alone. But who would do such a thing? Because of course, trespassing is a civil offence and I'm not suggesting, encouraging, or advocating that you or anyone do such things, you naughty man. So as you can see I am clearly being sarcastic about all of that. I'm sure you'll be able to see plenty from the public road, and won't find reason to be tempted to inspect further.

Evergreen won't work for that method and I actually don't rate the stuff at all. It's horrendously expensive, comes in tiny sheets of only one per pack, the sheets themselves are way too thick, and the actual corrugation is mediocre to say the least... more like grooves than corrugations. In my opinion you'd be best off with either Slaters, Plastruct, or JTT models. The grain elevator slash feed mill in that photo was done using the JTT models product, and my only complaint with them is that their sizing is wrong - the HO scale product is actually closer to O scale, believe it or not what you see in the photo there is what they label "n scale"! But the nice thing is you get several to a pack so it's actually quite affordable. It's been an absolute aeon since I've used either Slaters or Plastruct, but I seem to recall their corrugated sheets are also sold in packs of multiple sheets, and I remember being quite pleased with them as well. As for moss, yeah in the 50's there would've been little to none. I've attached a photo of Anchor Clay Company's Mellangoose dry that was taken in the 50s to give you some idea. This was a coal fired dry at this time, very similar to the one you've built on your layout. Little known fact, Anchor were a subsidiary of APCM, the same outfit responsible for Blue Circle Cement, and had entered the clay industry to secure a supply of clay as an additive for a product called Snowcrete, which they still make today. By 1964 they'd built a little oil fired rotary dryer here with an output of about 5 tons per hour, and this ended up being the last source of traffic from the Retew branch in 1981. Also quick edit to add that the clerestory on the linhay is indeed usually quite simple. For reference I've added a cross section of Burngullow West that I drew from field measurements, which shows how the clerestory is timbered off the main rafters. In terms of what would be ideally visible on the model at normal viewing distances, just as with the real thing you'd really only be able to see the ends of the clerestory rafters. That would be pretty simple to replicate with some styrene strip.

One way you could make your life quite a bit easier for yourself with the clay dry roof is to go for corrugated asbestos and just repeat the sponge method with the same colours as the cement render on the terrace. I have an extremely effective method for constructing this type of roof using rows of approx 6'6" scale height corrugated styrene sheet laid on thin styrene strip battens to prop up their lowermost edge, simulating horizontal overlap. If you wish to really go all-out on it, you can also simulate the individual sheet vertical laps by cutting each sheet such that one side finishes on a ridge while the other finishes on a valley, the end result being a visible lap when butted against each other. This is a somewhat time consuming process especially on a large roof, but if you take your time and keep everything square, the end result is really something else and will rival Wills Scenic injection molded sheets. The other nice thing about it is that because it is best done using thicker styrene sheet as a substrate, the whole thing can be designed to lift off in one solid piece to provide interior access. Here's an example of how it looks with just the horizontal laps. This is a US grain elevator/feed mill structure that I'd been working on a few years ago where I first tested the method. Alongside this I also did a test sheet for the vertical laps that came out quite well, but I ended up not using it on this structure as I felt it was actually a tad oversize for HO and especially for how nearly-invisible the vertical laps are on corrugated steel. Corrugated asbestos has more thickness to it which makes the laps a bit more pronounced, although to be honest I think you could use either method on your clay dry and still end up with a very impressive structure.