jimwal

The weathering looks good Richard. You'll have Monday evenings in the model room now! Meanwhile we'll track your progress on here. Hope everything is ok and we look forward to seeing you soon.

One side of Izal was shiny and useless. Newspaper gives you the satisfaction of adding your contribution to the crap that's printed on many pages already.

Clive , the tools on the layout are ok, just don't do as Keith did a while back. He used a woodworking router in the layout room and covered the track in fine sawdust. Whose locos were first on the layout after that? Colin G's of course! After suitable remarks especially from John R, and a clean of the loco wheels, Keith just happen to mention what he had being doing.

Hi Gibbo, Good work on the Pullmans. Won't you need the kitchen for the motorbike meddling? I understand all the best motorbike rebuilders use the kitchen worktops. Clive's okay, he'll only need his for 'orse repairs.

Or a cardboard box? ..... or is that a duff suggestion!

60's fizzy drink virus in China permitting!!

The terminals are the brush arms, they turn through a right angle to be parallel with each other, either side of the commutator. So if you remove the 'block' moulding too much the brushes may slide out. If you pare it down too much and can see the terminal strips where they enter the motor then it may be a good idea to bind round the end of the motor with insulating tape. This will hold the brushes in place and avoid shorting with the H-D body. The moulding between the tags is separate and retained in place by a spigot within the motor outline. The motor is shared by a number of other Hornby locos introduced about the time of the 8F. The can is the same as the silver motor in many of the 'Railroad' locos though the armature and magnets differ. Jim

Here is my contribution to Clive's DCC (dismantle and cut coaches) part of his thread. As he doesn't do glazing too often here we have one that looks to be all glazing! The model's origin is mostly a 'Maj' plastic kit. these had clear moulded profiled sides and printed vinyl overlays. The overlays got used on a Comet LMS carriage. The sides are useful here being plain with no window or door detail to remove or fill in. It will represent a tool van as converted by the LMS similar to that pictured in Peter Tatlow's Breakdown cranes volume 2. The brass sided vehicle alongside may become a riding van. I believe the crane in the photo had LNER vehicles, so these will be typical rather than spot on. With the Slaters Midland van for the packing timber I will have a complete breakdown van train in period with the livery the crane is in. Jim.

You do look different from when we last saw you Clive.

Many thanks for posting this Paul. Met Fred and yourself at Peterborough show some years ago and purchased one of his last kits, which happened to be the N7 0-6-2T.

Here is my D&S crane, the kit does not include a jib runner wagon. This one is a Kenline kit, not exact but close to the Midland Railway version. It is made of the correct materials; wood body and underframe with metal fittings. The jib rest is scratchbuilt in wood. Numbers and lettering still needs doing.

I have the BR black version and yes, an excellent model. Many thanks go to those who assisted Bachmann in the production of these cranes, with very insignificant compromises in my opinion. The job now is one of research and production of appropriate riding/mess/tool/equipment/packing vehicles to accompany it. I will be using Ratio Midland and LNWR coaches for the time being in the absence of later versions that would be better for the 1950ish to 1960ish timeframe.

On behalf of the Monday night group; All the best for the season and the New Year Clive!

On behalf of Witham club members I can say it was great to see you Clive!. Box shifters I believe are needed to help pay towards relatively expensive venues with reasonable facilities that larger shows use. The carvery lunch was very good. 'The Spirit of Shap' (with three operating timeframes) and 'Bewdley' were decent layouts. The 'Tinplate' layouts seemed to be mostly new 'repro' stuff, proper tinplate would have been much noiser! I think we cleaned out the wagon book from the show with the last two copies from Bill Hudson and Book Law to four of us. I purchased a 52' gangwayed brake, Keith purchased a steel panelled twin set, both from Isinglass. They will get an appraisal at the club. Buying a full brake has been my way of assessing a carriage kit range prior to committing to passenger carrying types. First impressions are that it will need quite a bit of cleaning up, but that body shape should be good given the pedigree of the research. Jim

The size of the show may influence what you look at. A big event like Warley means you need to prioritise what to view whereas a smaller event may give more time look at the rest. Like Clive I model a specific time period though I will take a general interest outside of that. Seeing Andy's photos reminds me of those who did overseas layouts years ago because 'they run better than the British trains'. Now we see modern British layouts looking all bright and toy like. Mention on 'Wright Writes' of photography matters reminds me I must drum up enthusiasm to picture some of my work, I'd far sooner be modelling! Jim

Richard didn't bring his soldering iron to the club so it was down to suggestions much as on here. Also mentioned was perhaps he had been sold one with an aluminium bit!

Not PDK unless they changed the design. The PDK kit I have has on one part fret marked; '72xx Heavy Tank By P. A. Hill'. The nickel silver chassis is a fold up arrangement without separate spacers. There are witemetal castings for cylinders, firebox and boiler over the tanks plus smaller details.

Those carriages will look very good and complete time you come to running them. You are permitted a run without glazing if you wish to show off the seats and tables! Jim

Good to see you Clive!, unfortunately we missed Ian. Our first visit and a very good show all round, we also enjoyed the braised steak meal.

First time visit, arrived at 11am just as the queue had cleared. Very good show indeed plus excellent refreshments. Keith T and myself enjoyed the braised steak. Good to meet up with Rob and Jon, also Tony and Mo on their respective demo stands, and Clive M who lurks in places about here.

I think there could be shades of brown in a different way if you tried to run 3 wheel carriages!

Enjoy your six wheel sausages and DCC chips Clive!

First time for me as well. Good layout selection, they all looked good and ran generally well. Plenty of 'box shifters' which may of encouraged competitive pricing, I wasn't looking!. Other trade was a little weak to be honest. The walkways were a bit tight though it was fairly busy earlier on. I thought the catering was basic but service was quite fast. The main problem was a shortage of seating which led to many, including our group (one in his eighties) standing to eat food. Jim

I apologise Clive for failing to inform you of our visit. I blame myself for being too busy fixing everyone's broken shelves, cupboards, toilets etc because no one does d-I-y anymore it seems. Plus broken trains from our local model shop and Colin G! Perhaps we should find time to visit you one day. Jim.

Well done Clive! I think you've been missing regular club meets. Jim.