jwealleans

I Will Dance (When I Walk Away) - Katzenjammer

I use PB and nickel silver for pickups - both have their advantages and their place. I've been beavering away with loco cleaning and stock testing over the weekend and up to last night. Checking stock for free running and obvious damage - not overly onerous but there's a lot to cover. There was the usual round of repairs too: the cattle wagon had lost its couplings at both ends, the RTR wagon was tight on the wheelsets and needed a bearing recessing a little, the carriage didn't roll well and turned out to still have the masking tape on the wheels from when the bogie was sprayed (it's done 3 shows like that), the H & B van lost an axleguard when I was taking the wheels out to oil them and I had to glue the W iron back on again. The GN horsebox had lost the door controller and the brake van had a cracked gearbox (which is what they call the Kadee mounting/pivoting affair). I also had two roofs coming adrift in the Scotch Goods stock and a corridor handrail fallen off one of the carriages. We've come back from shows with much worse. Loco-wise I had a couple of failed solder joints on loco-tender connections but that was about all. One of them was on a Hornby pacific, which is unusual. I'm back up to Grahams this weekend for some more testing so we ought to be in fair shape for Bristol.

Banana Republic - Boomtown Rats

You're not wrong, you can lose some of the subtlety. This is one of mine (the Cambrian D178, actually) before and after weathering. The camera has lost some of the effect as well, but you can see that it does blend and lose the small plank variations.

I disagree, Steve. It's nice and subtle as it should be. I think it's a bit clean overall, but I'd be really pleased with that if I'd done it. Humbrol 160 is a good tip too, tvm.

Written In The Water - Gin Wigmore

Indiana Wants Me - R Dean Taylor

Morning Tony, I thought you might like a look at this, which I acquired last week on Ebay. I'm just a sucker for a C1, I suppose. I thought it looked good enough to be worth finishing off and having it in my hands confirmed that impression. I have no idea how old it is or who made it, though I don't think it's recent. I take my hat off to those who can scratchbuild to this standard. It ran surprisingly well, though it'll need a modern mechanism fitting. I wondered whether the mech might give an idea as to it's age? I've never seen one like this before and I'd have suggested it was homebrewed except that it has Romford and a number stamped into the brass frame.

Morning Nick, I was reading this at the weekend as I had a (mainly) LRM J21 in my hand. I bought it from Tony Wright last year. It was old enough to be the George Norton kit (I think that's where this originated?) but built with no sideplay and with the motor built into the frames, so I bought new frames from John and started again. On the tender, I found there was room to put copperclad pads at the outside top of the frames and have pickups resting on the top of the wheels. I prefer this as it keeps them right out of the way when you're cleaning wheels and means they can't get bent or tangled in trackwork. You can see them here. If you need a better picture when you go back to the tenders just let me know.

I usually watch Dan's kits when they come up just to marvel at the stupid money they fetch. I did once try telling people they could get them much cheaper from John, from the GCRS or from Dan himself, but in the end I gave up.

Walk Don't Run - The Surfrajettes

Better Sit Down Boy - Confidence Man

I Gotta Find Me Somebody - The Vel-vets

Love Over And Over - Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Sorry to jump back a post, but this... ... leading carriage is either NER or one of the LNER built ones immediately after Grouping for the GE Area.

The embedded link should take you straight to them on Peter's website.

I've been working on Grantham stock after York and before Bristol. There were the usual issues with things breaking or needing attention, though not as many as usual. There has been some thought devoted to managing the way locomotives are allocated to trains on the layout. There's a feeling we were below par at York and while some of the running problems we had on Saturday were down to the layout and were resolved or at least improved until permanent repairs were possible, some were down to less experienced operators sending out inappropriate locomotives. Those of us who've been with the layout from the start have got used to seeing certain engines on certain trains and use them again almost without thinking about it. New operators don't have that exposure and can't tell just by looking how good a performer a loco might be or what it's best used for. That most especially applies to engines which go onto and come off shed. Graham has therefore devised a system of testing and classifying engines for mainline/non-stop use only and then for stopping trains and on/off shed. We spent last Sunday with part of the layout erected and a test through the more taxing parts of the dead frog pointwork in place which the two crates of engines I'd taken up there were put through. Hopefully the end result will bear fruit at Bristol. Immediate effect is the addition of tender pickups to a couple of engines: 17 is a Bachmann K3 which was part of Tom Foster's stud for Leaman Road. When Tom changed modelling direction, he sold it to me. Tony Wright had built a new mechanism for it and fitted a brass cab from SEF. The original tender had been retained. I finished it off and it's worked mineral trains on Grantham ever since. Although it will never go onto shed, having only screw link couplings, it does need to work it's way through some long ladders of points and crossovers and (whisper it in case Sir hears) was slightly hesitant in places. Bachmann tenders are dead easy to fit pickups to, the biggest nuisance is often cleaning paint off the back of the wheels. I use copperclad sleepers as a base as they're readily available and a convenient shape for what's needed. I've mentioned the the plugs before; they're from Peter's Spares and work very well imo. The O1 worked very well over the York weekend, but it was slated to have extra pickups fitted and you can't ever have too many, really. Kit built tenders can be a bit more of a challenge if pickups haven't been designed in when they were built, but this one wasn't a problem. I spent part of yesterday working through my crate of Hornby pacifics and a couple of those had to have the tenders dismantled and the pickups cleaned and tweaked. It's funny how they conspire to lose contact even though they're way up in the frames and you'd have thought away from anything which might bend or distort them. Finally a genuine fault. C1 3275, a performer on the layout since Day 1, was reported as being 'unhappy' in reverse. Testing here proved this to be true so onto the bench it came. 3275 came to me as 3249, one of a pair of EM gauge K's kits, really nicely built by someone a long time ago. Of the pair this was the better in that the K's motor still worked, but it had to be converted to OO and as part of that I reworked it such that the cylinders were part of the frames rather then the body - as designed you had to thread the crossheads back into place every time the body went back on. It was also repainted to a more accurate shade of green. On examination today, one of the small sleeper lengths used to mount the pickups had detached from the underside of the chassis. You can see it below, it's the upper one. It's now been epoxied back into place. You can also see here the brass extension I added to the K's chassis to carry the stretcher for the cylinders.

Something of a modelling hiatus, but this week I've been working on Grantham stock after York and before Bristol. There were the usual issues with things breaking or needing attention, though not as many as usual. There has been some thought devoted to managing the way locomotives are allocated to trains on the layout. We were below par at York and while some of the running problems we had on Saturday were down to the layout and were resolved or at least improved until permanent repairs were possible, some were down to less experienced operators sending out inappropriate locomotives. Those of us who've been with the layout from the start have got used to seeing certain engines on certain trains and use them again almost without thinking about it. New operators don't have that exposure and can't tell just by looking how good a performer a loco might be or what it's best used for. That most especially applies to engines which go onto and come off shed. Graham has therefore devised a system of testing and classifying engines for mainline/non-stop use only and then for stopping trains and on/off shed. We spent last Sunday with part of the layout erected and a test through the more taxing parts of the dead frog pointwork in place which the two crates of engines I'd taken up there were put through. Hopefully the end result will bear fruit at Bristol. Immediate effect is the addition of tender pickups to a couple of engines: 17 is a Bachmann K3 which was part of Tom Foster's stud for Leaman Road. When Tom changed modelling direction, he sold it to me. Tony Wright had built a new mechanism for it and fitted a brass cab from SEF. The original tender had been retained. I finished it off and it's worked mineral trains on Grantham ever since. Although it will never go onto shed, having only screw link couplings, it does need to work it's way through some long ladders of points and crossovers and (whisper it in case Sir hears) was slightly hesitant in places. Bachmann tenders are dead easy to fit pickups to, the biggest nuisance is often cleaning paint off the back of the wheels. I use copperclad sleepers as a base as they're readily available and a convenient shape for what's needed. I've mentioned the the plugs before; they're from Peter's Spares and work very well imo. The O1 worked very well over the York weekend, but it was slated to have extra pickups fitted and you can't ever have too many, really. Kit built tenders can be a bit more of a challenge if pickups haven't been designed in when they were built, but this one wasn't a problem. I spent part of yesterday working through my crate of Hornby pacifics and a couple of those had to have the tenders dismantled and the pickups cleaned and tweaked. It's funny how they conspire to lose contact even though they're way up in the frames and you'd have thought away from anything which might bend or distort them. Finally a genuine fault. C1 3275, a performer on the layout since Day 1, was reported as being 'unhappy' in reverse. Testing here proved this to be true so onto the bench it came. 3275 came to me as 3249, one of a pair of EM gauge K's kits, really nicely built by someone a long time ago. Of the pair this was the better in that the K's motor still worked, but it had to be converted to OO and as part of that I reworked it such that the cylinders were part of the frames rather then the body - as designed you had to thread the crossheads back into place every time the body went back on. It was also repainted to a more accurate shade of green. On examination today, one of the small sleeper lengths used to mount the pickups had detached from the underside of the chassis. You can see it below, it's the upper one. It's now been epoxied back into place. You can also see here the brass extension I added to the K's chassis to carry the stretcher for the cylinders.

Down In The Tube Station At Midnight - The Jam

Keep The Customer Satisfied - Simon and Garfunkel

I saw this on FB. That wood effect is outstanding. What did you use?

The Golden Age - Asteroids Galaxy Tour

Your Greatest Shade Of Blue - The Adventures

Here's a challenge for Clive.... Good luck finding a corner of the layout to sneak that diorama into.

Well, you're not wrong. Can't get the Mrs to go for that blue rinse look.