Sulzer Bear

You have a sound bussiness model to work on, despite having relatively low development costs on a kit they are of superb quality, and the fact that most kits are only two media (brass and white metal), combined with sound CAD development helps to make the kits of this quality at a fair price, and making enough profit for you. I'm currently working on one of your 35t tank cars, and compared to a couple of other kits on my work bench (Celtic Connection SECR Dance Hall and Roxy Mouldings LBSCR 4 wheelers) its a real delight. Despite being cheaper than the other 2 kits mentioned all the detail is present, and everything just fits without the need to fiddle and correct things. The other 2 kits, being from old hand drawn designs have lots of issues with fitting and incorrect or missing detail, I consider those more as scratchbuilding aids, as I have to remake some parts to the correct size, add after market detail parts or have to make up complete brake rigging from scratch because detail on these is rudimentary at best. This often means even trips to a preserved railway to get pictures and measurements of the real thing to get detail right. So I only can give a very big thumb up for all the work you put in designing your kits, and still being able to sell them at the price they are with a decent profit for yourself.

That's a nice built, especialy the underframe and brake rigging came out nice. That was where I was browsing Google for, I needed detailed pics to build some models of LB&SCR coaches in as preserved condition, meaning these are running on modified and shortened PMV underframes. The thing where I really struggled with was the brake rigging, and the pictures in your topic are really helpfull, now I can start stripping everything I already made, because it's all wrong!

A good looking build, considering it's your first etched brass, and having basic experience with kit building altogether, the mistakes made can be learned from and in most cases corrected, even that wheel splasher could, if you can unsloder it with the RSU, otherwise use a small pencil torch, these things often can be picked up for a few quid at DIY stores. The flame is fine enough to heat up just the required part without melting your whole model to bits. Best is to use the coupling rod trick always when installing your axle bearings, with Markits wheels it's quite easy, as the coupling rod ends slip nicely over the threaded ends of Markits axles in most cases. When using Allan Gibson wheels and axles it's a bit more involving, as the axles are the same diameter the whole length the cuopling rods don't slip over, a pair of jigs has to be made from brass sheet, using the coupling rods to find the hole centers, and then drill and ream the holes up to 1/8", the diameter of the axles (need that broach again) There is a J36 and a D40 in my pile,I'm considering the detailed chassis for my J36 as well, so far I've just soldered the boiler seam on one of the kits, and I had some problems with the hardness of the brass too, holding the seam nicely together would just not happen. I solved this by anealing the brass above a gas flame (I used my coocker) and heated the brass carefully untill the color turned blue. After that soldering of the seam was easy, and even when the brass is softer now, after soldering in the smokebox and firebox parts it's rigid enough.

This looks like a top notch kit, built very well, and kept clean well, not a smudge of solder, fingerprints or discoloration in sight.

That's looking lovely, the lining is absolute crisp! I have still a couple of Caley 0-6-0 tender engines in the stash, but going to depict BR era locomotives my painting surely doesn't need as much skill!

Always secure your showcases well!, mine are secured wit 3 inch screws to the wall, to be sure that they are holding in the bricks and not just in the rendering. 20-30 loco's in one cabinet is quite some weight, and having that 5.8 earth quake here in the south of the Netherlands in 1992 which costed me some models made me realize its not only that weight!

A couple of days ago I received my 3 kits from MDR, of the DHR standard four wheel box van. The kits came in a sturdy cardboard box, 3 boxes packed together in a wrap of plastic (old carrier bag?) and tape. However, a note has to be made about the packing of the contents inside the box. The etches are inside a plastic bag, and small cast parts, pins, chain etc. in a separate zip lock bag. Everything has however a lot of space inside the cardboard box to move around. The etches are of very thin brass (10 thou I thougth it was) and vulnerable by its nature. The packet had been thrown around a bit by Royal Mail / Dutch post, and that had led to parts get bent and a couple of small parts broke of, like a couple of the brake shoes. Nothing serious that couldn't be fixed, but a little annoying as it means some extra work. So a little note to Hubert Carr, use some bubble wrap, or crumpled newspaper to prevent the contents in the box from moving around to much. I started building the first one immediatly, and I have one chassis finished so far: The etches are well designed and go together well, once folded up and soldered together the parts get some firmness despite the very thin brass used, there is only some care needed when handling during building to prevent small bits breaking of, like the little tabs sticking out on top of the chassis etch when folded (with the next kit I leave them folded flush with the floor untill they are needed for fitting the body on) There were some issues with the other parts suplied. First the brass pins suplied, a couple should be used to make up the DHR style couplers, however the pins are on the thin side to the eye to represent the drawbar, but more importantly the heads fall trough the 2 larger holes in the knuckles as the holes are of a much larger size, these holes are for the pivot pin making the articulated joint. So I used some different size brass wire from my stock, 0.7mm for the drawbar between the knuckles, and 1mm as pivot pins, I squeezed a flat head on these between a stury pair of pliers, which could be filed down a bit, leaving enough head for not falling trough the holes. The pins will however serve a purpose with the class B kit as EDM had a shortage of these thinner pins! Then moving a bit further on the coupler assembly, I discovered that the white metal casting is 1mm narrower than the etched part that wraps around to secure it to the chassis. The etched part has tabs that fit into location slots in the chassis, and offering that part up to the chassis reveals that the etched part has the correct size. The width of the white metal part is conclusively a bit to narrow. I solved this by clipping the flat part inside the curved loop at one side with Xuron clippers, holding the clippers against the inside of the loop. Clipping it pushes the side of the loop out a little bit, and after straightening the cut up a bit by bending the loop slightly (maintaining the distance) I filled the gap with low melt solder. I repeated this at the other side, and after doing so I ended up with a cast part that was 1,5mm wider, after cleaning the sides up with a file to remove the mould line the required 1mm was left. I moved a bit away from the instructions here. I did not solder the cast part in the etched bracket first, because of the risk of melting the white metal part when soldering the assembly to the chassis, there are however 2 spares with the 3 kits, should disaster happen, thumbs up for that! I soldered the brass bracket to the chassis first, important is to leave the tabs upright, and do not bend them down, as the body has to fit over them as well later on. I soldered the white metal parts in with low melt solder after I had done most of the brass soldering on the chassis, important is to tin the brass parts where you are going to solder with low melt later on. The finished buffers (note that I made the mistake of folding a tab down, I have to remove a bit of the floor of the body for that) When moving on to the axles I bumped into the biggest problem. When trying to fit the axle with top hat bearings between the axle guards it was clear that they were not going to fit, unless I pushed the axle guards out an ungainly 1mm to each side. Note how far one of the bearings is outside the axle guard. Going trough my pile of old railway stuff I found some very old Fleischmann wheelsets, the kind they used with the bent sheet steel bearings. These axles are 24mm long, 2mm shorter than the suplied ones. These will fit in nicely The axles have the same diameter, 2mm, and the wheels of the suplied wheelsets will be pushed onto these instead of the coarse wheels. There are also 2 spare wheelsets suplied with the kits, but all having the wrong lenght axles. The remainder being etched brass construction, I don't expect further problems here, as the fit of the etched parts is good.

From here I'm going to tell about my adventures in 7mm NG, but I will incorporate some NG stuff in Sn3.5 scale (1:64) as well, which is Cape or metre gauge running on 16,5mm track. Being new in this scale, it opens new oportunities for me. It enables me to restart in a subject I had interest for almost as long as I started in the model railway hobby. That has always been the Garratt locomotive, and the South African species of these in particular. However, the SAR "straight" locomotives catched my eyes too, with their characteristic and powerfull lines. In the 1980's I started modelling some SAR locomotives in 3,5mm scale, some out of DJH kits and some scratch built. The DJH kits however were in the wrong gauge of 16,5mm instead of 12mm, and so were the scratch built loco's to match with the kits (I believe DJH does the GMA in 12mm at least now) The fact I was not happy with this wrong gauge anymore after some time, combined with the fact that regauging all the 7 models would be a Herculean task, and that obtaining any information about the rolling stock to scratch build was very hard in these pre-internet days made me loosing interest in that project and I resumed to the Belgian prototype in 3,5mm. A couple of years ago I went to New Zealand twice, and met some people over there active in the Sn3.5 scale NZR prototype. During the holidays and thereafter I have bought several kits of NZR locomotives and rolling stock, and one built locomotive. A couple have been finished now or are under construction. Later on I will show some of these.

Got mine being delivered yesterday, on opening the box I was stunned by the amount of parts for a little 0-4-0 locomotive! But then I started to water when seeing the quality of the kit, lots of cast brass, and crisp nickel silver etchings, no white metal in sight, this model could even been rebuild after being exposed to a fire! While writing in the first part of the instructions that it will not be a step by step instruction, it still is the most comprehensive set of instructions I ever got with a model, and a lot of extra content on the CD as well, in the form of prototype pictures, which already makes it more easy to choose your particular locomotive to model. I concluded after looking at the pictures of 779 Himalayan Bird that this locomotive can be built 2 ways, in a pre-overhauled condition as shown on pictures included on the CD, and post-overhaul as I found many pictures when Googling. Difference can be mainly seen at the coal bunker top extension, after overhaul it has a more austere look, missing one of the metal strips which wrap around the bunker, and the shape of the chamfered parts just in front of the cab front changed. Clearly this extension was renewed. I don't know when this overhaul was done exactly, but has been in more recent years. I decided however to build "Queen of Hills", however not as engine 806, which got this name later, as stencilled lettering under the number plate, but as no. 780 which beared the cast nameplate with the same name earlier, have to check if EDM can do bespoke number plates.

Talking about Scotch! The Peckett is looking like it is going to be a very nice model, essentialy the first RTR 0-4-0 that is going to be built at high model standards and not as an entry level toy like model. But who is first to do an RTR Andrew Barclay 14" 0-4-0. And here is the relationship with scotch, that was the type of loco as used by Dailuaine distillery, the loco is preserved as a static exhibit at Aberfeldy now. Someone doing it as a kit, other than the 3D printed but not so well to scale and detailed effort that had been for sale here on the forum, but brass or white metal, would be good as well.

There are a few for me. First the K1, got 2 of them now and they are spot on. Already a bit older, but one of their super detail offerings is the rebuilt Royal Scot Also pretty happy with my Clan, the only thing that lets it down a bit is the fixed rear pony truck, which can only run with that flangeless wheel. On the diesel front the 08 is a real gem, the class 50 is good as well. My newest coaches which I bought, the Gresley and Thompson non corridor stock, are beatifull, and don't suffer of some of the mistakes on Gresleys 61'6" coaches (tumblehome and panel sizes), altough these mistakes are not too disturbing for me on them as they are maroon, this color makes them less obvious. The new LNER extra long CCT is the best NPC stock in my opinion, it has very fine undercarriage detail. On the goods wagon front the sea lion hoppers are still a very good model. There is not much wrong with them detail wise, as a lot of the other newer releases still have wrong or missing detail. Like the LNER coal hoppers, they are nice models, but some handrails are not present, I think because of the fragility of these when fitted, but they could have been added as customer fittings. And while these handrails can still be added with some scratchbuilding, there's not much you can do about the wrong roof profile of the blue spot fish vans, other than ditching them and building a Parkside set.

There's a Hornby 29 in my cupboard for ages to do a rebuild, but never got to it. But your's is looking good so far. Finding sounds for a V12 Ventura is going to be difficult, I've been searching on Youtube a lot, but so far only Valenta's, YHXL's and so on showed up, but no Ventura's. Would be a lot easier for a class 21/22 soon, as one of the 2 surviving NBL/MAN engines has be started up recently at Bo'ness, and the second one from the class 22 society will run somewhere this year.

I just had this topic popping up my screen today, lots of nice pics on here. Is the K2 the old Nu-cast kit? And the J37? I don't know any manufacturer who did that in the past, but I'm relatively new in British/Scottish modeling. (I only found out that NBR developments does a chassis kit for this loco) Just started putting some parts of a PDK J36 togheter, to see which High Level gearbox and motor will fit in without protuding into the cab or taking the daylight under the boiler away, but more on that later inn my own topics

Lots of nice layouts in this thread,from which some 5 or 6 are outstanding. Being from the Netherlands I can't visit a lot of shows in the UK, but some of the layouts are really worth seeing live. As I like the Scottish railways I planned building a Scottish themed layout some 4 years ago. So started purchasing roling stock, mainly pre-tops diesel, but also some middle 80's stock. I drew up some plans that were not definitive for me (to ambitious or to restricted, I still have to find the right in between) Then, for the last 3 years the hobby came to a stop because I started on a study for my job. That is sorted now, thus recently I picked the modelling up again, first on a French/Belgian themed layout that I'm building curently. But because of some building activity that is going to happen this spring that layout is stored now, and after purchasing some books and browsing the web I got some ideas about what it might be. Because starting the layout is still a couple of years away (first finish that other one, which I will start a topic of in the continental part of the forum) I started on some roling stock projects. Thereby I decided to expand my period from after the end of steam to 1972 to 61-72, where I can phase out stock and draw new stock in in one running sequence. So consequently some RTR and kit kettles were bought over the last months (luckily I found some nice second hand stuff, so my credit card didn't melt) The theme will almost sure be one of the proposed links between WHL and HML, or one of two variants I worked out myself using OS maps and Google Earth. Some of these are already used as themes but it is difficult nowadays to find an original theme when you want to run locomotives from the highland sector, and like the rugged scenery you find there. When I have a finalised plan I will start a topic in the Scottish railways section. So for now I start a topic about what's OMWB, just was looking where to put it, I rather like to do it in a proper forum topic than in a blog via RSS. That's when I stumbled onto this topic

Absolute fantastic! Because this was not only a distraction from the situation where yoy were in, but it was a real challenge to produce these models with just one good working hand. As we all know good motor skills are very important, and that's the part you lost a deal of due to the accident. So it must have been a struggle in the beginning to do the simplest of things. But in my opinion this art of model building is one of the best ways to train motor skills, so these projects must have been a vallueable aid in the recovery process. I take my hat of for this, because I have built many models (no one of British outline yet, so sadly no entry), but I don't do any better than your models, and I have normal functionality of my limbs (although at the age of 5 my mom was told I had less than normal motor skills due to a slight berth defect, but modeling has been a cure for that)