Mick Bonwick

Patience, dear boy, patience.

That's more like it!

This will be of little interest to most people who read this topic, but I have just spent the most pleasant evening with friends and fellow members of NORMAL (North Oxfordshire Railway Modellers ALliance) sitting outside in my garden, talking about just anything that came to mind. The first time we had been able to do that in person for well over a year. Absolutely fabulous.

Creditable first attempts. Good results.

Just in case you have a few days to spare in August . . . . . . .

Glad you stopped when you did, then.

That's shut me up, good and proper! It was only an attempt at humour, but I think you know that. Splendid detailing, Al. Inspiring stuff. M. Barrassed.

I have to be diffferent. It says so in my contract. When WWS first came onto the scene (!) I wondered why they had copied the continental chappies and added red and blue fibres to their mixes. I have never seen red and blue grass leaves in fields or pastures. For that single reason I have never chosen their static grass products. I am quite sure that they have changed since then, or people wouldn't be buying them. I had always used Green Scene static grass fibres because they sold packets that contained only one colour and I could then mix my own from those if I needed to. Then John Lloyd decided that it was no longer financially viable to make his own and I found Polak products had become available. Their range of colours were all fairly muted, did not have a shine to them and I was able to accumulate a good supply from there. I have since added some Noch longer fibres (10mm and 12mm) for when I was working on an O Gauge layout, once again in muted colours. At the moment Polak products are difficult, if not impossible, to find in this country. I saw demonstrations by WWS when they first started in the market and they always included the 'put it on and then mess it up' routine and I always wondered what it was for. If I want an uneven surface I create it as the base rather than try to create one from a flat surface. There are now many producers of static grass fibres, so the choice is much greater. I now simply look for muted colours and non-shiny fibres, which I often find in the Noch and Heki ranges, although Woodland Scenics are good as well. Whichever you use you will have spent a fair bit of the budget on it, and I recommend recovering as much as possible to be used again. My preferred method of doing this is to mask off the area being treated with sheets of paper so that the unused fibres fall on that and can be quickly and easily decanted back into their containers. I have used vacuum cleaners as well but find that there is a bit more hassle involved that way. I also try things out on sheets of greyboard or paper before committing to them on the layout. In fact, if I put all my practise pieces together, I could probably represent a fair part of Derbyshire in a space 6' x 6'. I've rambled enough. Maybe I should seek out some WWS fibres and try them, just to see if they have improved. You can't all be wrong!

It's quite simple really, John. All of the Bachmann models with left-hand duckets are wrong, or at least that was what I was told when I bought mine. I plan (one day) to remove the chimney on all of mine and create a new one to place in the correct position. I ought to be able to do that without wrecking the models. He said, confidently.

Excellent!

Aha! This shed has an electricity supply, does it? Where are the wall sockets then? Eh?

Now that is very encouraging.

How did you manage to make such a large coin of the realm?

After a couple of days doing other things I return to the workshop, remove the lead pipes and find that, although the kink has been eliminated, the sleepers have moved away from the join and left a gap larger than it should be. The steel rule came into play again and the sleepers moved into their correct space. I haven't stuck them down this time because the application of ballast will eventually achieve that. In other news: An arrival from Kernow Model Rail Centre prompted me to get the camera out and take a picture of these family members:

When you've finished with my hammer, can I have it back, please?

There's a liitle bit about static grass usage here that might be helpful at some stage:

I have to say that your rate of progress is phenomenal, Al. If only I could make a start on something and not be distracted almost immediately by something else I might be able to emulate it. It is rather doubtful, though. Nicely done.

Count me out.

This is getting serious. I'll have to consider offering reinforcements.

It looks like they had a lucky escape from the descending coffee mug.

Packaging can be misleading. It's what inside that counts.

'Tis wondrous to behold. Just imagine what it'll be like with a **** ***** inside it.

Trained to kill, Mark, trained to kill.

Another kink. This one is Dave, the second most prominent member of the group. Whrn studied this one more closely I saw that the rails were neither in line nor level at the right-hand join. The insulation rail joiner was positioned underneath the rail at the far side of the join. Being flexible it had formed itself in such a way as to leave the rail top almost level rather than having a large step in it as it would have if the rail joiner was a metal one. Thanks to @Alister_G for making me look closer at my previously perfect ( ) trackwork. The fix. Trackwork on Easton, as most will remember from way back in the account of its construction (!), is stuck to the foam underlay with Copydex. This means that in the unlikely event of something being wrong, it can be put right without too much disruption. A metal rule pushed gently between the sleepers and the foam will separate the two quite easily. Just be careful not to catch any droppers or point operating mechanisms! A thin layer of fresh Copydex can be pushed under the sleepers using the brush contained in the lid and the track repositioned more accurately with the insulating rail joiner in the right alignment. Out with the lead pipes and leave it for a few hours, just checking first that the new alignment hasn't been affected by the placing of the lead pipes. The trouble with the originally noticed kink (Ray) is that it is between the pair of points that have other points next to or very close to them, thus rendering the correction impossible without the repositioning of all the point motors as well. It will remain a kink for all to see and marvel at. Or point and snigger, whichever they deem appropriate.

Nobody will be getting as close as your camera, will they? I think that from any distance it will look perfectly OK to the naked eye, so I shouldn't worry about any perceived imperfections. I think it looks splendid!