Number Six

Can anyone advise on how to get the body and chassis of the Farish N gauge OBA wagon apart please?

This thread is a bit out of date now. The latest version of the Farish 170 is MUCH easier to hardwire a chip into. Although it's still split frame, the motor gets its juice through a couple of thin wires that are conveniently accessible. Just snip the wires, bare and tin the ends and solder the chip in (a jeweller's loupe, a fine tip on your iron and a steady hand are rather handy here). There's even a recess in the top of the frame just made for tucking a chip into! I've done this using a spare chip from a Dapol 66 (fitting a Zimo chip transformed this loco, but that's another story).

Although this is a very old thread, Bachman still don't seem to have fixed this problem. I found that my 70 was only picking up reliably from one bogie. On examining it closely I found that the contacts on the troublesome bogie were bent very slightly away from the chassis block. A few minutes work with a micro screwdriver seems to have fixed it, but I would have thought that the manufacturers would have sorted this by now!

Yes, it didn't make much sense to me either. I would have though it would make commercial sense to produce a range of up-to-the-minute (or at least fairly recent) 'bog standard' cars - a Qashqai, Mokka, Juke etc etc.. They'd sell thousands I would have thought.

You are so right about the lack of modern (or fairly modern) road vehicles in 1:148! It seems you can get some very nice ODC coaches and trucks but when it comes to cars.....! Someone in my local model shop told me it all has to do with royalties. If a manufacturer makes, say, a Mokka, they will have to pay Vauxhall for the privilege. I don't know how true that is, but I wouldn't mind paying a bit extra for a really good 1:148 modern (i.e. 21st century) car.

Long time no post. Everything OK Grahame?

I've just been reading through this thread as I have recently obtained a multipack of Easi-shunts and I have been experimenting with them. As many here have mentioned, the Dapol magnets are both LARGE and rather expensive. Others have tried using small neodymium magnets in various arrangements so I bought a pack of fifty 3mm wide by 2mm thick disc magnets (0.27kg pull). Now four of these in a stack, lying down, will just fit neatly between the tracks of Peco N gauge code 80 track and between the sleepers! In other words, no cutting of sleepers required! Of course, being 3mm across, the magnets are proud of the sleepers which are about 2.5mm thick, but all you need to do is to cut out a bit of cork underlay (my track happens to be on 1mm mount card) and the magnets can be pushed down between the sleepers and made flush with them (perhaps with a bit of packing). There's enough of a gap at the ends of the stack to ensure it doesn't short the track out. Four magnets in a row across the track gives plenty of oomph to move the pins and I find this works 100% reliably. Even without painting they don't stand out, but a touch of mucky track colour and they should disappear almost completely. The only downside is that the effective uncoupling area is rather small so you have to be quite accurate with your shunting. But the cost is a fraction of the Dapol magnets. A stack of four magnets costs less than 70p! You can't argue with that!

I'm interested to know what embossed plasticard you use Grahame. Slater's seems a bit too rounded and SE Finecast hard to get hold of.

I find lots of strong coffee helps.

Definitely British Racing Green with yellow nose!

Ah, I remember KAR 120C. But then I would, wouldn't I?

Going back to the glazed atrium, what is the glazing material please and how did you stick the glazing bars without fogging the transparent glazing?

Newbie here! Well I rather enjoyed it, but was a bit confused as to who it was aimed at. If it was the general public, then much of what the modellers were doing must have seemed like 'dark arts'. Possibly a few one-minute videos interspersed to explain baseboards, wiring, ballasting, static grass, DC versus DCC etc might have helped?