justin1985

I completely agree with Tim. Living in London, its basically impossible to get to a "real" model shop (the Engine Shed way out in Leytonstone is the only exception). Traders are really the primary attraction for most exhibitions for me!

Fox transfers are very definitely water slide, and usually much finer than Modelmaster. The Fox carrier film is an order of magnitude thinner than Modelmaster (although some people seem to have been able to remove the film on these once applied). I've always started with a coat or two of high-gloss varnish, and using Microset, never had any problems :-) Modelmaster are N gauge society only.

Great looking wagons John! I'm afraid I was rather more "impressionistic" when it came to the brake gear on mine ... Fox do some rather nice Midland freight wagon transfers which I used for my pre-grouping rendition.

Excellent job!

Great weathering! Shows what you can achieve with washes and powders - did you bother to seal it with dullcote or anything?

I've experimented with both B&B and DG. To start off with, they are both truly inter-compatible, which is great. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. The B&Bs are pre-blackened, which is great, and don't require any soldering. They also seem to be made of a slightly thicker brass, making them a bit more robust (whereas I tend to put a fillet of solder inside some of the fold lines on the DGs to support them). The steel wire is coiled around a drill, then a suitable length threaded around the tab on the bottom of the "loop" part, and secured with glue - so that is dead easy. However, it can be a right pain in the wotsit to fit both the "loop" and "latch" sections into the body without the other one pinging off, or the body getting so bent out of shape it ends up catching etc. The DGs, I would say, look notably finer once attached to stock. There might not be much difference in width between the wire and the etched loop of the B&B, but the wire is much easier to ignore in practice! The thinner brass does allow sharper folds than the thick brass on the B&Bs (which tends to form gentle curves not sharp folds) but can require a fillet of solder to prevent bits snapping after one or two adjustments. I find soldering the steel to the nickel-silver sections of the loop very tricky to produce a good joint. I've seen various jigs being used by others, but all my attempts to make a soldering jig using either thin ply, card etc. end up delaminating and\or burning away as inevitably, even with a small soldering iron bit, the thin wire means the iron will be in contact with the jig quite a lot! I wonder if there might be a case for getting a jig milled in tuffnol? Or even the back of some thin PCB material? Ultimately I think the decision just is which you find easier to make!

Stunning modelling! I'm bowled over by the detail you've put in - cant wait to see the layout completed!

The Swedish N Gauge history page run by N-Modell.se (http://swen.nmodell.se/) recommends a Fleischmann BR91 as a suitable donor chassis for the model. I'm sure some cutting/filing work would be involved, but probably doable!

I've seen a few of these on eBay, but never been tempted enough to buy one! I have no idea how accurate the bodywork is? The chassis is pretty shocking through - personally I would be tempted to either find a similarly sized chassis from a more modern locomotive, and see if it can be made to fit, or build a new chassis entirely from 2mm Scale Association parts! (i.e. to fiNe standards)

Pretty much what I thought - I was quoted "around" £100 (plus VAT) by a company based in London Fields for a single sheet with geometric shapes and cuts all the way through, rather than engraving etc. Should be able to pick it up from there £39 (+ VAT) was the quote for the 9mm grade BB ply. As you say Andy, I think its worth it relative to the swear-box contributions! I have in mind a few T-Trak modules (I've found it difficult to cut the small sizes accurately), and also a circular layout Mini-MSW style, if I can find a way to cramm it all on to a single sheet, all the better! Justin

Hi Bryn, this looks excellent! Would it be very rude to ask how much you paid for the CNCing? I'm very tempted to chuck away my own feeble attempts at woodwork and just go down this route ... Its hard to get an idea of whats a reasonable price and whats not though ... Justin

To follow up on the pantiles, I ordered a selection of the German plastic sheets, which arrived last week. To the lower left is the Noch rubbery sheet, which looks OK, and has good relief, but this might be largely due to the weathering wash that is pre-applied. To the lower right is the half of the Kibri "N gauge" roof tiles sheet (3-7970) that comes closest to British style pantiles - this seems slightly overscale, but simultaneously doesn't have a great deal of relief. The top sheet in the picture is the Kibri "Z gauge" roof tiles sheet (Dachplatten Pfanne Z 3-6920). To me this looks most suitable for 2mm or British N. The scale of the individual tiles seems about right, and the depth of relief, while varied over the sheet (clearly not deliberately), is convincing. I'm pretty sure this is the one Jerry has used? All of the Kibri sheets are just over 1mm thick, so considerably thinner than equivalent Ratio offerings. The corrugated iron sheet looks pretty similar to the Ratio one, but with perhaps slightly more restrained relief, and of course thinner and easier to work with. All of the sheets are €3.55 - quite a bargain! Justin

Thanks for the tip Jerry - I've just put in an order with my favorite German retailer for a whole selection of Kibri N and Z roof texture sheets to give them a try - I hadn't thought to try the Z range (and wasn't aware of the Kibri range at all until I saw this thread!). At €3.50 each, I just ordered a whole selection (and also a nice Kato NOHAB diesel reduced to €75.00 - whoops) I noticed an interesting sheet in the N range called "Welleternit- und Blecheindeckung" which appears to have a particularly good corrugated iron texture, as well as the "tinplate", which looks more like the crimped zinc panel roofs that are common on the continent and on very new buildings here. I just hope they're thinner than the Ratio sheets we get here! Justin

I'm really glad I noticed this thread - this new layout is looking great Jerry! Nice to see some of the David Eveleigh tramway coaches made up too - mine are still in the gloat box ... A quick question on the pantiles - Kibri's website doesn't have any illustrations of the plastic sheeting, and there appear to be one or two variations on "tiles" - I don't suppose you know which article number the one you've used is? I bought a sheet of Noch pantiles ("dachstein") from Warley last year, which look good, but are made of a rubbery material, and were very expensive for what they were! The Kibri range looks better, and much better value! Justin

Farish's couplings will almost certainly be their US EZ-Mate2 couplings adapted with an NEM mount. They look very much like Dapol's - much more than they look like MicroTrains anyway! http://www.thefavoritespot.com/p-3372-Bachmann-n-scale-magnetically-operated-e-z-mate-mark-ii-couplers-long-78501.aspx

Thanks for the heads-up! Ideal candidate for a repaint, if Dapol don't end up producing one in Anglia livery!

Hi Paul, I understand that they're not necessarily designed to work together - and I'm not saying it is a problem with the Dapol coupling that they don't - just that, if there is a way to get them to work together under some circumstances, that would be great Justin

I've finally had the chance to have a play with my Easi-Shunt couplings, and unfortunately I can't get them to reliably uncouple from the Microtrains couplings that I've used in conversions in the past Coupling, and shunting in the "delayed action" position work fine, but uncoupling doesn't seem to want to happen. I've tried this with Peco wagons fitted with standard MT gearboxes to the wagon floor, as well as Farish wagons from the immediate pre-NEM era which have MT's specific "Bachmann" conversion pockets installed (these all work out a bit higher than the NEM mount). I seem to remember others mentioning having had success? Has anyone tried with the MT couplings down at NEM height? Also, I've been using the Microtrains coupling magnet track - I wonder if the Dapol one might be stronger? Cheers Justin

Your track is looking absolutely amazing - the fishplates really look good, and the weathering really brings them out well! I had been dubious as to whether I would bother, but they definitely look worth it now. The grass is looking excellent too - the depth of colour is just right!

Does anywhere actually have these available yet? Dapol Dave mentioned in another thread that they'd been dispatched to retailers last week, but I can't find anyone listing them in stock yet. I'm itching to try some for compatibility with some of the Microtrains conversions I've experimented with in the past!

Looking very good! You seem to be doing a good job of the old silk purse from sow's ear!

Looking great Bryn! Is the Catfish a Stephen Harris kit too? I think I have some resting in my gloatbox, thats spurred me on to attempt them when I next get a chance to get the soldering iron out!

First update in a long while - I've hardly had any modelling time at all ... However, I got the Dapol 153 detailing project I started a while back finished off. In the end I didn't manage to remove the glazing, so left the incorrectly placed silver framing for now. The rainstrip was removed from over the cabs, and the snowploughs scaled down considerably, as well as painting over the very silver exhaust with some Phoenix "Frame Dirt". I also fitted a Bachmann cheapo 6-pin DCC chip, which works fine. The whole model got a general toning down with assorted weathering colours, with particular emphasis on the underframe, snowplough, and also the buildup of grime which seems to appear around the top of the corridor connector. While is more I could have done (windows, attacking the underframe "box") - I'm happy with a much improved model! Also, I finished off the renumbered Dapol 86 with one of the new pantographs, a coat of satin varnish to blend in the new numbers and 'plates, as well as a light coat of grime to tone down the underframe only. One day I'll get around to giving it a more comprehensive weathering!

Scale speed is always a bit of a tricky issue, but would many modellers actually want their models to run any faster than 300mm in 2 seconds? It it was running at a "scale" 125mph, frankly I would have thought it would look a bit silly - you'd need a very, very big N gauge layout for it not to look ridiculous at that speed! We've taken a long while and lots of encouragement of the manufacturers to get models that do run sensibly at slow speeds and are controllable throughout the speed range. The Dapol 58, for example, was trumpeted as having deliberately low gearing for slow speed running, and thus a low top speed. While the HST should have a faster top speed, my money would be on Dapol's manufacturers in China simply used their initiative to fit relatively low speed mechanisms to all Dapol's chassis after being instructed to do so for several previous models. It sounds like your model is a bit tight though, hence even slower running? I'd be interested to hear if anyone has noticed the high current consumption and heat? Justin

Thanks Lee, I'm trying to decide whether to go with the Dapol plastic effort, or use one of the Greenmax plastic pantographs I bought a while back Greenmax PT71D. I'm not convinced if the Dapol one is much better ...