chris p bacon

Maybe they were sexting each other......

This is why I suggested a sacrificial bed, get a piece of MDF/Ply and run it into the saw at the required width then cut the PCB over the top of it, it means there isn't the gap at the side of the blade, I'd also reduce the height of the blade so that there is less chance of it picking up the cut piece as it passes by.

All those days they were hoping to gain... page per day or page per week?

Understand where you're coming from but who are these people that are going to bring replacements to modern standards?

I'd be wary of cutting something so thin but if a sacrificial bed is run through first it might be ok (covering the rather large blade opening), The problem I can see with material such as this is when it passes by the back of the blade in which case I wouldn't have the blade so exposed and would only have it 3mm high.

Try passing a motion.......

Don't forget that PD include wheels and bearings which IIRC Coopercraft don't. The problem with (Coach) kits I have is that no one has ever produced the items I want, so it's build it yourself or model something else.There are a few D&S wagon kits that come up on Ebay but when people are silly enough to pay £40+ for a wagon when it can be scratchbuilt for a fraction then they're not an option. For coaches it's scratchbuild or get together with others for limited runs (as has been the case recently for some GN rigid 8 wheelers)

iPod. You see them on runners and cyclists around here, they have no idea what's approaching from behind and are generally in their own world. As an aside to this, I've helped marshall a 10 mile road race for a few years (17!) it's organised by the local athletic club (son is member, now chairman) and has 650 entrants, a few years ago they issued a notice to every entrant that iPods are not to be worn and that disqualification was the penalty if you did. For the first year they just made all aware that wore them that they would not tolerate it the following year, and showed them how much they were distracted by them. Since then I think only 2 have been disqualified for ignoring instructions due to iPod wearing and now most members at the club agree that they don't actually help and they are too much of a distraction from traffic around you.

Dad was Chf Eng and was on the bridge at the time. He did say that in the 50's they would port at Cape town on the way back round Cape Horn and find bits of net but had no recollection of hitting anything. from 60's onwards radar was much improved and they could spot a small rowing boat from miles away.

Just a quick one on that. 1971/2 British Surveyor, loaded and making a transit of the channel from the Gulf to Europort (Holland), as she gets nearer to the narrowest point over the radio comes "Steam gives way to sail"... there are a couple of small sailing vessels. Radio officer replies "Unable to manouvre, please alter your course" the reply comes back, "you must give way to sail" this time the Captain (Lenny Pugh? IIRC) says on the radio "Please put it in writing, until you do, alter your course" They were a small group of yachts out sailing, Brit Surveyor was a 200,000T+ tanker. The yacht owner registered an official complaint to BP, (I think I've still got a copy in dads things) needless to say he was made aware of just how much room she needed to manouvre (5 mile stop, 2-3 miles to turn).

These are cold cured moulds so might only make 10 at most, could be more but you don't know until they fail, in the case of what's on the bench at present there are 3 different moulds. I want to make 3 coaches of a specific diagram so I'm trying to cast the sides as seperate items, the ends are generic across other diagrams so I will cast as many as poss from the mould but as I have the masters I can cast another. For cost, the actual cast part isn't much, I reckon for a 53' coach I'm doing the resin would be £4-5, the mould is the costly part, so far that's cost £20+ and will probably be £30 when I finish (I thought of a different cheaper way after I'd started!) if I only get the 3 coaches they'd be £15 each but as I should be able to get more ends and rooves then the cost per item will decrease. The reality is that if you want to make money to re-invest then they've got to be high quality, from a cold mould they'll be fine but you'd be expected to have to do some modelling to make something of them.

Here's a thought. There are obviously some here who make their own items and are willing to share (castings, CAD drawings etc) When something is available put something to that effect in your sig strip at the bottom or open a thread making it available, I'll probably put something in my own thread for anything I produce, as it's only people looking at GN who might be interested.........More moulds curing as I type.....

I watched it while casting some moulds, I played spot the record title/lyric.

Nail on the head. I'm making up some patterns for some coach parts I want, if the moulds go to a few more they'll be passed to friends, if I was looking to try and make money from this there's no way I'd be choosing a GN vehicle and yet that is what I want, if I wanted to try and sell these I'd have to invest a significant sum in a professional production run rather than home produced. The reality is that with the big manufacturers sourcing from China and to a higher quality they have raised peoples expectations. There are already grumblings about the price for new RTR coaches (£50+) I've used approx £20 worth of silicon for the moulds + bits and bobs, I only want 3 coaches so the cost is probably going to be a tenner without underframe, bogies & wheels (donor coach) If I can get the mould to go to about 10 then each coach is approx £6 + underframe+U/F parts+bogies+wheels+postage This would bring it up around £30, this is with no profit to reinvest and the customer sourcing their own parts. Of course Injection moulding is cheaper but only if you have the knowledge, if like me you don't then you're reliant on a 3rd party for the tooling which is a significant part of the set up cost. Crowd funding.......no, never in a million years. A group of knowledgable people to take it on with experience in tooling is a better bet, but it's likely they're already doing something as that is their mindset. And this is the other problem, where do you site any production, if home based it still has to be a reasonably proffessional set up and if space is to be rented then up goes the cost. I've just reduced the size of the workshop which is sited at home as it can be overbearing on home life. I do wonder that a successful company such as Parkside hasn't in the past picked up Slaters etc when they came on the market. Could be they just weren't interested or that the product just wasn't viable in the first place, hence the sale.

I was thinking about that after I posted and remembered that they did recruit more after the war from Italy. And yes, if Italy win at football, they all still drive Fiats around and around St Pauls square flag waving. Sorry, back on topic...

So would I at that price.

Excellent pics, the trams in the first post are a reminder of (part of) a childhood spent in Nagasaki, 10 yen a journey (600 to the £), money dropped into the tray and a salute from the white gloved driver.... gaijin....

Not quite right, most of the workers in the brickworks were ex PoW's who stayed here after WW2 as they didn't want to return to Italy (probably traces of fascism) it was the families (wives children) who were eligible to come after many years. We were desperately short of bricks after WW2 and they were offered the chance to stay if they worked in Stewartby. There's a huge Italian community in Bedford still as well as a pre-war Polish one. As companies like Texas Instruments moved into Bedford so the Italian workforce moved to there to be replaced in the brickworks by mainly Asian workforce. The family had an Italian PoW billeted with them for work, they were no guards as they had no desire to escape back to Europe, he stayed here and set up a successful business in Bournemouth.

Aaaah, I was thinking coaches, specifically the 12W stock (65'), I'm just doing a test pattern at present on a 53' and started moulds last night.

Cost is the biggest factor against 3D for mass production, designing and having printed a locomotive which is only required in small numbers suits 3D, wagons which could sell by the 100's is more suited to injection moulding as once the tooling is made the cost per wagon is pennies. The cost is the tooling and machinery to produce (this is ignoring factory overheads)

I'm looking at resin castings for the ones I want. Only low volumes though.

As you'd guess it's much older than that, it was used in the 1800's as a means of making your house look much more "up market" than it really was by immitating very expensive hardwood. Here is the back of my office door which is softwood/pine This is the original 'graining' from 1893 which has never been touched but has been re-varnished to protect it. It's got a few marks now but I'm loathe to cover over such good workmanship which has lasted 120+ years. PS. If anyone wonders why in the home of a carpenter there's a broken handle on the door, they're £78 a pair and you have to order 5 pairs at a time.....as it's the only one it can wait.

Scumbling or graining - that's the term in decorating

No, not yet. The rooms upside down while I cable up underneath to the new panel, then all the boxes go back under. Also I was using an old Duette for power and the reason I couldn't control easily was it was basically an on/off switch so I need to dig out my other one. Excuses.....excuses..... There just might be a new coach for it to haul soon.........

You could have saved some MDF by using Mikes axleboxes.... Looking good though.