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Dave Holt

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Everything posted by Dave Holt

  1. Looking good, David. Was the new body reasonably easy to get to fit? Dave.
  2. David, The J20 looks to have had an incredibly long wheel base for an 0-6-0. An interesting looking loco, though. Just a thought, if you don't mind - I think you need to add a front to the firebox, between the boiler and foot plate. There's a rather obvious hole there. Like what you've done with the tree armatures - a vast improvement. They look to be a useful base for smaller trees, such hawthorn, flowering cherry, etc. The bridge is also looking good. Dave.
  3. I was very please to accept an invitation to run some stock on the Manchester Model Railway Club's "Slattocks Junction" P4 layout recently. As the layout is set on the Manchester to Rochdale line, it is the perfect setting for my locos as I hope the photo shows. Besides railways, in various scales, I have a great interest in the cotton mills which dominated the landscape of my native Oldham during my childhood so, I have been pleased to be able to help in some small way with encouragement and some architectural information in the marvelous model of "Alpha Mill", which appears , or rather dominates, the background of the photo. The photo was taken by my good friend, David Clarke who, as explained in earlier entries, painted, lined and weathered the featured loco. Here we see Caprotti fitted Black 5, 44741 at the head of a parcels train passing the mill and then on to the canal bridge. Besides 44741, I took three other locos which ran with varying degrees of success. My Stanier 2-6-4 tank ran faultlessly, the Crab struggled a bit with the weight of an 8 coach passenger train, whilst Jubilee 45701 ran well but had an intermittent short as did EE type 4 diesel, D211. Later investigation of the Jubilee revealed a brake hanger had become dislodged and was catching one of the driving wheel flanges. Unfortunately, this required a major disassembly to put right, but this has been achieved without damage to the finish. I think the diesel was just on the limit of curvature it can accommodate. Anyway, thanks to all the guys in the Manchester club for their warm welcome and kind hospitality and allowing me to play trains for an afternoon. Dave.
  4. David. I have no personal experience with Sculptmold but was introduced to it at Leamington Model Railway Club and was impressed enough to intend to use it on Delph/Holt, if I ever get that far. So it's good to see you using it here to good effect. The scenic base really is coming along and looking very good. That and the track ballast do make a major transformation from a flat board with track to looking like a railway in the landscape. Are you sure using sieved soil is a good idea? I'd be a bit wary of using organic materials, such as natural soil, in case it is not inert and leaches some corrosive residues over time. Enjoying seeing progress, as always. Dave.
  5. It might be proving to be a battle, but the result is coming along very nicely. Had hoped to have a good look at the real thing at the SVR, today, but apparently it failed in service before I could get close. As a matter of interest, what became of the Bulleid pacific? Dave.
  6. Andrew, Don't think I agree with you. From what I've seen, you're progressing well with a superb, realistic layout which will be populated with good looking and appropriate locos and stock. You will probably have it finished and out on the circuit while I'm still messing about with the footstep brackets or other trivial detail on my Ivatt. It's a hobby and all approaches are equally valid. Some of us a just a bit more OCD (or nuts, as John puts it) than others. Dave.
  7. Following on from the fitting crews and fire irons to various locos it's back to some rather more fiddly modelling in the form of the injectors for my Ivatt Class 2 tank. These injectors have quite a distinctive shape and I am not aware of any commercial source of realistic representations of these items. To overcome this lack, I decided to try and represent the injectors and their mountings using multiple layers of custom etchings, produced to my sketches by Rumney Models. I use the word "fiddly" because each injector unit consists of 30 separate pieces, not including the wires representing the pipework, despite the body only being 5.7 mm long. Here's a photo of the real thing, fitted to the Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0 tender loco at the SVR. The injector is identical to that fitted to the tank engines except for the mounting bracket and orientation of the water feed pipe. For the model, I produced this sketch of the assembly relative to the chassis main frames (on the right) and underside of the cab/side tanks (along the top). Drawn 10 times full size, I realised I needed to make some slight changes (as noted) to allow for some minor dimensional compromises. Here we have one of the assembled injector body/mounting bracket units (LHS of the loco) with the various pipes and water valve operating spindle laid out in roughly their correct relative positions. The pipes will be bent to shape and fitted after the injectors have been fixed in position on the loco main frames. Also shown is the other injector and bracket (RHS) which is, of course, the opposite hand. Think I probably need to go and lie in a darkened room for a while after that lot. Dave.
  8. Howard, It might be the right mixture of intellectual challenge and bright, shiny metal to you, but to most of us it's just jaw dropping complexity, way beyond comprehension. The mechanical locking arrangements alone are way off my scale of understanding and the electrical locks make it even more rarefied. How on earth do you conceptualise all that stuff? In awe, Dave.
  9. Personal opinion only, but I do think Britannias looked better with the high sided tender. Lovely looking model in the last photo. Dave.
  10. Michael, I must say how much I enjoy reading updates to this thread. I love the gritty, urban setting and the layout and buildings capture the feel beautifully. Have to say, the shed building with all those smoke hoods to fix must an absolute labour of love to stick at it. Dave.
  11. Yes, very atmospheric indeed. My regular haunt on a Sunday was Newton Heath which, if I remember correctly, was a bit more gloomy than that. For my B1, I've chosen 61159 so I need to establish the tender type for the mid 1950's. Dave.
  12. Mike, I've come to the same conclusion for mine. Mind you, one still has to sort out the various options to suit the particular loco, by the sounds of it. Dave.
  13. Very nice, David. It seems that 3D printing is a very useful tool, indeed. A couple of thoughts though. The rivets just look a little too prominent to my eyes. If they're the right diameter, perhaps its that the prototype are domed and the printed ones cylindrical? With the old, cast girders, they look rather too close together to have carried track. Was it just a pathway? Dave.
  14. Close on the heels of the BR Std Class 2 tank, I've now completed the finishing touches to my Fowler Class 3, 2-6-2 tank, which has remained almost finished for some years. The work required was the same as on the Standard, namely adding coal to the bunker and a crew in the cab, together with fixing the cab roof. Having said these are the finishing touches, I realise that I still need to add fire irons to the rests on top of the RH tank. This also applies to the Standard and to the tender of my Crab 2-6-0. Obviously, a fire iron manufacturing session is required shortly. Anyway, here are some photos of the loco as it currently stands. Dave.
  15. Last time I took my Jubilee. 45701, to run on the NLG test track, it refused to move and showed a fault message "AU5" or "AUS" on the controller. I thought at the time that maybe a pick-up had moved in transport or that there was a chip fault. Anyway, try fiddling with the controller I could not get it to move so it was put away for a future time. Last weekend, I was chatting to "Barrow Road" at the Leamington show and the subject of a visit to run suitable locos was mentioned. Now, a Jubilee is a very suitable loco for this layout, so my thoughts turned to trying to sort the problem out. The main issue was the necessity of dismantling the model, with the risk of damage to the finish, in order to access the suspect items. Before starting, I again tried the loco on my short test track and had intermittent movement and then error messages, this time error 01 and 02. So, reluctantly I separated the tender, removed the boiler and finally the footplate/cab from the chassis. At each stage i checked for shorts of items out of place but to no avail. It appeared to be a damaged chip or burnt out motor (coreless type). I decided to unsolder the chip leads and refit the bridging bars to enable DC operation to check the motor, starting with the LH side. When I turned the chassis over to do the RH side, I discovered that the wire connecting the RH pick-ups to the connection pad was hanging free. It appears that I had made a dry joint which must have made intermittent contact - hence the problem. I quickly remade the failed connection and then reconnected the LH side chip wires and, hey presto, normal behaviour when placed on the test rack. The loco was re-checked at each stage of reassembly although there were a couple of hiccups along the way. First, I couldn't find the screw which holds the front of the footplate to the chassis, search as I might. So a new screw was fashioned - it's a very short 8BA but has to have the head reduced in diameter to fit. Then, as I prepared to re-attach the tender, the special screw through the draw bar pinged out of the tweezers. An hour or so on hands and knees failed to find it but did find the missing footplate screw! No option but to make a replacement. The original included a long, Alan Gibson crank-pin bush and I could not find another despite searching my spares boxes and several other Brassmasters loco/tender kits. In the end, something was made up from brass tube and the flange which broke off a 2 mm pin-point bearing which I had been trying to use as an alternative. Of coarse, I got completely wrapped up in all this, in my determination to get it sorted, and was slightly horrified to discover it was the early hours of this morning when I finally finished. Despite the trials and tribulations and the rather late night, I have now got a fully functioning Jubilee ready to join the fleet. As a change, today I've been making a replacement tip for the spokes on one of my large umbrellas, which came to grief in the high winds and heavy rain at the Leamington Show, and making two sets of long fire irons to go on the tenders of the Jubilee and the Crab. Dave.
  16. Jol, I think I've got this completely wrong, so please ignore my previous comment. Dave.
  17. Jol, When you select the photos to attach, they appear in a table which has a column for a description, or similar. Whatever you type in the box will appear as a caption below the photo when you insert it into the post. At least, that's how I think it works, but could be confusing it with another modelling forum! You can place a photo anywhere where the cursor is within the text. I always place them between paragraphs but there's no reason the photo can't be in the middle of a sentence or paragraph, if that's what you want. Dave.
  18. I admire your patience to build a batch of similar stock in parallel. The Black Beetle wheels look interesting. Do they run nice and true? Dave.
  19. My sentiments, exactly. In the second shot, in the lower centre of the photo, there appears to be a bricked-up canal bridge. Is the idea that the area occupied by the loco shed was originally a canal basin? It's a very plausible proposition. Dave.
  20. David. I don't think your track looks too bad at all. There is a noticeable kink at about 37 seconds, at the toe of the training point which you might be able to correct since it isn't ballasted yet, but otherwise OK. The key thing is stuff stays on. Hard enough, itself, in P4 from my experience. I'm intrigued by the short, curved siding under the bridge. Is it just a lay-by siding? Dave.
  21. Very nice indeed. I wonder how the builder (the late Phil Bax?) overcame the splasher clearance issues in P4? Dave.
  22. John, That looks to have captured it just right. Just needs a 9F to complete the scene. Dave.
  23. Very nice, David, but the re-built Scot is more my scene. Dave.
  24. I can't take any credit for that, Mark. The loco was painted and weathered by my friend, David Clarke. Dave.
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