Mark Forrest

There was a brief gap in the terrible weather yesterday, so I took advantage and gave the building a quick spray of red primer. In position on the layout; footings in baseboard surface need digging a little deeper so it can sit at the correct height. Details around the door openings and canopy next; then the roof 🤔

Could be a bearing in that wobbly suspension pivot. If you can get to it it may well have a part number on the rubber seal and be available from someone like Wych Bearings.

Inspired by a weekend watch Paris Roubaix on TV, we had a big day out on the bikes yesterday doing the Velotastic "Hell of Notts 3" virtual event. We had two options 100km or 100 miles; we chose the 100km and opted for hardtails rather than gravel bikes - grip and comfort over speed. A nice steady start along some disused railway from Cotgrave then alongside the Trent through Nottingham city centre. The route then followed a loop with short sections of road linking up a mixture of bridleways and byways. The muddy conditions made it hard going and slowed us down significantly. I'm tempted to give up on this sort of natural XC riding until things dry out and stick to trail centres or road rides - that's how bad it is! A great route that packed in a couple of challenging climbs despite the relative flatness of the area - the toughest climb came at 45 miles into the ride when we were both starting to tire. 64 miles (103km) and 2900' of elevation, but I think the resistance from the sticky gloopy mud was like the equivalent of another 1000' of climbing, definitely a type 2 fun sort of day. It didn't rain (much) and we even had a bit of sunshine right at the end of the ride.

Perhaps it's possible that amongst SLW's current and perspective customer base there are a range of different expectations around delivery times and level of communication? Some are happy to wait as long as it takes; others accept the need to wait but would appreciate more communication around when they might receive delivery and others feel they have waited long enough and are being to lose faith. None of these points of view are wrong; they are just different.

I agree about the communication niggle. IMHO worse than not knowing when a future release will arrive is being given a date and having that date pass (twice) without further explanation of why. I'm looking forward to getting my loco (and have no doubt it will be excellent), but will think very carefully about ordering another from SLW, especially if other manufacturers raise their game and offer a reasonable alternative.

A Saturday ride for a change - making the most of a break in the weather and unexpected (but very welcome) dog sitter availability. This was a ride I've wanted to do for a while, a route called Over The Top from the Lost Lanes - Wales book. The name comes from an article written by Walter McGregor Robinson (aka Wayfarer) - a pioneer of off road cycling. It was published in 1919 and (coincidentally) describes a ride that he did in late March of that year. Much of the route follows Wayfarer's route and includes the passing the Wayfarer memorial up on the Berwyns. Starting out from Chirk, past the castle then following the course of the Glyn Valley Tramway alongside Afon Ceiriog before heading off road after Llanarmon DC for the climb "over the top". A brief pause and refuel at the Wayfarer Memorial before the descent down to Corwen. On the descent a rock hit my rear brake rotor and left me with an annoying dragging brake for the rest of the ride; not ideal. We stopped at the Llangollen Railway's station in Corwen to attempt to straighten out the bent rotor, with limited success. The next section was all on road, running parallel with the railway (saw a Pannier Tank on its way to Corwen) then climbing up to the Panorama, past the castle ruins and below the amusingly named Trevor Rocks. We then dropped down into Garth and along the Llangollen canal (over the aqueduct and through a tunnel) back to Chirk. At 44 miles, that was a big day out on MTBs. Arguably gravel bikes would have suited much of it better and given a higher average speed. The section over the Berwyns wouldn't have been anywhere near as much fun though. 4280' of elevation gain. A good ride and a nice tribute to one of the pioneers of off road cycling - not sure what he'd think of our modern hardtails. Link to Walter's much more eloquently written description of the ride below. The quality of road surfaces hasn't improved much, but at least we had bright sunlight rather than acetylene lamps! https://www.cyclingnorthwales.co.uk/pages/wayfarer.htm

Very useful, thanks. I thought something wasn't quite right with my mock up now realise I'd made the short side of the triangle vertical.

Another evening of cutting plastic and sploshing MEK got the main building to this stage. The three sections are now all joined together and quite sturdy.

Thought I'd have a go at a mock up, the right sort of thing, but too small. I think it needs to be almost twice the size.

Cheers Stu. Dimensionally they fit the bill. I think probably something older looking.

It's very nice, but unfortunately isn't going to fit. This is the area, in places it's little more than 5mm between the backscene and the railway boundary. Probably something very low relief like (but perhaps not quite as tall): Or possibly a North Light style roof line for something different. I prefer to see the end of low relief buildings unless they are deep enough to include up to the ridge of the roof.

Very nice! Your right, ideally I would have gone bigger with the building, but with the limited depth I felt this was the limit where the proportions looked about right. My concern with it being too big, is more than it draws your eye to (rather than away from) a gap on the backscene between the new building and the next group of (low relief) factory/warehouse buildings. There is currently just some fencing, it really needs something with a bit of height there for visual balance.

I did consider that. I think chopping the building is the easier option - partly because I'm too lazy to move the stock off the layout to enable me to get the board down from its shelf to get access for cutting the back scene.

Another building session last night saw the carcass for the third section completed. All was going well until I placed it on the layout - I'd forgotten to take into consideration the curve of the back scene. I'll need to cut the rear corner out of the building to accommodate this - should be relatively easy with this style of construction. Further bracing to be added to floor and roof when I attach the three sections together.

A quick check to make sure it still fits how it's supposed to. It is (intentionally) very close to the hidden rear siding, there will be a wall that partly hides the VGA van and class 20 visible here. I want to try to give the impression that the siding curves away from the building to a greater extent than the baseboard depth allows. There is a risk that this building with overpower the rest of the layout - I'm thinking something along the back scene will provide a bit of balance.

Starting to feel a bit better, back on the MEK.

I was fortunate to attend a number of big shows in my early teens (late 80s/early 90s) - in many cases it cost me little more than a £1 Rail Railers voucher, happy days. IMREX, Glasgow and Chatham Dockyard spring to mind as large and memorable shows of that era.

It's approaching 5 weeks now since I was contacted to update my card details (despite having updated them on the website to save them having to call me). I was told to expect delivery of my P4 sound fitted loco "in the next few weeks". So I am also being to think there must be some issue causing an unforeseen delay.

Cowabunga. I've come down with a bit of man flu, which has left me temporarily intolerant of MEK fumes. Soldering isn't a problem though, so I've focused on getting the POA on its wheels. Bill Bedford pedestal suspension units, loosely fitted in place to establish ride height.

Cotton wool bud dipped in IPA usually does the trick. Clean what you can get at, place on track, rotate wheels 1/4 turn and repeat. Avoid use of abrasives where possible. Try to clean the pickups as well as the wheel tyres.

A bit more work on the POA wagon tonight. Most of these had angled plates added (presumably to stop any debris dropped during loading/unloading getting stuck on the horizontal box sections. The Cambrian kit lacks this feature. The kit instructions (I do read them sometimes) suggest filing square strip to a triangle. Being lazy, I used some 2mm half round Evergreen strip instead - with the flat face outwards After cutting and adding over 30 bits of Evergreen strip to this wagon (so far) the irony that I started this as a break from the repetitive task of gluing strips of plastic to the building carcass is not lost on me!

As others have said, how you chose to spend your hobby time and what you build is nobody else's business - do what interests you and makes you happy. That said, what you may come across is people warning against "making a model of a model". That's not to be confused with basing your layout on a real location that somebody else has already done and refers more to ignoring the prototype and (potentially) repeating errors and compromises that have been made before.

Old colour photos arguably aren't much better as colour rendition might not have been great to start with and prints/slides fade over time. Probably best to treat any colour image as an approximation.

Simple answer - yes. In my experience using a Tam Valley Frog Juicer it has always switched polarity quickly enough to avoid any interrupt in sound (or hesitation in movement on non-stay alive fitted locos).

Yes, I've seen perfectly flat cassettes made of MDF strip and aluminium angle taken on a banana shape over an exhibition weekend. In that case, not so much it's tendency to warp, but the result of two different materials expanding at a different rate I think.