Ressaldar

Hi Paul, PRMRP do them here http://www.prmrp.com/fittings--all-other-accessories.html Part GEN-004 you might have to drill them out for the LED. regards Mike

....a week is a long time in model making as well as in politics!! Much water has passed under the bridge since July and I have just about stayed calm, mainly sitting on the bank waiting for the mojo to float pass, and strangely, since that injection in the arm that is Telford, I have reeled it in and carried out the task in the last line of the previous post having put it off for far too long - mainly because I do not like using Bostik. The chassis and bogies were completed last week and the body ends screwed on, giving a good 'platform' for the sides to be added. The roof was then offered up to the box only to discover that my assumption that it was already cut to length was out by a mere 12mm and having put the vents and filler pots on, I thought that disaster was staring me in the face and major surgery might be needed, but thankfully, there was sufficient 'slack' at the small saloon end and the repair only required two vents to be removed, which as yet have not been replaced. seven into one will go - 1 seven into one will go - 2 the guards side with the two outer small windows formed from standard 4' windows revised end now with a fixed light in lieu of the droplight test run being propelled by 37193 on the inner circuit and no buffer lock. The fittings on the ends and roof will be the next task, then inside the body and making the furniture. I have decided to finish it in Blue/Grey and fit the Southern Region reporting panel at the bottom of the central fixed light with 'RT' at the leading end and unlit red panels at the trailing end. Transfers already in stock from John Peck at Precision Decals. regards Mike

when I asked regarding 'Sandite' versions, the answer was in the affirmative, louvres et al. regards Mike

Hi Boris, Westdale are still into 7mm O Gauge production, the contact details are: Dick Taylor, 84 New Road, Marlow Bottom, Bucks, SL7 3NW Telephone: 01628 482493 email: info@westdalecoaches.co.uk There is no website. Regards Mike

Hi Andy, great news, look forward to seeing the detail going on the scenery by next week end! regards Mike

Hi Andy, got fed up listening to the Test Match, so here is V4 no space for the last right hand point though! kind regards Mike

Hi Andy, I like this one even more than the first, but the geometry has reared its head once again I see where you are coming from using your existing right and left hand points, but this is the best that I can come up with, using 4No 'Y' points to not only get the fit, but more to get the curves on the sidings that you suggest. kind regards Mike

Hi Andy, I like the idea of your proposed layout, so much so, that I have taken the liberty to produce it using AnyRail 6 the grid is 6" square. The trackwork is standard Peco O Gauge and I have drawn the pointwork to give the usual track centres, with the toes of the two crossovers at the righthand end on your red line which I assume is your baseboard join.. As you can see, this results in a much shallower plan than you sketched out and if you want the 'full 2ft' as your sketch, you would end up with very little space at the ends of some of the tracks as well as some very strange reverse curve arrangements. I only point this out to help before you spend time and effort in building baseboards. kind regards Mike

EWS had four Inspection Saloons, DM45020 and DM45029, both to ex LMS Diag D2046 design built in the 1940s, DM45020 was fitted with B4/B5 bogies and alterations to the bodywork. DB999504 built to BR Diag 1/550 a BR version of the ex LMS design in the early 1960s and DB999509 a totally BR design to Diag 1/552.When in EWS ownership they were fitted with heater vents in the sides and did not have an ETH equipment - as I think the Backmann model has, except DB999504 Here are two that I have built in O Gauge, DM45029 and DB999504 Mike

Thanks all for the response. These are definitely the ones, they are to Diagram D1941 just hope that I can find a 7mm kit. Regards Mike edit to include Diagram Number

Could anyone tell me the type of stone hopper wagon used on the Helston branch, there is a picture on page 20 of the Bradford Barton 'Great Western steam Branch line Steam - vol 1', but I cannot match it with anything in my wagon books or on Paul Bartlett's website. regards Mike

Here is one coach that was repainted for GWR 150 when it was based at Newport, BR Diag 1/552 Inspection Saloon DB999509 from an O Gauge Easybuild kit. I'm tempted to get the forthcoming Dapol 121 in the same livery to run as a '150 Special'! regards Mike

Now that the 4MT is out of the way, I have made some progress on the Inspection Saloon over the last few days, in as much that I have now fitted the centre fixed lights to the ends. I obtained a couple of blank D2046 ends from Malcolm Binns at Sidelines and using the etched D2046 ends from the kit as a pattern, drew round the inside of the fixed light window openings as a guide for the replacement fixed lights. Measured up the rectangular opening meant for the droplight and superimposed that rectangle over the previously drawn fixed light shape. I then milled out the new fixed light openings and then using a piercing saw, cut out the rectangle and then spent a couple of hours with fine files fetling them to be a good fit within the opening and then soldered them in place. both ends - before and after, but before any cleaning up end 1 after cleaning up. end 2 from the outside and before cleaning up. Next step is to fit sides to ends then make up the box and fit the roof - hopefully next week. regards Mike

Done save a visit to the coaling stage now back to the Inspection Saloon conversion regards Mike

Hi Dave, great to see the recommencement of normal service. As others have said, take it easy and do as it says on the box of pills. kind regards Mike

Hi Paul, polling does not close until the chassis is finished, so time for the 'don't knows' to nail their colours to the mast. regards Mike

Hi Peter, Thank you for your kind comment. I soldered the pieces together on the face side hoping that the solder would fill in the curves, then after cleaning off the solder with a scratch brush and some 1200 wet and dry, sprayed white ‘hibuild’ primer as a witness coat then went over all of the joints with Squadron putty and when that was dry repeated the cleaning up sequence, again followed by the primer. I am still uncertain which livery to apply, retro ‘blood and custard’ being the favourite at present, but blue/grey or even Loadhaul are still contenders. Regards Mike

This is the first 'chapter' in the build that I should have posted before the post above: While waiting for the paint to dry on the D2046 Inspection Saloon, I decided to take the bull by the horns and try my luck using a friend's Metalsmith guillotine to chop up the sides of another Sidelines kit to hopefully end up with this: LMS Inspection Saloon At Hebden Bridge (Michael McNicholas) which is one of the two ex LMS 50' Kitchen car conversions that were carried out in 1959 and whilst similar quite similar to the LMS Diag D2046, do have quite a few differences - location and spacing of doors and windows, individual angled rainstrips over each of the doors and a fixed centre light in the ends as opposed to a droplight. I had a couple of spare sides from the producing the EWS liveried coach so one these became the cut and shuffle 'Corridor' side for this build, together with parts from one side of the Kitchen Car kit and the other side is used for the 'Guards' side, just needing two of the four foot wide windows reducing in width and these 'infills' will come from the second cannibalised side. I had marked out the main side to be cut up and checked that the sum of the width of the individual pieces came to the magical 350mm and not having previously used a guillotine I had a few practice chops on some spare etch and not having lost any fingers in the process 'went for it' resulting in the Guards side at the bottom, just needing two inserts to produce the right effect and the Corridor side made up of seven individual pieces with a sliver to file off at the end of piece G. The plan is to solder a narrow brass strip (form the excellent Eileen's range) behind each join and then form the tumbleholme in the usual Sidelines manner. More fun to come whilst waiting for more paint to dry next week. regards Mike

Now that the 4MT tank is more or less finished - (the water capacity plate arrived today and will be applied over the weekend) I can now return my attention to the Diag 1/551 Inspection saloon 'cut and shuffle' exercise that I started last year. I decided that the way forward was to finish the sides and ends before the chassis and bogies on the basis that if the 'cut and shuffle' didn't work out then I had not wasted my time of the rest of the kit. So the Ersa was fired up this morning which has resulted in from this I built a jig that was long enough to take the full length of the side and peeled off each of the pieces from the masking/carrier tape in turn, cleaned them up, held B against A and against the jig, applied heat and moved on C to B, etc left it all to cool off, then cleaned the excess solder off with a scratch brush, brushed off the arisings and then sprayed a witness coat to check for any tell tale lines, which fortunately, they were not too bad. So stopper putty was applied which seemed to be going off in this heat as soon as it was out of the tube, that was then left to harden off. In the mean time, attention was turned to the 'other side' which as you can see, needed two of the four foot windows to be reduced to two foot. I had cut out three pieces (includes a spare - 'just in case') when I had had use of the guillotine, which just needed to be trimmed to fit. The opening lights were removed from the four footers and the corners made square rather than radii. The new infill panels were then soldered in, cleaned up and again witness coated and stopper puttied and left to dry. The stopper was smoothed down and again witness coated and the results are shown above. The ends are next up, a question of marking out and forming the three identical windows, unlike the ex LMS Diag D2046 saloons, there were fixed centre windows in lieu of droplights on these two conversions. Hopefully, more to come soon. regards Mike

Hi Dave, many thanks for that, unusually clean as well. Glad I reversed Rule 1! regards Mike

CALAMITY IN THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!! RULE 1 OVERTURNED with England having such a good day on the sporting front yesterday and me waking up with my shoulder impingement seemingly gone, I felt I should tackle the crest problem - just a few coats of Johnson's Klear to apply later today and then the speedo and coal in the bunker to do. regards Mike

Despite the trials and tribulations of using the HMRS Sheet 22 Mixed Traffic lining, the loco is now finished apart from fixing the speedo equipment and putting some coal in the bunker and some judicious weathering. the numbers, crests, smokebox number and shed plate are from Railtec, cab roof lifting lugs and Southern style additional lamp irons are from the scrap box, reporting discs are by Roxey and the speedo is by Finney7. I have fitted a Zimo MX645 and sugarcube speaker by Digitrains. regards Mike

Hi PMP, search 121034 on Flickr and this is one of the images https://www.flickr.com/photos/73574431@N06/36843657956/in/photolist-Y8KnU1-X9yEMS-TEg3hd-qgTqDX-TZApum-26ExKhH-qrwmgW-W7NS7i-TEpFNt-gMtqve-S5fSBH-UZdKVM-sbq1QG-XQhNm7-UVoXw9-9Tu8AP-iohQv2-Y4HNvU-URoQMZ-V9tXdo-UUepun-25soz18-23ju5zx-UQQ1EQ-XAuYD5-T5hEUb-21Wza6M-V6Ssdn-23LeTin-JEUzr7-XiHkmx-SpezKw-UGCt5z-V2QLeM-piiHEy-naH1Ct-ZVbbzu-24Zksx1-AFvAMY-FHWbUH-9Hubsf-TJT3s6-DmC3m2-UQVYKQ-V7wN7Q-UYRmWe-niNvNS-TdTMkw-fEVuXE-UTwatZ regards Mike

Lets hope that Dapol remember the 'central locking plates' over the footsteps one I did a couple of years back, a Bachmann/San Cheng O Gauge model.- reading the Spec on the DCC Supplies website, they are not mentioned. regards Mike edited to amend description to 'central locking plates'

Hi David, I wish you a speedy and successful recovery and look forward to seeing further postings when you are well and truly comfortably 'back in the saddle'. Many thanks for the wonderful photographs. kind regards Mike