mike morley

Try sticking it in the freezer overnight. Lots of glues become brittle at low temperature and will crack quite easily when flexed.

Drat! That means the set of transfers I only received last week aren't actually correct for my at-the-Grouping layout. I feel a sudden need to apply Rule 1 . . .

I've been using neat Copydex to stick down track and underlay for years but have been investigating its use in dilute form for sticking down ballast. There is lots of mention on here about diluting it with water but my trial mix took an extraordinary 18 hours to dry and even then it was still obstinately opaque white. It wasnt very heavily diluted, either - about one third water, two thirds Copydex. Do others simply put up with the elongated drying time or do they do something to speed things up? I've also trialed diluting Copydex with Kleer, which took a not-much-better 12 hours to dry, and Swarfega(!), which only took two hours but left it with a distinctly greasy feel which didnt give me much confidence in its ability to actually stick things.

Looking at that colour scheme, I assume Bowers Row is in the vicinity of Castleford? (I ask as a namby-pamby, bed-wetting Southerner who was born and brought up within walking distance of Twickenham)

H & A Models do them, enough for three wagons in a pack. Vital to anyone building Cambrian or Parkside kits, as well as the occasional Slaters kit that turns up without any.

Yep! Me! I'd built several of Adrians kits and always found they were nicely cast and went together well. There is, however, an exception to every rule and, like 5050, found this was it! I eventually got it together and it looks very pretty, but it has stay permanently parked at the end of a siding because I never could persuade it to run acceptably

Mine has got Lanarkshire housings with Gibson sprung buffer heads. The former I'd highly recommend but I'm not so keen on the latter. The Gibson tails are extremely skimpy and it takes very little for them to get bent to all kinds of odd angles. Getting the loco in or out of its box without at least one buffer head aiming either skywards or down at the floor is impossible. I've had to bend mine straight so many times I'm amazed they havent snapped. If I use them again I'll cut the tails off, drill the shafts and glue in a piano wire replacement. I also found using the Gibson sprung buffers made fitting the gussets behind the buffer beams extremely difficult. I didnt even attempt the double gussets mine probably ought to have and fitted the single gusset its actually got slightly out of position.

I was told that there was a fire in which some masters, the Austerity included, were damaged beyond use.

The Branchlines chassis has been mentioned favourably several times. I have recently purchased an SE Finecast/Branchlines kit with a Justin Newitt chassis. Are they the same thing?

With regard to the handrails, on the great majority of Austerities those across the front of the saddle tank are level with those along the sides. On the Dapol/Hornby models they are not. I'd assumed that was simply a mistake by Dapol that Hornby had perpetuated until I found a photograph of a prototype that matched those on the model. Then I found a few more and realised they were all built by Andrew Barclay. Bear that in mind when deciding both where to site your handrails and which prototype to select.

If Nearholmer means the big square plate fixed to the lower edge of the buffer beam, it was to prevent the swinging coupling links walloping the living daylights out of the mechanical stoker when in motion.

That's the one! And, I have to admit, not a catflap on any of them.

There used to be an exceptionally good webpage giving full chapter and verse on the gas producer system and how it was fitted to the Austerities. I thought it was on the IRS website, but apparently not. Is anyone able to point us in the right direction?

That hatch is connected with the mechanical stoker, which was fitted to all the gas-producer locos. A lot of them had the gas-producer boilers removed but retained the mechanical stokers, even though they didnt use them. Apparently, if a loco with a mechanical stoker was left standing for a while the fire could creep back along it from the firebox and set the contents of the bunker alight!