steve howe
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The Great Cornish Model Show
A celebration of modelmaking talent in Cornwall!
Featuring: 15 working model train layouts; model aircraft – radio controlled and miniature – model boats and ships; radio controlled trucks and cars; military modelling; miniature figure painting; paper modelling; plastic kit modelling; Wargamers; miniature roomsets and dolls houses; modelling demonstrations; Full Trade support.
April 13 & 14 2024
Sat 10.00 – 5.00 Sun 10.00 – 4.00
Pool Academy
Church Road
Pool
TR15 3PZ
Adults £7.00: U-16s £3.00; Family £15.00
Free parking, easy access, Hot food and refreshments all day
Model Railway Layouts
Shillingbury. O gauge
Woodbridge. O gauge
Bridport Town O-16.5 narrow gauge
Clinkerford P4
Sandsifters P4
Westford OO fine scale
Old Elms Road. OO fine scale
Fairbine Road. OO fine scale
Midhurst Crecent OO fine scale
Lockdown Wharf OO scale
Penderoke. OO fine scale
Wheal Penbasset 00 gauge
Karlsdorf HOe gauge
New Vadden Parkway N gauge
Porthgarrow N gauge
Moor Boxes N gauge
Lego Layout – Thomas and Friends
Castell 009
Other Modelling Subjects / displays
Camborne Pondhoppers Model Boat ClubMick French Model Lifeboats
Cornwall Flyers
Leo’s paper models
Mordheim models
Marazion Modellers
International Plastic Modellers Association
Plymouth Truckers Radio Controlled Trucks
Cornwall Scale Modellers
Karen Carne’s scale miniatures and Dolls Houses
Kevin Banevicus model figures
Lego Technic trucks and diggers
Helston Railway Society
Chris Knuckley plastic modelling
DemonstratorsGeoff Stevens – locomotive builder
Cornwall Wargamers – fantasy figures
Nick Smith Westcountry Bases – scenic modelling
Traders,
Chris’s Crafts - tools and materialsAndy Lynch - pre-loved models
Harvey’s – ready to run
Fred Elton books
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Sandsifters should at Railwells this August
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Under a week to go until the Great Cornish Model Show!
April 15 & 16 2023.
This year we are expanding our show from just model railways to include modelmaking from other subjects including model boats, ships, aircraft both radio controlled and static, radio controlled trucks, military modelling and model architecture. Around 14 working model railway layouts plus displays and demonstrations of model boats, aircraft, vehicles and model trucks, military modelling, 1/12 scale dolls house models and examples of model architecture by the late Allan Downes.
There will be three halls of exhibits this year and outdoor demonstrations (weather permitting!) plus Trade support for all those essential ‘bits and bobs’!
Presented by Helston & Falmouth Model Railway Club
April 15 & 16thSat. 10.00 – 5.00 Sun. 10.00 – 4.00
Adults £6.00 u-16's £3.00 family (2xA, 2Xu-16's) £14.00
Pool AcademyChurch Road
Pool
Redruth
Cornwall
TR15 3PZ
Full Trade support including House of Hobbies, Chris’s Crafts & DCC Concepts
Hot food and refreshments all day. Easy access and parking.
Exhibitors attending:
Model Railway Layouts
Loch Manaig N scaleWadebridge 2mm gauge finescale
Newham 009
Portmadoc Harbour OO9
Alte Ulmenberg HO
Carlyon Bay OO
A Day in Wales OOHayle Club’s Modular layout OO
Midhurst Road Junction OOElms Bridge OO
Harris Sidings OO
Trenance OOLower Road Goods P4
Monksbury O gauge
Children’s Corner and raffleOther Modellers
Plymouth Truckers
Cornwall Scale Modellers (International Plastic Modellers Society)Cornwall Flyers
Camborne Model Boats (Camborne Pondhoppers)Colin Saxton Vintage Models
Geoff Stephens model locomotive builder
RNLI model Lifeboat DisplayAllan Downs Buildings
1/12 scale miniatures with Karen CarneHelston Railway Society
Traders
House of Hobbies including DCC Concepts
Plymouth RC Truckers and Scale Models
Andy Lynch preloved models
Chris’s Crafts – something of everything including tools and materials
Fred Elton Books
Hot food and drinks by Victorian Mobile Catering
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Make a date in your diaries!
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Hi Marc,
I used code 55 FB steel rail (from the Scalefour Society stores) for this project which is quite delicate but looks the part, especially if you space the sleepers slightly wider than standard, as was often light railway practice to save money! Mine were largely PCB since they were intended to be buried, but I did use a few ply and rivet ones here and there turned upside down and the tinned rail soldered to the rivet foot. I used a vee jig made from thick card for the vees but you need to allow a little rebate to accommodate the rail foot. The hardest job was filing the switch rails because I had been led to believe the stock rails were not notched to take the foot of the switch rail, which was shaped so as to ride onto the foot of the stock rail without a rebate. I have since found out this is not always true and the foot of the stockrail was often notched to get the switch rails to home snugly. If I were doing it again I'd do it this way because shaping the foot of the switchrails was a pain!
Will you be doing it in P4?
Steve
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When this site first went down and then came back up again, I spent a considerable amount of time re-loading all the images to my current layout thread https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/137565-sandsifters/ thinking all was well.
I have just looked again and am "disappointed" to find that virtually all the images all but a few on the last page have once again disappeared. This is so frustrating as non-modelling friends frequently like to check in on what I've been doing, and the thread is the only record I have of the project from start to finish. My other long-standing construction thread https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/95206-lower-rose-goods/#comment-1755373
has also suffered the same fate.
I don't suppose it matters to Warner's or RMWeb management that hours of people's work has been lost here, but it leaves me saddened that several years' worth of carefully documented work can no longer be accessed.
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Well the layout made it to our Club Spring Show, unfortunately I didn't being laid low with Covid. Looking rather lost among the clutter of the school Drama displays. It stands on four screw-in chrome legs which in turn stand on a table to bring it up to around 4' 6" viewing height. A couple of chrome poles and a horizontal bar carry a couple of miniature theatre lamps and that's it!
Still some buildings to make for the upper level and two locos to finish painting and weathering.
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The Spring Show opens tomorrow at Pool Academy, Church Road, Pool TR15 3PZ
14 layouts, Demonstrations and Trade support including Kernow Model Rail Centre, Squires Tools, Scale Model Scenery and MERG.
Exhibitors attending:
Layouts
Monksbury O gauge
Gweek North Quay O-16.5 narrow gauge
Old Elms Road OO fine scale
Hounslow Sidings OO fine scale
Hendra OO fine scale
Midhurst Road Junction OO fine scale
Bishop Street Yard OO
Sandsifters P4
Padstow 2mm fine scale
New Vaddon Parkway N gauge
Lynberris N gauge
Little Earnest N gauge
Riverfield N gauge
Traders
Kernow Model Rail
Squires Tools
Andy Lynch
Scale Model Scenery
Fred Elton Books
Alex Holden Laser cut buildings
Others
MERG
Helston Railway Society
Geoff Stevens modelling demonstrations
Hot food and drinks by Victorian Mobile Catering
Plenty of free parking and easy level access to the halls.
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Finally, vegetation in the form of gorse and bramble has appeared...
Rather devoid of trains and customers! but then it is a light railway...
The yard is equally deserted.
The charm of the narrow gauge creeps in!
Definitely won't be done for the show in two weeks time, but the top yard shows a statement of intent.
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Agreed Neil, its why I wanted to complete the thread now that the layout's on the home straight (at least scenically) whether the wretched thing actually works is another matter!😁
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I cannot believe that after having spent hours re-loading the images to this thread, RMWeb has managed to lose over half of them again🤬
All over to Western Thunder then!
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Cornwall's premier Model Railway Show is back!
Helston & Falmouth MRC's Spring Exhibition is planned for April 23 & 24. Note New Venue!
Helston & Falmouth Model Railway Club
April 23rd & 24th
Sat. 10.00 – 5.00 Sun. 10.00 – 4.00
Adults £5.00 u-16's £3.00 family (2xA, 2Xu-16's) £12.00
NOTE NEW VENUE!
Pool Academy
Church Road
Pool
Redruth
Cornwall
TR15 3PZ
Around 14 working layouts. Full Trade support including Kernow Model Rail Centre, Squires Tools, & MERG. Hot food and refreshments all day.
Exhibitors attending:
Layouts
Monksbury O gauge
Gweek North Quay O-16.5 narrow gauge
Old Elms Road OO fine scale
Hounslow Sidings OO fine scale
Hendra OO fine scale
Midhurst Road Junction OO fine scale
Bishop Street Yard OO
Sandsifters P4
Padstow 2mm fine scale
New Vaddon Parkway N gauge
Lynberris N gauge
Little Earnest N gauge
Riverfield N gauge
Traders
Kernow Model Rail
Squires Tools
Andy Lynch
Attwood Aggregates
Scale Model Scenery
Fred Elton Books
Others
MERG
Helston Railway Society
Geoff Stevens modelling demonstrations
Hot food and drinks by Victorian Mobile Catering
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Having rebuilt this thread after RMWeb's catastrophe, I can update progress with Sandsifters.
Remember the round-topped shed from earlier?
The 'asbestos' roof was made with Slaters 7mm corrugated sheet. A suitable piece of pipe made the former.
Followed by a nice hot bath...
Voila!
Painted with matt enamels and sprinkled with talc to get a slight texture to the sheet.
General view of the yard with all the structures in place. Note the 'neccessary offices' tucked in between the buildings! The building peeping over the horizon has nothing to do with this layout and belongs to Roseladden Wharf, still lurking in the shadows!
The other structures getting bedded in place.
Just waiting for the Day Trippers!
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Why does a pop-up describing itself as 'This Day in History' along with adverts keep appearing every time I move to a new page? It is extremely annoying and distracting as it needs closing each time. Is there a way to close it permanently?
Steve
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So the line needed some coaching stock and I figured that the Company would have looked for a bargain (this being Cornwall etc.) and acquired a couple of horse trams from a system that was being electrified. Of course not being designed for locomotive haulage, they were faced with the problem of how to attach them to their locomotives. On the Wantage Tramway a steel bar was used, but I needed to find a way of uncoupling the stock automatically. Because of height differences and lack of buffing gear the Alex Jackson couplings on the locos were unsuitable so I devised something which looked like it might have been cobbled together by the Fitter in the workshop after the requisite quantity of head scratching, fag packet design, tea drinking and general criticism of the Management's choice of rolling stock.
The vehicles are the Hurst-Nelson cars used on the Wantage Tramway from the Worsley Works etched kits. "Kits" might be an over-optimistic term as these are basically scratchbuilder's aids and in the absence of any instructions, much is left to interpretation by the builder!
The cars will be permanently coupled to each other by a bar, but some form of buffing/coupling device was needed at each end. After a few experiments I devised a cranked bar pivotted on the outer bulkhead with a dropper on the inner end activated by the magnets under the ballast.
The beams in place sans buffing plate.
Hopefully the photo is self-explanatory, ignore the messy soldering! I used an etched wagon coupling hook plate soldered to a piece of 1.5mm lead sheet to make the buffing plate with a loop of 0.35 phosphor bronze wire forming the coupling. A stirrup of brass wire holds the thing more or less centrally. The weight of the buffing plate counteracts the dropper (sawn off head of a panel pin) and the arm drops to the correct height in use.
The coupling loop rides up over the loco drawhook without fouling the AJ coupling already installed.
And activated by the magnet, up it pops! How reliable it will be in service remains to be seen, but it seemed like a good idea at the time! The coaches are currently going through the paintshops.
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I can't believe its been over a year since I updated this project. Progress has been erratic but a few things have got done and with our Club Spring show rapidly approaching I've had to rachet progress. The station buildings have been more or less completed,
I wanted the tea shack to have a slightly different roof to the conventional slates and a general over-abundance of corrugated iron, so I adopted tiles laid on the diagonal which was common on wooden buildings in the early 20th century.
A sheet of cartridge paper was marked up in 4mm squares and cut into strips, the lower half was cut with a new scalpel to create a 'sawtooth' effect. These were stuck to a card under roof taking care to end each row with a half tile.
The roof was painted with blends of watercolour and weathered with ground pastels, the ridge tiles were still to be added.
The roof developed a natural sag which added to the effect of a slightly ageing structure.
The coaches will be discussed in due course!
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Are there any plans to re-introduce the TVR Hudswell-Clark 0-4-0? I built one from the K's kit years ago which is now on its third (and last!) scratchbuilt chassis with a High Level 108-1 gear set, it toddles along beautifully and I'd love another one!
Steve
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Helston & Falmouth MRC's Spring Exhibition is planned for April 23 & 24. Note New Venue!
Helston & Falmouth Model Railway Club
April 23rd & 24th
Sat. 10.00 – 5.00 Sun. 10.00 – 4.00
Adults £5.00 u-16's £3.00 family (2xA, 2Xu-16's) £12.00
NOTE NEW VENUE!
Pool Academy
Church Road
Pool
Redruth
Cornwall
TR15 3PZ
Around 14 working layouts. Full Trade support including Kernow Model Rail Centre, Squires Tools, & MERG. Hot food and refreshments all day.
Exhibitors attending:
Traders
Kernow Model Rail
Squires Tools
Andy Lynch
Attwood Aggregates
Scale Model Scenery
Fred Elton Books
Layouts
Monksbury O gauge
Gweek North Quay O-16.5 narrow gauge
Old Elms Road OO fine scale
Hounslow Sidings OO fine scale
Hendra OO fine scale
Midhurst Road Junction OO fine scale
Bishop Street Yard OO
Sandsifters P4
Padstow 2mm fine scale
New Vaddon Parkway N gauge
Lynberris N gauge
Little Earnest N gauge
Riverfield N gauge
Others
MERG
Helston Railway Society
Geoff Stevens modelling demonstrations
Hot food and drinks by Victorian Mobile Catering
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On 09/11/2021 at 18:01, bluestag said:
The Wizard product is unavailable. It is designed specifically for half inch ply with a cork underlay. My layout is 3/4" ply with 1/2" fiberboard and no cork. I would have to gouge out a large hole in the ply and screw the uncoupler to the fiberboard.
I really need an uncoupler with an 1 1/4" pole piece. Which I am unlikely to find. I suppose that the solenoid cannot excite a magnetic force over such a long rod.
Have a look for secondhand H & M point motors, the two coils linked together plus the pole do the job.
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Keith's map shows Coombe as it was c.1907 with the three crossovers on the loop line. By 1928 the middle crossover was removed; other than that, the Junction remained pretty much untouched until 1981 when the signal box (which was on the point of collapse) was closed and the track layout 'rationalised'. Still a pretty spot, but in steam days Coombe Junction was idyllic. In addition to the rural surroundings, it retained much of its pre-war atmosphere with the lovely Saxby & Farmer signal box and the fine array of semaphore signals.
Probably well outside your period Marky but I would recommend the excellent book 'The Liskeard & Looe Branch' by Gerry Beale (Wild Swan) which has some beautiful images of the line and a wealth of information on its operation including the fascinating locomotive sheds at Moorswater - surely a modelling gem if ever there was one!
Steve
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Yes me too, and the working horse of course
It must be the season, because I've been working on Sandsifters again this week after nearly 8 months of inactivity. Although I suspect the Cameo Challenge has sunk without trace as we don't seem to hear anything from its originators anymore.
Steve
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On 25/07/2017 at 22:37, Phil Bullock said:
Watch out - he'll want a map of local sausage emporia next...
I can highly recommend Chapman Bros. in Perranporth .... best sausage by a country mile!
Steve
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I've just been looking through this post with some interest as I live between Perranporth and Goonhavern. I'm not sure if you are aware that there really was a proposal in 1874 to construct a railway, to be called ‘The Truro & Perran Mineral Railway’ a scheme proposed in 1872 to construct a railway from Treamble to Truro to convey iron ore directly to the Truro River at Newham. The line would have passed through the Treamble valley, crossing the Truro – Newquay road at Goonhavern, passing Zelah and heading south through Kenwyn parish to a junction with the Cornwall Railway at the east end of Carvedras viaduct.
The Act empowered the Company to lay a third rail on the Cornwall Railway’s broad gauge to allow it to run through to a junction with the West Cornwall Railway at Penwithers (later Penwethers Junction) The T&PMR would have had running rights over the West Cornwall route down to the river at Truro (Newham) where it intended to construct blast furnaces on the banks of the Truro River and ship finished steel out by sea. The Cornwall Minerals Railway however had already staked its claim on the Treamble iron mines by opening its Treamble Branch (known as the Perran Extension) in 1874. Accordingly the T&PMR revised its scheme and proposed a deviation from near Zelah to a triangular junction with the CMR near Shepherds. This would have allowed trains to run direct from Treamble or Newquay to Truro.
Had these schemes come to fruition, the advantages of a direct route from Truro to Newquay are obvious and the railway map of mid-Cornwall would have looked very different to that which subsequently evolved when the GWR opened its connection to the mainline at Chacewater in 1905, with interim stations at St Agnes and Perranporth.
My own fictional interpretation of these events is here:
Steve
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The Great Cornish Model Show
in Exhibitions
Posted
This the 2024 Line-Up:
The Great Cornish Model Show
A celebration of modelmaking talent in Cornwall!
Featuring: 15 working model train layouts; model aircraft – radio controlled and miniature – model boats and ships; radio controlled trucks and cars; military modelling; miniature figure painting; paper modelling; plastic kit modelling; Wargamers; miniature roomsets and dolls houses; modelling demonstrations; Full Trade support.
April 13 & 14 2024
Sat 10.00 – 5.00 Sun 10.00 – 4.00
http://www.hfmrc.uk/events
Pool Academy
Church Road
Pool
TR15 3PZ
Adults £7.00: U-16s £3.00; Family £15.00
Free parking, easy access, Hot food and refreshments all day
Model Railway Layouts
Shillingbury. O gauge
Woodbridge. O gauge
Bridport Town O-16.5 narrow gauge
Clinkerford P4
Sandsifters P4
Westford OO fine scale
Old Elms Road. OO fine scale
Fairbine Road. OO fine scale
Midhurst Crecent OO fine scale
Lockdown Wharf OO scale
Penderoke. OO fine scale
Wheal Penbasset 00 gauge
Karlsdorf HOe gauge
New Vadden Parkway N gauge
Porthgarrow N gauge
Moor Boxes N gauge
Lego Layout – Thomas and Friends
Castell 009
Other Modelling Subjects / displays
Camborne Pondhoppers Model Boat Club
Mick French Model Lifeboats
Cornwall Flyers
Leo’s paper models
Mordheim models
Marazion Modellers
International Plastic Modellers Association
Plymouth Truckers Radio Controlled Trucks
Cornwall Scale Modellers
Karen Carne’s scale miniatures and Dolls Houses
Kevin Banevicus model figures
Lego Technic trucks and diggers
Helston Railway Society
Chris Knuckley plastic modelling
Demonstrators
Geoff Stevens – locomotive builder
Mordheimers – fantasy figures
Nick Smith– scenic modelling
Traders
Chris’s Crafts - tools and materials
Andy Lynch - pre-loved models
Harvey’s – ready to run
Fred Elton books
Westcountry Bases