Castle Aching

[robmcg]

I recall fondly the power of imagination when Golden Books were stations and a couch was a tunnel or hill....   I still have the remnants of that somewhere,  just can't quite remember where I put it.  

 

Which leads me to the art of storage of tools and models.  You enter the relevant room and stay very still, then the item presents itself. Easy.

 

 

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

In the sort of outer circle you just have to remove 'buses from bridges and eschew obvious cameos like wedding parties.

 

I quite agree where wedding parties are concerned*.  Unless its a townscape with the wedding party outside the nondescript hovel that passes for a Registry Office then there IS no place for such festivities as most model representations of churches are far too small.  However, I feel that given the circular nature of existence, the presentation of "omnibuses on bridges" can now be treated as ironic comment!

 

I for one will be including a Bedford OB on my forthcoming N gauge disaster layout.  It should also be remembered that such a vehicle appeared on several bridges in The Titfield Thunderbolt.

 

Of course, none of my efforts could be even remotely construed as "finescale"...

 

 

* Also "anglers on the banks of shallow streams", "unrealistic canals", "police incidents" and "welders in lineside garages"

[Compound2632]

On the other hand, Geoffrey Boycott at the wicket is permissible.

[Nearholmer]

There must now be a place for an entire ironic, post-modern layout, containing every possible cliche, crammed into the tiniest possible space, knowingly and deliberately.

 

But, how would it be possible to tell it apart from all the layouts which fit that description, but which aren't deliberate ironies?

 

 

[Hroth]

4 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

There must now be a place for an entire ironic, post-modern layout, containing every possible cliche, crammed into the tiniest possible space, knowingly and deliberately.

 

I suppose it could be done with the typical retro Hornby Dublo layout.... 

 

 

[Edwardian]

I  must admit, I've considered satirical railway modelling.  Ironic would be new, and, as you say hard to distinguish from non-ironic.

 

Anyhow, time to say good bye to the Fox Walker Mark I, which, with Tom's blessing, has now been passed on.

 

It was surplus to requirements once Tom had produced a Mark II.

 

 

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Well, yes.  I expect I'll get a good kicking for it, though.

Nah. Andy York made that comment in person on Saturday morning.

Your punishment is to know that you weren’t original.

 

Suitable figures are in production...

[Donw]

I remember the layout well from the MRJ show. I had been rather enamoured of S from before after seeing Trevor Nuns Wicken. I got seduced by the availabiltiy of Slaters 0 gauge wagons though and never tried S for myself.

There is of course Finescale and Finescale. The hairshirt self flaggellation at the merest hint of compromise (apart from electric motor in steam engines)  sort and the Wow that looks really good sort where compromise is accepted and used to good effect.  The former I usally ask whether the armature windings in their locos are dead scale the latter I would love to emulate.

 

Don

[robmcg]

Two lovely examples of brass S scale...

 

The first is strictly Edwardian being a 1906-design NZR A class 4-cylinder compound No.472, this was my grandfather's favourite engine when he was a senior driver up until 1942. The model was presented to my father when he retired.

 

 

The second is a lovely Ajin Korea  S scale model of a WW2-built NZR 4-8-4 which I add out of sheer enjoyment of an engine which filled my days of youth...

 

.

 

After all, British engines are rather plain, aren't they...   <g>

 

edit;  The shed behind the engine was built by Americans in mid-1942 when they set up for the very large and nasty war in the Pacific, and saved we NZers from Japanese invasion, our own soldiers being in Egypt prior to El Alamein...   the scene is largely unaltered today being a museum and shed for working steam engines including 4-8-2s and such as the above 4-8-4.  

 

edit 2;  My first cab ride was in an identical 4-8-4 at this very shed, No.952. I was 11 yrs old in 1962 and was instructed to keep my feet away from the edge of the fall-plate by the wizened and old driver who was probably about 45 yrs old. It was being run out of shed and then backing up to the overnight Auckland Express, often up to 16-total, high speeds at times,  the very heart-and-soul of steam-age engineering, I travelled on it a lot.  Whatever happened to the crispy bacon, etc,  wipes a tear from eye.... 

Edited February 13, 2020 by robmcg

[Andy Hayter]

I know you specialise in these very lifelike portrayals Rob, but it would also be good to see the models in the raw, so to speak

[Regularity]

10 hours ago, Donw said:

I remember the layout well from the MRJ show. I had been rather enamoured of S from before after seeing Trevor Nunn's Wicken.

That layout was a regular on the local exhibition circuit when I was a young teenager, and was what drew me into S.

Quote

There is of course Finescale and Finescale. The hairshirt self flaggellation at the merest hint of compromise (apart from electric motor in steam engines)  sort and the Wow that looks really good sort where compromise is accepted and used to good effect.  The former I usally ask whether the armature windings in their locos are dead scale the latter I would love to emulate.

I have come to a personal distinction between those two definitions, preferring to think of "exactscale" and "finescale".

The difference is one of tolerance.

The former is obsessed with avoiding compromise (except where it suddenly suits them) but to me, finescale is about nothing more than stating how accurate you wish to be. 

The earliest such approach I can find is Charles Wynne, in 1919, who set out to build his models to within a scale inch of the prototype.

And yes, that was in S scale.

 

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not advocating that finescale means that one sets a tolerance of "within 1 scale inch of the prototype", nor indeed that one has to define any such tolerance at all, merely that it was a clear articulation of striving to get close to the proportions of the real thing whilst accepting that 100% accuracy is unachievable.

(But I will forever hold to my opinion that "Finescale 00" is EM, which is still 1.6" underscale.  ) *

 

Then there is the other form of tolerance: if asked what I think of someone else's modelling, I first ask two questions.

1) What are they trying to achieve?

2) To what standards of accuracy are they working?

Without that, how can I comment - I cannot make any form of "judgement" (which I would rather not do anyway) based on my own standards. My personal definition of finescale is mine, not anyone else's, and to impose it on anyone else would be intolerant!

This doesn't mean I will automatically like something: that's just down to personal tastes!

 

* I know the arguments for adopting better wheel standards whilst retaining 00 gauge. I have no issue with that, but I like to tease...

 

Although S scale uses almost direct representations of the prototype/64 for track and wheel standards (as far as tolerances allow: the flangeways were rounded up to whole thousandths of an inch, meaning the track is 0.0012" over gauge) that simply makes things easier for everyone, as we don't need to create much extra clearance. It doesn't define our approach to railway modelling. Yes, we have had ME Gold Medal winners in our ranks, but for most of us, we simply want our models to be as good as we can make them, but accept the occasional errors in measurements and fine details, without resorting to such get outs as "I use the 2'/3'/6' rule". (I do use a metre rule, when cutting out plywood, but that's not how it is meant.)

 

Some - not all - P4 and S7 modellers get short shrift from me, when they claim "exact scale is the only way".

It isn't.

It isn't even possible.

[Edwardian]

The pursuit of finescale has continually raised the standard for the benefit of the hobby as a whole, much as Formula One Racing means that Mondeo Man drives a better a safer car than his father did, with the caveat that finescale modeling differs from F1 in that it's not necessarily always so boring to watch*. 

 

The finescale community is replete with charming people; I've never met a 2Fs member who was anything else, and some finescalers famous hereabouts, like our Regularity and the great Iain Rice, manage to be bilingual, speaking both the language of finescale and at least one human form of communication. 

 

It is a world whose aspirations and attitudes can sometimes be a gift to the satirically minded, however, and there is always someone, it seems, happy to take up the pen in the service of self-parody.  For me, rather than the people, it's some of the rules, both written and unwritten, that evolve, which, when combined with a certain deathly seriousness, I find amusing.  For instance, cameo-phobia to the extent of modelling ghost towns is just funny, to my mind.

 

Iain Rice has probably influenced me more than any single author on the hobby in terms of how I decide to go about my modelling.  He's made me think about important things. But he has his prejudices and preferences, from which an amusing set of 'dos' and 'don'ts' may be derived. All authors with anything worth saying are the same, and if Rice is more user friendly than his ascetic brethren and less tendentious than Essery, his 'rules' nevertheless bring a smile to my face.  

 

 

 

 

*I too, like to tease. .  

[webbcompound]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

Although S scale uses almost direct representations of the prototype/64 for track and wheel standards (as far as tolerances allow: the flangeways were rounded up to whole thousandths of an inch, meaning the track is 0.0012" over gauge)

As a P4 modeller (actual, not ironic) I am quite frankly appalled by your sloppyness. Your flangeways are oversize by aproximately 60,000 Buckyball molecules (using the Van der Waals diameter of C60).

 

But seriously I wouldn't let anyone near my stuff with a steel rule, let alone a micrometer, so no-one will ever know what is happening size-wise. If it looks right, then that is good enough for me.

Edited February 13, 2020 by webbcompound

[Regularity]

29 minutes ago, webbcompound said:

As a P4 modeller (actual, not ironic) I am quite frankly appalled by your sloppyness.

Have you checked the P4 flange and flangeway widths?

They are S scale... 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Regularity
Added wink to show tease.

[Nearholmer]

Interesting that Mr Rice gets frequent mention in the context of fine-scale, in that that isn’t what springs to my mind at the mention of his name.

 

I’m sure his work from the 1980s onwards* has been fine-scale in the sense of track and wheel standards, fidelity of vehicles to prototype etc, but to me that comes across as a useful servant to his real contribution, which is (to me anyway) more about artistic flair and interpretation than anything that can be measured with a micrometer, rather than a defining characteristic.
 

Views?

 

*in the mid/late 70s, our club layout was next-along from one of his works of art at a two-day exhibition, I think it was the layout that figured much in ‘Model Railways’ and was inspired by Wadebridge (maybe?). The layout was stunning to look at, utterly fascinating at all levels, and knocked our very average offering into a cocked-hat, but the running qualities were ....... hmmm ....... and I remember him frankly admitting that he hadn’t quite cracked the track/wheel/loco thing at that stage. It might have been the layout that led him to adopt finer standards - not sure.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Regularity]

19 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

*in the mid/late 70s, our club layout was next-along from one of his works of art at a two-day exhibition, I think it was the layout that figured much in ‘Model Railways’ and was inspired by Wadebridge (maybe?). The layout was stunning to look at, utterly fascinating at all levels, and knocked our very average offering into a cocked-hat, but the running qualities were ....... hmmm ....... and I remember him frankly admitting that he hadn’t quite cracked the track/wheel/loco thing at that stage.

That would be Tregarrick, and he chronicled it's failings reasonably honestly in Model Railways in the early 1980s. (Feb 1982 is a tale of problems!)

More info here.

[Nearholmer]

Sounds familiar.

 

Was it 00? I’ve got what might be a false memory that hangs on that question.

[Regularity]

It was P4...

Edited February 13, 2020 by Regularity
...in places!

[Nearholmer]

Definitely a false memory then. I recall a loco coming from his layout for some sort of attention by our Club Guru (Norman Edwards, for the benefit of Blue Lightning, who might remember him), and I thought it got test-run on our track.

 

A telling fact is that I have a couple of clear mental snapshots of Mr R’s layout, but cannot for the life of me remember a single thing about ours ..... it was 00, and it worked OK, but it must have been ‘standard bland’, whereas his was clearly opening-up new territory.

[BlueLightning]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

(Norman Edwards, for the benefit of Blue Lightning, who might remember him)

 

His chair was the only thing the club saved from The Hobby Box when it finally shut for good.

 

I have seen and heard about some of his work from earlier years, and am thoroughly impressed by what he could do!

[CKPR]

18 hours ago, Donw said:

The hairshirt self flaggelation at the merest hint of compromise (apart from electric motor in steam engines)  sort ...The former I usually ask whether the armature windings in their locos are dead scale

Which makes me wonder what an exact no compromise finescale model of say NER No.1 would actually involve ! 

[Shed82CB]

19 hours ago, Edwardian said:

I  must admit, I've considered satirical railway modelling.  Ironic would be new, and, as you say hard to distinguish from non-ironic.

 

Anyhow, time to say good bye to the Fox Walker Mark I, which, with Tom's blessing, has now been passed on.

 

It was surplus to requirements once Tom had produced a Mark II.

 

 

Mk 2 looks fantastic too!

[Edwardian]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Interesting that Mr Rice gets frequent mention in the context of fine-scale, in that that isn’t what springs to my mind at the mention of his name.

 

I’m sure his work from the 1980s onwards* has been fine-scale in the sense of track and wheel standards, fidelity of vehicles to prototype etc, but to me that comes across as a useful servant to his real contribution, which is (to me anyway) more about artistic flair and interpretation than anything that can be measured with a micrometer, rather than a defining characteristic.
 

Views?

 

*in the mid/late 70s, our club layout was next-along from one of his works of art at a two-day exhibition, I think it was the layout that figured much in ‘Model Railways’ and was inspired by Wadebridge (maybe?). The layout was stunning to look at, utterly fascinating at all levels, and knocked our very average offering into a cocked-hat, but the running qualities were ....... hmmm ....... and I remember him frankly admitting that he hadn’t quite cracked the track/wheel/loco thing at that stage. It might have been the layout that led him to adopt finer standards - not sure.

 

 

 

You identify an important consideration, in my view. "Finescale", for me, is about more than track and wheel standards.  Modellers who concentrated entirely on those standards risk producing soulless layouts.  For me, "finescale" is an approach to modelling that strives for greater realism and something that convinces.  For me, finescale gauge and wheel standards, or prototypical track, are important contributions to that realism, but they should be part of a coherent approach to the way a layout looks.

 

But then, Rice has been a huge influence on how I view things, so I would think that, wouldn't I?  

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

 

You identify an important consideration, in my view. "Finescale", for me, is about more than track and wheel standards.  Modellers who concentrated entirely on those standards risk producing soulless layouts.  For me, "finescale" is an approach to modelling that strives for greater realism and something that convinces.  For me, finescale gauge and wheel standards, or prototypical track, are important contributions to that realism, but they should be part of a coherent approach to the way a layout looks.

I had an amusing (for me) and enlightening (generally) exchange with the then deputy chair of the S4 mob, when they had an RTR P4 model available at S4um, to “encourage newcomers”.

The model they chose was the Bachman class 25, fitted with Ultrascale drop-in replacement wheelsets.

This struck me as a very strange choice, and for two reasons:

1) It is a simple 15-20 minute job to unclip bogies and frames, remove and replace wheelsets, and reassemble the loco. The only difficult part of the whole process would be waiting for your order to arrive from Ultrascale. Anyone unable to replace the wheels this way would struggle mightily with anything “finescale”.

2) The chosen subject famously has a poor representation of the cab front, presumably due to a misinterpretation somewhere along the way of the drawings. Simply putting “accurate” wheels underneath it would not address this, so why not choose a model that actually looks like the prototype - plenty to choose from.

 

I couldn’t see the point in providing an easy-to-do conversion of something that would detract from the scene if put onto a P4 layout. To which I received the very strange response, “But think how good the track will still look without the loco.” I still don’t know what that means, nor what was the aim of the exercise, other than to undermine the strap line about things being about “more than just wheels and track”.

 

When replicating a system which has worked for 200+ years, I suggest it is essential to keep the relative proportions together, such as flange width, tread width and flangeway, and to set the back to back from the gauge according to these figures by rearranging the usual equation for the “check gauge” to solve for the B2B: B2B = (Check gauge - flange width), where check gauge = (track gauge - flangeway). How accurately to scale one does that is personal choice, but the point is to apply this degree of fidelity equally to everything, to create a balanced view with everything in proportion. Sometimes this isn’t completely possible, for example if one is wedded to 00 in 4mm scale, there will always be a missing 2.33mm from the track gauge and compromises with splashers and large/low boilers will have to be made, but 2.33mm out of 18.83mm is a fairly large percentage error, very closely akin to Hornby’s original Mk3 coaches having 7 window bays instead of 8. 
 

If I worked in 4mm scale, I couldn’t cope with the compromises of 00, but would be able to accept EM Fine (Manchester/Pendon, as supplied by Ultrascale). The “pull the 00 wheels out 1mm each side” approach wouldn’t do it for me.

 

Thankfully, I was seduced by Wicken at the age of 14, so other than some teenage dabbling whilst I tried - and failed - to use 00 finescale to build up my skills and confidence, I haven’t had to worry about such matters: unlike 00, EM and P4, S simply divides the real thing by the scale ratio, within tolerances. The prototype did my thinking about “standards” for me, and I could spend my modelling time not worrying about total dimensional accuracy, but getting proportions and feel right.

[robmcg]

10 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

I know you specialise in these very lifelike portrayals Rob, but it would also be good to see the models in the raw, so to speak

 

Here you are then..

 

 

I think all photos are edited, even TW's...   but there you go, I'm odd.  He wipes out skies and under-bridge sometime, tsk tsk       Eric Treacy and ilk burned skies, blanked and shadowed darkroom exposures....

 

I just make pictures.  Oddly these are a source of much discomfort on this forum, even when captioned as 'edited'. I realise this forum is about models, not pictures, but all modelling to ME is an illusion.

 

edit; here is the oldest I could find of Edwardian A class 4-6-2 No.472.

 

Of course no photo is accurate now we have roll-film and every Tom Dick and Harry is doing it.  Why else would God have invented glass plates?

 

My first 'good' camera was a 1936 Leica III which had spent the war in Poland, I wonder what its lens saw!?

 

this is from an EOS-M Canon half-frame digital..  as are most of my others.

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by robmcg