Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[manna]

G'day Folks.

 

I find a wee drop of Eucalyptus oil in a tin of paint works wonders. Brings it back from a sludgy mess to smooth paint, experiment, you've go nothing to loose except a rotten tin of paint.

 

manna

[Jack P]

I've struggled with both matt and glossy clear finishes. The best stuff i've used through my airbrush so far is Humbrol Clear (the stuff in the large glass jar). If I'm using an aerosol, the Tamiya 100ml Spray cans are fantastic, (pretty potent though). I'd imagine you can get both in Aus. 

[St Enodoc]

21 hours ago, Barry O said:

Just add a bit of weathering over the damaged area..

 

You can use Tamiya brush on matt acrylic varnish. They do a veriety of varnish types and finishes.

 

Baz

Too late for a patch up. I thought of that first but decided to do the whole roof - silly boy!

 

Tamiya is one of the possibilities - thanks.

[St Enodoc]

14 hours ago, Denbridge said:

That's a shame. Perhaps an equivalent DIY product would work. Ever since this tip, I've never used any modelling varnished. And, unlike those,  ronseal is always consistent.

The Wattyl Matt Polyurethane spray that I mentioned earlier is a DIY product. I'll look for a brush-on equivalent.

[St Enodoc]

10 hours ago, Chamby said:

I use Humbrol’s mattcote to good effect, but it does need a bl**dy good stir as it is the sludgy stuff at the bottom of the jar that turns the varnish matt.

That's right Phil. The odd thing this time was that there was no sludge! No idea what had happened but I should have smelt a rat.

[Barry O]

It is not just the matt varnish with humbrol..matt black is also shiny, Railmatch matt BR Early Freight Grey...shiny

 

Pah!!!

[St Enodoc]

19 hours ago, Denbridge said:

That's a shame. Perhaps an equivalent DIY product would work. Ever since this tip, I've never used any modelling varnished. And, unlike those,  ronseal is always consistent.

 

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

The Wattyl Matt Polyurethane spray that I mentioned earlier is a DIY product. I'll look for a brush-on equivalent.

A bit more googling reveals that Sherwin-Williams, the parent company of Ronseal, bought Valspar a few years ago and thereby now owns the Wattyl brand. I might drop them a line to see if there is any chance of introducing Ronseal to Australia.

 

There's a railway connection too - at one time Ronseal was owned by Newton Chambers of Sheffield who also constructed the Eastern Region double deck car-carrying wagons among other things.

 

Fascinating.

[Chamby]

Another thought... I think you have Warhammer wargaming shops down under?  They also produce good quality spray varnishes and primer under the Citadel brand.

 

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Chamby
Tweak

[St Enodoc]

21 minutes ago, Chamby said:

Another thought... I think you have Warhammer wargaming shops down under?  They also produce good quality spray varnishes and primer under the Citadel brand.

 

 

Yes we do - thanks.

[acg5324]

On 26/11/2019 at 10:12, St Enodoc said:

 

A bit more googling reveals that Sherwin-Williams, the parent company of Ronseal, bought Valspar a few years ago and thereby now owns the Wattyl brand. I might drop them a line to see if there is any chance of introducing Ronseal to Australia.

 

There's a railway connection too - at one time Ronseal was owned by Newton Chambers of Sheffield who also constructed the Eastern Region double deck car-carrying wagons among other things.

 

Fascinating.

.......and made bloody Izal toilet paper......or tracing paper!

[St Enodoc]

For various reasons I got back from Melbourne earlier than usual today, so I popped into our local model shop and bought a tin of Humbrol 49 matt enamel varnish, a jar of Tamiya XF-86 Flat Clear Acrylic and a bottle of Testor's 1160 Dullcote Lacquer.

 

I forgot to buy the thinners for the Dullcote, so that will wait for another day, and I have read of funny things happening when you put acrylic on top of enamel (or is it the other way round?) so I tried the good old Humbrol.

 

There was, as expected, a lot of sludge so I gave the tin a really good stir until the contents were of a smooth consistency. The colour in the tin was greyer than I remember but I brushed a coat on the Siphon roof and, thank goodness, it has dried matt. One more coat tomorrow morning and the van can go back into set 800 before the afternoon's running session.

[St Enodoc]

Another excellent running session today. Two of the chaps had to drop out at short notice due to heavy colds but there were still eight of us. It's becoming interesting to see how different team members now gravitate to the roles they prefer. Today Charles and Peter the Cornishman took on the yardmaster roles, Dave tried his hand on Porthmellyn Road signal box at a full session for the first time, while Chris, Graham, Tom and Bill picked up the throttles leaving me, as usual, as Fat Controller.

 

There were no failures and only one non-human induced derailment, where one of the Gibson-wheeled Lima milk tanks derailed at the entrance to Penzance in the Down direction. These are fairly ancient wheels from the Norfolk era, so I think I'll check them all to see whether there are any loose tyres or the back-to-backs have shifted. 7446 did a fine job on the short Wheal Veronica clay train.

 

We got through the whole sequence of 48 trains in just over two hours, as usual. Next time I hope that I will have had time to expand the sequence to make full use of the storage loops, which will mean fitting more set numbers. I also plan to do more of the finishing-off work on the lever frame, especially the line-clear indicators. Today's experience also suggests that fitting the uncoupler electromagnets should be high on the to-do list.

 

At our next session in January we will, once again, have a guest operator from the Northern Hemisphere, so a good afternoon is in prospect again.

Edited November 30, 2019 by St Enodoc

[Barry O]

That means the sequence will turn into a pile of bananas!

Baz

[St Enodoc]

16 minutes ago, Barry O said:

That means the sequence will turn into a pile of bananas!

Baz

Well, it might anyway given that it will be largely untried and untested!

 

See you in a couple of months.

[St Enodoc]

On 24/11/2019 at 09:40, St Enodoc said:

I've ordered from Kernow (on Veronica's behalf, as it will be a Christmas present) a Hornby "Earl of St Germans", at over 40% off. That will become a new 5058 Earl of Clancarty replacing my detailed tender-drive Airfix model, which is suffering from the passage of time (nearly 40 years). In turn, the loco chassis from that will go under 4099 Kilgerran Castle (also Airfix but slightly younger) as 4099's original driving wheels refuse to go round any more, which does make it look rather odd when it's going along.

 

Don't mention it too loudly but the Hornby loco has TTS sound. I'll need to find a way to disable that.

The Earl of St Germans arrived today. He has gone into hiding but I expect that, unlike the Earl of Lucan, his Lordship will reappear on Christmas morning.

[Mulgabill]

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

The Earl of St Germans arrived today. He has gone into hiding but I expect that, unlike the Earl of Lucan, his Lordship will reappear on Christmas morning.

 

 

Good to hear that John.

 

I have a soft spot for 5050 as the father of a schoolmate from the year below me at junior school, who also

lived 200 yds from me, had the chimney of Earl of St Germans in their front garden. The father having

originally come from Plymuff.

 

We lived then on the Eastern outskirts of Bristol. And whilst I don't know about the means of acquisition

it would not have been too far from where 5050 was scrapped at Sharpness.

 

All the best

 

TONY

[Northroader]

https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/04/fanny-scorcher-wins-turnip-prize-2019-bush-fire-knickers-11265973/

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/04/fanny-scorcher-wins-turnip-prize-2019-bush-fire-knickers-11265973/

Crikey!

[St Enodoc]

I should have mentioned earlier that on Saturday Peter the Cornishman brought with him, for a show-and-tell, one of the new Dapol GWR junction signals and very nice it is too. The visual appearance is streets ahead of the earlier single-post signals, not least in respect of the improved size and position of the stripes on the arms. The brackets and the railings on the platform look very good too.

 

The operating system seems to have been changed completely. Instead of the former on-off toggling through a push button, each arm is now operated by an SPDT changeover switch. I suggested to Peter that, if he used DPDT switches instead, he could use the spare contacts for some rudimentary interlocking so that both arms couldn't be Off at the same time.

 

The new operating system seems to involve servos, as the arms bounce when they go back On.

 

There are two downsides that I can see - one is that the servos, if such they be, are housed in a rather large box that will go under the baseboard when the signal is installed. Finding room for this could be a challenge on many layouts. The other downside is the price - more than GBP 55 - is higher than what I would be prepared to pay, even for the convenience of not building a Ratio kit and memory wire actuator.

 

Nevertheless, I expect to see a lot of these appearing on layouts in the near future - well done Dapol.

[St Enodoc]

Kernow's latest newsletter advised that the Hornby Big Prairie, in BR black with early emblem, and the LSWR brake van, in BR grey, will be arriving by Christmas so I've ordered one of each. The Prairie will become 4167 to replace the superannuated Airfix one that I've had for 40 years, while the brake van will share the work on the Wadebridge/Pentowan goods with the Bachmann 25T version I bought a few years ago.

[St Enodoc]

Jaycar, our local electronics retailer, is offering a pack of 100 assorted LEDs and associated bits and pieces for $20 instead of $30. I've bought two packs, plus some appropriate resistors, so I'll be able to play around with the line clear indicator arrangements over the Christmas break.

[KeithMacdonald]

I was just wondering about downloading ScaleScene's Station Platform, for a GWR-ish branch line station.

 

https://scalescenes.com/product/r008-station-platform/

 

But then I paused - I don't know whether to choose ashlar stones (or which type) or bricks (or which shade). What would be more typical? Or did it vary all over the western region depending on what was the cheapest material they had on hand at the time?

 

All suggestions welcome!

[St Enodoc]

13 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

I was just wondering about downloading ScaleScene's Station Platform, for a GWR-ish branch line station.

 

https://scalescenes.com/product/r008-station-platform/

 

But then I paused - I don't know whether to choose ashlar stones (or which type) or bricks (or which shade). What would be more typical? Or did it vary all over the western region depending on what was the cheapest material they had on hand at the time?

 

All suggestions welcome!

Keith, your best bet is to look at photos of the area you have in mind for your model. The WR covered a large area and building styles and materials varied widely from place to place.

[St Enodoc]

Not much layout action for the last couple of weekends, as the renovation works on our kitchen/living room/dining are nearly finished (actually, they've been "nearly finished" for about the last month) and so we've been moving furniture back and putting stuff into the new cabinets and drawers. I must say that after three months of a temporary kitchen in the laundry room it is great to have more than just a kettle, microwave and toaster to cook with.

 

Nevertheless, this weekend I have had time to print the set numbers for all the remaining stock, although not to fit them yet, and I've also made some progress with the expanded sequence. I've taken an extract from the full sequence, which includes St Enodoc, Pentowan and Polperran, that includes all the main line trains between Paddington and Penzance plus the railbus and clay trains as before. That gives a total of 168 trains covering Friday and Saturday, almost four times the 48 of the previous version. I think I've sorted out the loco and set allocations and also the starting positions for the stock. The next task is to play with a large sheet of paper and some Post-It notes to move the trains around and work out which loop, and where in that loop, each one needs to go before forming its next working. There will be some trial and error in this and I expect that when we run through it for the first time on the layout we will find:

 

- the same loco shown as being on two trains at the same time

- the same set shown as working an Up and a Down service at the same time

- one train stuck behind another in a loop

- no spare space for an incoming service

- all of the above.

 

We shall see...

[Neal Ball]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

Not much layout action for the last couple of weekends, as the renovation works on our kitchen/living room/dining are nearly finished (actually, they've been "nearly finished" for about the last month) and so we've been moving furniture back and putting stuff into the new cabinets and drawers. I must say that after three months of a temporary kitchen in the laundry room it is great to have more than just a kettle, microwave and toaster to cook with.

 

Nevertheless, this weekend I have had time to print the set numbers for all the remaining stock, although not to fit them yet, and I've also made some progress with the expanded sequence. I've taken an extract from the full sequence, which includes St Enodoc, Pentowan and Polperran, that includes all the main line trains between Paddington and Penzance plus the railbus and clay trains as before. That gives a total of 168 trains covering Friday and Saturday, almost four times the 48 of the previous version. I think I've sorted out the loco and set allocations and also the starting positions for the stock. The next task is to play with a large sheet of paper and some Post-It notes to move the trains around and work out which loop, and where in that loop, each one needs to go before forming its next working. There will be some trial and error in this and I expect that when we run through it for the first time on the layout we will find:

 

- the same loco shown as being on two trains at the same time

- the same set shown as working an Up and a Down service at the same time

- one train stuck behind another in a loop

- no spare space for an incoming service

- all of the above.

 

We shall see...

It will be interesting to see how you get on. The last time I tried to run a sequence with post it notes, for Henley, I had all of the situations you describe! Added to which, I also had to get extra stock out to run for one service only. I think at the time I said it needed more work and I’ve not got back to it since.

 

We too are having a new kitchen, which has seen the house in disarray. We moved out though as that was easier.... the mess is awful! We’ve been out for 3 weeks, moving back in yesterday, although the kitchen is still probably about a week away from being finished.

 

Good luck!