Stoke Courtenay

[Coach bogie]

On 07/05/2023 at 21:18, checkrail said:

Some more King pics from yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love the E95. One of my favourites. There was an unbuilt one for sale, at Brisbane Model Railway Show, over the weekend. $50 (£26.86). I had to buy it. You can never have too many brake compo's.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Brinkly]

20 minutes ago, Coach bogie said:

Love the E95. One of my favourites. There was an unbuilt one for sale, at Brisbane Model Railway Show, over the weekend. $50 (£26.86). I had to buy it. You can never have too many brake compo's.

 

Mike Wiltshire

Very good price! Well done.

 

Nick.

[Neal Ball]

7 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

Love the E95. One of my favourites. There was an unbuilt one for sale, at Brisbane Model Railway Show, over the weekend. $50 (£26.86). I had to buy it. You can never have too many brake compo's.

 

Mike Wiltshire

I wonder if we will see any of the Mallard / Blacksmith models again…. I hope so as there are potentially some good carriage diagrams in there.

[Coach bogie]

27 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

I wonder if we will see any of the Mallard / Blacksmith models again…. I hope so as there are potentially some good carriage diagrams in there.

I suspect the originals will need some work.  I saw some of the original Fred Blackman artwork a few years back, when the range was being sold on. In this age of CAD, it showed the skill of the man, as everything was hand drawn with register targets. Sadly the artwork and films are now fifty years old. Some of the films had already had 'repairs' and spliced to make other diagrams. 

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Siberian Snooper]

When attending RailWells and Kits from Somerset was in attendance, he was doing artwork on his laptop, when not on the receiving end of complaints of not supplying the goods to customers using the website. Whether or not that artwork will be going to the new owners is another mater.

 

 

 

[Neal Ball]

1 hour ago, Coach bogie said:

I suspect the originals will need some work.  I saw some of the original Fred Blackman artwork a few years back, when the range was being sold on. In this age of CAD, it showed the skill of the man, as everything was hand drawn with register targets. Sadly the artwork and films are now fifty years old. Some of the films had already had 'repairs' and spliced to make other diagrams. 

 

Mike Wiltshire

Time of course moves on. I suspect there are some models in the range that are not covered elsewhere…. Given the amount of work we were always told that the Cooper craft moulds were going to need, it might be a case of never say never!

 

But I take your point that some bits have already been patched up.

 

1 minute ago, Siberian Snooper said:

When attending RailWells and Kits from Somerset was in attendance, he was doing artwork on his laptop, when not on the receiving end of complaints of not supplying the goods to customers using the website. Whether or not that artwork will be going to the new owners is another mater.

 

 

 

Does this imply that the range has been sold then?

[Siberian Snooper]

3 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

 

Does this imply that the range has been sold then?

 

Not that I'm aware of, but who would have thought that Coopercraft would get sold. I have a shopping list of kits that I would like. He has only sold the etches and as far as I'm aware sold the castings.

 

 

[Neal Ball]

I always thought that the Mallard / Blacksmith range would be a good fit at Wizard models. 
 

With the Comet range Geoff already has a lot of the whitemetal items, those bits that are missing (GWR American bogies) would be an easy addition onto the basic Comet bogie frame.

 

I am surprised with the floor for the J5 sleeper kit. Having been used to a Comet metal floor. The one that came with the J5 is plastic, with a few metal stretchers!

[Coach bogie]

4 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

 

 

I am surprised with the floor for the J5 sleeper kit. Having been used to a Comet metal floor. The one that came with the J5 is plastic, with a few metal stretchers!

Most of the original kits are like this. the only ones I can remember, that had a floor, are the horse box, siphon J, 70ft auto and breakdown mess van. In addition, the H19, but that was a later inclusion to the range designed by Carl Legg.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[checkrail]

2818 returning empty PO wagons to the South Wales coalfields.

 

 

John C.

[checkrail]

A cropped version of the last pic homes in on a concentration of "greatwesternry" around the station.   We GWR modellers are fortunate in the amount of support from the trade - although some items benefit from a bit of adaptation and improvement. 

 

John C. 

[gwrrob]

Just wondering John @checkrail if you have any of the imminent Rapido SR 8 plank opens on order. I need to decide what load they would have.

[checkrail]

Holding out against this one (so far) Robin @gwrrob.  There have been so many nice SR and constituent co. wagon releases recently, that when added to my kit-built ones the SR is over-represented, given its percentage of the Big 4 total.  And though I've not got an eight plank I have a seven-plank or two, providing that typical SR high-sided look.

 

But I may give in eventually!

[checkrail]

At the other end of the station 6305 heads in with a westbound goods.

 

 

John C.

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, checkrail said:

the SR is over-represented, given its percentage of the Big 4 total. 

But in Devon I would imagine that the percentage would be higher than the national average.

 

Just sayin'.

[checkrail]

14 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

But in Devon I would imagine that the percentage would be higher than the national average.

 

Just sayin'.

Yes, that had occurred to me - geographical proximity and all that.  But TBH, 7 or 8 plank, one high-sided brown wagon looks much like another to me at NVD.  

[checkrail]

2818 and 6305 pass in the platform roads.  The Evans & Bevan wagons, as seen in at least one of the GWR 1930s albums, are among my favourites, and are from POWsides kits, based on a Slater's body.

 

And this is the end - or rather, these are the ends.

 

John C.

[checkrail]

First post for a while. I've recently gone over to the dark side, got rid of my Windows laptop, and acquired an iMac.  It fits well with my iPad and iPhone.  My wife has a MacBook too, and her son is quite an IT whizz and an Apple devotee.  Bit of a culture shock for me at first but I'm getting used to the Mac way of doing things. 

 

However, so far I've been unable to find out how to focus merge photos.  I've installed Affinity Photo 2 onto the Mac but I've not yet found a away to break the MP4 files (created by taking a shot with my Panasonic TZ100 in 'post-focus' mode) into individual names and putting them, one by one, onto Affinity for focus merging. Every time I think I'm on the verge of a breakthrough the trail goes cold.  It was all so easy with Windows Media Player. (Just select 'Save photo from video')

 

But somehow, only heaven knows, I got these two stills out of two MP4 files: Winslow Hall on a down stopper and King Henry V on an up express.  

 

 

John C. 

[Siberian Snooper]

Do MAC's like MP4?

 

I received some MAC video footage that would not play in windows, I had to purchase some conversion software and change the format using that.

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Siberian Snooper
added the last bit.

[Neal Ball]

43 minutes ago, checkrail said:

First post for a while. I've recently gone over to the dark side, got rid of my Windows laptop, and acquired an iMac.  It fits well with my iPad and iPhone.  My wife has a MacBook too, and her son is quite an IT whizz and an Apple devotee.  Bit of a culture shock for me at first but I'm getting used to the Mac way of doing things. 

 

However, so far I've been unable to find out how to focus merge photos.  I've installed Affinity Photo 2 onto the Mac but I've not yet found a away to break the MP4 files (created by taking a shot with my Panasonic TZ100 in 'post-focus' mode) into individual names and putting them, one by one, onto Affinity for focus merging. Every time I think I'm on the verge of a breakthrough the trail goes cold.  It was all so easy with Windows Media Player. (Just select 'Save photo from video')

 

But somehow, only heaven knows, I got these two stills out of two MP4 files: Winslow Hall on a down stopper and King Henry V on an up express.  

 

 

John C. 

 

Lovely photos as ever John.

 

Stick with the Mac, it takes a bit of getting used to, particularly in the days when I was still using a PC at work!

 

As for splitting Mp4 files, I assume from that you are breaking down a video frame by frame to go into Affinity. I also use that software, but have never tried manipulating a video to get my stills. Try @KNP he seems a wizz with Affinity.

 

If its just focus merge you are after, its here:

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Neal Ball
typo

[Neal Ball]

2 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said:

Do MAC's like MP4?

 

 

 

generally Yes

[KNP]

MP4 is like a video so when you try to use it on Affinity focus merge it can only use still frames so it will pick a random one from the camera video as it runs.

What is need is to take this video (I use this term for clarity) and turn it into individual frames (stills) that focus merge can use to merge together as Neal's picture shows.

 

I use one called MPC - HC (Media Player Classic - Home Cinema) which grabs individual frames from the video and turns them into stills, these in turn can be selected and used by Affinity to stitch together to give one focused picture.

 

Though MPC - HC has been discontinued, it is still available to download but with no support, I find it suits me as I know it but the one drawback is that each frame has to be manually grabbed and saved.

I expect there are automated ones out there but I have never found one.

If anyone knows one let us know as at times for close pictures I have grabbed 100+ frames for one picture!!! 

 

Hope this helps.....

 

EDIT

Just had a look on the website and I am not sure if they did a version that works on an iMac?

I'll keep looking

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by KNP

[checkrail]

Thanks all for replies and suggestions re Mac. I've been very happily using Affinity for a few years - the problem's not there, it's splitting the MP4 video file into its component still frames in the first place (before loading them onto Affinity one at a time and then focus merging them).  I could do this easily in Windows Media Player but haven't yet learned to do it with Mac, even though I've spent days trying to do it with QuickTime.

 

One thing about the 24" at full screen is the way it shows up blemishes I might otherwise have missed. So the broken bracing strut on the water crane in the first pic is due for some treatment.  

 

John C. 

[checkrail]

Rather than add that broken water crane strut to the ever-growing 'round tuit' list I sized the moment and replaced the struts with handrail wire, cut to exact length and offered up with tweezers after both ends had been dipped in cyano. I'd always thought that the Ratio plastic struts were a bit too hefty, so should have done it years ago.

 

Pending resolution of my Mac/photo processing difficulties these shots were taken with my iPhone.

 

 

John C. 

[checkrail]

While I was at it I did the other one, on the up platform.  Those Ratio kits make up into quite a nice model, though the three legged arrangement on the brazier is a bit tricky to get right. I've seen prototype photos where there are four legs, which would have been a bit easier to get stable.

 

 

If I take any more pics with the iPhone they'd probably benefit from a  smidgen of auxiliary lighting. It's a great camera for landscapes, not so good for this kind of work.

 

John C.