Aston On Clun. A forgotten Great Western outpost.

[Siberian Snooper]

1 hour ago, Nick C said:

Pretty much the same in civilian life - the one thing you should never do when specifiying any piece of equipment is actually talk to either the end user, or to the engineers who will actually have to develop the thing...

 

Or those that have to maintain and repair the kit, especially where the navy are concerned, things did improve a bit with the shift from steam to gas turbines. I don't know enough to say anything about gas turbine and diesel electric era, ships.

 

 

[Fishplate]

So, to summarise the above, just put contributors to @MrWolf s topic in charge of procurement for the armed forces and other public and private services and all our countries troubles will be solved.

 

Anyone any good at writing manifestos for the Forgotten Outpost Party 🤔 ?I

 

(Although FOP is probably not a good acronym). 

[Graham T]

Well John, I think we'd be hard pressed to make a worse job of it than the present incumbents...

 

[lezz01]

Well for starters I'd be spending at least 6% of GDP on defence. However give the current state of affairs that's gonna be in the negative figures in the not too distant future. Given that a retired general recently said that we would need 9 month notice to even think about responding to the need for a military deployment I would suggest that we are so far up s**t creek that a paddle would be superfluous.

Regards Lez.

[Compound2632]

16 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

Well for starters I'd be spending at least 6% of GDP on defence.

 

So how many pence would you be putting on income tax?

Edited June 5, 2023 by Compound2632

[MrWolf]

It's patently obvious that our defence system needs a major overhaul, along with the rest of the country's infrastructure.

 

I can think of numerous ways to raise more than enough money without unduly taxing those who live by the sweat of their brow, or penalising those who cannot work.

 

But we are not having that debate on here.

 

 

[Andy WD]

10 hours ago, lezz01 said:

Yes well sadly this isn't the case. Most military kit be that a tank or indeed a weapon is designed by idiots who have never been anywhere near a tank or a gun to a brief drawn up by bean counters none of whom have been anywhere near a gun or a tank and is made by people who came up with the lowest bid to produce the said bit of kit. At no time during this process is anyone who will have to operate or use the said bit of kit consulted in any way at all.

Regards Lez.  

Didn't we steal get the design for the Bren from the Czechs?

[Fishplate]

Yes @MrWolf. Better drag us all back to the next bit of modelling at Aston now you are getting back to normal 👍

[MrWolf]

8 minutes ago, Andy WD said:

Didn't we steal get the design for the Bren from the Czechs?

 

Built under license actually.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bren_light_machine_gun

[Graham T]

Arms factories were one of the reasons that hitler wanted Czechoslovakia.

 

[lezz01]

Yeh the Czechs really know how to build weapons and weapon platforms that's for sure.

The 38T tank was particularly good and the chassis went on to form the basis of the Hetzer tank destroyer that was probably the best German AFV of WWII. Big is not always better as the Hetzer proved.  

Regards Lez.

[57xx]

23 hours ago, MrWolf said:

For example the "Soup plate" helmets that British and Allied forces wore for donkey's years.

When you duck incoming fire or whatever, putting your head down exposed the back of your neck, the same problem was found in close combat.

 

A lesser known fact about the tin hats introduced in WW1 - they actually caused an increase in casualties to the field hospitals. Whilst initially sounding counter intuitive, it was because the mortalitly rate of shelling was decreased, so those that may have previously died, now survived but with injuries requiring medical attention.

[57xx]

On 01/06/2023 at 23:01, MrWolf said:

She's working on ways to stop invasive plants such as Japanese knotweed and reintroduce our own wildflower species.

 

I could have done with her 30 odd years ago. Back then, me and the g/f of the time had moved into a 1st floor flat. The landlord had told us there was no garden and we were fine with that as there hadn't been one in the last place we were in either. We'd looked out the back window and seen a small courtyard type garden which belonged to the flat below, a load of tall bushes behind it which presumed belonged to the back of the house on the next street long and thought nothing more of it. A few weeks later, the old chap next door asks me if I've had a rummage in the shed yet.

"What shed? We've got no garden."

"Yes, you have, there's a blooming big shed at the end"

"Rubbish, we were told there's no garden here" I say, contradicting the guy who'd live there 40+ years.

"Trust me, it's there" he says.

So I went indoors to tell the g/f and we went to our back window again. Sure enough about 30ft down from the "bushes" we could just make out a shed. There was a path down the side of the house that we'd never ventured down as we presumed it only gave access to the downstairs flat's garden, so off we went on an adventure. We felt like David Bellamy, gwappling our gwapenuts, as we made out way through 30ft of garden infested with 10ft high Japanese Knotweed and found the shed!

The next few months were spent digging up the whole garden (several feet down to get the roots out), clear the whole lot, sowed some grass seed for a nice lawn made a veg plot and I put in a bit of hardstanding to work on my motorbike. The other neighbour was overjoyed that he didn't have to spend all his time trying to prevent the nasty weed infesting his garden. I got loads of great old tools, a nice jerry can, lawnmower, a big roll of lead flashing (still being used to weight wagon kits!) and a decent bench vice from the shed. Seeing as the landlord had said there was no garden, they were fair game for me to have when we moved on.

[MrWolf]

Is a coincidence perhaps that invasive plants have really become a problem since the railways decided to neglect their land in order to "encourage wildlife", which in the case of brambles, rosebay willowherb and Japanese knotweed is utter shullbit?

[Donw]

About 25 years ago we were looking to move and found a suitable place  and put in an offer. However we were rooting around the area and discovered the frontage of an adjoining property absolutely full of Knotweed so we withdrew the offer. The agents thought we were mad nowadays its one of the questions on the solicitors forms. You are so dependant on the neighbours doing there bit. Of course if the neighbour is the abandoned Point Quarry on the Coleford branch that may be less easy I think the forestry commission had to take action in the end.

 

Don

[MrWolf]

There are chemicals that will kill off Japanese knotweed, but unfortunately they are now banned. 

[MrWolf]

Back on the railway, the postie delivered a rather nice parcel this morning. 

(No, he didn't tell me that I am wasting my time...)

 

The parcel contained prototype number two of the CC7 Signal Department van.

 

Following on from the CC2, Chris - @chuffinghell has excelled himself with this one:

 

 

The basic kit. The body and chassis are one piece as before. The separate floor is in two halves due to the necessary brace. Also separate are the steps and the buffer stocks, (not shown) which are hollow to accept steel buffer heads from H&A Models.

 

These are obviously far superior to printed or moulded items, especially from a durability point of view.

 

 

The underside, showing the chassis details, note that the floor is not secured at this stage.

 

 

Another view of the running gear and body details.

 

 

Detail of the lower door runner and support pillars. This involved quite a bit of discussion on making it accurate and strong enough, as well as hunting for suitable pictures.

 

I'll be putting it together over the next few days as a test piece and posting on the progress.

 

[chuffinghell]

What a terrible kit 🤪

[chuffinghell]

Prototype No.1 on the left with NEM dovetails

 

Prototype No.2 on the right with slot to suit Romford three link coupling

 

[MrWolf]

16 minutes ago, chuffinghell said:

What a terrible kit 🤪

 

Yep, I'm going to have to find some of those wobbly two piece wheel sets that came with Airfix mineral wagons...

[chuffinghell]

2 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

Yep, I'm going to have to find some of those wobbly two piece wheel sets that came with Airfix mineral wagons...

if anyone buys one should I make sure there is lots of flash to remove and put a sprue in an inconvenient place?

[MrWolf]

32 minutes ago, chuffinghell said:

if anyone buys one should I make sure there is lots of flash to remove and put a sprue in an inconvenient place?

 

Yes, a big lumpy sprue, preferably in the middle of a tie bar, W irons or brake lever, just enough so that you can't quite support it whilst cutting with a knife and so it deflects a razor saw or sprue cutters.

 

Can you please add a bit of misalignment of the mould too?

[Schooner]

And the axlebox faces 1mm too narrow for the recommended bearings, please Chris!

Edited June 7, 2023 by Schooner

[lezz01]

I'm desperately trying to justify one of those vans but I just can't and believe me I'm trying really really hard. Unless they were still in use when Tewksbury or the Nailsworth branch transferred to the Weston region.. but then I'd have to build a few paniers... Oh well never mind.

Regards Lez.

[Pete Haitch]

14 hours ago, chuffinghell said:

Prototype No.1 on the left with NEM dovetails

 

Prototype No.2 on the right with slot to suit Romford three link coupling

 

Before retiring, a lot of the system components I handled fell into one of two categories - those engineered by designers, and those designed by engineers - each had their strengths, but the real gems were those produced by someone skilled in both .  @chuffinghell clearly falls into that last category.  Love the incorporation of mounts for (DC ?)brake gear