Wright writes.....

[Clive Mortimore]

"Anyone out there interested in buying a full-length chassis-making DVD?"

 

Yes, please if it is as relevant to EM as to OO. In fact such a product might encourage more modellers to move to the more accurate gauges.

 

I am quite happy producing scratch built buildings and goods stock, even the odd (in more ways than one) passenger vehicle, as well as most genres of rolling stock kit, but loco kit building gives me the shivers because of the much greater amount of money involved in each project.

 

That said, if an RTR vehicle exists (rare with the periods and prototypes I favour) I will use it but not as it came out of the box. It will almost certainly get a coat of paint and new transfers, as well as some detailing as appropriate. And kits for scenery items are fair game, but if and only if they are appropriate.

 

En passant, one of the reasons I don't use the quote function is that I am never sure of the etiquette. I just copy and paste as above.

 

BTW, how may of you 'purists' (in quotes because i can't think of a better word but it is not the right one, and not meant to sound snobbish) carve their own figures from solid metal?

 

Jonathan

Hi Jonathan

 

Not a purist as I don't carve from solid metal, but I do make me own.

[t-b-g]

What's a CSB mechanism? Honestly, I don't know. Is it compensated sprung beam? 

 

As I posted, the Right Track series has had its day. Chris and Wendy have taken a well-earned retirement and just about everything has been done. 

 

Picking up Brian's point, though, would a DVD dedicated to just chassis making be viable? Obviously, the fancy stuff would be left to others but who knows? Because the RTR chassis have improved so much, the automatic replacement is now not necessary. However, there are still those out there who might like to learn how to build successful chassis (in 4mm, or other scales?). 

 

Would you be interested in being part of it, Tony? If it were viable, who else would be good to show the more complex chassis-making methods? 

 

Anyone out there interested in buying a full-length chassis-making DVD?

 

I could ask manufacturers about possible sponsorship. 

 

In principle I would be happy to be involved but I am not sure that I could add any value to such a DVD above and beyond what you are quite capable of.

 

I am firmly in the "keep it simple and rigid unless there is a very good reason for anything else" school and I would only be duplicating pretty much how a Tony Wright mechanism is put together.

 

I have built compensated and sprung mechanisms to prove to myself that I can and to test out whether the extra work is worthwhile. I satisfied myself that I could if I wanted but that I don't see any need in EM or OO so my experience is limited to a tiny handful of examples.

 

I find that a decent motor and gears and a squarely built mechanism and decent track give me all the good running I need without the need for wheels to be able to move up and down.

 

Tony G

[Andy Hayter]

I am sorry to report that the Acadamie Française has lost a lot of its clout. Vis à vis, Le Weekend.

 

 

Focalplane

I asked my neighbour​ what the French called a weekend before "le weekend" became the standard.  He replied, "dimanche" - Sunday.

 

 

Vis a vis the video - put me down for one.  Chassis building has been my bête noire for 30 years - many attempts, few successes.  I have signed up for  poppysworks jig so that may help. 

[jrg1]

Happy travelling, Paul.

 

Your mentioning of the cocktail stick trick brought home to me how little (or nothing) I've 'invented' in the course of my modelling career. A friend showed me that dodge, mentioning that a friend had previously shown him. Just about everything shown on those DVDs in terms of technique was plagiarized from someone else (though plagiarize is, perhaps, a bit extreme, because I've never claimed them as my own ideas). It makes one wonder who thought of those methods/techniques first; somebody must have done. 

 

I suppose what I've done is looked at the works of others and read the works of others and worked out what suited me the most. Guy Williams' book on building locos has been mentioned. I found it all but incomprehensible for my needs, though the models Guy built were exquisite. Iain Rice's books have also been cited. Again, and probably because our approaches to loco construction are totally-opposite, they bamboozled me (I doubt if Iain has learnt anything from anything I've done, either). John Ahern's approach was much more up my street. I bought David Jenkinson's book on carriage construction, where he uses 'easy' in the title (surely a misnomer!) and, it too, was way above me. My point is that not everyone can learn from everyone else, despite the 'teachers' having an impeccable pedigree. As I said, I've just picked and chosen what suited my approach to model building the best. 

 

A scratch-building DVD? Possibly. 

Plagiarising?  Surely you mean inspiration?

[Tony Wright]

 

Focalplane

I asked my neighbour​ what the French called a weekend before "le weekend" became the standard.  He replied, "dimanche" - Sunday.

 

 

Vis a vis the video - put me down for one.  Chassis building has been my bête noire for 30 years - many attempts, few successes.  I have signed up for  poppysworks jig so that may help. 

 

Andy,

 

With regard to the Poppyswork jig, it'll be a great boon to your chassis-making. Other than my Stone Age Jamieson jig (which I still have, but it isn't as easy to get a really true chassis with it as it is with Poppy's) there is nothing as simple and accurate for making a set of frames. There are megabucks equivalents, but, in my experience they are more complex and less user-friendly (though they will give you an accurate chassis). 

 

Please let us all know how you get on with it. 

 

There's a full report in next month's BRM. 

[Tony Wright]

"Anyone out there interested in buying a full-length chassis-making DVD?"

 

Yes, please if it is as relevant to EM as to OO. In fact such a product might encourage more modellers to move to the more accurate gauges.

 

I am quite happy producing scratch built buildings and goods stock, even the odd (in more ways than one) passenger vehicle, as well as most genres of rolling stock kit, but loco kit building gives me the shivers because of the much greater amount of money involved in each project.

 

That said, if an RTR vehicle exists (rare with the periods and prototypes I favour) I will use it but not as it came out of the box. It will almost certainly get a coat of paint and new transfers, as well as some detailing as appropriate. And kits for scenery items are fair game, but if and only if they are appropriate.

 

En passant, one of the reasons I don't use the quote function is that I am never sure of the etiquette. I just copy and paste as above.

 

BTW, how may of you 'purists' (in quotes because i can't think of a better word but it is not the right one, and not meant to sound snobbish) carve their own figures from solid metal?

 

Jonathan

Jonathan,

 

If such a DVD came about, OO, EM and P4 would be featured, maybe even some narrow gauge. Certainly I could build in EM, but it would need someone with greater expertise than mine to show how to build something in P4. 

 

If possible, all the methods would be covered (including split frames), so there'd probably be four or more presenters. 

 

I'll have to run the idea past those who could make the programme. 

[LNER4479]

On a recent visit to Little Bytham, I plonked my camfone on the south end bridge and switched the video on.
 
It starts with a sports report and weather forecast but bear with it - some trains do eventually appear!
 

Edited January 28, 2016 by LNER4479

[The Stationmaster]

On a recent visit to Little Bytham, I plonked my camfone on the south end bridge and switched the video on.

 

It starts with a sports report and weather forecast but bear with it - some trains do eventually appear!

 

 

wow - proper trainspotting, gorgeous.

Edited January 28, 2016 by The Stationmaster

[Focalplane]

Speaking of David Jenkinson, and carriage building.... was anyone else of the right age to be strongly influenced by this book?

 

encyclopedia.jpg

 

Apart from the fact that there's an explanation of DJ's plastic coach construction technique in one of the chapters, so much else was useful and inspirational, from the basics of loco kit building, to articles on Denny's Buckingham and the early P4 layout Heckmondwike, among others. On the inside pages, there's a fine close-up of Guy Williams' King on the viaduct at Pendon's Dartmoor scence, and comparing that beautiful King with my Lima effort was one of the first nudges I had in the direction of trying to make an existing RTR model better, by adding plastic brake gear (which fell off five minutes later, but never mind). I must have been 15 at the time but it was a real eye-opener, and in a way set me on the path to all the modelling I've done since.

 

This book must have been popular at the time as I got given it twice - I think I gave the spare copy away to a friend.

Yes, this is a classic and as I only have one copy I ain't giving it away! Edited January 28, 2016 by Focalplane

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

allo allo allo, what's all this then?  A couple of links along from LNER4479's video is this debonair chap at his workbench

[LNER4479]

allo allo allo, what's all this then?  A couple of links along from LNER4479's video is this debonair chap at his workbench

Watched the opening 90 seconds ... before realising that the full thing runs for 4 hours 56 minutes. Yikes! I do actually need to stay awake during the course of today...

 

It is of course excellent stuff; one to watch in several sittings methinks.......

[jwealleans]

Well that's a couple of lunchtimes next week taken care of.

[Clearwater]

Watched the opening 90 seconds ... before realising that the full thing runs for 4 hours 56 minutes. Yikes! I do actually need to stay awake during the course of today...

 

It is of course excellent stuff; one to watch in several sittings methinks.......

And with a good wi fi connection!

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

I use a YouTube converter to save videos to my hard drive as MP4 files for personal use only.  

 

Not sure of the legality, I expect a Mod or Andy will remove the post if necessary,..

[corneliuslundie]

"Not a purist as I don't carve from solid metal, but I do make me own."

 

Wow.

 

And thanks for your response re the video, Tony. As one who has made up at least one wagon kit designed to be sprung with the bearings glued solid (intentionally), I am not in the hi-tech category but I would hope to see something about compensation. And I suspect that anyone who would contemplate springing a loco wouldn't need the video anyway.

 

Jonathan

[St Enodoc]

On a recent visit to Little Bytham, I plonked my camfone on the south end bridge and switched the video on.

 

It starts with a sports report and weather forecast but bear with it - some trains do eventually appear!

 

Graham, I was hoping you would rush to the other side of the bridge to watch the trains disappearing into the distance...

[LNER4479]

Graham, I was hoping you would rush to the other side of the bridge to watch the trains disappearing into the distance...

Ah but life was much less hurried in those days. And there would be another one along in a minute...

[gr.king]

Even if Right Track videos are no longer on the market as new items, should that loco building video really be on YouTube buckshee?

[polybear]

Even if Right Track videos are no longer on the market as new items, should that loco building video really be on YouTube buckshee?

I suspect that only if the copyright holders agree to it/post it there themselves....

Brian

 

p.s. I'm not a Lawyer...

[Tony Teague]

Even if Right Track videos are no longer on the market as new items, should that loco building video really be on YouTube buckshee?

Despite it being unavailable it is highly unlikely to be out of copyright (I am not a lawyer either, but if it was mine, I'd want it taken down).

[Focalplane]

Although not for free, there is quite a market for second hand DVDs at places like heritage railways.  People donate videos they don't want and they are sold on, often at quite low prices - £1 each is not unheard of.  I think this can only hurt sales of new DVDs but as many retirees will admit, they feel they cannot afford to buy new.  And every pound earned by the heritage railway will at least do some good.

 

I do wonder how well YouTube monitors the copyright issue.  Should it be left to an unknowing copyright holder to be the only one to point out an infringement?

[corneliuslundie]

By the time copyright on that DVD expires Youtube will be long gone - 70 years after the death of the copyright holder currently.

 

Youtube would be a fraction of the size if there was no copyright material. People post whole CDs with their own photos added.

 

I believe that Youtube's policy is to react only if there is a complaint but others may be able to correct me. And I suspect that copyright holders will usually only complain if they are likely to lose out financially, which in this case they are presumably not going to.

 

Perhaps anyone who watches this one should send a donation to Tony!

 

Jonathan

 

Jonathan

[Clearwater]

Despite it being unavailable it is highly unlikely to be out of copyright (I am not a lawyer either, but if it was mine, I'd want it taken down).

Ironically I brought a copy of those DVDs on Wednesday from antics online. They've arrived in sealed cellophane so assume is as new

 

David

[MarkC]

 

 

Anyone else got a comment on particularly grotty loco kits? Don't worry, I've not been sued yet, though I've been threatened! 

 

Surprised that nobody offered Q Kits  - so I will! 

 

I was given a Co-Bo kit some 18 years ago, and the horrors of building the thing are with me to this day - let's just say that it made MTK kits look positively superb   The castings were full of deep pits & required a lot of filing and manipulation, and as for the motors supplied in the kit... 

[glo41f]

The early Cornard kits were pretty awful too. I had one of their B17s following an article on constructing one in the MRC (I think it was written by Tony East). Suffice it to say that the castings were bent and very thin so it was impossible to get the boiler circular in section throughout its length. The footplate had several bends which the prototype nevr had and the tender was also out of square, How Mr East made his model I do not know. How cheered I was then by the arrival of the original Hornby model with its awful (by today's standards) valve gear and push along loco. (Again I recall the loco had mountings for a motor on the chassis which I used to get rid of the tender drive.) I also recall a WD which was supposed to go on a Jouef chassis. Yet another disaster. You would think I would have learned from the B17 but no hope sprang eternal! That is when I decided that if I was to have a 4mm layout it would be diesel outline so began a period of blue diesels which ran around my garage quite well. Then I saw the light.......

 

Martin Long