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I have made a start here rather than finishing the mogul, I know I am wrong but I get bored at the finishing stage. Anyway the basic frames are done, and rolling well. I now need to add the front hornguides, and then on with the brake gear etc. I altered the frames in that it now has true three point compensation not four as the kit was designed. The motor etc will be hung on the rear axle. Once the brakes are on I will mount the motor and make sure all is still working well. Here are the photos of the state of play so far. I did forget to take the pictures of it before I took the coupling rods off one side.

A couple of years ago, I made a somewhat abortive start on a 2FS scratch built loco. I had got to the stage of a rolling chassis, and a body that consisted of footplate, valances, buffer beams and a cab bunker. Where I had failed was getting the chassis to actually run happily. In the end, I decided to shelve the project and move onto my 1854 Saddle Tank that has been documented previously that used one of the 2mm Association etched chassis kits. Now that I have proved to myself that I can construct coaches, track work (and most importantly get a loco to run well) in 2FS, I have decided to resurrect my Metro Tank project. A look at what I had already built prompted me to discard the chassis - not because it is unsalvageable, but rather because with such a small 2-4-0 engine I feel that weight will be key to getting a successful outcome - the original chassis was constructed traditionally with 0.25mm phosphor bronze frames held together/apart with PCB. Initially, I had intended to use one of Nigel Lawton's small 6mm diameter motors driving the leading drivers (an earlier iteration of the chassis tried to drive the rear drivers with the compromise that some of the gearing would be visible in the cab), but on this re-work, I have decided to utilise a Nigel Lawton 8mm diameter motor along the boiler into the smokebox (again driving the leading drivers). A diagram was drawn up in Inkscape to verify that everything would fit in this new arrangement : The first thing to produce was a set of coupling rods, these were fretted and filed out of a sheet of 0.028" nickel silver (the pair soldered together until complete) : Once finished, the pair were separated giving these : To provide as much weight as possible in this version of the chassis, I have decided to construct a solid brass chassis comprising a 6mm square main block, and a 6mm x 1mm strip alongside. Initially the pair were double-sided taped together while a pair of 1mm holes were drilled outside the finished frame ends which were then tapped 12BA to allow the pair to be kept together for the remaining machining. 3 further 1mm holes were drilled in the chassis proper clear of the wheels and gears to allow the chassis to be held together once the chassis is cut to it's finished size. These holes in the main block were opened out to 2.5mm, then subsequently plugged with milliput which once dry and hard were re-drilled 1mm (using the outer frame as a jig) and tapped 12BA too. A 0.4mm hole was drilled in the chassis block on the centre of the rear drivers (0.4mm because I couldn't find any 0.5mm drills!), which allowed one of the previously made coupling rods to be "pinned" in place so that it could be used as a jig to drill a further 0.4mm hole for the leading drivers. Once the coupling rod jig was removed, the axle holes were opened up to the axle size of 1.5mm (later opened up again to 1.6mm as the stub axles on the wheels I have wouldn't fit in the holes). The two chassis parts were separated, and the axle holes in the main block milled out to accommodate the "muffs" used in 2FS to hold the 2 stub axles together (leaving a 1mm deep axle hole on the outside edge of the main block). The area where the gears will be was also milled away : A trial fit of the wheels and gears has shown that I need to remove a little more of the main block to accommodate the worm gear, and I also need to remove some from the top of the chassis to house the gear box which will also be milled from solid - the cross shaft of the gear wheel is too close to the top of the block so was never intended to be in the main block (it will also allow easier set up of the quartering,etc if it isn't locked solid be the worm) Once the above has been done, the lower part of the chassis ahead of the leading wheels, and behind the trailing drivers will be removed to give a better looking chassis profile (the area between the leading wheels and the leading drivers will also be removed). Hopefully, the brass for the gearbox and the 0.5mm drills will appear in the next few days to allow further progress. Ian

Thanks to Chrisf for prompting me to write this post based on my beer festival project in the current BRM. Obviously the model came about after lots of careful research carried out at my own expense. As Chris says, “I had been wondering how Phil Parker would set about modelling a beer festival. Most of those that I visit are held in old town halls, corn exchanges and marquees but his village hall looks positively idyllic!”, lots of beer festivals are held in slightly grim conference centres (London, Birmingham) but others take place in rather more interesting locations. To give a few examples; both Warwick and Stratford festivals are held at racecourses. Long Itchington covers a whole village with all 6 pubs taking part erecting outdoor bars and barbecues in the car parks and courtyards. Several preserved railways also have a go with stations bedecked in bunting and a beer tent in the car park. My model is based on the Harbury event held in the village hall at the end of August. While the beer and bands are inside, on a bucolic evening, many of the visitors enjoy their drinks outside where there is a small car park, children's playground and large grassy area with benches. It's a simple formula that could be configured to fit an odd-shaped space on any layout. If you really fancy something different, a couple of years ago, one couple held their wedding reception at the festival so among the drinkers there were some smartly dressed people and of course a bride in her wedding dress. In model from it would certainly be different from the traditional scene outside a church! Festivals, carnivals and fetes all make interesting an attractive subjects to brighten up a layout. You could even use them to firmly set the period of a model – Olympic rigs would tend to suggest the summer of 2012 or Scottish modellers could be bang up to date with some Commonwealth games posters. Heading back in time, who remembers Silver Jubilee celebrations from 1977? Streets full of bunting and parties would be really eye-catching in miniature form.

An advanced warning loads and loads of photos. This is basically two posts in one. We start the show with the green having been masked off, about 2 hours work. The black was then sprayed and the masking removed. All in all I am quite pleased with the finish. There is still the detail work and the buffer beams to be painted. Also shown is a strip of Magic tape painted ready for cutting into the boiler bands. I notice I did not clean the back head after paint scraping. This has now been done. Now the buffer beams have been painted, and most of the fiddly bits also. I have started the reassembly the tender is complete but there is still quite a bit to do on the loco. So here is where we are now. Another session and we should be there. Then it is down to getting it to the UK. I have just noticed I have a hair or something on the lens. Must find it before I take anymore.

Whilst work slows a little on the D6, I've turned my attention to getting a decent teak finish on my GCR carriages.... .... first up is brake third 5277 in ex-works condition (I'll be trying to get more weathered patches on the next attempt). You might be able to see that the next in the rake (composite 5084) has also begun the process.... don't worry the D6 will be dealt with, very soon!

In my previous post, I made the self-fulfilling prophesy that I would be distracted by the forum thread on GWR standard gauge 'tilt' wagons, started by drduncan. Initially there was some discussion as to whether the photo shown was, in fact, of a Broad Gauge wagon but the dimensions (especially the height) seemed sufficiently different to indicate that the vehicle under discussion was indeed Standard Gauge. Something 'clicked' for me and I decided that I had to add one to my stock, so I began to prepare simple drawings by scaling the photograph, using the assumption that the wheelbase was 9' 9", as in the BG versions. The result, produced in Autosketch by tracing over the photograph, looked like this: Because the original was of metal construction, I wanted to do the same with my model but I also decided to try a new way of marking out my 10 thou (0.25 mm) brass sheet, making use of my Silhouette Portrait cutter. Previously, my method has been to cut out sections of drawings on paper and stick these to brass sheet, using a glue pen. I then simply cut out the parts by following the printed lines with jewellers' snips. This time, I decided to use a diamond scriber in the pen holder of the Silhouette cutter, to mark out the outlines of the components directly onto brass sheet. As well as the outlines, this method also enabled me to scribe details, such as planking and guidelines for attaching surface details. In addition, I realised that if I drew the outline of my rectangular brass sheet on a sheet of paper and also added the Silhouette registration marks, then I could scribe both sides of the brass sheet, in registration. To do this, I lightly taped the brass to the paper, aligned with my outline drawing, and then scribed the detail. I then turned the brass over and scribed the other side with the appropriate designs - remembering to flip the Silhouette image to correspond with the way I turned the sheet over. Scribing Brass Sheet with a Silhouette Cutter After cutting out the individual components, I assembled the basic shape of the Tilt Wagon, as shown below. I have a set of socket spanners in a wide range of diameters which provide useful 'jigs' for setting the curvature of the end bonnets. I used super-glue to fix the bonnets inside the folded wagon sides and then inserted the curved ends into the bonnets. I prefer using super-glue to solder where there are lots of different small parts to be fitted together, as it avoids earlier joints melting while new ones are being made. Inevitably, some glue extrudes from the sides of the joints and I use a small stainless steel chisel, intended for wax carving, to remove this excess while it is still at a 'cheesy' consistency. A prominent feature of the prototype is the extensive use of rivets! I decided to 'cheat' and use the rivet strips that are currently available from 'Mainly Trains'. I realise that this means the rivet heads are on a raised 'plinth' but I find that the near-perfect alignment is preferable, at normal viewing distances, to my attempts at embossing even lines! Additional details are the angle-iron stiffeners along the tops of the sides and on the side doors (1mm brass angle), and the wooden cross-bar at the top of the doors (plasticard). I still have to add the rails above the sides and between the tops of the end bonnets. There remains the little matter of a chassis! I find that the GWR W-irons from MJT are still listed as "temporarily out of stock", as they have been all year! In addition, I see that 'Mainly Trains' have a notice on their website that "After 35 Years of trading we are beginning the process of winding down." It looks rather ominous for the future supply of many very useful detailing components! Perhaps I shall have to turn to completely scratch-building the chassis as well.... In the meantime, my 'work in progress' looks like this, making an interesting comparison with a round-ended 3-planker from David Geen. Continue to next part Mike

Real modelling is still going slowly. This has several reasons. I hope I can show some progress in a short time. I spend some time on reading inspector Wexford novels and made some thoughts about how to use them into my diorama’s. I realized I was making two type of diorama’s: More or less railway based: Northall Dock – track out of use Bridge Street – siding with track; station, arches with track Nice Street – arches Station Road - arches and British Railways van delivery service: Nice Street – delivery to Adderley Glass Works I like the railway based diorama’s and I have some idea’s to build more of them. But I also like to explore the possibility to build some diorama’s telling a story about parcel delivery in Northall. I came to this after seeing a nice instruction movie from British Railways on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAbqjmbISww What I like to do is the following: There is one railway van with a van driver that I will use for all of the to build parcel delivery diorama’s. For the van I had the Austin 3way van in mind: The van men will be Monty porter figures. I can those the right one depending on the scene I’m building. I’m also trying to create a map of Northall and have already a lot of other useful information about delivery receivers. I will create a delivery sheet for delivering the parcels. I will use a simplified one. From every scene I will make a picture and a description (small story). I this way I will try to write the story of a workday of Albert Foster, van driver at Lower Road Goods Depot in Northall in the late 1950’s. This could be a nice PDF booklet. I can use all useful information about van parcel delivery in the late 1950’s by British Railways. All information is welcome. What do you think about this idea? Kind regards, Job

This picture shows the view of the cottages that most layout viewers will see: other angles will be blocked off by strategically placed buildings and trees etc. This is the view that shows the true shape of the buildings; they are butted up to the backscene normally. This view shows the strange shape of the roof tiles, which were cut in strips after being printed on to card. They were originally drawn up in Adobe Illustrator, but the version i have (CS2) doesn't make it easy to control distortion finely, so I moved the file into Photoshop, where it was simple. The closest cottage has a full coat of DAS modelling clay which I used for the blocks of stone. The decorative bricks were printed on to card, stuck on, reinforced with Shellac in the form of Knotting (something I find really useful, it was good on the roof tiles as well for stiffening and protecting from the paint layer). This first cottage is loosely modelled on an actual building at Corris. As the cottages recede, there is less sculpting, so the rearmost one is almost entirely painted on flat surface. These are "transition cottages"; they are almost flat, with some stuck on detail to ease the eye from 3 to 2D.

As promised in my last entry, I have finished the design work on a section of the platform building. My idea is to create a kit of parts and to create the platofmr buildings from this "pack" of standard parts. This is the image for the first of these, what I might call "full length large windows section". All the time has been taken in adding the brickwork. it all having to be drawn in by hand - if you thought scribing individual bricks was a long haul - think again. A column with attached wall section will go either end of this piece and so on.

The laser prints arrived today. So I am posting a few pictures for comments. I apologise for the quality of the photos but my camera isn't up to much when it comes to close ups and the flash bleached everything, so I had to turn it off. These are probably the best of the photos. The surface is a bit rough and I managed to mismeasure the roof column so this is a bit short. I've corrected the uploaded version, so next time should get it the right size. Would appreciate knowing what people think This is screen shot of a possible wall piece - a work in progress. I am contemplating making up several different types and constructing the main station buildings from these. Still work to do including adding a brickwork texture - Is there an easy way of doing this. Does anyone have any thoughts on the best material to use. The above were printed using frosted acrylic - but its quite expensive when you consider the quanitiy I'm going to need. I was wondering about white plastic - which is considerably cheaper. All opinions welcome Dean

This entry to my blog doesn't have any pictures, not because I haven't got things to take pictures, of, but just because I haven't taken any yet! The latest instalment of the J17 is most frustrating. The loco has taken a very long time to build; I started it some 15 years or so, and it was the first chassis I'd tried to build using compensation. Some of the quality of my workmanship was sadly lacking in the skill department, so the chassis didn't really run as well as I'd liked - it ran forward OK but wouldn't run backwards properly. When I looked closely at the chassis, there was quite a lot of play in the bearings, to the point where the driven axle could move backwards and forwards, even though the bearing itself was soldered in the chassis! As I'd used MJT detailed hornblocks (in case, prophetically, I needed to take the chassis apart!) I've taken the bearings out and replaced them - I've now got to put the wheels back in and get it running sweetly. As well as swearing at the J17, I've been working on the E4 that I've been building and have started building the tender. The loco itself runs sweetly enough but there's quite a bit of detailing work to do - I will take some pictures of that and post them in the next entry to this blog. I've also started putting transfers on the Thompson 6W PBV - I've tried both HMRS Pressfix transfers and Fox - I personally prefer Fox as they work so much better for me. The instructions say to put a drop of washing up liquid in warm water - having done that, the transfers are very easy to get off the backing sheet and slide in to place. Again, I'll take some pictures shortly and post them here. The last thing I've been working on is a Gresley 51ft non-corridor pigeon brake van. This is an Ian Kirk kit that I've had in the store for some time. I've used MJT compensated bogies and I've added one of their turnbuckle underframes. I've also used some of their etchings to add door steps in the solebars and the guard's ducket to one side (No, I don't know why they only put the ducket on one side - if someone can elucidate, I'd love to hear your theory), while I used Dave Franks (Lanarkshire Model Supplies) buffers and vac pipes - they're very good quality and I'll definitely be using them again. The model is now built (finished last night) and ready for the paint shop - again I will take some pictures and post them here shortly. I'm really pleased to say that I'm thoroughly enjoying my modelling at the moment, so there should hopefully be another update to the blog shortly. Happy modelling! Phil

I seem to find myself with an endless battle to provide loco crews for my engines. There's probably some subtle inference to be drawn from this - like, purchase fewer engines - but how can we resist? Anyway, while it's a personal thing, I've always felt that my engines aren't quite done until they've received weathering, coal, lamp irons and a proper crew. At that point I can always return to tweak some detail or other at a later point, but the loco has passed into the regular running fleet and become one of the gang. There are - or were - many options for crewing a model, but for my money the Monty's/Dart Castings figures are absolutely top notch, being sculpted in very natural, believable poses, and with great detail once you get in close to appreciate it. The castings are generally clean, as well, with little attention needed. In fact, given that most of these chaps will be squirrelled away in the relative gloom of loco cabs, I don't bother with anything other than painting. Rather than do them in ones and twos, though, I prefer to wait until I've got a number to do, plus the necessary mojo to tackle what is one of those less glamorous modelling jobs, but one which can be very satisfying once you get stuck into it. To avoid handling, I like to glue the men down onto a temporary floor so I can paint them in one hit, rather than having to come back over a few evenings. These were done with only a few colours, a variety of flesh tones mixed from cream, pink and white, blue for the overalls, black for the ties, boots, cap visors, and the odd splash of brown. I then blasted them with an aerosol can of matt varnish, again in one hit. The figures can be easily removed from the temporary floor (after all, they never stay fixed in my cabs, so what chance have they got here?) and the great loco population program can commence... at which point we discover that we still need about six dozen more men. Hey ho.

Hendricksville is a tribute to my very good friend Trevor Hendrick, aka Sunshine Coast, who sadly died in August 2013. Following his death I took over managing his shop until it closed in March 2014. It was while I was working there that I got the inspiration for this layout. Trev was a brilliant modeller across a wide spectrum of railways, aircraft and war-gaming. One of the railway gauges that he modelled in was On30 so this layout is dedicated to his memory, hence the name Hendricksville. In fact Trev has quite a presence on this layout. Amongst the rolling stock is a 0-4-2 Porter "Pocahontas Lumber Company", which was super-detailed by him, and there is also a Model T Railvan, which is a classic example of his scratch-building skills, both of these are DCC fitted with sound. (photos to follow) The Colorado & Southern Coaches were part of his On30 collection, the tunnel portals were all made from stripwood, which was left in his modelling kit, as was the ballast mix of Buff and Brown. Plus the road vehicles and figures were also part of his On30 collection. The layout is a "work in progress" but it has just just been exhibited at the Pevensey Bay MRC show where it received many favourable comments. I hope to have it completed by its next appearance at the Newhaven MRC exhibition at the end of October. P.S.Trev's shop, Train Times, is about to re-open as a model shop under new ownership in early August 2014.

I promise I will soon run out of ghastly title puns The new frame is taking shape. The first picture is the end that had the "carbuncle" removed. I decided the cross piece at the other end needed to be inset a bit to give the best support. I don't want to lose the building so this end will not be trimmed. Hopefully I've got the pictures down to a more reasonable size. Andrew

Hello again 2 posts in as many weeks, this is unprecedented! I seem to be on a bit of a roll with the layout right now, I dont know why and it is a bit weird but I am not going to stop myself if its working. Weekends are good, they mean I have an opportunity to spend a little more time on things I enjoy doing and although the weather has been a pain I have still managed to get a few bits done... While the station board is out it seemed to make sense and carry on working on it, the area around the station building needed the most attention. The about photo shows the beginnings of some ground cover where I glue down a covering of woodland scenics blended turf, I have found this as a good base to subsequent coverings. This shows one of the gated entrances to the platform. The gates are etched from the scale link GWR spearpoint fencing etch. The static grass has just been applied. The stationmasters garden and vegetable plot is also comming together now, he now even has his own garden shed. An overall view of the station area how it looks now. Finally,the passengers now have two warnings to be on the lookout for trains. Julia

And for my next trick we are going back to simple 6 coupled tank!!! I found out this was missing some of it's dummy inside valve gear. So Scorpion kindly sold me another set, but Brazil's post office managed to lose it. I can't be bothered to order more, so I will adapt a set that I have. Which is a shame as I had it earmarked for my 0395 class, as I am going to scratch build most of that I suppose I should do the valve gear too. I have been searching to find which cab roof bunker combination to do. I think it will be down to a choice of two locos. One open and one closed cab. As it will be for sale at the end I may go with the open cab. But we will see, there is more research to do before I start. I have not built a pannier tank for a couple of years so it will be a change from tender jobbies. The kit looks very good and has lots of nice brass castings, the white metal ones are nice and clean. The way the brass sprue's are done the spares box will be getting some top up items. But Tuesday I will be back on the mogul. As for now I am away from the bench, having a weekend away in the countryside. A rather nice place in the same state as we live, but about 7 hours away by car, the view taken this evening from where we are staying. . The restaurant is calling, time to go.