PatB

Bit late to this topic. I do hope I'm not going to be too severely flamed for cheating, but, of late, I've become old and creaky enough to appreciate the joys of the ebike. Here's my first effort at a home conversion, on an old, steel framed Trek MTB with a legal 250W Bafang motor. This was my daily commuter (30 km round trip on unsealed tracks) for a year, until its deficiencies annoyed me too much to continue with it. As is fairly obvious from the seat adjustment the frame is really too small for me, so it was never a truly comfortable fit. Also, the cheapo Ebay aftermarket wheels weren't up to a strong, heavy rider standing on the pedals, along with the extra push of the motor, so the rear wheel kept pinging spokes. As a result of this, and a change in commuting needs, disillusionment set in and it spent a couple of years standing, while I worked out what to do with it. Then serendipity took a hand, and I found an old Giant Option X hybrid on the verge, waiting for the latest bulk rubbish collection. Big steel frame, 700C wheels, OK cantilever brakes, cruddy levers and gear components (but that's OK as I have better ones). So, I've been doing a bit of selective assembly with parts from the Trek, the Giant, and assorted bits I've accumulated over the past decade or so. I was able to build a cross-4 laced rear wheel from a double-wall rims and reasonable hub from my last hybrid, using the slightly longer spokes from the kerbside bike. Front wheel and not-terrible derailleur from the same previous hybrid. Saddle and butterfly bars from the Trek. It's currently at a stage where it would ride as a pushbike. I just need to finalise the wiring and mount the battery to finish the ebike conversion. Then it'll be time for some shakedown rides to find out if my wheelbuilding has been good enough. Just in time for some cooler, but still dry weather. Perfect.

With bonus kitbashed Airfix girder bridges.

I'm contemplating building a small 1:35 scale narrow gauge layout, incorporating various bits and pieces I already own. Track would be a mix of Peco and Hornby set track, with a couple of Streamline points and the odd bit of flexi. To disguise the 00ness of the track, I'd be using very deep ballast, covering everything but the railheads. Obviously, whilst easy enough to do on plain track, it's going to be tricky on pointwork to get a good appearance and leave the vital bits of the points free to operate. I wondered if anyone who's done this successfully has any tips on how best to go about it. If it makes a difference, ballast will be sand/grit dug from the garden (Western Australia has very little actual soil, but is made primarily of sand/grit) and passed through some laboratory sieves I happen to have handy to get a sensible size. Probably 0.3mm-0.8mm (representing roughly 1/2" to 1"), with a bit of dust mixed in, to try and represent a fairly coarse ash/cinder ballast. Point operation will be wire in tube. IIRC the Streamline points are live frog. If so, they'll have external frog polarity switching rather than relying on Peco's internal mechanism.

I am reminded of another Perth incident, when a kids' water playground (basically, lawn sprinklers with ideas above their station) was opened as part of a fancy waterside development in the city centre. Because it was the usual Perth half-arsed, cheapo bodge job, badly designed and constructed, and signed off in a hurry to meet the Minister's packed ribbon cutting schedule, it had numerous problems. Chief amongst these was that, after a week or two, the water was found to be harbouring assorted nasty microbes that thrive in a hot climate in damp conditions. Rather than admit they'd botched the whole thing, there were serious proposals from the powers that be that children entering the play area should be forced through a bleach shower so they wouldn't contaminated the water. I'm pretty sure the whole thing was quietly torn up after only a few months, and is never to be spoken of again.

And, on a related note https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-22/bite-victims-warned-stop-bringing-snakes-to-emergency-department/103752506

Because Perth is conveniently situated within walking distance of the surface of the sun most of our buses are sealed, airconditioned boxes, largely to avoid the necessity of hosing out melted passengers at the end of every day in summer.

That'll cost a fortune in Peco track rubbers.

Looks suspiciously like Brian Monaghan getting a bit arty with a RotM c1980.

Back when JuniorB was in kindergarten, they had a school trip, which I can only admire for its genius and simplicity, consisting of herding all the kids onto a bus, taking them to the depot and through the bus wash, then back to school. Exciting (for 5 year olds), cheap, and the kids were kept contained at all times when off school premises.

Currently 22 quid. Doesn't actually seem too bad for a Dublo Deltic. It's not like the original Dublo paintjob was particularly complex to reproduce, so it could be a nice piece for someone not totally obsessed with originality.

I've always thought the Ratio loco kits were a laudable effort to offer a loco kit that was as "easy" to put together as a plastic rolling stock kit, for a relatively affordable price (metal kits being expensive). Unfortunately, in practice they seem to have showed why conventional loco kits were/are how they were/are.

I've used Molotow, and other "street art" paints on (legitimate) mural projects and been very impressed. They stick like crazy to pretty much anything, with no more preparation than a blast with a pressure washer, and seem to last very well. I recently drove past one of our projects that's now 8 years old, and it's still looking good. The colour choice is excellent, too, and includes shades that don't appear in more "conventional" ranges. Well worth a look.

Interesting. I admit that it's been some time since I bothered to look at Oz retail pricing, as it had always seemed to follow the usual Australian situation, for any goods out of the mainstream, of poor range and swingeing markups. Perhaps the distributors and retailers have caught up with the Internet era and are adjusting to the realisation that their markets are no longer captive, and it's better to have a small cut of something than a larger cut of nothing.

Although given typical Australian model railway pricing, and the cost of shipping back to the UK, someone is going to have to really want them.

Indeed, I have long suspected that there may be insufficient harvestable energy, and other necessary resources, to sustainably provide widespread powered personal transport at anything above the level of an ebike.