The Great Bear

If you google Avonmouth banana you should get some results of interest eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0VDKhkswU8 Also covered in GWRJ 94. I think I have that one, whether I can find it is another matter.

Here's why I've got to with my bodged Bulldog. Getting the fit on the bottom of the firebox and the cab proved a pain, even with several prints. I didn't have the model quite deep enough, shy by 0.5mm or so. Rather than do yet another print, a strips of plasticard to fill the gap, not done very well. Also I dropped the model so the frame infront of the smokebox saddle on one side has again been bodged with plasticard. Amongst other ham fisted modelling is to much glue on the handrail knobs - drilled slightly too big hole in boiler, didn't have the right size bit - and too heavy application of the aerosol primer I think. So it could be done better and at some point in the future I may try another print but for now (to make me feel like I am making some progress!) I am running with this one, painting it. Oh and I need to find the bogie. I'm sure I put that somewhere for safe keeping...

I've not considered printing on end I have to say. My printer would be large enough to do it (for a loco, not a coach). I suspect that I'd run into problems with supports for overhangs. Print quality is worse at the bottom where you have to support the model lift it off the build plate. I get good results printing at about 40 degree inclination, with the cab at the build plate end (which is the top as the model is printed upside down, pulling it out of the resin vat). This then means the smokebox is at the free end with no supports to get in the way / need cutting off. Have a look at my thread on printing coaches and you'll see how models are orientated. The latest print I have, the one I am running with is a bit better than the last one shown, there were some little deformations in that one because the film vat was marked which reflected in the print. New film has fixed that.

Showing my ignorance of the real thing: what's the thing hanging down from the running plate by the rear driving wheel?

It was banned in the mid 1920s, as discussed in this threaed

Hello, does anyone have any pictures of the MERG brackets for mounting servos for semaphore signals. In particular it is the ones for multiple servo mounting I am curious in and how much space they take up and installation details?

Could one simply fit bigger wheels to the Bachmann chassis, if they fit in the splashers? Then some styrene to deepen buffer beam and then remove buffers etc and fit new ones at lower height? That might be a project even I could accomplish (though not necessarily well!)

I'll start by declaring that I am rather ham-fisted. I wanted to swap coupling rods between two Bachmann Earl chassis I have, to get fluted rods on the right one (one being in GWR livery, other one in BR black being used to make a Bulldog). I got the crankpins out and the rods off using pliers, which was rather foolish as I cannot get the blasted pins back in to the outside cranks. Push fitting the Bachmann pins once removed looks to be difficult. Is there a nack to this or better tools to use, a couple of the pins have gone flying across the railway room never to be seen again in all likelihood and as well I stopped or the model may have followed suit in my frustration! Or maybe use some other (Gibson?) parts? Any advise gratefully received as I was getting rather frustrated and wishing I had started this task. All the best Jon

When building my layout I found the old style track's thin base to be an advantage when you used in conjunction with tracklay sticky underlay. It was a doddle to lay and ballast track and get a neat result, sprinkle thin layer of ballast onto the underlay, rather than messing around with conventional ballasting, dribbling diluted glue etc. I've never understood why more didn't try this approach, well apart from the cost of the tracklay, but even then for the time saving worth it IMHO.

Great photos - again! Don't be hard on yourself, they look almost perfect to me - way better than my efforts - and if you hadn't mentioned it I wouldn't have noticed! As for the canopy, again not sure people would notice. If I recall right the underside of canopies was painted light stone, so the unpainted wood isn't a million miles amiss in tone.

I've been making some progress with a 3d printed body. Here's where I've gotten to. The body is based on 3418 Sir Arhur Yorke, a Reading loco. As I model post war my choice of prototypes is more limited. Of the sheds with likely duties on my layout Reading and Didcot both had Bulldogs post war, but most of the Reading ones were Birds. Plus a named loco helps hide the motor cut out. So the choice narrows down. The fit between the new body and the chassis is as good as I'm going to get it. Some filler will be needed in some places and how to hold the body down at the rear, the front can be screwed down like the Dukedog body. The photos do how a couple of little niggles in the print, some diagnonal marks I think from marks on the FEP film on the printer resin vat. I may have one last try, once I've changed that. There is a slight bow upward in the body at the front from the saddle forward, which is something in the printign process doing this but I haven't been able to resolve. The marks on the smokebox were from supports I added to try and fix this but didn't help. Once I've changed the FEP I'll have one last go, but if that doesn't improve things this one would still do; better than my roughshod effort with the K's body anyway.

I'm no expert, but I believe the bigger the speaker, the more bass it has and so the more realistic the sound. Whilst various "cube" speakers improve what you can get from a small speaker I think as a principle this still holds. So whilst a small speaker could go in the smokebox, boiler a bigger speaker elsewhere would give better sound quality.

In looking at photos, I've a question about the boilers, the box on the drivers side of the firebox 1/3 way up, which I think is related to the reversing gear. Looking at the photos here the slight majority maybe 60% have a box, others don't. Does this indicate different type of reverser, I thought all the Bulldogs had a steam reverser or was there a mixture? (How did that work, I can understand concept of lever and screw ones as shown on the diagrams by Jim on the GWR modelling site)

As well you don't live in the UK, Mikkel. You'd end up overdosed on cynicism.

I like the idea of Burbage Wharf, as Tim says something different and you can have a parade of trains on the mainline at a show should you wish. I meay well have missed this being said, but how would the layout be operated, from the front of rear, does that have any bearing on why way round it is, not just whether the canal is in front or behind but access to the yard for shunting/hand of god unless all automatic. Good to see mock ups, like something out of an Iain Rice layout planning book.

Ah. I'm now in a flurry double checking my dimesnions. I thought I had appreciated that the diameters tabled were exclusive of cladding but looking again, some I didn't The cladding looks to be around 2" thick - based on a drawing in Russell which gives OD for the smokebox and front of boiler as 4'9 3/8". Whilst less than 1mm at 4mm scale that also might explain why motor was a tight fit, reduce size of cut out needed. Oh, it was going so well... but am getting more practise at Fusion 360!

At least a few Bulldogs had them eg 3148 Sir Arthur Yorke Thanks, Miss P

Can I ask a couple more questions (for my education!): Some locos have a box on the cab front above the firebox looks like linked to the whistles - see picture of Kingfisher here - what is this? What are the 4 "horns" on the corners of the firebox Locos seem to have random patterns of rivets on the cab sides, these are just ad-hoc repairs? Getting there with the prints, just making some final tweaks to match chosen loco.

Exquisite.

Excellent pictures again, John. To my eyes/taste possibly the last few pictures are a tad underexposed, they look quite dark to me, or is that the intent, a storm brewing? (The photos do show off your excellent hand built pointwork. The last one wouldn't look as convincing with a normal Peco point stuck in there. I am holding out for Peco to fill in the gaps in their bullhead range then I think I'll replace the ones I have.)

The screw reverser in the Bachmann cab was what was pushing the cab forward, so removing that (and filing down in due course) solves that.

So here's where I am currently at with a 3d printed body As can be seen I'm still tweaking things to get the body to fit properly on the Bachmann chassis. At the moment it is sitting a couple of millimetres too far forward. Back to the shed to do a spot of filing to work out what bit is fouling what; I suspect the details with the Bachmann cab that are fixed to the chassis... The print quality isn't great as shown, that I'll look at when the dimensions of the model and fit are right. Nor have I tried to optimise support locations or file them off neatly if at all, the three pimples on the firebox being a case in point. As it stands it's been printed at 100 micron layer thickness for speed, my printer can do finer and playing around with the orientation of the model when printed should help reduce banding and stepping the photos cruely show. I'm not sure the front portion of the boiler has prined quite right looking at the underside. Dimensions of the boiler I got from Jim Champ's website (hopefully interpreted them correctly!) a couple of detail drawings of cab and firebox in GWRJ 26 and if all else fails the weight diagrams on sites and in Russell. If something is leaping out at more informed eyes looking at this as being wrong do let me know. I've also now realised somewhere along the line I've managed to snap off the leaf springs on the right hand side rear driver... oops. Jon

Brilliant, the one with the embankment especially.

Yes, albeit this is an area that has come on a great deal in digital cameras. If you have a DSLR or similar, the ISO can be raised quite a way before impacting on image quality. The top of the range full frame DSLRs for sensible image sizes I've read can go up to ISO 6400 before quality is noticeably affected. Even in my m3/4 olympus ISO 1600 is reasonable. But you'd only do this for handheld shots where you can't have a long shutter speed. If we're talking focus stacking then the camera I presume is resting somewhere so you can keep the ISO low, have a small aperture F11 or smaller and let the shutter speed be as long as it needs to be. For smaller cameras then the sensor is smaller in physical size which means it is more prone to noise, so lower ISOs better. Camera phones probably same applies but the high end ones I think have lots of software wizardry to help.

In hacking around the K's boiler to make hole big enough to fit the Bachmann motor, I've manged to make a right mess of the boiler from that shown in the fist post. One thing I've only just appreciated, is that the Earl cab is noticeably longer, because of the smaller boiler from the Duke, should have grasped that earlier, which means that as shown the smokebox is too far forward. So the whitemetal boiler in the photo above would need to be shortened and the cut outs in the bottom of the firebox for the splashers changed to suit. It could be done, but I doubt now I'd get something half decent. So, having finally fixed my 3d printer, I'm trying plan B - as alluded to in the first post, print a new standard 2 boiler. Having done that a new shorter cab could be done too. More on this in the coming days. Thanks for the help and information so far. Jon