brianthesnail96

Thanks for the update Chris. That's shaping up to be rather lovely indeed. Captures the outline very well to my eyes, and the wheels and motion look particularly nice. Bonus points for showing actual progress with minimal fanfare, excuses for lack of progress, froth inducing guessing games etc etc

I've no idea how representative 1442 is (we all know stuff gets messed around with in preservation, and GWR standardisation wasn't all it was cracked up to be in the first place...) but there's a reasonable shot of her backhead on flickr.

Still is- in January- I picked up a load of track last year from the Guild E&T stand from there

It does amuse me that everyone slates the Marina for being a bad car- poor handling, unreliable, bad brakes, bad build quality- yet there's a significant number of Moggies (that are universally loved) running around with various significant bits of Marina nailed to them- pedal boxes, brakes, suspension, engines, gearboxes, axles are all relatively common mods, so clearly even if they weren't exactly perfect they were presumably an improvement on what went before. I ain't sayin' nuffink on the subject of build quality though

Think the early 1300s were drums all round and no servo. Most were front discs and servo, most of it is common with Dolomites and Escorts amomgst others, can't say mine stops particularly badly and certainly no worse than anything else comparable. Certainly more inspiring than the Land Rover. Nosedives a bit mind.

Think it's actually '65 for front seat belts. I used to take them out of my 1962 Land Rover for the MOT every year as they weren't up to MOT standard (should probably have replaced them really...). Quite common for old vehicles to be on younger 'plates, for a while if the reg. was sold off of a car with a "dateless" number it would be given one with an "A" suffix, as well as imports or vehicles used on private roads or on trade plates (as was common with recovery vehicles) being given a current registration when finally registered.

Daimler V8s, hmm, friend of mine used to run around Bristol in this one. Lovely sounding thing. Much prefer the saloons to the Dart, mind you I prefer the Jag saloons to the sports cars as well, I'm probably something of a flawed character. Another friend has an Imp that looks pretty shocking (think gaffer tape wheelarches, mismatched panels and so on) but is his daily driver and is actually very reliable, it's very well looked after mechanically (and structurally, it's only cosmetically challenged). They do seem to require a more caring approach than the average 70's car it has to be said.

I've got all the Supercover documentation (including the advertising bit hanging from the rear view mirror) for my Marina saloon, I'll dig it out and take a photo. I saw the Saab 96 mentioned a few pages back, a friend had a one when we were at school, a bit of a left field choice given that it was only about 8 years ago. Other than my 109" Land Rover 2a and a lass with a Beetle the car park was otherwise a sea of Corsas, Polos and Clios so it stood out a bit. Hilarious thing to go out in, especially 4- up, with the column shift, freewheel, and comical amounts of body roll. Have no idea how they managed to make something stick to the road so well yet lean so much, especially when you consider how narrow the tyres are. He still has it actually, need to persuade him to drag it back out of hibernation again. Had a great two weeks after our finals down in Plymouth, he brought the Saab down, my housemate bought his Spitfire (Triumph, not Supermarine) down and I'd just bought the Marina estate, the sun shone for two weeks solid so we just beach- hopped for the fortnight alternating between the three!

Meant to say- the Fowler was in use most the day and was spot on, keep alives are the future (although the HC worked well without one, but the occasional stutter is much more noticeable with sound).

Cheers Tim, good to catch up again- apologies for being slightly bemused when you arrived, I'd not long got it working! To review our first show then: By the time we'd help get the test track up and running, and then managed to get the van near the door (very near, which upset someone but it was raining and we were only there 2 minutes- ho hum) to unload and thrown the layout up (quite quick- the keyboard stands work well) it wasn't too far off opening time, so I was somewhat dismayed when only half the points worked (in some cases, half of a point worked!). This was found to be a combination of things, I'd swapped the lead to the switches for a longer one and I think we were seeing too much current drop, luckily I'd put screws in to mount the box on the centre board with the short lead which bought most the points back to life. A dislodged pin in the control box female connector (as a result of a bent pin on the male, ooh err!) got another one working, and another couple of escaped pins on one of the board connectors got another going. The final one reanimated with a drop of oil and some wiggling, just as the show opened! Fortunately it all behaved after that- Harry (one of the Antics team) not only lent us a few of his wagons & his Ixion Hudswell, but he'd spent the Saturday fitting sound & finishing weathering it- and very nice it looked too. Dave Murdoch also lent us a couple of his engines so we had a very shiny Peckett in the morning and a beautiful LSWR liveried B4 for the afternoon. The Peckett was a little overwidth in places so mostly stayed on shed but the B4 just about went everywhere and did get some use- and a fair few photographs. Two locos seems to be the ideal, three tends to get things a bit cluttered (unless one just hides in the shed entrance). I was also pleased with the Multimaus DCC set up, other than being out of calibration so the centre off wasn't actually off it worked perfectly and is much easier than the Dynamis. The "black box" is so light that I've stuck it to the layout with some double sided tape, so the track feed is permanently attached and all I need to do is plug in the transformer jack and the controller- much less fiddly. Dave's modelling got a lot of compliments- general consensus was that it was a crime to keep it shut up the conservatory, and even more of a crime to lop 2ft off the end to fit in in the shed! Very glad I bought it, and took the opportunity to take it on the road. We have had another couple of invites too for 2016- watch this space (Tim- I've had an email from Jim, will reply tonight ). Currently still set up to operate from the front, which is great from a chatting perspective but is something I might need to review before doing a bigger show. The main problem is getting in the way to couple & uncouple- the control panel should mount to the end board in front of the FY & factory siding which would put me less in the way. Despite being small it would really benefit from being run with two operators & two controllers, one "front of house" and one at the back sorting the fiddle yard and acting as shunter. Lots of fun, a bit of work to do and a bit to think about.

Lovely job on the 31 & on the van there Chaz- I have a couple of very ex- works 12T BR standard vans to "do" and will try using the matt black/ matt leather combination- that looks very well. As for weathering powders vs talc, I found myself using both- I used an ice cream tub lid with a generous mound of talc in the middle, and weathering powders in the corners, and dragged the two (or more) together to get various shades- the powders alone look a bit flat I felt. I found a mix of "dark earth", "smoke" and talc gave a nice grime colour, by only mixing a small amount at a time I found the exact composition varied a little as I went, preventing it looking too uniform. I haven't yet braved an airbrush though! Like you I found that I needed a really soft brush to avoid scratching.

Just a quick bump to say that BT&S will definitely (well, unless the hall floods, the van breaks down or I get lost on the 5 mile journey) be at Hardwicke on Sunday. Still plenty of extra detailing bits to do so don't expect a fully finished layout, but we have fixed most the damage from the move (including the bits that chipped away from the concrete apron, which I was dreading doing I admit!). Frantically trying to finish a couple of vans to boost the rolling stock availability- this is something I plan on working on over Summer but for now we're a bit short handed. Pleased to say that we had a successful test of the rewired points and they are now running off of a moveable control panel instead of stud contacts on the front of the board, fingers crossed it'll be alright on the night. I've also just had a "Multimaus" set arrive from Germany to replace the Dynamis, which should eliminate the "out of range, out of control" issues with the latter... Will be looking out for a Lokmaus as a second handset as I hope to eventually set up to run with two operators when available. It'll just be me at Hardwicke though! We also trialled the new legs- these are actually folding keyboard stands, they seem to work rather well although I may look at getting some additional bracketry welded on to better support the layout before attending any bigger/ busier shows. I didn't want fixed folding legs as there's a chance that the layout will live on top of fixed units when at home (a prospective house move is on the cards with a room that might just have enough space to put the layout up in- a luxury I don't currently have!). I had hoped to repaint the front edge of the baseboards and the backscene too, my good lady has been doing the former for me but we've run out of time to do the backscene- pleased with how the front has come out though. Looking forward to it- please do come and say hi, and you are more than welcome to run something- the clearances are very tight in places though!

Oooh, will be watching this with interest. The "Swedens" are a particular favourite of mine, and I had considered attempting something similar (possibly involving 3D printing) decided that the wheelbase/ wheel size and size of the motor/ gearbox/ flywheel arrangement would lead to too many compromises. Now Andrew has posted that very helpful set of photos I think I may have been wrong there!

Thanks Chris- would be a nice touch for those wanting a matching fleet. I think it'll make for a very attractive livery on the Peckett, as indeed it does on the Hudswell. However... decision made, noisy black one ordered, to be resprayed into something unsuitable Always leaves the option of a pretty green one open for the future then...

See EDM model's website for ready to roll sound installs I'm still can't decide if I want a lined green (I'm presuming this will be a similar scheme to the original release HC Chris?) one, or a black one to repaint. Hopefully it'll come apart in a similar manner to the HC & Fowler, which would make a repaint a relatively easy proposition.

Assume you've already got a bell on there somewhere Paul, for alerting said mk1 cortina of the imminent graunching and/ or driving the operator of the neighbouring layout completely loopy?

Gods damn it Mr Martin, I used to be quite well off until I encountered EDM models... I suppose if I let my good lady know now what to expect for Christmas she may have forgiven me by then! Edit- I had hoped from Chris' hints that it would be another Paul & Paul effort

Excellent news. Sorry Giles and Chris, I seem to be spamming you both with notifications at the moment!

Well, quite! And yes- that's what caught my eye, it's going to be quite a feat of tracklaying, but if you can pull it off it'll be quite something, I'm not sure I've ever seen trackwork like that modelled. Common enough on the real thing of course. Should make for some brilliant photographs, with locos and their trains at all sorts of odd angles relative to one another.

I reckon watching the Garrett negotiate the point on the gradient will make for entertaining viewing! You certainly don't go for the easy life do you Giles...

Agree with Doug, I've been really enjoying following (and learning from) this thread, good to see you back posting and progress being made

Ahh, excellent, I'm not going totally loopy then. Thanks Chris, wasn't expecting that comprehensive an answer, nor the photo

I'm sure I recall an article in the Railway Modeller a good few years back on building a chip shop, the inspiration being a photo of what I'm fairly sure was a Swansea 0-4-0st running on a narrow ledge past said chippy. Anyone (looking at Chris K here, since if I remember rightly he wrote the article! ) else remember it, and was it a Peckett? Would make a great diorama.

Ha- exactly the same as on the red Marina! Still in good condition too, other than a slight buckle on the front numberplate. Will dig the paperwork out and work out which of the Henley dealerships it was. The Dolly is another Henleys car (have the bill of sale & correspondence between the first owner and dealer regarding a lack of foglights for that one!) but not the same dealership. That was still wearing the original 'plates when Adam bought it, but they were "modern" reflective types and were slightly water damaged, hence taking them off before they deteriorated further. Nice to have a bit of history with a car

Thanks for filling in the gaps Chris- good to know that Ixion is continuing as before, and this is an amicably separate arrangement to satisfy the UK market while still building on the excellent work Ixion has done in this field- sounds an ideal situation for us punters modelling British 7mm. Glad the news went down well at Kettering as well as on here! Interesting that there may be a suitable sound project in the offing too