Prometheus

Blimey. Good buy. tony

.....or chop them up to make Siphon C vans? I cannot resist cheap buys either. I bought a still-shrink-wrapped-on-its-card K’s Dean PBV for an extraordinary £15 the other day. I’ve three built already, but they are such attractive vehicles. Tony

A Siphon C is next in line, utilising Keyser and Ratio parts. You can never have too many brown vehicles! Tony

With all four now built, three run perfectly and the fourth adequately, although for that van, the track needs to be laid well. Anyway, an attractive rake for just thirty quid. But I wonder though just how often four of these would have run together given that only six were built.... And to add some visual interest, I gave two of the vans some branding. Probably not completely prototypical but they don't look so out of place. By the way, how does one drill a square hole? Tony

For what must have been tender years, that's quite a good paint job [apart from the dust...!]. Tony

That is extremely helpful. Thank you. Tony

Some car paint suppliers can digitally image the example that you provide and then produce accurately it in aerosol form. It’s the convenience of a spray can that I want. I generally get very good results with them and, for me, having to do it in a cluttered garage, an air brush is a less attractive option (even though I have one). Tony

That’s ultimately the plan: take some sprayed plastic card to a paint supplier for them to try to match it. It’s a lot more expensive than Halfords but it’s probably the only option. tony

Thanks all for the replies. I did try Rover Primula Yellow once - many years ago - but decided it was just too yellow. Ford Sierra Beige was recommended too a while back, but that wasn’t really right, either. Tony

Thanks for the reply. I have used it before and it's excellent, but I found that the aerosol head tended to clog easily. And without a show to purchase at, postage can be prohibitive on aerosols, hence my hope for car paint [I should have made that clearer initially - apols]. Thanks for the reply though. Tony

Has anyone recently discovered an acceptable rattle-can substitute for GWR Cream from the swathe of creams/off-whites/etc now available? Thanks Tony

....and a pair of Siphon F vans, part of a collection of four recently acquired in need of attention / rebuilding. Incidentally, I found that 3mm [as in TT] decals were the right size for lettering between the panels: the G & W fit perfectly. The problem with this group of four however is that, when finished, they’ll all run on K’s version of GWR American bogies whereas only two ever ran on them. Ah well, Rule One I suppose.... Tony

I recently acquired a pair of Dean luggage vans and four Siphon F vans in poor condition. The Dean vans had been dismantled but showed signs of far too much glue, cement fingermarks and torn plastic. The roofs had also been snapped off the sprues rather than cut away and so had bites which needed careful filling. Both Deans were incomplete, also. The Siphons were all there, except for their bogies, but needed fettling. The first Dean has been completed and two Siphons are close on its heels. Worth the effort I think - the Deans are attractive vehicles - but I will replace the bogies [BSL] in due course. Repairing them was a project in itself and whilst they run, I cannot eliminate some tightness somewhere. They'll do, however. Some liberties have been taken with the livery [but it's what i wanted!]. Tony

Thanks for your reply: it was the level of suction that worries me. I think a hair dryer might be an option worth considering. Tony

Difficult to know into which forum this should have been posted - hope it's OK here...... After more than 12 months of closure, Swansea Railway Modellers' Group is beginning to explore options for reopening. Regardless of when this actually happens, when it does, a huge amount of cleaning will be required. Within that huge amount are 6 layouts, 5 of which are dusty and spread with dead flies, the odd cobweb and the usual detritus which falls from the air over a long period of disuse. Can anyone recommend a suitable hand-held vacuum cleaner for helping to clean these layouts? Most of the cleaning will probably be undertaken by a very soft 2 inch paint brush, but piles of dust will need removing as will dirt from inaccessible corners. many thanks. Tony

Josh, I'm very much hoping that we will be open again late June / early July - or whenever the advice is given that such activities may recommence. You'd be most welcome to drop in then if you are around. Keep your L1 progress posted! Tony

Absolutely! We once had a seven-seat Montego Countryman Estate. Really high-spec and a great family car, but even when low mileage, it laid down an appalling smoke screen when accelerating under load. tony

Not to everyone's taste, but three partially built Siphon F kits from Keyser for just over a tenner each. A really easy restoration job which requires little more than underframe detail, remedial work on those awful plastic bogies [so, later productions] and paint. The bodies themselves were fairly well put together, sufficiently so not to dismantle them. A little filler and filing will sort any problems there. But just look at those appalling gas tank mouldings: what was Keyser thinking about there? Tony

It certainly does. You are right about the Triang underframe as well : it is insanely robust and took efforts just short of violence to clean away the detail. I like your paint job, too. Tony

Although the bright sun has bleached out the paintwork in the photos slightly, resiting the bogies 5mm towards each end* and fitting larger wheels has improved both the look and the running of this coach. I must reinstate the roof-boards before packing it away, too. Although not strictly a Taunton Brake - it's a D95A rather than the D95B - it's as close as I'll get given the donor stock and, as Gibbo said, '...it is good enough for the novelty value of an unusual prototype...'. * and that was a damned sight harder than it sounds! Tony

https://srmg.org.uk/cambrian-composite Whether it's passable or not, it's certainly pretty. Of course, all of the compartments are, incorrectly, exactly the same size, but I felt that a Composite would be more use than an All-First. Tony

Thanks Gibbo - appreciated. Tony

For completeness, the finished product. Well, more-or-less finished, bar some very small areas of touching up and the addition of an appropriate tail lamp. This was an extremely speculative build at the outset. I knew that I could not guarantee a result and expecting an uncompromised product from the mating of the parts of four different coaches and a good deal of scrap was expecting a great deal. The use of the original Triang floor and Dapol/Hornby bogies eventually led to a huge and unwanted compromise: smaller wheels than intended and a substantial gap between the bogies and the underside. Without further quite drastic surgery, this compromise cannot be improved upon. It looks very pretty certainly, but I'm not sure that it was really worth the effort. I am categorically not fishing for compliments here, it's just that sometimes things don't quite work out the way you intended. The body I am quite happy with but the running qualities are not what I would have wanted and I have decided to box it up for a couple of months to concentrate on other projects before returning once again to the running gear. I can see from the photos that the dynamo drive belt needs adjusting, too. The slightly panoramic effect of the phone camera has made the bogies look just a little more inboard than they are. However, when I return to the running quality, I shall also move each of the bogies outwards by 5mm. Tony

Wouldn't that have involved total immersion and a near-death experience? This might be dangerously straying, I’ll draw the religious excursion aspect of this posting to a close (unless anyone else wishes to continue with it!). Tony

He’d have been on a hiding to nothing of course: they were all fiercely independent Primitive Methodists, even a whiff of Popery and the whole rake would be off into the Welsh hills in a flash..... Tony