Crantock

Good but not quite a model of the prototype that would need the toolbox/sandbox repositioning. So why not compromise and just have outside cylinders (an improvement) but inside valve gear. Outside valve gear, outside cylinder 0-4-0s were very rare. Indeed is this unique in standard gauge? Moving the valve gear inside makes for a simpler cylinder and avoids the eccentric crank and rod etc.

Incidentally, another easy update is the Dock Tank. Here the wheels do fail and clunk along the sleepers. The cheap solution is to use 14mm coach wheels with the original gears soldered onto a brass tube that's as close as you can to 2mm inside and 9/64ths outside. Soldering the join required a bit of heat but a ceramic hob does the trick. Care with the light as the DCC current is higher voltage. Somehow they lack the beauty of Nellie. The Nellie upgrade (without cylinders!) also basically works for the other diesel shunter but it's even less a looker.

Please excuse the quality of the pictures but I think I have refined the art of Nellification. First take your Nellie body and apply Mr Muscle to remove paint. Then remove moulded handrails with a knife. If modelling an industrial variant consider removing lamp brackets and coal rails. Replace handrails with wire. Remove front steps. For a mainline version add grilles to the rear windows (Mainly Trains - ceased trading). Add drawhooks and vacuum gear to taste. Repaint. For the chassis It had too many gaps that needed filling. I used brass strips to create mounting blocks for a DCC Concepts chip and stay alives in the cab. Also created a mounting block overlay to allow outside cylinders to be fitted. These were made from brass tube and nickel silver strip slidebars using a jig. Yes I know an outside cylinder 0-4-0 is a minority but hey. This in itself was educational as you realise that the slide bars need to be pointing at the centre of the axle and there needed to be a point on the body to support them. The original wheels were scrapped. Care is needed to not twist the chasses when removing. The replacement was easy. The gear was extracted and remounted on a 9/64ths Romford axle with gnarled centre (again Mainly Trains - ceased trading). Just visible is the crude washer behind the wheel to maintain clearance. The front axle was a standard Romford in bearings. The wheels were 16mm plastic centred cheapest available. The coupling rod was simply a Romford crankpin washer soldered into the original crankpin. To fill up the rear of the chassis I used Comet Models Stanier sandboxes with oversize sandpipes added and front ones soldered behind the cylinders. Pickup is a strip of copperclad with a the copper removed from a middle strip using a slitting disk and 2 countersunk mounting holes. 33 Thou wire provides 4 pickups. Obviously replaced the coupling with Bachman. I have 6 of these and 5 spare bodies for either pseudo BR or industrial. The Industrials have some A1 models number plates on them and are In BR Sherwood Green with black roofs and smokeboxes. ie as close to No 27 as can be done.

On a wander round the trade at Wigan Exhibition on a Sunday, I felt that Blue boxes were thin on the ground and Reds predominated. That's all small traders.

Many thanks, wasn't suggesting you were being greedy. The key point is the time saved and the availability of something different. Good luck.

Well done but not cheap. The L&Y class 28 I have as: £68 Loco FUD £21 Loco chassis WSF £14 coupling rods £34 tender WSF (is FUD available) £14 tender chassis So that's £151 before wheels and motor and bits and bobs. London Road Models class 25 is £95 as a comparator. I can't help feeling there is a balance to be struck between etches and printing. Then again one between time and cost. Surprised you are bothering with a Fowler tender as Bachmann ones can be sourced on Ebay and with a bit of reworking even an old Airfix one can be made respectable. Now if you were to go for: Fowler cab tender Stanier 3500 tender Stanier 3500 slab sided tender I might be interested. Anyway, well done and a nice video

Oh come on that was 9 years ago. The fact he is still in business is better evidence. (And I have learnt not to reply using taps talk from the garden)

I think it will sell regardless of imperfections. And regardless of technical accuracy i bet a variant appears with LMS bogies substituted. To me the wheels, plate joins and rivets are too prominent. And surely, lamps both ends is surely an imperfection too far?

I think the photo is a very different beast from the ones mercian do and i suspect its going to be a DIY jobbie with at best an RTR chassis but that looks a bit of a monster to be honest. http://cliffjones.zenfolio.com/p1056649801/h37A29E8E#h37a29e8e

Of kit ranges disappearing - Connoisseur and Mercian seem to be withdrawing from 4mm http://www.jimmcgeown.com/4mm%20Scale%2000%20Gauge.html http://www.modelrailways.tv/4mm-scale.html Presumably there is not the profit in 4mm and a surplus of RTR. We are, I confess, diverging from the world of Mr Finney. Apologies.

But if Brassmasters website reports: Note that our eight LNWR locomotive kits have been taken out of the catalogue - they are available whilst stocks last - please email us to check availability. These are: G1/G2 0-8-0, Experiment 4-6-0, Prince of Wales 4-6-0, 19"Goods 4-6-0, George the Fifth 4-4-0, Precursor 4-4-0, Bowen-Cooke 0-8-2T, Beames 0-8-4T And the rest is almost all available RTR then isn't that a range that has disappeared?

I agree that fabricating your own slidebars would be a worthwhile improvement. Though you might get somewhere by painting the relief on and where do you stop? Whilst there is clearly too big a gap between the slidebars and running plate, I think the slidebars might be a touch too low. I would expect the cylinder centre line to pass through the driven axle but think its a bit low. Too complicated to change. Perhaps we should have a whip round for a fresh body? You know that after developing the techniques on the prototype the best answer is to have a clear run from a clean sheet. Good luck.

Mike, Is there a complete catalogue downloadable somewhere? I can see that the one on UK Modelshops does not include everything mentioned on RMweb. Eg the odd LMS pacific and conversion kits from Ivatt to Riddles 2-6-0s If not, I will say hello at York

Ah in the series of named 40s mine was Deraillia. I treat it as a £20 donation to the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway. I picked up a Bachmann 40 bodyshell (much criticised but compared to Joueff.....) at Warley and mounted this on the Joueff chassis with springs on the pony wheels and a detailed bufferbeam. It sort of works. The body still exists as a store for paintbrushes and a test bed for resprays. Seriously, in general, life is too short and it doesn't justify the cost of a DCC chip. Bin or Ebay

I too have tried to do a Branchlines and a Comet chassis. I am way behind you on the skills base. I did the Branchlines first, indeed - spot the error - as a first soldered kit. I got it to "just about works" stage and painted it by brush. It was then stored as not worth the effort. The next shot was a Comet chassis and again that is evolving. It got to "runs OK......until you hit the points" and is now being reworked to accommodate tighter curves. Then your blog hit me with the cab being 3mm too low. However, to be honest, the comet chassis looked poor. The detail on the Branchline etching was far better and so it got a visit from Mr muscle. I suspect on mine there I will replace bit by bit to bring up to standard (a pun). But when i look at the quality and self confidence of your motion and compare to mine, held together with track pins and all over the shop when running........I seriously thought of a ticket to Southampton.

As a variant, how about replacing the hooks on the apron with magnets. Not perfect - magnets on table and metal in apron = rusty wash. metal on table and magnets on apron might be interesting in the washing machine and walking round the house. So Velcro metal strips to the apron?

Ah doesn't time fly.... Say hello to a pair of old friends from Gostude. Anyone else would cut the price. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/370489383878?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AITand http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/370489383877?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Let me also say hello to the other 7 watchers. My guess is that 6 are on here and one is at trading standards.

Now I am emotionally bought in to hoping you get it soon and all ends well. Not least as I start to drool when looking at that catalogue. I have a nice class 02 awaiting final spraying.

In the old days mail order always used to say "allow 30 days....." these days we get worked up if delivery is not immediate. So would you care to put a date on "before the new year". I have to say i for one have only been back at work since Monday having been off since the 23rd. So I would personally not be fretting about orders unless the cash was taken in the first week of December. indeed the catalogue is dated January 2015 and the wording is: "From November 2014 Craftsman Models new phone number: 01619029645 davidjones5676@outlook.com" So I would see that as some positive signs.

Yes, but I expect that has been achieved by flexing the diameters of the wheels, not the gears which will surely be a standard (ie avaialable off the shelf) size. Anyway, mustn't distract you from the good work!

Its an interesting concept gearing together wheels of 2 different diameters. Assuming standard sized gears are used in the gear train, it must drive some compromise on wheel diameters to avoid slippage (which destroys adhesion). That possibly precludes re-wheeling. Or is there slippage inherent in the design? Not an easy one to test.

Mike/Jason, Someone has to ask the obvious question......why not 3Dprint the complete body to mount on the Bachmann chassis? Sorry, but I have just had a weekend of "hacking" and sometimes question if there is a better way. regards

Great so I now am getting emails from Ebay "still interested in"....A piece of sh*** that I can only have accessed via this thread http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ATLAS-MODEL-TRAIN-PACIFIC-CHAPELON-NORD-ON-WOODEN-BASE-BRASS-PLAGUE-/201163939295?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item2ed64e1ddf "Give it another chance" - nope avoid like the plague.

Very many thanks for this post. I think I have just bought the last one they had. It said "in stock 1" and i bought. I mention that, not to show off, but because it is no longer showing on the website (presumably as out of stock) and this may confuse readers.