Pillar

I've also been fitting lights to some of my road vehicles; details here: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/161772-pillars-road-vehicles-north-east-england-1970s-1990s-loosely/page/2/#comments I use SMD LEDs (0805 or 0603) and mount them to copperclad board which I score to make a crude 'PCB'. Soldering them to copperclad yourself is much easier than soldering to wires; just clean and tin the surfaces and make sure you use a low sodlering iron temperature such as 270C. Higher temperatures are more likely to damage the LEDs, and old fashioned leaded solder has an advantage here with its lower melting point. I'm so glad you've pointed out that SMD LEDs with built in flashing circuits are available. For some reason I never considered this, and spent ages building a DIY flashing circuit for the indicators on a kitbuilt bus. The circuit itself is very simple, but hand-cutting all the traces into a tiny scrap of copperclad was pretty time consuming. Now I can avoid this in future! I'd also be interested to hear about the rotating beacon lights. I know some DCC sound decoders have a flashing mode which is meant to mimic these and it looks very convincing. Cheers, Liam

Thanks All. Just to clarify, are you saying you don't degrease any painted RTR models or only brand new ones out of the box? I can see the argument for not degreasing a brand new model, but if you are weathering one that's been used and handled for months or years already, I would have thought some level of cleaning would be needed to ensure the paint sticks properly and remove fingerprints etc. I've tended to give models a scrub with warm water and washing up liquid prior to painting in the past. However, I'm not sure how effective this is versus otehr methods or not doing so at all. Cheers, Liam

I'd be interested in hearing people's preferred methods which are effective at removing grease but without damaging the paint. I've seen a lot of people recommend Cif as a degreaser when kitbuilding, but I'd be concerned about using this on RTR paintwork. Cheers, Liam

A belated thank you to everyone for all the advice, and to Will for pointing out the very useful DEMU Update article. After considering the options for a while, I chickened out of cutting away the entire windscreen and have gone for a variation of Daddyman's method: cutting the grommets off the etch and glueing them on individually. Before butchering the etches I temporarilly glued them over the Bachy windows as a template to trace out the weld line with a scriber. Hoepfully this will give the best of both worlds, but time will tell. I'll post some pictures soon. Cheers, Liam

Great work as always. What livery is the grey one destined for?

The SLW instruction leaflet for the Class 24 says the compromise was made to avoid a flood of calls from people saying their tail lights don't work. I think having only one light illuminated would also be a compromise though, as from the early 1980s the rules on BR were changed to require both loco tail lamps to be it - presumably affecting the Class 24/25s. I suppose it would be safe enough to produce models in BR Green or Pre-TOPS Blue with only one tail light, but on the whole I think it's probably better to have the components installed and let the modeller decide.

Things have been a bit disrupted lately as I've mostly been painting 1:1 scale walls rather than 1:76 scale buses! The Transit has been weathered and varnished, and is about ready for glazing with cutouts from a lemonade bottle. The Metrorider is taking longer as the primer showed up a few imperfections which needed filling. Colour matching the Wear Buses green is also proving troublesome as the paint seems to turn duller over a few days as it fully cures. Initially I was happy with it but now I'm thinking of another coat in a lighter shade. I'll post photos soon. Cheers, Liam

You're telling me! Meanwhile I haven't finished a single one of my buses yet! Brilliant work as always. Is the crimson and cream one destined for OK Travel ownership by any chance? Cheers, Liam

Hi All, I have some Shawplan Extreme Etchings windscreens which I'd like to fit to a Bachmann Class 40 (current version). The etches include separate parts for both the windscreens themselves and a backing plate into which they fit. I was wondering whether anyone can advise the best method of fitting the backing plate to the loco? I seem to remember reading that you're supposed to slit the bonnet top across the base of the windows (with a razor saw or similar), to give the backing plate a groove to bed into. However, in this case the backing plate would sit over the old plastic windows, which would add 0.5mm or so to their prominence due to the thickness of the etch. To my eyes, looking at drawings of the Class 40, this would push the window too close to the nose top hatchways. Is the accepted method of fitting these etches more complex than I'm imagining (e.g. drastically cutting back into the old windows to offset the added thickness of the new etch)? I've seen a lot of excellent models done using these etches, so it must be possible, but this seems like a riskier bit of surgery than I was expecting! The only major cuts I was expecting to be needed were the slit across the bonnet top and removal of the old plastic window struts/widening of the aperture. Any advice on this would be much appreciated. Cheers, Liam

That looks excellent. Can you give any more details of how you've got the motor mounted and connected to the fan? I tried something similar on a Bachmann Class 20 a while ago, but I found the noise of the motor was excessive and it wouldn't run at a low enough RPM to reduce it. Your setup looks visually very good and also quiet enough not to interfere with the sound decoder. Cheers Liam

Which way do you have the lights wired with respect to the white/yellow outputs on the decoder? Most RTR setups have one set of head and tail lights connected to white and another connected to yellow; then either white or yellow is activated depending on direction. This doesn't seem to allow for the tail lights to be switched off independently without modifying the wiring.

That would explain it! I didn't realise they had this feature.

I don't have any experience of how to wire lighting for DC, but I always thought it just needed a couple of small diodes to make the lighting directional. I wouldn't have thought much else would be required except resistors and the DCC socket. To be fair, at least some of the PCB size may be to minimise the length of the wires to the lights. If the PCB runs the length of the loco, the wires can be shorter and less messy. It just becomes a bit awkward for fitting speakers.

It's likely to be done using PNP transistors. If one is wired in the current path for any given function, another function can be used to enable/disable it by turning the transistor on or off. It isn't a complex design and shouldn't take up much space at all - especially if it's done using surface mount components. There's a good example of this here, used on a Hornby Class 60: http://s374444733.websitehome.co.uk/class-60sound/index.htm I recently did some similar mods to my Hornby Class 60, and in the process had to consider whether or not to keep the existing factory fitted PCB. From my attempts to trace the circuit, I have to say I'm baffled as to why the PCBs on some RTR models are so complex. The factory-fitted PCB on my example includes several transistors, an 8 pin IC chip, some chunky capacitors and six big diodes, among other things. I have no idea why all of this is necessary, as most DCC decoders need no additional components to do their job, other than a few little resistors to protect the LEDs. Loksound, for example, state this in their manuals. I'm aware that directional lighting on analogue requires diodes, but six of them seems excessive. From memory, when I traced the original lighting circuit on my example of the Class 60, it was wired as common negative - rather than common positive which is standard on all DCC decoders. So presumably some, or all, of the PCB clutter has something to do with running the common negative lighting from the common positive decoder. But why not just keep it as common positive! Apologies for the length of this post and straying slightly off topic, but is seems I'm not the only one who wonders why RTR models come with such big PCBs, and Bachmann is definately not the only culprit. It seems like Heljan is the most restrained when it comes it PCBs. The ones I've seen appear to have no unnecessary components, and their size is only what is necessary to provide connections to the ends of the loco.

I think the detail looks excellent. I'd hesitate to criticise the speaker space too much as the Class 20 is probably one of the most challenging mainline diesels in this regard; being both narrow and short. Perhaps they could have looked at making space in the fuel tank I suppose. I agree that the lack of marker lights is very dissapointing though; especially considering what Bachmann managed on their Class 158, which has the best WIPAC lighting setup I've seen on an RTR model. This feels like a step backwards by comparison.

I'm hoping there will be a rerun of the EWS versions. They ran in mixed formations with the TEA variant Cavalex are doing; it would be good to be able to combine the two.

Sorry to hear that. The new one is looking good though.

SLW and Accurascale are the gold standard when it comes to locos, but this Bachmann effort looks pretty impressive to me. The bogies and underframe especially look excellent and much better than the old model.

My blue pair just arrived. Excellent models once again from Accurascale. Just need to drop in some P4 wheelsets...

One thing to note regarding the Cambrian Salmon kit: it's quite difficult to keep flat and apparrently prone to warping unless braced. People usually seem to recommend some kind of brass angle or box section to remedy this. I finally got around to adding some 2.5mm box section behind the solebars of my ~10 year old Salmon the other day and it seems to have worked nicely. I glued using Gorilla epoxy and clamped it flat to a glass plate while it cured. The wagon is now much flatter and heavier, and the brass is just about hidden behind the solebars. Apologies for the bad photo quality. Cheers, Liam Edit - FYI, the horizontal cross braces, chain box and air distributor all needed removing to get the brass in place. This may be a bit more of a pain on a model that's already been painted.

What are the main differences between the batch covered by this model and the Brush conversions 20301-305? The main one I can see at a glance is that the WIPAC clusters at the cab end seem to be positioned lower on the Brush examples. Are there any other differences? Cheers, Liam

Looking forward to these! There don't seem to be many prototype pictures around of the BSC Blue versions. So far I've only found three on Paul Bartlett's site and one earlier in this thread. Does anyone know of any more?

Way out of my era and setting I'm afraid Ray . Looking at some pictures though it's definately an interesting prototype. I thought the minibus craze started with Deregulation, but this one was 50 years early. I came across this website while reading that apparrently has some drawings of the ECW version: https://www.terrybloisbusdrawings.co.uk/900-999.html. Cheers, Liam EDIT - Another version is listed on this page: https://www.terrybloisbusdrawings.co.uk/200-299.html

Metrorider ready for painting:

Looking good! Destined for Northumbria livery I assume? Where did you get the whitemetal roof ventilators by the way?