Brian D

A while back I purchased a pack of three Accurascale 21 t mineral wagons. In order to make up a rake of 9 wagons (the max length I can accommodate) I have purchased some Parkside kits (PC03) of the similar rivetted body wagon and have been busy building them, 4 wagons completed so far. Now, it's been a long time since I built a wagon kit and my previous efforts were not to my liking but hey ho. These kits have been a struggle, each one being slightly less of a struggle than the previous one mind you. I have attached some pics below with a few notes explaining the issues faced. If you look closely, the longer body sides are a different shade of grey to the other body parts. The body base needed a considerable amount of sanding to get it to fit between the sides and ends. The top hat bearings didn't fit in the axle boxes without additional drilling using a hand held 2 mm diameter drill and the bearings themselves needed sanding down to remove the dome shape on the bottom of the bearing to ensure a flush fit in the axle box hole. The p*xy buffers, where do I start? I lost two of the buffer heads getting them off the sprue on the first kit. They don't fit in the hole in the buffer shanks without drilling out the hole - I used a 0.8 mm diameter micro drill in a pin chuck. Probably the fiddliest part of the kit. The sole bars I think are too long. I trimmed mine to fit. On the first kit I struggled to get the axles at right angle to the sole bars which was evident when I test ran it. Degluing and repositioning of one sole bar solved the problem and I managed not to repeat the error on the subsequent builds. There is no brake rigging cross member in the kit, I added a piece of micro strip. Care was needed to insert the main brake elements between the wheels. There are no pips or slots on the body underside to guide their positioning. The wagons are very light in weight so I added some car wheel balance weights (2 no 10 gram weights). Unfortunately they would not fit under the body and had to be positioned within the body. I'm planning coal loads so they won't be visible when complete. I've purchased couplings and the Parkside NEM mounting blocks. I have test coupled the wagons with locos and they are installed at the right height or there abouts. No derailing occurred when test shunted. The plastic coupling hook in the kit looked to be a nightmare to get off the sprue in one piece so I fitted Dart Castings MJT cast hooks instead. So four down and two to go. I'll fit the decals in one hit at the end, manufacture some coal loads and then think about weathering them along with the Accurascale 21T minerals (the bodies of which are ridiculously light in colour, almost white). More pics to follow when I have the rake complete. Regards, Brian.

Well, it would be rude not to . Regards, Brian.

For those who can't be bothered to plough through the 80 odd pages of this thread, you might be pleased to know that an article of a mere 7 pages containing a potted history of Deneside is included in the forth coming March issue of Railway Modeller. To say I'm pleased is putting it mildly. Regards, Brian.

Bullet point 3, best to tell lies?

The latest video is available here... Again I have used the Coral editing software which also includes copyright free music, some of which I have included with the start and end titles. Regards, Brian.

Yawning my head off, time for bed. Early start for grandsons' footy tomorrow. Howay the little lads! Nite.

Oh dear, my little finger is a more "advanced" version of your ring finger being now stuck at 90 degrees to the norm. All other fingers are OK but I'm keeping a sharp eye. I do not have any pain or inconvenience other than the occasional inadvertant eye or nostril poke when in the shower or washing my face or shaving so have not sought medical advice other than the NHS website. Neither does it interfere with the subject we must not mention on ER or any diy projects I undertake, fingers crossed, well not that one obviously.

For those of a nervous disposition, look away now. Snap! On second thoughts, perhaps only with an anaesthetic.

Further to the purchase of my early crest version last summer (reported earlier in this thread) I took the plunge and ordered the late crest version from The Model Centre last weekend and it arrived very promptly yesterday - well done TMC. The good news is that it appears in one piece and ran flawlessly.......for 10 seconds. The pick ups were duly tweaked as described by MikeParkin65 and others on here which improved matters before the sand pipes were seen catching the track on my layout. Further tweaks to said sand pipes have now resulted in totally flawless running. This is a relatively cheap engine I keep telling myself but Oxford Rail (now Hornby?) really need to up their quality control game. Anyway, here she is on my layout. I have started to make a tender coal load as I did for its sister. These pics describe what's going on in that respect. Basically, it's an oblong of plasticard onto which steel washers are superglued to create a heap and a bit of weight. The whole thing is painted black and will be sprinkled with real coal and PVA glue in the morning. The unpainted new coal load is shown below with the one on the sister loco. So that's two out of two J27s with which I have had running problems from new. It's a shame considering that my Oxford Rail N7 ran perfectly straight from the box. Regards, Brian.

Nice videos Russ. Can I ask, is a class 25/0 the same as a class 24 but minus the train heat boiler or is it a bit more tricky than that? Regards, Brian.

Worthy of publication in one of the mags imho. Really does do the layout proud.

By way of free trialling a newer video editing software (Coral Video Studio) and comparing the ease of editing with my venerable Vegas Movie Studio, I have prepared the following video featuring the Oxford Rail J27 and the Hornby Peckett B2. Enjoy or otherwise. Early signs are that the Coral software is in some ways a lot easier to use than Vegas but like all software it takes a while to "learn" it. Regards, Brian.

Interesting developments Andy. Personally, I would retain the sidings (in A) as somewhere to store stock as I assume your fiddle yard has a certain limit on capacity. Otherwise you would be forever taking stock off or putting it back on the layout. Just my thoughts for what they're worth. Regards, Brian.

The final set of panoramas feature the colliery area. Both images are uncropped. It's very tricky photographing the colliery. The layout being U shaped and situated in a shed, the station being directly opposite to the colliery, its difficult to get far enough back to get the full extent of the colliery in a single pic unless it's taken end on. So these panoramas are extremely satisfying for me to keep as a record. Regards, Brian.

And a couple more... This one is uncropped but.... ,,,this is the same image cropped and rotated 5 degrees clockwise. And finally... ...a panorama of the station area uncropped but rotated 5 degrees clockwise. Regards, Brian.

I've been experimenting with the panorama feature of Photoshop Elements. See what you think. Firstly a low viewpoint which has been cropped. This is the area of the layout I call Three Bridges for obvious (I hope) reasons. Secondly, a higher view point of the same area which is uncropped, the reason being I can only crop in a rectangular frame, I think, unless you know otherwise. This image is slightly wider in that it encompasses additional bits of the layout at each end. The dreaded Peco turntable drive controller features bottom far right. I will replace this drive in due course. Anyone out there thinking of investing in one please avoid. Regards, Brian.

Dear Mr Wright, Oh dear (or words to that effect). My DJH D20 kit build is currently stalled while I pluck up the courage to fabricate the continuous boiler handrail. To learn that a builder of your vast experience finds this fabrication a faff turns my legs to jelly. At the moment I'm just positioning the hand rail knobs each side utilising a straight piece of hand rail - see below. The bending of a suitable one piece hand rail now fills me with dread but.......hey ho, nothing ventured as they say. Regards, Brian.

That's a great selection of pics Russ. I know that the prototypes very notoriously unreliable, is that why the train is double headed in case one 15 fails? All the best for the New Year. Regards, Brian.

Lovely pics and videos Russ. Merry Christmas BTW.

Oxford Rail J27 sat on my less than reliable Peco powered turntable. One New Years' Resolution might be to change the Peco power for something else

It's that time of year again so here goes. All the Best, Brian.

I find that unresponsive or misbehaving "tech" usually responds to turning it off, waiting a few seconds and then turning it back on again at which point all is usually well but I'm b#ggerEd if I know why.

"Preparation is all" so I'm told so stick with it and allegedly the final outcome will be great(ish) or even professional looking.

Thanks Andy and all the very best to you and yours for Christmas and the New Year.