pete_mcfarlane

1 hour ago, ullypug said:

I like them, though they can show their heritage. Most of them are shot down 7mm kits originally drawn by Pete Stamper under the Agenoria brand. They're not in the Mitchell or Finney stable, but do offer an interesting range of prototypes. They make up into nice models with a bit of patience.

Sometimes you have to deviate from the instructions. In the past I've added CSB's or tweaked the assembly to allow the body to split.

You get a load of lost wax castings and always have some left overs for the spares box!

I've built their 1361, Peckett and a 1366 chassis without any difficulty. I've a couple more to do; the 0-6-0 PDSWJR Hawthorn Leslie and Cardiff Rly/GWR 1338 Kitson 0-4-0.

Thank you, they sound like fairly typical 'good' brass kits. I feel an order coming on. 

That looks rather nice. I've not built any of the CSP kits - what it's like to build?

Or the wing spars of WW2 vintage De Haviland aircraft.

I guess the question here is whether it was an original idea of Bodmer's, or was adapted from somewhere else. 

Holcroft, in one of his books on GWR engines, talks about watching sandwich frames flex as locos went through pointwork. It seems to have been one of the reasons for chosing them on GWR locos running on the rigid baulk road track  as they gave a bit of extra suspension as mentioned. 

I would go with the Mike King drawing over the ones in that book. 

33 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

 

Thanks for that Pete, I didn't know GW Models had one of those in their range.  I see there's a fairly recent (late 2018) price list here: 

 

I've had mine for a few years. I find that I don't use it very often, but it is incredibly useful when I do need it, as it makes rolling loco boilers really straightforward. 

33 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

A real beauty.

 

A boiler rolling machine, any tips for who does one of those?

Most people (including me) have one of the sets of rollers made by GW Models. These are advertised in the MRJ every issue, and you have to order them the old fashioned way (a cheque in the post). 

£55 or £65 depending on the width of the roller. He does appear to do overseas postage.

My Finecast I3 had a minor rebuild recently to fix the same issue with the bogie. I fixed it by adding loads of lead to the bogie, and also fitted some wire to the top of the bogie either side of the pivot slot to act as side control springs to help lead it in to curves. It now runs a lot better. 

One problem I found was that the body sat a millimetre or two too high, which made the loco look a bit odd.  It was years ago since I did it, but I ended up somehow modifying the body and chassis to get it to sit at roughly the right height. 

5 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

The US wouldn't finance the Hunter for export to Europe until it had got to Mk4 because of anxieties about reliability.

Which is ironic, as the US military is now the largest user of Hawker Hunters (albeit through a civilian contractor). 

3 hours ago, Jack Benson said:

Apart from the Canberra Lightning, Harrier and Bucc 2 were there any truly successful post-war smaller British military aircraft? 

As has already been mentioned, the Hawk/T45 Goshawk is definitely worthy of being on that list (in production for 45 years, 1000+ built including about 300 for the US Navy). Ironically it got some stick in the early 1970s for 'duplicating' the joint European Alphajet, but is still in production nearly 30 years after the last Alphajet appeared. 

The Gnat was also quite successful. The Indians seem to have used it to great success in their wars with Pakistan. 

14 hours ago, Jack Benson said:

Hopefully you will tackle the dreadful Scimitar at some point, one of the worst post-war platforms procured by FAA. It held the uneviable record for man hours per flying hour as well as a tragically high accident rate. It constantly leaked fuel and only found favour as a tanker (replaced by NA39) before well deserved retirement

to FRU.

 

JB

Apart from the Spitfire, Supermarine's fighters were a pretty rubbish lot. The RAF and FAA seem to have had very few 'duds' post-war, and almost all of them came from Supermarine. 

2 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Can I ask - are these 4mm scale loco kits? I have been after a M&SWJ Dubs 2-4-0 for years but never encountered one; is that a current or expired kit? Thanks.

It's available again as part of the resurrection of NuCast by Branchlines and South Eastern Finecast (according to the the flyer that came with my recent Branchlines order). Proced £95. 

The Finecast generic chassis doesn't match the R1 wheelbase (even though they sell it with their R1 kit....)

I like the Cuneo painting, but I found the mouse way too quickly.

The EVR is very good - they seemed to come from nowhere to having quite a lengthy line in the space of a few years.

A trip up the incline through Wirksworth is also pretty impressive (although i guess it wasn't operating the day you visited). Once you're at the top there's a footpath to the Steeple Grange 18" line which takes you even further up in to the hills, or to the remains of the Cromford and High Peak, which is now a footpath. 

I got some rather nice etched SR number plates from Narrow Planet: http://narrowplanet.co.uk/products NPP-408 is the one you're after.

The C2X class were also dual braked, so don't forget the air brake pipes on the buffer beam. 

I built one of these about 12 years back, and like you I lowered it. As supplied it looked a bit odd. 

Yikes! From the title I was expecting a SER 0-4-4T! Still looks rather good though. 

Didn't Tim Shackleton model one of these in his book on Plastic bodied engines for Wild Swan? There were several photos of the abandoned locos.

Interesting post Mike. When talking about the upper-middle and upper classes colours were another key; the dark heavy colours of the middle decades of the century giving way to pastels, especially shades of green....

I guess this may be (at least in part) due to the development of artificial dyes in the mid part of the 19th century. 

Both are 4mm on OO gauge track. I'm impressed that you think they are larger.

As far as I know you can't get a kit for one of these vans (David Geen does the earlier LSWR vans). I did bash one of the the similar insulated vans out of a Ration BR Banana van plus some MJT and ABS underframe parts. The result was pretty close, although the plank spacings and roof profile aren't quite right.

I'm 38 and struggle with lining!

The railmotor is very impressive, especially given its Jidenco origins.

The Banana vans are from ABS. I've built one, with another in my to do pile, and they are rather nice kits. 

Looks good. I'm in the process of finishing off one of the Cambrian LSWR opens - they are nice kits.

I like the Balloon third. Is it a Blacksmith kit?