Ian Smith

One down, 6 or 7 more to go ... Forgot to include a coin of the realm for size comparison, but cross bars are around 9mm long. Ian

Anthony, that’s coming along really nicely. It’s nice to hear that I’m not the only one that sometimes has to make it up as I go along (or rather revise my plans) Ian

Kevin, Sorry I had to drop out - my internet connection became unusable for the zoom meeting. Ian

You are quite right, I don’t know where I got “Brian” from!!

Duncan, Many years ago (Model Railway Constructor Annual 1981), there was an article by Brian Lewis on GWR Dean Coaches. As well as describing his system of coach identification, there were some drawings illustrating the various measurements of what were standard component parts that a coach was made up of. I have that annual, and I also have scanned images of the article that I provided to a friend a few years ago. I will have a root around on my Mac to see if I can find the electronic copies, if not I'll re-scan the article for you. Regards Ian

This morning has seen a little bit of gardening being done on Modbury. I've made a couple of little beds to go under the running in boards on the up and down platforms. The base of each "garden" is a piece of 0.030" black plasticard, around which bits of broken coal were super-glued. Once dry, the coal was given a couple of coats of Humbrol Matt White. Strips of 0.010" plasticard were added across the back of each bed and painted Precision Paints Weathered Sleepers. Once the ground surface had been given a painting of earth colour, planting could begin. Small pieces of Woodland Scenics were glued within the "stones" to represent low growing plants, while small lengths of postiche were glued together in bunches to represent the stems of roses - once dry, the bunches were pruned, and dabs of PVA applied to the stems and the plant dunked in a bag of scatter material. This latter action was repeated until I felt I had a rose-looking structure. Once the PVA had dried, the rose flowers were added with thick Humbrol paint (the pigment from an un-stirred tin, I keep my tiniest of paint upside down so the pigment settles on the lid). What tends to happen is that some of the scatter material gets picked up on the end of the brush, so these were carefully swished about in a little thinned paint, then re-applied to the plant stems. A representation of delphiniums was done in a similar manner to the roses but this time using Woodland Scenics "field grass" for the stems which are lengths of pre-coloured straight fibres about 2" long. The results are captured in a couple of phone snaps below : Bed on the Down Platform Bed on the Up Platform Thanks for looking Ian

Knowing that Tony likes to see things that have been made from scratch, I offer up my "Lockdown Loco"... This GWR Dean Goods is now virtually finished, requiring just the loco brake gear, cab detail (and crew) and tender tool boxes manufacturing and fitting to complete. She was started as lockdown began in very late March, and utilises 2mm Association wheels and gears and a Nigel Lawton 8mm diameter motor in the tender (I should have mentioned that she is built to 2mm Finescale standards). The materials utilised during her construction are a variety of thicknesses of nickel silver (0.004" to 0.010"), with some suitably sized brass tube for the firebox/boiler/smokebox. A couple of images of her hauling a train of 6 wheeled coaches on my layout : A video of her "in action" can be seen on my Modbury thread here : (5th post down from the top of page 21). Ian

Chris, Hope you, Andy, mum and sisters are all safe and well. I did notice that the video had a title, but only after I’d submitted the post - I couldn’t be bothered to either edit post or YouTube video. Ian

Can You Guess What It Is Yet??? A few weeks ago while working on my Dean Goods, I discovered in my gloat box another set of six 10mm drivers of the old cast white metal centre/nickel silver tyre variety dating back to the 1980's/early 90's, and I also had a 7mm pair of the Mk IV brass centred/steel tyre pony truck wheels. It seemed churlish not to make some use of these "finds", so following the announcement in the last 2mm Mag newsletter that the Association had a stock of the Tramfabriek 6mm and 7mm motors, I decided last week to place an order with Shop 3. Over the last couple of days some 6mm square brass and a 1mm thick strip of brass have been bolted together, drilled, milled and filed to form an embryonic chassis - there is still a fair bit more milling and filing to be done, but I like to make sure that I have a working chassis before I start any further hacking chunks out of bits of brass. The motor is the 6mm diameter one, and the worm and associated gear are real relics from a bygone Association age, being a 36:1 set comprising a steel worm (possibly 2BA studding with a central hole!) and brass gear wheel (with straight cut rather than helical teeth). Whatever its pedigree, it seems to work! Motor temporarily held on chassis with a couple of lumps of blu-tac, and leads touching PP3 terminals. Thank you for looking Ian

For info, the wagon sheets that I drew up are my interpretation of what I could see in photographs (I later purchased a 2009 version of “Great Western Way” from the HMRS which has appendix 13 dedicated to wagon sheets covering both broad and narrow gauge periods). The “1900” sheet is a copy of that covering open 12325 (cast plates), the “1903” sheet is a copy of the sheet covering open 74778. When each version actually entered or lasted in traffic I don’t know. What I tried to do was provide the extra numerical digits outside the sheet to allow different numbers to be copied and pasted to provide different sheets. Hope that helps, Ian

If it’s a Farish 57xx, the smokebox is also plastic so would benefit from removal before attacking the paint with something that may melt the plastic bits!

He’ll be ok if he takes a run at it. I’m more worried about anyone walking about under the WC!

She’s coming along very nicely Anthony. Really enjoying this build. Ian

Before I pack up Modbury (and the Dean Goods) for an impending house move, I have taken the opportunity to produce a video of the Dean goods in its native environment... Although unfinished, I have this time "dressed" the engine with the correct lamp headcodes for the occasion - initially with the "Light Engine" G headcode as she runs in the Down direction from Newton Abbot, then with the "Ordinary Goods" K headcode for her return journey with the morning pick-up goods. Ian

Jerry, Thank you. I think that of all the pre-grouping engines and liveries, for me William Dean's were something rather special! It was Leamington in 2012 I think that we first met when you and Kim were exhibiting Highbury. Indeed, I hold YOU fully responsible for getting me back into 2mm scale modelling . Over the last 7 or 8 years I hope that I have managed to "get my eye in" for 2mm Finescale modelling. While I think I've managed to improve my modelling over that period, I also hope that I've managed a fairly consistent level of modelling such that my early stuff stands up reasonably well to my later offerings. I've certainly achieved far more than I really expected over that time, having built 4 locos, 9 coaches, a little over 30 wagons and a whole layout to run them all on! Ian

Don, I expect a little of both. At exhibitions I tend to run my Metro with the 4 wheeled coaches, 1854 class on goods, and the Buffalo on both goods and 6wheeled coaches. I’m trying to build a train of clerestory bogie coaches that will eventually go behind a Duke, if that train gets completed before the Duke (more than likely) then it will be Dean Goods hauled until then. When I play with my train set at home I run anything with anything - one of the reasons for having removable/moveable headlamps (although I often don’t bother putting the lamps on, in fact I think the last time was for a photo session for the Association’s Headcodes booklet! Ian

The lining on the Dean Goods has now been completed, and brass spectacle rims have been turned up and fitted (secured with satin varnish). The cab side lining was a bit of a pig to do - The straight sections and curved corners were done with Fox transfers, but the curved sections above the splashers and around the cab side openings were what caused the problems (as I expected really!). I initially tried to do both with a bow compass, and to be honest made a complete mess. It was therefore necessary to strip it all back off, which meant re-applying the green too. I decided to do this by brush painting a couple of thinned coats rather than trying to mask everything back up and re-spray. With the transfers re-applied, the curved sections that caused such problems were tackled by brush painting. The orange was applied first, and neatened as best I could by use of a thinners moistened brush to lift off the paint to give as good an edge as I could. Once fully dry, a fine black line was brushed on down the middle of the orange, again a moistened brush was deployed to try to get it as neat as I could. Whilst by no means perfect, I think it's as good as I can make it, and doesn't look too bad under normal viewing (if you squint and look out of the corner of your eye ). Seriously though, I'm pretty happy even though the digital camera is quite unkind! Below are a couple of photos of the current state of affairs. She now needs to be boxed up and salted safely away pending a house move in the next couple of weeks. There is still quite a bit to do to get her finished - tool boxes and coal in the tender, brake gear, whistles and cab interior on the engine. Of course she needs her number plates too, which have been ordered from Narrow Planet, but I'm not expecting them anytime soon. For me she is a bit of a milestone. Partly because she is my first tender engine, but mainly because before I gave up trying to model in 2mm scale in the late 80's early 90's I had tried to build a Dean Goods (albeit in 1930's guise), but had failed because I couldn't get the chassis to run. Thanks for looking Ian

As a 2mm finescale modeller I sometimes long to have something as big as 2 sq mm to solder! Ian

I think that you have made a bit of a faux pas with the components of the vacuum brake. The brake pull/push rods should run centrally along the coach underframe, not as you have them against the solebar. By the looks of it you've got the vacuum brake/V hanger component the wrong way round, it needs to rotate 180 degrees, that will put the vacuum cylinder on the left of the V hangers (as you look at the photo) and automatically swap the brake rodding to the centre of the underframe in one fell swoop. I imagine that if you are not familiar with Dean coaches, and are using the photo that your model is on as guidance, it is very easy to get confused. The diagonal struts that you can see on the photo are the strengthening truss rods angling down to the end of a single queen post on a short coach - one truss rod and queen post each side (longer coaches had a pair of queen posts each side with a bit of horizontal trussing between them). The brake push/pull rods should be pretty horizontal to connect up with the various pull rods within the bogies to actuate the brake blocks. I hope that helps. As it happens I am currently building a 40'0" C4 All Third coach at the minute so have had to work out how the undergear goes together myself. Ian

Mikkel, The brownish shade is Precision Paints Indian Red, I can’t remember whether they do different shades for different periods as they do with their greens, I quite like it but it is definitely more brown than red.

Tempted as I might be, the next one will be a Duke (assuming that I can get a motor in a little 2000 gallon tender) If Andy Carlson had his way I’d probably be making a broad gauge Rover next

Simon, I'll be turning up some little brass spectacle rims when I make the whistles. Ian

A little more progress on the Dean Goods... She has had a visit to the paint shops, being sprayed green (Precision Paints GWR 1881-1906 Loco Green), once dry, masking tape was deployed so that the Indian Red could be deployed on the splashers, toolboxes and everything below the footplate. The tender received similar paint coverage before the blackwork could be tackled by brush. Finally, the buffer beams were brush painted too. Then came the bit that in my eyes brings an Edwardian loco to life, the lining!! Being a bit of a chicken, I decided to use Fox transfers for as much of the lining as I could - Boiler Bands on the loco, and all of the lining on the tender. The following image shows where I'm up to... Yesterday, I tackled the boiler band lining, and because the Midland Area group had a ZOOM meeting last night, below is the image I shared in our "show and tell". Today, I've tackled one side of the tender, and offer the following pair of photos as evidence to the jury. A coin of the realm has been included to give a sense of scale There is still quite a bit to do yet, the engine needs the cab sides lining, a pair of whistles making and fitting, and also the brass spectacle rims. She also needs brake gear, guard irons, etc making and fitting below the footplate. The tender toolboxes need to be made too, and I might see if I can nudge some of the vertical lining transfers slightly to better disguise the overlaps before it all gets a coat of varnish. Thanks for looking Ian

Chris, I tend to attach the lower edge of the side to a piece of bar with masking tape so that it doesn’t move and making sure that the side is parallel to the bar. Then rub my thumb along the length of the side to produce the tumblehome. It probably should be noted that all of my coaches are panelled so the part of side being bent will be about 0.005” thick. I use the same method for forming the rooves, but rub the metal over with a coffee stirrer or block of balsa to burnish out any irregularities, and also because the radius is often much sharper especially on a 3-arc profile. Hope that is helpful Ian

Richard, Parcel received this morning. Thank you. The items look fantastic, absolutely amazing what a “home” printer can do! I might have to put coaches to bed for a week or so and get on and finish the Dean Goods now. Thanks again to both you and Tony. Ian