Ian Smith

Edwardian, et al, Modbury’s next outing is to the Farnham and district exhibition in Aldershot on 8/9th October. Next year the only exhibition I currently have booked is RailEx in Aylesbury (although I have just been invited to Portsmouth sometime in November) Ian

A little more progress on the Duke ... (shown in a sequence of photos) : Firstly, the "splasher disks" that I previously turned were cut in half, then carefully filed such that their lower edges followed the profile of the curved footplate over the wheels. As I had (purposely) turned them over wide, once soldered in place the correct width was scribed using a locked off Vernier Calliper before they were carefully filed back to the scribed line. The steps were then added to the uprights - these were cut and folded up from strip of 0.004" nickel silver. Thoughts then turned to the cab. The basic outline of the two cab sides and the cab front were marked out onto a sheet of 0.010" nickel silver, the corners where the sides and front meet were initially scribed as part of the marking out process before being gouged out as a bend line with a skrawker. The centres of the cab windows were carefully marked and a depression to start the drill made with my usual tool for this, a sharpened gramophone needle ground with 3 facets (and therefore 3 cutting edges). The cab spectacle centres were then drilled 0.8mm and the part cut and filed to shape. The cab sides and front cut to overall size and shape before the side cutouts were filed to shape. The rough shape of the cut outs was marked on the part with a needle so that the majority of the waste could be removed with a piercing saw to save filing time. While the side cut outs were being filed to shape, the part was constantly compared to a photograph to ensure that I was getting curves that looked reasonable. Prior to folding up the cab, the previously scrawked bend lines were made a little deeper with a square escapement file, trying not to break through to the other side of the metal! Even so, when the bends were actually made, the fracture lines caused nearly separated the cab into its 3 parts! A quick application of 188 degree solder gave the corners sufficient strength to allow the fairly rough handling that was about to descend. LET THE FILING BEGIN!! It was then a simple (although time consuming) task to employ a half-round file to the areas of the cab sides until the cab could sit comfortably over the rear splashers. And the other side showing where the solder had leached through the fractures at the bend line. As can be seen the cab spectacles have been opened out from their initial 0.8mm to about 2mm by using ever increasing sizes of tapered broaches. Even so, they are still undersize so will need final opening out with a rat tail file. And finally, a shot to show that all of that filing was worth it as the cab now sits snuggly over the tops of the rear splashers (although not fixed yet). The next phase will see the cab beading fitted around the cab cutouts, and of course the cab front needs a hole putting through it to allow a cardan shaft to go through it. Thanks for looking Ian

Last weekend Modbury made it's first physical appearance at an exhibition this year at RailWells. I think it's fair to say that myself and fellow operators John and Steve enjoyed our weekend but is was flipping hot!! Modbury performed reasonably well despite the heat, over the course of the weekend 2 of the signals failed, both with the same fault - the guitar wire actuators became unsoldered from their respective levers (I use servos for the signals which have a drive rod from the rotating servo horn to a simple pivoted lever to convert the rotary motion into a linear one. The lever having a piece of springy guitar string to compensate for any excess throw). The 6 wheeled brake van decided to regularly throw itself off the track on one of the points by about lunchtime each day (it seemed fine in the cooler morning!!). Once home I was able to test thoroughly (and closely) and as assumed there was just a little binding as the van went through the offending point. Therefore I applied the soldering iron to the affected area to provide a little gauge widening through the area. The rake of 6 wheeled coaches were also temperamental on occasion coming off the Plymouth end train table. They were prone to derail every now and then or uncouple themselves. I think that in setting up the layout we (I) had introduced a bit of a hump across the two boards. The learning here is to make sure I include a 6" rule in my box so that I can check that the track work across the board joints is level. The final problems were at the board joint of the other fiddle yard board. There was a step of about 6-8 thou across one rail which caused the odd derailment. We decided to live with the problem over the weekend as once we knew what the problem was we were able to shepherd the stock across the joint. The resolution once home was to lift the offending rail and solder a slip of nickel silver shim beneath the offending rail. The other issue at this board joint related to the mouse hole and the Steam Railmotor - when coming off the outermost (tightest curved) train table road the rail motor just rubbed the side of the mouse hole. The weekend fix was not to use the outermost the railmotor on tighter outer roads of the train table, the permanent fix was to carve a little off the side of the mouse hole once home. Now some photos from the weekend : Some of the additions to the layout prior to the exhibition - firstly I have added a little more colour to the layout with the introduction of some white and yellow flowers at the font of the layout. The rose bay willow herb, nettles and thistles have been there for a while. To achieve this, some small pieces of Woodland Scenics Polyfibre were pinched off the main wad to give me little pieces about 3-4mm in size, the tops of which were brushed over with matt varnish and some Woodland Scenics "flowers" were sprinkled onto the wet varnish. Once dry the resultant flowery clumps were set onto a little more matt varnish within the existing scenery. Hopefully, this gives the impression of the flowers floating above the surrounding grasses and weeds in a natural way. I have to thank Steve Martin for this method of adding colour to a 2mm scale landscape. The second addition to the layout are the two point levers for the points not controlled by the signal box. The construction of these was detailed a couple of entries back in this thread. The point lever controlling the turnout for the cattle dock/goods shed sidings. Finally, some images of the latest motive power addition to the Modbury roster - the Steam Railmotor. This attracted a lot of interest over the weekend, probably helped by Jerry Clifford (who was immediately across the room from us) encouraging visitors to "have a look at the steam railcar" 😂 Anyway here she is : Thanks for looking! Ian

I’d forgotten all about the online competition. Just had a look on the Association website under Events only to find that “further details, including the 2022 model competition to follow”. I guess I’d better dig out the last newsletter to see what the categories, etc are!! Ian

A lot depends on the “quality” of the blade. I have often found that some (even the Valorbe ones I tend to buy) refuse to cut along the plane of the frame, meaning the frame has to be held at an angle to the direction of cut. For me that is not usually a problem as the amount of correction required can be established as I make the cut towards the line I want to cut along, I also never cut immediately along the marked line as I prefer to tidy up with files. Ian

Someone did well colouring that lot in!! 🤪

Modbury will be at RailWells this coming weekend (13th/14th August). Jerry Clifford will also be there with his Midland Shed. Full details can be found on the Wells Railway Fraternity’s website - http://railwells.com/railway-show/railwells-show-2022/ Ian

Mikkel, As others have said those figures are beautifully painted. If I hadn’t known I would have assumed that they were 7mm scale or larger. When I paint my 2mm scale figures I tend to have a palette of two shades of the same colour so that I can use the (slightly) lighter shade as a highlight. I really must see if I can get some Modelu figures in 2mm scale as all of those currently on Modbury are Andrew Stadden ones. Ian

Glad to see that the roping down of the sheets has kept the loads intact 😆

Don, Thank you. You are quite correct, there should be a big hole in the footplate down the middle in front of the leading drivers. However, I needed a forward fixing point for the chassis, I have soldered a little pocket to the underside of the footplate into which the front chassis spacer extends and hooks into, the rear of chassis will be retained by a fixing bolt which will double as the fixing for the draw bar. I am hoping that the lack of a gap in the footplate will be hidden by the large sandboxes and the frame extensions the slope back from the rear of the smokebox. Ian

One of the things I've always intended adding to Modbury are the manual yard point levers for the cattle dock siding and the long back siding. Around the turn of the 20th century the GWR used at least 3 different types of point levers, two of which look like a relatively upright lever with a support frame either semi-circular or a much more decorative support frame. Although I think that either of these types would be suitable for Modbury, I discounted them both as I feel they would be particularly vulnerable when track cleaning. Therefore I've elected to make a couple of the much lower type : There are a couple at Didcot, and I took the opportunity to take a few photos of one of them last time I was there a couple of years ago. In addition to the above photo, I also took some with my camera's lens cap balancing on the lever. As I didn't have anything to take any measurements with, the lens cap allowed me to estimate the dimensions from the resultant pictures. The rough size of the main casting seems to be about 2'6" long, 9" wide and about 9" high. With those dimensions in mind, I felt that I could make a reasonable rendition out of a bit of 1.5mm square brass bar. Therefore, the rough shape was filed up from the end 5mm of said bar before cutting off. The bit with the lever sticking out of the side was filed up from a bit of 1mm square bar, and included the flat swinging link and a short round peg at the back to facilitate fixing to the main block. The large weight on the handle was a simple turning of brass rod to a little over 2mm diameter with a 0.5mm hole drilled down the middle, and sliced cut off and cleaned up. The lever itself was filed out of a piece of 0.18" brass etch waste. The various components for one lever and a completed one along side. And just to indicate how dinky the finished lever is I've managed to pose it on a 6" rule. Although not a completely accurate model, I feel that once painted and stuck in place on the layout it will certainly be adequate for my needs. The above was a bit of a distraction from working on my Duke!! The last image I shared of the Duke was a photo of the frames (looking for all the world like a bit of cardboard (it was however two pieces of 0.010" nickel silver sweated together with an outline of the frames superglued on) : Since then I have managed to form the footplate - this was just a strip of 0.010" nickel silver sheet the width of the footplate, which was thumb-forced around bits of bar to effect the various changes in level. Once happy with the fit the excess length was cut off the rear of the footplate. That simple statement actually took the best part of a couple of hours to do!! Once happy, the area around and between the wheels was fretted and filed away until it could sit properly on the chassis. The front buffer beam was a simple fretting/filing and drilling exercise as usual. The next stage will be to add the splashers, and in readiness for this I've turned a couple of "splasher disks". These will be cut in half and then the lower edge carefully filed until the resultant splashers sit properly over the raised sections of the footplate. As can be seen, I have formed the splasher disks with a small bead around the edge to represent the beading on the splasher faces of the prototype. Thanks for looking. Ian

I generally drill a small hole in the centre of the muff to allow a little superglue to be deployed on the end of a bit of wire. Additionally, I also file a small flat on the end of the stub axles so that the glue can seep in better and hopefully lock the wheel in quarter. I say generally as I know that at least one of my chassis has the axles just a “force” fit into the muffs (although I’m pretty sure that the muffs still have the holes to allow air escape and future deployment of glue if necessary). I’m not too worried about the quartering being upset if a wheelset does move because personally I find quartering a doddle (although a little more awkward to rectify on a completed chassis, but then only my railmotor has outside motion). Ian

Because on Modbury there are traintables at each end all stock gets rotated, therefore like Jerry I have loops on both ends of rolling stock but only hooks on both ends of my locos. One side effect of this is that it allows me the flexibility to run my engines cab or smokebox first. Ian

Kevin, Thanks for the offer but I’m happy with it as it is. It looks suitably dirty (although I have to admit that I don’t know what colour coal tar was, or indeed how viscous it was). Nick, The early wagons had slots in the ends as in the sides. I actually have a photo of the end of a wooden framed cattle wagon that has the lime wash seeping through the gaps in the planks all the way to the roof! However if I modelled that I’m sure it would be questioned so I’d need to take the photographic evidence to all the exhibitions I attend 😂 Ian

Thanks Russ. I did know that. One of the (undocumented) things I did do with my kit bash was to narrow the width slightly. I can’t remember whether I narrowed it by a full millimetre (6”) or as much as I dared by taking a bit off the corner plates each side. Ian

With the Steam Rail Motor now out of the way, I decided to resurrect/start (and finish) some wagon projects. I only had 35 wagons of which 4 were Brake Vans, and since my longest train could be 10 wagons (incl. Brake Van) I really need quite a few more! Some time ago, I made up a pair of Iron Mink vans. These were 3D prints courtesy of Richard Brummitt. I had built them but hadn't got round to painting them, so as a "quicky" they had to be done first. I painted one in GWR Red and the other in GWR Dark Grey. Richard had sent me one with a long bonnet and one with a short, checking the HMRS volume on Iron Minks I've made the short bonnet one Red and the long bonnet one Grey. The lettering on the Red one is Fox transfers (although annoyingly their sheets don't include the "To Carry" wording that would normally go in front of the "x Tons" branding). Therefore I have had to omit the "To Carry" as I've had to on pretty well all of my wagons, although in this case there almost certainly wouldn't have been room between the vertical strapping for it to fit anyway! For the Grey one, I've decided to fit "cast plates" carrying the number and "G.W.R". There is some debate as to whether the cast plates were fitted to Red wagons or Grey. Long ago, I put my stake in the ground and decided that any cast plate wagons on Modbury would be Grey. My "argument" (NOT proof) for this is quite simply that some wagons retained their plates when re-lettered with 25" GW circa 1904 (when general opinion agrees that the wagons would be Grey). Additionally, one of the wagons that we have photographic evidence of in that guise (25" GW with cast plate numbers) is an Iron Mink, and there is a mis-matched colour patch on the body side where the "G.W.R" plate was, I can't believe that the Great Western would have allowed the wagon to return to service with a small Red patch on an otherwise Grey wagon, but can believe that it was Grey so the painters left it (albeit a slightly different shade that perhaps the photographic emulsion made more contrasty). Anyway, here are the two Iron Mink vans : The "cast plates" were made by painting a piece of 0.005" plasticard in Humbrol Dark Grey (no. 67 - the colour I use for my grey wagons). The lettering and numbering was then scratched off with a sharp needle in a pin vice to reveal the white of the plasticard , and the plate cut out around the writing. Comparing the two wagons I need to put a bit of rust on the Red one as in theory the livery is older than the grey one! In addition to the vans, I've also added some Opens too. A pair of 4 plank Opens and a 5 plank Open with sheet rail. The basis of all three is the Association body kit(s) for the 4 plank O5 and 5 plank O3. The 4 plankers were made up and stuck on some Association underframes. The 5 plank O3 received a bit of surgery to convert it to an earlier diagram O4. This required slicing/sanding off some of the top plank to make it the same size as the other 4 planks. The diagonal strapping was scraped off and reinstated with 0.005" plastic strip, and the vertical stanchions either side of the doors were reduced to flat strapping . Obviously, the sheet bar had to be fabricated too. Once again, these have been finished in the pre-1904 liveries of Red with painted lettering or Grey with cast plates : I might re-visit the O4 5 planker, and put some Archer's rivet transfers on the diagonal strapping as looking at it now I feel it is noticeable by it's absence! Finally, I've added another Cattle Wagon to diagram W1 (this time with flat diagonal strapping), and in Red livery, and added a load of planks to another 4 planker that was previously made. Additionally, at the 2mm Association Diamond Jubilee event, Kevin Knight kindly gave me one of the Tar Wagon bodies that the Australian contingent produced a couple of years ago. A suitable underframe was built up and stuck under it, a little locking handle was filed up from a small piece of 0.010" nickel silver and stuck on the tank filler. Once painted black, the Wm. Butler transfers that Kevin also supplied were applied. Unfortunately, when I came to dirty the wagon, it seems that the enamel thinners that I was using attacked the decals!! It had been my intention to build up a degree of dirt by applying thin washes of colour. The result was that I had to reinstate some of the lettering with white enamel and a fine brush and then make it even dirtier than I had intended to hide the damage!! Anyway, it does make a nice addition to the stock being a privately owned wagon (and not an Open coal wagon) : So now I have 42 wagons, and am almost ready to take Modbury to RailWells in mid-August!! Thanks for looking Ian

Graham, Would love to see a bit of mixed gauge GWR. I gave serious consideration to doing something along those lines for a DJLC (Diamond Jubilee Layout Challenge) but early on it looked like someone else was doing it for their entry. Unfortunately, it seemed that that particular entry fell by the wayside. When I get bored of making stock for Modbury perhaps I ought to give it a go - I have a set of coaches that were originally built as broad gauge convertible stock so doing the artwork and making broad gauge underframes for them would give me an easy way in. 😂 If I ever did build something mixed gauge it would be c. 1890 as I have virtually no interest in the early Gooch era broad gauge. I quite like the "modernised" South Devon Railway 4-4-0 tanks, and the Rover's were magnificent. Ian

Graham, Hopefully someone more qualified than me will be along soon to better answer your questions. However my take is that the chassis is the best part of 10 years old now, in that time Dapol introduced a 57xx (possibly more dimensionally accurate with potentially a different wheelbase? - I don’t know as I haven’t got a Dapol version) in actual fact I haven’t got very much of a Farish one as it received serious cosmetic surgery to convert it into an 1854 class saddle tank 🤣. Also in the intervening years the old Maxon 10mm diameter motor has been dropped from the shops, with recently stocked 6mm and 7mm Tramfabriek ones being introduced in its stead. My butchered example has I think a 12mm diameter Nigel Lawton coreless motor in it (haven’t had the top off since it was built so really can’t remember). My two latest locos (517 and steam railmotor) both utilise the 6mm motor from the shop, and run quite nicely (on DC - I’m an old fashioned analogue guy), the rest of my “fleet” has Nigel Lawton 8mm diameter motors fitted. In short, the 6 or 7 mm motors should be ok (but would need shafts sleeving), especially if using the fold up gearbox bit (if I was building another I’d dispense with it). For info, the 7mm one is double ended so perhaps could have a flywheel put on the other end (if there’s room in the body). Hope that is helpful Ian

My latest build came off my workbench about a week ago : It's a GWR 70'0" Steam Rail Motor to Diagram O finished as built in March 1906 condition. The body (sides and ends) are Worsley Works (scratch aid "kit"), the rest is scratch built (the kit represents the preserved No. 93 of Diagram R (of 1908) so I've subtly amended the etches to model the earlier diagram. Livery applied by me including the transfers for the "prize monogram" that some of these carried when out-shopped late 1905/early 1906. Oh, by the way it's 2mm Finescale. Thanks for looking. Ian

With the Steam Rail Motor completed, I felt she was ready to be released back out into the wild. Here she is in her natural habitat : Plymouth bound approaching Modbury having just passed the Down Home. On a return trip awaiting to depart Modbury. Tomorrow she will be packed up along with a variety of other Modbury stock ready for the 2mm Association's 60+2 year Diamond Jubilee weekend event in Derby (at the Derby Conference Centre, DE24 8UX) (http://www.2mm.org.uk/DJubilee/index.html). Although Modbury won't be in attendance, the Midland Area Group will be there with St Ruth (where my stock has a second home as the "St Ruth Preservation Society"). Hopefully, there will be a couple of other non-DCC layouts there where the Rail Motor, et al will be able to visit 😉 Thanks for looking Ian

No wonder I can never find a basket when I go shopping! 🥴

More progress on the Steam Rail Motor - it's completely finished !!!!! Since the last instalment, the interior has been painted. A lightish brown for everything, then to the seats ... I've had to have a stab in the dark at the actual colours (despite reading the section, well table, in Great Western Way. I've gone with brown in the Smoking compartment as I suspect that they may have been leather, and red (rep) in the other compartment. The whole coach was 3rd class, so it may have all been the same colour/material. I couldn't find anything in the Steam Rail Motors book either. The completed interior. As the windows are a little bigger than in my other stock I've decided to populate this one. The figures are all Andrew Stadden, and since they're not overly visible I didn't spend a lot of time painting them just splashes of colour really. With the coach body painted, it was time to put the transfers on. The Prize Monogram transfers that I'd done came out reasonably well so I used those, similarly the "No" for the number (although they were a little oversize). The "6"'s though were in my opinion cr*p, so I decided to use Fox numerals in Yellow for brown stock. The colour is slightly different to the Yellow Ochre ink that I'd used for my home-made transfers, but I decided that I couldn't improve on the dodgy ones I'd done. Once all of the transfers were applied, they were sealed with a spray of Precision Paints Satin Varnish. Once dry, the glazing was added using the Cobex glazing available from the Association. The end windows were cut to size as a single unit, scored where the upright mouldings/window frames are then bent to shape. The main compartment windows once cut to size had the top mm or two sanded to represent the hammered glass in the toplights. All of the glazing was secured with Canopy Glue. Once everything had thoroughly dried the roof was brush painted in a Precision Paints Dirty Black / Humbrol White mix. After the body and under frame were united (with the interior trapped inside), the handrails for the retractable steps were bent up from 0.010" guitar string. The top bend of the wires locating in holes drilled either side of the vestibule doors, and the bottom superglued against the side of the middle step (I still need to give these a touch of matt black where they're glued on). Anyway, here she is finished (apart from the touch up just mentioned) : The motor bogie end. The trailing end. Broadside view of the right hand side. Broadside view of the left hand side. Thanks for looking. Ian

I don’t know whether No 93 was actually completed in 2011 or if that was the year the financial grant was awarded to allow work to be progressed. Either way, in mileage terms it probably hadn’t done all that many when either of those photos were taken (at least not compared to when originally in service). As others have said modern paints don’t react to the (far less/different) air pollution as the old lead based paint did. My understanding of the current state of No 93 is that it is now out of service as it needs a boiler refurb or recertification. Edit I’ve just looked on the Didcot/Steam Railmotor website and it would appear that No93 entered service in June 2012.

More Steam Rail Motor progress ... With the body and under frame construction pretty well complete, attention turned to the painting. As usual (for me), the body had received a coat of Halfords etching primer (seen in earlier postings), then everything but the upper half was masked off before the Precision Paints (PP) Coach Cream was applied. After a couple of days to fully harden off, the upper works were coated in a couple of layers of Humbrol Maskol before the lower sides were sprayed PP Coach Brown. Again a couple of days to harden off was allowed before attempting the lining. The black mouldings were ruled on with a Rotring 0.1mm drawing pen (with Rotring black ink). Then the bolections and door drop lights were brush painted with PP Mahogany. The latter part of the painting process then consisted of an iterative approach whereby any imperfections were touched up with Rotring ink, cream or mahogany as appropriate. As usual, the Rotring ink wasn't too happy to be applied over the PP Coach Brown, so the lower mouldings were brush painted with Humbrol Matt Black, any strays onto the panels was carefully lifted with a fine brush dampened with enamel thinners. In the end, I even had to run a diluted mix of Coach Brown into most of the lower panels as I deemed that the depth of colour wasn't dense enough in places. I sometimes wonder if spraying the whole thing black then painting the panels with a few dilute coats would be a better way forward as the painting of this coach seemed to take forever!! Anyway, here are a couple of photos of the current state of play : Looking at these digital images on screen, I might attack the lower panels again with another dilute coat of Coach Brown!! Also in evidence is the near disaster I had with the ink when doing the upper mouldings - a spillage occurred on the roof, although luckily it missed the sides!! Not a problem as the roof still needs to be painted but that will be after transfers and a coat of sealing varnish has been applied. Thoughts then turned to the coach interior, so a piece of 0.015" plasticard was cut for the floor (with cutouts to clear the busbars and wires that allow pick up from the non-motor bogie). Further 0.015" was deployed for the compartment partitions, and finally seats were built up from 3 laminations of 0.030" with a 0.015" back rest. Interior in position on the underframe. As can be seen the motor bogie upper works (gear box and motor) have had a coat of matt black to disguise them a little. A couple of photos of the body plonked onto the underframe : As no transfers are available for a 2mm scale Steam Rail Motor in early livery (Fox do some for Autocoaches), I have had a go at making some myself. Because Modbury is set in 1906, I wanted to model an early example of a Diagram O Steam Rail Motor (the Worsley Works coach being ostensibly the preserved No. 93 of the Diagram R of 1908), so I have chosen No. 61 which was built in March 1906. When outshopped, these early coaches carried a monogram referred to as the Prize Winning Monogram, as a result of a competition held in 1905. A patch of decal film was painted Coach Brown, then the monograms and numbers were drawn on with Yellow Ochre acrylic ink again in a Rotring pen (0.25mm nib for monogram and 0.1mm nib for the numerals). I did try brush painting it all first with acrylic paint but gave up and resorted to a pen and ink. Hopefully, I have made the numerals small enough to fir in the waist panels, but I'm quite pleased with the way the monograms have worked (they are about 3mm tall) and could possibly have been a little narrower. I will test one of the worse ones in water to make sure that the ink is ok (it should be being acrylic), but I won't try using any of the decal fixers or softeners. If there are any problems I'll give them a coat of varnish before using them. The monogram and numeral transfers. Hopefully, I'll just about get her finished in time for the 2mm Association 60 (+2) years anniversary event on the 18th/19th June. Although Modbury isn't in attendance, the Midland Area Group will be there with St Ruth, and there are a couple of other analogue layouts in attendance that she might visit too!! Thanks for looking. Ian

Don, next project is indeed a Duke. I built the 4 coupled chassis some time ago (can’t remember whether I posted a photo of it here). My aim is to have it running for the Aldershot exhibition in October (I doubt whether I’ll progress it too far by RailWells as I want to get the Rail Motor completed first). Ian