Dave at Honley Tank

It’s over six weeks since I last posted and while the garden and domestic commitments have pinched a lot of time I’ve still achieved a fair bit of modelling. Mainly this has been layout and stock maintenance and repair. The work I carried out on the double slip on Bowton’s Yard got me in a track making frame of mind and caused me to add another road in Guidbridge hidden sidings which will make operation a little easier and stock/loco handling a little bit less. A small shuffle of the layout position allowed extending this hidden siding baseboard by eight inches and this made room for a B6 turn-out without loss of length on the main siding. The turn-out was built on the bench over a photo-copy of a Scalefour Society print but I used copper laminate to cut all the timbers and the toe has a sliding tie-bar also of PC board. It is hand operated because it’s so close to the main DCC panel so very little wiring was involved. The J10 and the O6 are now back in service and running smoothly thank you! But the O8 shunter threw up a short-circuit on its decoder and a new one has been fitted. Over the years since I went with DCC I have only had two decoders fail, one a Hornby and one a Bachmann and both in this loco! Strange that. The other strange thing is that this particular loco has several times reverted to the original address – 3 – that all decoders are delivered with. I can’t work out how this happens and I certainly have no idea what caused the reversal. Only this loco and only RTR company decoders! All very strange. This weekend was Expo EM North at Manchester. I stewarded both days but this involved no more than walking around the hall looking very important. (“Very important” translates to – “chatting to anybody and everybody who would listen”!). Margaret came too on Sunday and did at least one stint on the door, so one of us at least gave useful help. It’s always nice at these functions to meet old friends and perhaps make new ones. But perhaps it’s all just a ruse to be totally lazy on Monday with the excuse that you need to rest after such an exhausting weekend. I purchased a rolling road from a trader I had been unaware of; - Direct Train Spares of Burnley (see www.directtrainspares-burnley.co.uk). I’ve been intending to make a loco testbed for a few years but never got round to sourcing the bearings. This little unit is not only less expensive than other rolling roads I’ve seen but is exactly like the design that was in my head. A nice bit of engineering; well done Mr Direct Train Repairs! On the cost issue the rolling road sets are at a reduced price at exhibitions and you save postal charges too. They are at several exhibitions over the next few weeks so if you are in the market for such a useful device have a look at the web site and pick the show to go and sample. Father Christmas is going to bring me a book about LNER locomotives; those strange boxlike ones that were variously called EM1; EM2; tops75 (?) and tops 76(?). This means Bill Hudson went home richer and Margaret went home poorer! Last week I re-started on the two C13s and one is now running pretty nicely and later today will be the first loco to go on the new testbed. May take some pics. for next time. Enjoy your hobby, Dave

all looking good Dave. When's its first exhibition??? Good luck, Dave

Hello Mike, I suspect that you have stolen my brain! Those are my thoughts too.Your "fashionable" theory is quite true in my experience. Take all the fuss about sound from DCC decoders; would I really be able to here the diesel engine of that class 20 ticking over when I'm over 1/4 mile away? Indeed, why do I here the same sound all the time the loco's 'on stage'? The sound should increase to a cresendo in front of me and diminish as it passes into the distance! With a steam loco about 1/4 mile or more distant the "puffs" are totally out of synchronism with sight in real life; not so with this new "fashion". Regards, Dave

Hi Dave, Nice to hear from you. Yes theTDF passed through Honley, but down on the valley bottom road. I walked about a mile from home, waited over two hours, yelled "Alley" a few times and walked back home in steaming hot sunshine. Enjoyed it more on the 'telly! I've never yet had any flexitrack that did not eventually go under gauge. I don't understand why, but I suspect that the sleepers slowly curve upward slightly at each end over time, thus tipping the chairs inward, taking the rail with them. Equally, my experience is that the matter is worse or emphasised with curvature. I don't like it! All that said, keep happy! Dave.

Back again after a pause The weather warming up each spring tends always to a change in hobby activity at the Booth household. First, the garden starts to call for attention, and as the outside temperature rises it also becomes more comfortable to work on the layouts. These; ‘Birch Vale’, ‘Bowton’s Yard’ and ‘Wheegram Sidings’, all live in what is actually our garage which, while certainly being some-what up-market and much larger than the run of the mill garage, has only back-ground central heating and needs a few kWhs of electricity if it is to be heated to a comfy working/operating temperature in the colder months. The workshop section, (Honley Tank) is temperature controlled & never falls below 55F but rises to 70F if I’m in there. However none of my layouts will fit in there; - its barely big enough to accept me! (See pictures a few episodes ago). This year a halt was called on all current modelling projects so that when I needed a rest from garden work, I could carry out some much needed maintenance work on locos, stock and layouts. Particularly the layouts - they get a bit neglected in the colder part of the year! ‘Wheegram Sidings’ is the newest. Its also in EM but while the other two can be left fully in their running state, Wheegram needs the car out of the garage, its support brackets assembled, the baseboards unfolded, the electrics out of storage and plugged in, and, if it is to be viewed fully, a couple of items of removable ‘scenery’ need to come out of storage and be located correctly. Doesn’t take long but it’s a bit of a faff. ‘Birch Vale is the oldest of the three; it was first exhibited in the early/mid 80’s but it rarely needs any work beyond track cleaning and full dusting/vacking. ‘Bowton’s Yard’ is much newer and much more complex and when I was building it I was very experimental. Most rail is steel but with an odd piece of nickel-silver here and there (nobody has ever commented on the differing colour!). Some plain track is plastic sleepered flexitrack, the type where you thread on short sections of sleepering, but in between each sleeper section I interposed two or three ply sleeper/rivets because past experience of plastic track gauge-narrowing over time, does not allow me to trust it. In other sections I used ply-wood sleepers with C&L plastic chairs, using MEK to fix plastic to wood. Also, I used up a stock of white-metal working chairs stuck to ply sleepers with cyano. All pointwork was ‘ply & rivet’ bar one, which is an all-plastic Exactoscale. That one has given me more trouble than any other point but I can’t say why that is so. Certainly, I don’t like the permanence of plastic chairs welded to plastic sleepers; tweaking once the solvent has cured is virtually impossible! Tweaking is much easier with ‘wood and rivet’, but I have found that after several years it seems very easy to cause a rivet to become a sloppy fit in the timber due to the heat of the soldering iron when used for a minor tweak, causing slight burn of the plywood. Tweaking of plastic chairs on ply sleepers is fairly easy using a scalpel with a fairly blunt blade, this used more as a lever than a cutter! At the time of building, my plan was to use diverse methods of track making in an attempt to find that which I considered to be “ the best”. But what does “best” mean? Are we talking only about appearance? In that case surely it must be grey stained wooden sleepers with working chairs of correct bolting and chocking appearance. All with steel rail because it then looks like steel rail. But is it dimensionally stable? Will the steel corrode? What about soldering to steel? What about point-work? (At that time only plain track chairs & slide-chairs were available). And, how many viewers are astute enough to take on board this truth to reality, assuming that’s what it is!? Before I started building ‘Bowton’s Yard, I had virtually re-built ‘Birch Vale’; at least, the original track bed had been cut away and replaced with birch ply with a sleep mat foam underlay for the track. The track was as described in the last paragraph but with brass shim chairs and solder at strategic parts of the crossings, all the rail being steel. As stated at paragraph four it needs very little maintenance. However there are only two turn-outs! At the heart of ‘Bowton’s Yard’ is a 1:6 double slip and this was built with ply and rivet. From the beginning it was little better than “just about acceptable”, but I reckon that it worked as well as most home made point-work. Certain it is that probably 70 to 80 % of derailments on Bowton’s have occurred there. Having said that, derailment due to poor track has never been extraordinarily high. Considering that my track-building experience falls well behind my loco building experience, I’m fairly pleased with running on this layout. In the 1960/70s I was very much into copper laminate track and for me this is by far the easiest system and above all others it is very reliable and very tweakable! However it’s not perhaps as realistic in appearance as the more modern systems; but how many viewers actually notice? Can I ask that question again please? “How many viewers actually notice?”. Few of we finescale modellers have a depth of knowledge that can spot that missing rivet on a loco, and that wagon that has got brakes on one side only when the real one had double brakes, and that point has no slide chairs, and the rail chocks in that section of track are on the wrong side, and any way that particular rail company only used four bolt chairs. I’m sure that you can add to this list of silliness! None of us have that sort of total knowledge. One of my scratch-built locos has the correct number of impressed rivets on one of its lamp brackets. I made about twenty model brackets before I got one I accepted as correct and fitted it. The model needed another seven lamp brackets but my ability to impress rivets on these tiny items led me to decide that the rest would be rivet less! This model has won cups in competitions but not one judge has remarked on the lack of rivets! Nor has any other: - loco-man, keen modeller, casual viewer or close friend ever remarked on this failure of the model to be correct.- so much for the ability of viewers to see all. Where has all this babble been leading? Well, my best track system is still undecided. Without doubt the easiest for tweaking is copper-laminate, but plastic chairs stuck to ply sleepers with MEK are probably better to look at and still fairly easy to tweak, however I’m not sure that I could trust plastic-MEK-ply to give the needed robustness and easy tweakability at point crossings; for me those areas need to be soldered because my experience has shown that even though all has been held with reputedly accurate gauges an odd tweak of a couple of thou’s or so is nearly always needed for smooth running, as too is the close matching of back-to-back of all wheel sets. So, my faithful followers, that’s why I have not visited this blog for a few weeks; I’ve been busy philosophising and tweaking and feeling that I’d not much to say. Bowton’s Yard double slip seems now to be causing less de-railing, at least of that stock, which has had all its wheelsets, backed with my go/no go pair of gauges. However there are now sections of copper ‘timbers’ at the crossings, so the keen eyed and knowledgeable can point out to me that my blobs of solder are a poor imitation of real chairs! And I can say “***!!!****<>!!!<>***” or words to that effect. Have I set you thinking? Enjoy your hobby, Dave

Horsetan: I can't link "Bozhe moi" with the noises I make! Paul: Yes, I know what you mean, but I'm beginning to think successful completion can wait for a bit! Thanks both for your comments. Dave

I’m back to virtually re-making this chassis. The wheels have been on-and-off their axles far too frequently for their good grip; nearly all the crank pins have been unseated; the wheel shifting has affected the electrical continuity between wheel rims and the stub axles; …..in fact throwing all in the bin and starting from scratch again would be easier. Of course, three total lock-ups of a working chassis should really be expected to produce a good amount of peripheral damage, and it certainly has. Inspection of the wheels aided by a 5X eye loupe showed a split on the circumference of the crank pin hole of one wheel and it was then obvious why that crank pin wanted to jump out at any opportunity! Worse still was that one of the close-by spokes was also somewhat wonky. I needed a replacement wheel. First thought was to make one, until I remembered why I had purchased plastic centred wheels when I first started to build this model. I was working on an LMS design & I have no knowledge or library of their locos so I had ‘phoned Alan Gibson and ordered a “set of 8F wheels please Alan; no axles, no crank pins, just a set of wheels”. Alan understands my individual approach to scratch building, or in this case, messing kits about to suit my needs. So too does Colin, (the present proprietor). So I phoned him and asked for one wheel for an 8F. Actually I had to leave a message because he was away on his stand at Expo EM. That meant a delay and my silly streak of determination therefore led to me working on a suitable repair to the broken wheel. Araldite, fuse wire and plastic padding, plus some unusual language, (I think it’s Russian that I start speaking when faced by trial and tribulation, or hammered thumb!), resulted in an acceptable repair that can be disguised by an excess of gunge on a hard working loco. The need to allow time for various mixtures of chemicals to cure and the need for a short rest from this apparently endless frustration had me looking in my “For Repair” box. I came across a couple of 2/- Airfix cattle wagons which had been built to OO before some of you were born, and decided to look at putting the bodies on modern, sprung underframes using my recently drawn & and etched wagon underframe “kit”. (See earlier posts.). This has resulted in a toing-&-frowing between the O6 and the cattle vans. My new Taig milling machine came into use with the latter because my wagon underframe gubbins needs a flat floor and the Airfix wagons have much of the underframe woodwork represented. My first intention was simply to mill away such protroudances but it proved to need much less skill to use the cutter to remove the centre of the floor, leaving a lip all way round the edges. Even then I was over-enthusiastic and almost milled away all the floor on one of them. I need a central screw fixing for my underframe unit & for these two wagons this is provided by a central 8BA hole tapped into a 24mm length of 1/2” x 1/32” BMS araldited inside the body:- The brass bit is packing to temporarily replace some more excesses of milling – went too far in thinning the solebar! The steel bit is clamping the central screw-fixing steel strap. And that steel strap is faced with 0.040” plasticard to give a fixing seat flush with the floor. At present they look like this: Oh! Colin (nee Gibson) did return my call and is sending me a new wheel free of charge. Nice man. Still I did order wheels to convert two Hornby, LNER L1s and a Bachmann J11, plus 20 axles of split-spoke wagon wheels which left little change from a century. What a frustrating and costly hobby; - think I’ll take up telly watching!!!!!!!!! Good luck, Dave

Paul, I promise not to put on rmweb the fact that you have an O6!!?? Thanks for your approval of the weathering; I read it a few moments after I spotted the shiney inside face of the nearside tender wheels showing in second pic above. Doncaster built 8Fs had LNER disc tender wheels. Those shiney ones are my own and made from solid brass rod, nickel plated. Looks as though I forgot to darken the inside faces! Time to take up crown green bowling? Dave

Paul, Although for some reason the LNER actually paid for about sixty of the 8Fs they built at Doncaster & Darlington under war-time instruction from the MoS, and added these to the stock book, all were unloaded back to the LMS (bar one which moved after nationalisation) with some alacrity. Perhaps they were not so useful as the ex GCs Robinson O4s!?? Certainly my scratch-built O4 has never given me the problems that this O6/8F has best wishes, Dave

Last time I finished while I waited for araldite to cure. The gearbox had its motor fitted and was test run for about 15 minutes at full speed, then low speed and in both directions. All was well. The rebuilt axle had one wheel mounted and trued in the lathe. Gearbox, gear-wheel, axle boxes etc followed and the second wheel pushed home to gauge. The chassis was reassembled, but without the cylinders and valve gear, and taken to ‘Bowton’s Yard for a test run. – Locked up solid! Visual inspection found nothing; removal of coupling rods so only the driven axle was powered, gave nothing; removal of drive train from chassis gave nothing; removal of motor from gearbox gave nothing. Previous frustration was nothing compared to this! I finger spun the motor shaft and it moved but with some grating resistance. I removed the worm and the driving end endcap, the brushes and springs, and withdrew the armature. Absolutely no sign of damage! The bearings in the endcaps were cleaned with cotton bud and IPA and then lightly oiled. In trying to replace the armature shaft in the non-driving end there was physical resistance ( i.e. not only magnetic resistance). Visual inspection down into the dark recesses of the motor frame showed some object and this was difficult to remove. It was a bit of magnet! One pole of the sintered magnet had disintegrated. Why? how? – I’ve no idea; but this motor was totally useless. Luckily I had another in stock so the good bits of the failed motor were retained as “Mashima spares” and the new motor faced the one-hour bench test run while attached to the gearbox and final axle plus wheels. Test completed satisfactorily the chassis was yet again reassembled san-cylinders and taken to Bowton’s. A few stuttering steps later the whole lot was very close to being thrown across the railway room!!!!! The fault proved to be that stage 1 gear shaft and wheel again; the araldite had this time not worked for me; the shaft had again shifted. Drastic measures were obviously needed. I decided on some over-engineering. I had some 2mm nickel-silver rod and cut a length to replace the 2mm silver-steel rod of the gearbox kit. This nickel-silver rod proved dead easy to solder to the nickel-silver side frames of the gearbox. Move again you Bas****! I’ve decided that the umpteenth re-build of this chassis is now going to be a slow process of clean, check fit, check size, check clearance, check every d*** thing in sight. For a start the shorting wires on every wheel (Gibson plastic centred wheels used in split-axle chassis!) will be replaced, meaning each wheelset will be re-made. My O6 will once again run sweetly – eventually! Please enjoy your hobby more than I am currently doing, Dave P.S. Two pics included to show the beast in question when it was in more obedient mode:- Drifting back towards Manchester from Hayfield, the loco is on the sleeper crossing that is part of a local footpath. Having got back to Gorton and turned, the loco is running light-engine to John Summers & Son's steelworks at Stalybridge and is seen here passing Globe Cotton's mill close to Bowton's Yard.

Oh dear! Old age is really having a go at me; it’s not the K3 at all, it’s the O6: - FOOL. Some readers will not understand “O6”. During the second world war, the government (ROD? MOS? WD?, not sure) had the LNER build about 60ish LMS 8Fs. The Southern built some too; and each of the ‘Big Four’ had some on loan. It appears that the LNER purchased some of these and classified them O6 and they appeared as such in the stock book. Those on loan, the LNER called “WD® 2-8-0”. They had 68 O6s and 60 WD® 2-8-0s at one time. All eventually ended up as LMS owned, bar one, which was transferred to the Midland Region of the newly formed British Railways because the LMS was gone! My model is No.3563. My father drove the real one when it was a Mexborough engine. I’ve no record of ever seeing one. I said last time that I used it in order to test that it would still run over the marginally modified double slip. (Actually I said it was the K3; - that's old age memory for you. It was my O6) It wouldn’t run on Bowton’s Yard without falling off left right & centre. Since the J10 episode, I’ve changed my approach to backing wheels; I now use two, a “go” gauge and a “no-go” gauge. These showed that the O6 wheels had seen some movement (or I had never had them set correctly – but it was normally a superb runner). All was adjusted – “go” fitted smoothly; “no-go” would not slip in. Then back to ‘Bowton’s for a try. Good fastish run down the straight and then UGH!!! Complete lock-up and DCC tripped. This lock-up under power was catastrophic; number 2 axle had the crank pins ripped from the wheels, ever axle was un-quartered. I was faced with removing the axles, re-fitting crank pins, re-quartering; - on a Walschaert valve gear loco, no mean job. All was corrected and reassembled but at the first test it did not move but immediately tripped out the DCC. The motor was locked-up! Why? Because the first stage gear shaft had left its bearings, -well its fixing points really, because this shaft is not supposed to rotate. I’ve met the problem before and when building this gearbox I’d soldered patches of shim brass over the fixing holes so it was impossible for this shaft to lose its fixing. Obviously my soldering had been rubbish, because those patches of shim were not there! I can remember being concerned about the plastic gear wheel on the shaft, so probably I took the soldering iron away too quickly and achieved a poor joint. Since I built this one I have actually decided that a blob of araldite achieves the same purpose with less risk of damage. The gearbox was re-built with the araldite adaptation. Removing the driven axle from the gearbox had caused a little damage to one end of the axle so I decided to re-make the axle. As I write this, I’m waiting for the araldite that sticks the axle parts together and provides the electrical insulation between the parts, to cure. Tell you the rest next time, - when I’ve done it! Tarra & good modelling to you, Dave

Thanks, Jock 67B for your comment under Ratings Summary; one reason for writing all this garbage is to hopefully pass on ideas and assist the less experienced modeller. At my time of life, all you have left is experience! Nice to hear from you Dave, missed you at Jacko's on Sunday Regards , Dave

The C13s are in the “Wait till Autumn,- Dave” box but I decided to get down to solve the J10 hiccup running It was indeed the split axle that had failed so a new one was made but when back to trial running stage there was still a tiny jerk when slow running. Not only that but occasionally there was a short which shut down the DCC – Bu****! In fact it was the shorting that gave me the answer, because while looking for were this occasional short circuit could be occurring I noticed some bright brass on the valance bottom edge just above a centre driving wheel. Investigating how this had happened showed that the crank pin nut just brushed the bottom of the valance, causing the perceptible jerk when slow running but not noticed with faster speeds. It was also the position of occasional short-circuit. A strip of 0.010” plasticard raised the running plate minutely and both problems were solved. However!!!!! Test running on ‘Bowton’s Yard’, (where I have a double slip followed immediately on one route by a B6 turn-out, all on a radius of about eight-ten foot) showed the loco derailing at one of the double slip crossings in forward direction but OK in reverse. It performed well all over the rest of ‘Bowton’s Yard’. This suggests that the error is at the double slip crossing but I’ll check the loco wheels first. Well, the front axle B-B was perhaps a bit wide but in tolerance, so too were the other axles. I removed the front axle and mounted it between centres in the lathe. There was the tiniest bit of wobble in one wheel but I’m talking in terms of hardly being able to see it; - perhaps 0.002” on circumference, probably less. That should be OK! Therefore it must be the crossing. Track gauges out and check the double slip. Nothing untoward except a touch of tightness at the checkrail of that crossing but the gauge suggested that all was as it should be. Run other locos through slip; no problems with the 0-6-0 tanks but they are a bit small, try the B1; no problem. It must be the J10 but what the H*** is it? I tried running the loco fast, slow and in between but it came off. The front axle always rode high at that crossing. That cannot be possible! The B-B is correct; the track is correct. But it still came off. As with the ‘catching the valance’ problem this too was solved by accidental visual input. I noticed, as I put the loco on a flat surface, that the centre wheels touched the surface first; they were lower than the front and rear wheels and under downward spring pressure. This caused me to put the loco on the double slip, just in front of the problem crossing, and finger push it through, but very, very slowly. There was a rock around that low centre axle; the springing was too harsh! Sure enough, a slight tweak on the cantilever springs produced the answer. I also adjusted the axle retainer such that the centre wheels were unable to travel lower than the other two axles. The J10 now covered all of ‘Bowton’s Yard’ several times, and at all speeds between creep and “Gosh I didn’t know J10s could go that fast”. All was well but just occasionally there was hesitation or jerk at that crossing. Crossing checked with gauges again and all OK but I decided to ease that checkrail where the gauge felt a bit tight. It was a distance imperceptible by eye; the minutest of tweaks but it did the trick. All this frustration would seem to have been due to high end tolerance on one thing and low end tolerance on the other; something that the “plus or minus” system is supposed to defeat. Perhaps it’s my poor skill level! My frustrations were not at an end. The past few days of work had been aimed at getting the J10 to stop derailing at that double slip through which my other locos had for years travelled without problem. I had carried out adjustments to that slip therefore I need to check if that has effected running of all my locos. The K3 repeatedly derailed! My S4, K3 (I’ve an EM one too!) has always been a delightful runner at all speeds both on my layouts and as a visitor to other layouts. “What is going on?” I tried it all over the layout and it was falling off left, right, & centre. I’ll tell you why and how it was corrected next time. Meanwhile I wish you less frustration with maintenance than I’ve had recently! Dave

I'll try but ~I'm not sure how large we can go here. Thanks for showing interest; Dave

A larger picture was requested.This is about as large as I can get accepted on here

What with C13 chassis and this etching drawings thing, I’ve been flitting between workshop and computer room like a (blue something) flea. First let me tell about the drawings-for-etching saga. Regular visitors to this blog, -(which is supposed to be about building a very light-weight, portable, EM layout, but which rarely seems to mention that project!) – will be aware that I like my rolling stock to have sprung suspension. They’ll also be aware that I have religiously used the Bill Bedford sprung ‘W’ irons on my own design of central spine. The central spine idea was pinched from Masokits sprung wagon chassis kits. I thought that Mr Bedford’s spring system was simpler than Masokits’, but their central spine system ensured that the axles always ended up correctly positioned while that feature was left to the builder’s skill with Bill’s units. This caused me to make a central spine jig to cover 8’ to 12’ w/base chassis. With this made I was not faced with marking out brass/nickel-silver sheet each time I built a wagon, and accuracy was built in via the jig rather than my having to use my limited skills each time I made an under-frame. Then Bill changed his design of ‘w’ iron; - he lost a hole that my jig relied on, causing me to make another jig for his ‘w’ irons, so as to drill the missing hole. Then he upped and past on the retail of his ‘w’ irons to a third party! My drawing-for-etching tutor mildly ticked me off for trying to design an etched loco kit – said something about running before I could walk, - and told me to try something more simple for my first attempt. If you now consider the content of the last three paragraphs you can easily see why my mind turned from loco bodies to wagon chassis. In these last blog-silent weeks the majority of my modelling has been at the laptop, but the end result has just been delivered – 16 etches, each of which will make up into either a 9’ or a 10’ RCH chassis with axle parallelism guaranteed. To fill all available space, each etch also has several spare wagon bits like brake handles, draw hooks and ‘V’s. I have no intention of becoming a trader – NO WAY!!! – But friends may be allowed an etch or so at cost. The project has been rather more of a mental exercise than a practical one but the pleasure of ‘I did that’ has been at least the equivalent of completing a scratch-built loco. I have not yet made up a chassis but the etches all look OK. The top right of this pic seems to indicate that I may have got the safety hoops wrong, - scale size and therefore too fragile for working models (??!!). Those are belonging to the ten-foot w/base brakes. To the left is the nine-foot version and there, my ham-fisted handling has not affected the safety loops. My experience with bearing carriers, - tiny, fragile parts that need three carefully adjusted bends, - made me include two spares which are accommodated in what would otherwise have been scrap. Past experience of broken bits of plastic kit-built wagons caused me to fill the bottom corner with useful wagon bits. This too would have been scrap metal. In and between sessions at the computer I have been juggling the C13 chassis, and have them both rolling nicely as 0-6-0s or as 0-4-2’s if you prefer, – you need to remember that the trailing axle is not a pony truck version for my models. Currently the leading bogie trucks are not behaving as well as I expect and will have to get a good talking to! Also my J10 has slipped a driving wheel and is therefore limping along with un-quartered wheels, not usually much of a problem but it looks as though the movement is not the wheel to axle but more likely to be axle stub to axle centre section (split-axles of course). As it’s on the gearbox axle the repair involves a total strip-down, and is going to be fairly long winded. I’m faced with the frustration of three limping locos and getting them all set-up correctly. Such an enjoyable hobby! Good luck with your bit of it. Dave

You only saw three corners; here's the fourth.

The new milling machine is installed and the workshop juggling is complete, but I still need a tidy up session. I must thank all who joined in the forum session I started ; each in some way helped my choice. One member asked for pics of the machine but I don't know how to put pictures into a forum section so I decided to dump 'em here. I think some of you will be happy to take a peek into 'Honley Tank'. This shows the Petol/Taig machine, the beast which caused all the commotion and reshuffle. To the right of the Petol is the Myford 7 and further away is the Boley watchmaker's lathe. Actually it was the tiny Proxxon milling machine that caused the upset; that's it hiding behind the vertical drill. I shall now set up the Proxxon as a profile milling machine. Up in the top right of this pic. it's possible to see part of my Dremel drill stand. This is the corner of the workshop where I carry out the bench work and the loco is a B1 in LNER 1947 livery. No.1036 was delivered to Gorton brand new in Dec. 1947 so only just made being an LN ER engine! That's it, a quick tour of Honley Tank; sorry about the untidiness but I've only just finished the re-build. Mind you it's not normally much tidier!!! Happy modelling to you, Dave

Not much to say about actual progress with the C13s except that the inability of my tiny Proxxon miller to hold one of the bodies, (I needed to mill away some metal to make the body clear the wheels), decided me to buy a larger milling machine. The full saga of this purchase is in forum "Skill and Knowledge - kit and scratch building - milling machines" Housing the new machine means a total re-hash of the workshop, so I'm in DIY mode rather than modelling mode. Sorry ; off to do some sawing. Dave

I decided that I would take a rest from modelling over the Christmas period. The usual health niggles during winter months (“it’s your age” says my GP) have made that a longer break than wanted, and getting Honley Tank (workshop) to a comfy temperature here on the Pennines takes time and costly electricity. To limit that cost I’ve been computing away like an idiot, driven by this urge to produce etching drawings. So I have been active, but in the warmer climes of our ‘office’. That used to be the visitor bedroom but was converted to a craft room for Margaret some years ago. Being part of the house proper, it’s on the central heating system so cost of heating it is negligible compared to the out-building which houses ‘The Tank’. My progress with this drawing lark has been frustratingly slow and I now think that I set my sites too high,’ running before I could walk’ type of thing. My tutor took a long holiday abroad too, which added to the frustration, & I have decided that I should get back to my C13 chassis building and let those blasted '1s & 0s' look after themselves for a week or two. However I should update you on my C13/14 body drawing project before I report how the chassis have progressed. The various body parts are drawn, showing full and half etching, but I’m struggling at the best way to add etching tags and etching frames. However the body parts were printed onto card approximately 0.010” thick and trial built to ensure that my ideas would work. The following pics show the result, with UHU taking the place of solder,- not too well on the valance to running plate! The forward body is the C13 & the rear one is a C14, having wider tank & bunker. The etching project is now having a rest until I can have a long session with my tutor and I hope to show you some pics of the chassis project next time. Meanwhile enjoy your modelling; I’m off to Dean Hall for Manchester MRS AGM; what joy!!!!! Dave.

I’ve not laid hand on either of the part-finished C13 chassis for the last few weeks. One or indeed, two “other activities” were referred to last post but since then the computer has been active with me trying to grasp the skill of producing drawings for etching. My tutor has said that I’m nearly there and that I should draw something I would like to actually send off and have etched. This needs careful thought because there is an initial charge around £50 - £100 to set up. I have decided on trying to design parts to build a C13 body plus some additional parts to make it a C14. Please do not think that this work will be developed into a loco kit. At very best it will provide some flat bits of nickel-silver (possibly brass), exactly following parts that I would normally mark and fret out by eye, blued metal, scriber, engineers square & piercing saw, were I scratch building. No kit instructions and therefore of use only to those with scratch-building skills really. No turned parts, not even a ready-rolled boiler; - just flat laminate bits for running plate, buffer beams; valances; cab sides, spectacle plate & rear sheet; tank sides; bunker sides & end sheet. Hopefully there would be help with riveting but not etched rivets because riveting varied so much across both classes. With an etched hole on the rear, rivets could be pushed out if they needed to appear. At best this could be considered as an aid to anyone who may be thinking of scratch-building a model of either class. Nothing could possibly be ready for the etchers until the new-year, always assuming that I carry out what I have in mind. If there is anyone out there interested in having an etched sheet from these drawings and you are willing to help with the setting up cost then please PM me on this media. No promises; I still may not go ahead because I could scratch the lot for no cost and that possible £100 set-up is not attractive! Five of us and £20 sounds more so! Off for my tea now, bye! Dave.

Oh Tuffy, you've now put me into philosophy mode. Is it possible for nothing to be something? I suppose that as something tends toward infinity it appears to be nothing but is still something. Should I perhaps aspire to be infinite? OH! s** it I'll stick to building locos!!!!!!!!

The C13s are very much on hold but I’m not having a rest, just otherwise occupied. I’m flogging my way towards learning Corel Draw and producing suitable drawings to send to an etching company; very slowly getting there. Then the computer goes daft and I need to hire assistance. No sooner is that seen to than I find sewage swilling around the manhole on our patio; currently waiting for my tame plumber friend to come with his rods. I know you’re not interested in all that but, just in case you were looking for an update, then sorry but this is it. You go away and do some modelling, - I can’t just now. S’long till next time, Dave

Well folks, do we keep it - just for fun? I like the idea of an abandoned branch line. I wonder if I could convert a blog to a bike track? It exists through some stupid blunder I must have made & I know I can ask Andy to delete it, I did the last time I made presumably the same blunder! And that's why its still here; Andy will think I'm a right Wally doing it twice. Are you reading this Andy? Thanks for all the good wishes & happy modelling to all my readers, particularly you three. Dave. PS Tuffy, can we aspire to nothingness?

If you have clicked on this blog, please accept my apologies; it should not be here, I'm not sure how it got here, and I don't know how to close it. Click on the other choice; I add to that fairly frequently, if not regularly! .Dave at Honley Tank