Johnson044

Really beautiful coaches.

Hi Sir Bud & Sir Douglas - thank you- this is all good stuff and pretty helpful- yes- the breech will certainly be pushing the limits of a fairly conventional bolster wagon- I really should, at the very least, beef up the springs (or show them fully compressed!). Given the very limited time that I have to devote to railway modelling I will, though, finish it as it is and see how it looks. It is considerably smaller than the one the Midland were carrying. The photos are excellent - I am delighted that my intention to wrap the barrel with timber packing under the chains was exactly what the Midland did- and I won't forget the Tompion in the end of the barrel - which, from memory, and I'll check later, scales out at about 9"

Some progress with the twin bolster. Successfully narrowed and sat on wheels (one set are turned down from coarse scale, the others are as Mr Slater intended). The gun barrel and cradles just loosely placed in position whilst I figure out what kind of pivots & rubbing plates will be appropriate. It's been lovely to get back in the shed and actually make something.

After you've achieved this then you are pretty well capable of achieving anything- truly magnificent piece of work!

A time travelling traction engine might be far more useful than a De Lorean. If it were to go through the time barrier at say 8MPH, maybe with a trailer attached you could bring stuff back with you. Yes, there's always the butterfly effect to worry about but think of all those name plates, totems etc.

What a great thread! This is such a broad church - but nostalgia really seems to be pretty universal, although it hits us in different ways. I've very occasionally succumbed to the urge to buy something that I either had or wanted very badly in my yoof- but each time I've given in it hasn't hit the spot. When I get whatever it is I see on Ebay, at an exhibition or in a junk shop and repair it and it sits on my shelf it usually leaves me pretty cold. I have a Dublo Silver King in front of me that I picked up, tender and front bogie-less for eight quid in a Dover indoor market. I found it a tender, front bogie and new magnet and it looks half-decent- but although I had one for many years and, belatedly, rather lamented its loss the one I have now is very much just a possession and I could quite happily part with it. I've bought, repaired and sold a Bing George the Fifth and Carette 12 wheel carriage and I now have the Hornby clockwork compound I always wanted as a child- I have less of a desire to part with this as I invested so much more time in putting it to rights- not least the Lima 4F tender, widened and raised, with Leeds wheels and any edges thinned down to look a bit more like tinplate. I've been really tempted by these things from my formative years but didn't bite: A Lone Star Baby Deltic (the bright green one) An un-built Ratio Midland 2-4-0- to do it PROPERLY this time! Tri-ang Baltic Tank Tri-ang Lord of the Isles Ditto, very crudely converted into a Midland Spinner (I did exactly the same to mine, aged 11, and mine was MUCH cruder!) Tri-ang Minic friction drive Blue Pullman- at least I wanted one until I saw one again after fifty years Tri-ang "27" 0-4-0T I can't have my childhood back though- my recent visit to Birmingham brought that home to me (Snow Hill station, Museum of Science and Industry, Bearwood Models, Budd mosaics- all gone or changed beyond recognition). What I do get a degree of pleasure from buying and looking at, though, are models that have some human touch about them- scratch built, kit-bashed - however crude. I can see the effort that has been put into them- a little bit of heart and soul. I'm probably some kind of vampire from a David Mitchell novel (no - the Cloud Atlas David Mitchell, not the Upstart Crow one). I suppose if I had the chance, I'd quite like a decent commercially-made 0 gauge live steamer- an Archangel GSWR 0-4-2 (ok- these were made in limited numbers, but still count, I think) or maybe a Bowman, just to see it hurtle and set the settee on fire. TBH I'm struggling to think of anything being mass produced today that I'd really like to own. However technically perfect and exquisitely detailed they'd still leave me a bit cold. Each to his or her own- as I say, it's a broad church!

I don't think I could have visited Airnimal's S7 page again if I'd left it 3mm too wide!

Something didn't look right- the solebars were too far in from the sides. It all looked a bit narrow gauge. At this point I lined up one of the ends with a Slater's Midland wagon and realised (a) the headstocks I'd used as a starting point were 3mm too wide and (b) so were the buffer centres. I was not pleased. I seem to be making a lot of elementary errors like this at the moment. I was just going to leave it and started looking for photos of wider-than-normal wagons. Clutching at straws, being lazy- and the Prototype For Everything Dept was, on this occasion, not of much help. So- the rather strongly made solvent joints were carefully cut apart this morning and here we are- back to the loose components again without too much damage for narrowing and reassembly.

Another little work in progress. For several years I've had this Admiralty gun barrel on a pair of shaped hardwood cradles- bought from an EGOGG bring and buy event. I thought I'd make a pair of twin bolster wagons to carry it around. I realised tat I had most of the bits kicking around so I shortened a pair of Slater's Gloucester underframes to suit the ABS 7' brake gear sets which I have. I also had a pair of buffer beams that I made a while back for another, aborted underframe- some whitemetal buffer stocks and Coopercraft coupling sockets and lengths of Peco sleeper strip. I made the inner, bufferless headstocks from more of the same. So- an afternoon's work and I was quite pleased with what I'd done. The corner strapping is from some scrap etch which had some convenient rivet heads on it (yes- I know, they should be bolts).

Precarious! Looks like his little front feet (hands? paws?) are able to hold on to the tender flare. There's another one s**gging the VW camper. Exhibitionists!

Any chance of some photos Llamedos?

Obviously not Standard Gauge!!!

A little diversity. All 32mm gauge (obviously!). 7mm, Standard gauge "Wrekin" my Manning Wardle class F- basically a Slater's kit that I picked up half-built and finished off. Some extra detailing here and there- to my mind, the most noticeable omissions from the kit are the rivetted angles between the tank and the smokebox, the oil pots on the slide bars and the "splashers" over the front wheels behind the slidebars. 8mm 4' gauge "Chilham" built in about 1971 by Bob Fridd from card and rescued from behind a pile of books and memorabilia. A new, motorized chassis I built from bits. This is all on the Standard Gauge Industrial thread "Resurrection of a saddle tank". Something of a treasured possession and will one day, hopefully, be a part of a Kent cement works railway diorama. 9mm 3'6" gauge New Zealand original class A. From Ebay - I couldn't resist it. Massively built from thick metal. Looks quite accurate but a bit simplified. I'm stumped so far as to how it is assembled- 1/8" thick frames and everything soldered together, with what looks like maybe an old (Pittman maybe) motor inside. No idea how to dismantle for servicing. Wheels are turned from iron castings. Absolutely no idea what I'll do with this one. Maybe detail it and repaint and plonk it on a small Kiwi diorama as a small tribute to my dad, who came from Coromandel.

The top photo might explain why the coupling rods are binding! Couldn't see it until I looked closely- the washer on the LH crankpin is fouling the little pieces of brass rod that represent the security bolts.

...and a little plug for the quite superb little Bishop's Castle Railway Museum which I visited the other day. Very much worth a visit. The staff were so friendly and welcoming.