John Brenchley

Hi Richard Just picking up on the part of your question about the Morton Clutch. As 2mm modellers we don't particularly need to know exactly how it worked but I think it's something to do with operating the brakes from either side of the wagon. As you will see, the end of one brake lever has one hole and the other has two - the latter represents the clutch arrangement. Regarding attaching this end of the lever, from your picture it looks as if you have fitted a wire cross shaft but have trimmed off the ends close to the V hanger. if this is the case, I think you will need to fit a new piece of wire and leave it extended each side of the chassis so that you can thread it through the brake lever holes and then re trim afterwards. For the clutch side lever, my recollection is that the bottom hole is the one that threads onto the cross shaft. The reference in the instruction to fitting a stub shaft refers to inserting a piece of wire through the top hole - you then trim it close on each side. If you Google for either Morton brakes or for the BR mineral wagon you should find lots of images that will help clarify what the end product should look like. Good luck Best wishes John John Brenchley Perth, Western Australia

I too have built these two wagon kits and some notes of which diagram I thought they represented and which style of braking I used can be found on this blog post. I agree, DC1 converted to cross cornered operation is indeed possible. Best wishes John

I can’t see any pegs though ! Ok Ian, challenge accepted I'll see what I can do Best wishes John

Thanks everyone who made suggestions about what to use to represent washing on a line. In the end I went with some bits cut off the local supermarket till receipt Some images of the end result are below - the wall and small tree are only placed in position so I removed the tree for one of the pictures so as to get a better view of the garden. Rather cruel close ups but I'm happy with the effect from a more normal viewing distance.

Thanks for the extra suggestions I'm not a smoker so fag paper probably isn't an option but the till roll is a good idea - I have some of that and it is thinner than normal copy paper. I've also saved some chocolate wrappers - there's some un-creased areas that are large enough so I will do some experimenting. The sheet on your wash line looks very good Jerry - just enough curvature to suggest a gentle breeze. Best wishes John

Thanks Dona and No46 The idea of some sort of foil sound interesting. I just happen to have some Malteser Truffles still uneaten from Easter and they have foil wrappers. Worth a try John

Hi everyone How would you recommend modelling washing on a line. I have the posts in place and a thin loop of nylon dolls hair for the line but would like washing such as a double bed sheet and pillow cases hanging over or from the line. Have others achieved this and if so, what did you use to get best look? I feel paper is a bit stiff, tissue is too see through and I haven't found a piece of cloth yet that is thin enough or one without a weave that is too obvious. Thanks John

Thanks very much Mikkel. I think most of the pictures were added before the style of the forum was revamped so I'm not sure if that caused problems with commenting on pictures. The layout is not quite 50% complete so a long way to go. At the moment I'm working on several buildings to complete the corner between the river and the 90 degree curve in the line as it heads towards Launceston. Best wishes John

Hi Richard The word "ventilated" came from the Modelmaster N gauge sheet for LMS wagons. As far as I can see, none of the other big 4 sheets have this word. Unfortunately for you, the bad news is that I measure it at 5.5mm. Best wishes John

Thanks Mikkel The trainshed appears in a couple of the pictures of Tavistock in my Gallery of photos Best wishes John

I've just finished writing up a blog entry on this forum for my alterations to the N scale twin pack of LMS vans to get their width closer to that of the 2mm scale versions. It took quite a bit of planning but actually going about removing roughly 1.5mm from the width was not as hard as I thought it might be. Finished result (the 2 vans on the right) can be seen below (the left hand van is from the 2mm Association kit).

It’s hard to believe that it’s nearly 5 years since I last wrote a blog on this forum and actually, most of the work I’m about to describe was completed about 9 months ago. I recently decided that in order to make my wagon fleet more representative of the Big 4, I needed some LMS vans. The Association shop sells 3 plastic body kits that are suitable for my era - a twin pack from the N Scale Society and a single 2mm scale version. I was concerned that the N Scale versions would look too large in comparison with my other pure 2mm scale wagons but comparison with drawings suggested that the length and height were acceptable; the problem was with the width which was about 1.5mm too wide. I therefore decided to see if I could remove sections from each end to reduce the width to match that of the 2mm scale van. The N Scale pack has sides and ends to make up into two quite different diagrams, one with horizontal planked sides and corrugated ends that I chose to model as a fitted version of D1897 (10’ wheelbase) and the other with vertical planking and ends that featured cross bracing between two end stanchions that I modelled as an unfitted version of D1664 (9’ wheelbase). D1897 Looking at the ends of this kit, it seemed that there were two places where I might be able to reduce the width. Firstly, the flat space between the side of the central ventilator and the start of the corrugations seemed too wide and secondly, there looked to be more plain plastic on the edges than seemed to be the case in photographs. This latter problem was easily solved by trimming a bit off each edge with a sharp scalpel. The problem either side of the ventilator would mean cutting the ends into three pieces which I did by scoring heavily almost all the way through from the back with a P cutter and then finishing off the cut with a scalpel. I then cut and filed the pieces so that the corrugations came much closer to the ventilator, trying to get a nice smooth fit between them. The ends were reassembled using a thick piece of spare plasticard behind them to strengthen the joins. Carefully scraping and filing along each corrugation helped to remove any traces of a ridge where the joins had been. A comparison between the original (left) and altered ends (right) can be seen below. To quote Eric Morecombe (and show my age a bit) “You can’t see the join” (well, hardly). The picture below shows the assembled wagon but with the area below the solebar still needing to be painted black and with one more buffer needing to be bought from the 2mm shops, followed by some darkening of the roof and overall weathering. D1664 The end of this style of van looked like being harder to deal with as I did not want to spoil the nicely riveted detail of the cross bracing nor lose the riveted detail on the corner plates. The only solution I could come up with was to replace the three plank sections either side with new ones with the planks scored slightly narrower. Again, I divided the ends into three pieces, cutting just outside the edge of the vertical stanchions. In order to retain the corner plates, I glued the edge pieces to the van sides and only after the glue had set really hard, cut the ends back leaving only the bit of plank that was visible behind each corner plate. I scribed two new pieces with three 1mm vertical planks and glued these either side of the original N scale centre piece. After fixing the ends to the sides, extra pieces of plasticard were scribed and fitted to fill in the gaps in the buffer beams. Below is a view from above to compare the width of the one of the finished vans with an un-altered N Gauge Society van kit. Finishing Off To create some variety in both chassis style and colour, I chose to model the vans as follows :- D1897 - this is modelled as a fitted van with clasp brakes as appears in the photo of number 506818 on page 45 of the 2010 reprint of Essery’s LMS Wagons Vol 1. D1664 - I decided that this wagon would be unfitted but painted in bauxite livery with 5” lettering. I numbered it 264131 as per the picture of a van in BR livery on page 39 of Essery’s book. Although the photograph shows the ends of this van having slightly different strapping, I hoped these were later additions and also that the van was from one of the unfitted batches as I could not see the brake details from the photograph. Also, there was no evidence that the van would have received the bauxite livery, but I doubt if anyone can prove it one way or the other. The vans are shown below posed in front of Tavistock’s trainshed, still needing painting of the roofs, weathering and buffers. The left-hand van is from the 2mm Scale Association kit, modelled in LMS grey as an unfitted D1808, number 131391.

That looks very neat and accurate Chris I was interested to read your comment about using the modified filmstrip tiebar as I thought perhaps I was the only 2mm scale modeller still using this method. I'd be interesting to know what your modification might be please as its always useful to find out how others have found ways to improve on existing ideas. Best wishes John

Thanks for your suggestions Chris and Jim. I may be able to get away with only removing one wheel so perhaps the Jim method is worth a try. Best wishes' John

The good news is that I've heard that the replacement skew cut gear is on its way from the Northern to Southern hemispheres so I now have to think about getting the old one off. Unfortunately the size of the drive wheels means that they slightly cover the end of the shaft on which the gear is situated so it looks as if I'll have to remove the wheels first. They were fitted using one of the Association wheel quartering tools so are a tight fit on the muffs. I fear that any attempt to pull the wheels off will either damage the wheels of even worse, distort the frames so I'm after some guidance please. Many other threads and articles that I've read make reference to using a soldering iron to melt the muffs. This sounds fine in theory put could I ask for some detailed "how to" in practice notes from those who have done it. There will be very little of the muff accessable as it contains a spur gear on it. Does the muff have to be completely melted away or does heat allow the wheel to loosen within it? I'd like to get some advice before I take a hot iron anywhere near what is currently a smoothly working chassis. Thanks very much John

Thanks Andy - I'll contact Tony Best wishes John

Hi Everyone I hope Paul won't mind me high jacking his thread but since we are both building this chassis kit it seems to make sense to share questions and problems. When I wrote the last post, I thought everything was going smoothly but after this morning I'm seriously beginning to doubt my sanity. I fitted the worm and motor but when adding power the running was really noisy and the worm seemed to be vibrating badly, sort of moving backwards and forwards. I looked at the skew cut gear and eventually compared it to the ones I had used on a couple of David Eveleigh 45xx chassis. Looking at it edge on, the teeth angle down from top left to bottom right (whichever way round or whichever way up you look at the chassis, it will always be the same). Looking at the other gears I had used, they are all angled down from top right to bottom left. The gear came from set 3-364. Is it possible that a batch has been received that are cut sort of back to front - or as I mentioned earlier, am I going insane? Thanks John

Hi Paul I'm in a similar situation to yourself - part way through building this chassis kit. I've progressed a bit further and have got the chassis rolling quite nicely with the coupling rods temporarily held in place - next I need to add the motor. I'm also a bit of a beginner as far as loco chassis are concerned and I remember a couple of weeks ago I had the same problem as you with the width of the pcb. I got round it by adding small pieces of spare etch to the inside of the frames where the spacers go - a bit fiddly but it seemed to work - it saved having to order a different width of pcb and wait for it to be mailed to Australia. If you want to exchange emails directly as we progress with this kit, please feel free to email me directly (or via this topic). Best wishes John

Nice clear pictures thanks Jerry I have done something similar when I wanted them fixed permanently - I was just thinking it might be useful to be able to remove them if something went wrong with the wheels, hence my question about the method that is suggested in the kit instructions John

Thanks Nigel and others for your suggestions. I'll have a go over the weekend at adding the extra pickups to all 6 wheels and see how it goes. Rail top scrapers might be an additional option. One other question I have is about the methods of fixing the breaks. The instructions (yes, I have read them several times) talk about either permanet fixing or a removeable method but I can't for the life of me work out how the removeable method is done. There is mention of having the cross wires go all the way across the chassis but how do you avoid shorting? Thanks John

Thanks Chris I have now noticed one more hole near the spur gear axle which would be for a simpson spring on the centre wheels so I can see that there is provision for springing everywhere. This in theory would allow springing of all wheels. Is this considered best practice? I notice a bit of different thinking when reading posts on this site. For example, in his Jubilee video's Nick Mitchell does not spring the driven axle whereas Chris suggest in an earlier post on this thread that he would spring only the centre axle or all three on an 0-6-0 but not just the outer ones so as to prevent rocking. So for an 0-4-2 what would the experienced chassis builders recommend? Is there any issue with springing non driven trailing axles? Would friction from the springs have any impact on whether they rotate properly? I'm tempted to open out to 1.6mm and to add springs to all wheels but will wait to hear the considered opinions of the experts please. Best wishes John

I've just started a replacement chassis for the 14xx using the Association etch and parts. I am hoping someone (Chris maybe) can clarify the intention / recommendation re Simpson springs, in particular, which wheels are intended to be sprung. On the diagram for the chassis, a hole equidistant between the two pairs of driving wheels is marked for Simpson springs - is this intended to be used for the front wheels? What about any of the other wheels? No other hole seems to be marked for use in fitting these springs. I also notice a hole etched quite high up at the rear of the chassis - what is this for please - is it pehaps for springing the rear trailing wheels? Thanks for any help you can give. Best wishes John

Another possible source for post wire for our small scale is dolls hair. I used this for GWR post and wire fencing on Tavistock, having liberated some from a dark haired doll that my daughter was throwing out many years ago. Its probably nylon or similar and slightly stretchy. I set up a jig a bit like you Ian and glued it to the posts with super glue. The end posts for each batch were metal so that they could take the strain and keep the wires stretched out and intermediate posts were plastic. The results are visible in some of the pictures in my gallery on this site. Best wishes John

Thanks for your clarifications Simon and David. If 2-375 is to N scale, I assume the 10' wheel base will come out at 20.6mm instead of 20mm. If I could live with that difference and maybe shorten each end a bit, could this etch be used for the Association's van kit or will there be other dimentional inaccuracies? Thanks John

Re the LMS vans, are these the ones described as from the N Scale Society? If so, would they come out over wide and high compared to the 2mm Association kits ie look out of place in the same train? Thanks John