Iain Popplewell

Larry, you are very naughty and guilty of showing initiative and other traits not available to most people today. This approach has no place in today's "why doesn't someone make a?" society. Where would we be if people started doing things for themselves? Jol Where would we be if people started doing things for themselves Jol, probably at Scalefour North in a couple of weeks time. Plenty of people there who do stuff for themselves and they are not all as old as the hills some of em are young. Plenty of life still in the real modelling make it yourself school if you ask me.

Graphite pencils dodge sounds really good Mike. Am I right to think soft B grade is best.

Thanks for those pics Corbs. I have to congratulate the maker/makers? of Aldbourne isn't it just lovely and so perfectly executed. I just love it. Anyone know the details of who the maker/makers are? Edit: Adrian Ponting made it I've subsequently discovered. I wonder it he's a Rmwebber. If you read this Adrian drop us a few pics on this thread I'm sure they will be appreciated.

Thanks for the Ambergate link Jol. Certainly will be a big P4 layout when it's finished I wasn't aware of it. One posting by Tony Mont caught my eye, commenting on his target to re-guage one track circuit around the entire room he says ,"Track layed 4 days to spare thanks to help by a number of S4 members and several others of various 4mm disciplines." It seems to me that this statement puts to bed a lot of "urban myths". P4 modellers aren't so horrible that they shun everyone else and are not shunned by everyone else either. It also proves that it's not just "P4 modellers" that are capable of laying P4 track. Incidentally I noticed that the loco's romped up and down 1:50 gradients once the circuit was in place, P4 trains can go up and down gradients too, amazing! Apparently some modellers at least can peacefully co-exist. Modellers of the world unite you've nothing to lose but your chains. Edit: In referring to chains in no way was I referring to 3-link chain couplings, couplings are far too contentious an issue, let's not even go there.

Every now and then you come across a photo on Rmweb that just blows you away. I agree uax6, Nile's just done it again with that boiler bottom. Unbelievable stuff. When he remounted the motor that can't have been easy either.

A cautionary tale. I've just got to tell you this; We've got a wood burning stove and I'd just lit the thing before sitting down to compose my above brilliant full of incite posting. I'd allowed myself 10mins before breaking off and turning down the air regulators on the stove but got engrossed in what I was typing. After 20mins I suddenly realised that shxt I'd left the stove on, and I rushed into the living room to find the stove blazing away and well on it's way to meltdown. There was a knock at the door and I thought just blxxdy typical the postman arrives now! he'll just have to wait whilst I turn this stove down. I turned down the stove and hurried to the door to find the blxxdy firebrigade had arrived. One of the neighbours having phoned them because of the large amount of smoke coming out of my chimney. Why the hell didn't the neighbour just knock on my door and tell me, or at least knock on my door once they had dialled 999. Very embarrassing. Why does it always happen to me? Edit: Thanks for the sympathy Jamie you are a true friend. God I'm such an idiot.

Quote from my posting of yesterday about how I feel about finishing my first etched kit. I think it about sums up my attitude to what constitutes real proper modelling, whether you would term this attitude finescale modelling is irrelevant. What counts is the modellers attitude and aspirations. You might think from the above post that I aspire to be a P4 modeller, ( I'm a great admirer of what they do) but I model in 00 why because my baseboards look like this: Why do they look like this? because I like curves and hills on railway layouts. The outer track has a minimum radius of 2ft so could be built as EM but I wanted a continuous run on the inner of the layout and 18inch radius was needed which pretty much rules out EM .If I'd had a bigger cellar I'd have eased the inner circuit and quite possibly used EM. Whether a layout is finescale P4 00 EM is irrelevant, there are good layouts and bad, often the judgement is in the eyes of the beholder. But any layout has to work reliably, if it doesn't the finest modelling is ruined and you've got a bad layout. If you're good enough P4 is just superb but with the best will in the world you won't get it round 18 inch curves, horses for courses. I wish more magazine articles were more aspirational and said stuff like my quote above, I feel there is a trend in magazines to stress RTR. Metcalfe buildings etc. but everyone has to start somewhere. Just a bit of encouragement to move on is needed. Proper modelling as I call it is great! whether you call it finescale or not!

Edwardian splendour it's what I like. The London Road chimney dome and safety valves are excellent and polish up nicely.( Brasso). Bit of a pain to have to keep repeatedly masking during spray painting though.(maskol)

Hi Tony, Thanks for the praise Tony it means a lot to me. Give my thanks to Rathbone when you next see him and the same goes for Iain Rice if you meet him. What a lot us modellers owe to that guy. I started on my LRM Class P kit with little hope of much success and was viewing the exercise as little more than a guinea pig test to cut my teeth on so to speak. I started with the tender chassis and after a couple of disasters ended up by making up my own spacers ala Iain Rice and when I still couldn't get the wheel axles parallel in shear desperation bought a chassis square jig just to put the bloody tender together. This must be some sort of record or something. After such an inauspicious start however the model turned out really good and I was pleasantly surprised to find that working in brass and soldering was much easier than I anticipated. This proved something of a mixed blessing however as people I'd showed her to on RMWEB said she really deserved airbrushing rather than giving her what would have been a bodged brush paint job So I bought a compressor and a Badger airbrush and a spray booth, prayed a lot and sprayed a little, and eventually with lots of maskol and Tamiya masking tape I ended up with a respectable result. I even got my hands on some ruling pens and made up some extra-decal boiler bands ala Rathbone. Then all I had to do was varnish her, more angst, more praying, more trepidation but following Rathbone's advice Florence came up lovely. I now feel that I'm now a modeller and a man. It's brilliant. I feel I could almost go to Scalefour North now and instead of creeping round on my belly in the shadows muttering "I'm not worthy I'm not worthy" as I normally do, I can swap tales of G W MODELS boiler rollers with the best of them. Mind you I've got a long way to go to equal some of the stuff you see at Scalefour North.

Hi Tony One to warm the cockles of your heart this posting. I know you're always bemoaning how modellers don't do enough kit building, well here's one modeller ie. meself, who's finally at long last finished his first etched kit. When I started the kit I hadn't even soldered two bits of brass together before. It was your two kit building videos that taught me how to solder etc. a big thankyou also due to Iain Rice for his two books on kit and chassis construction. With your video's and these two books you can't go wrong. Well you can but at least you'll know how to put it right after the cock up! What's taken the time finishing this kit has been the painting, oh when I think of the shear fear angst and trepidation. The tortured hours days weeks months I've spent thinking that the next paint stage would ruin my model. I've no confidence in my painting ability, my memory of school art classes is only one of abject failure and ridicule. To have an aerosol of primer sitting for twelve months in the garage whilst you pluck up courage to have a go must be some sort of record. Even asking girls out is less scary than painting if you ask me. But a big big thankyou to your mate Ian Rathbone his video and book on painting and lining have been my inspiration and I've finally finished my little loco. What's more I'm quite pleased with her, in fact I'm well chuffed with the way she's turned out. Would you like to see a couple of pictures of her? Meet Florence No.12 North Tees Railway. (circa 1130 am 3rd Aug 1913.) Considering I'm a beginner I'm well pleased with her and she represents a long list of firsts for me. Soldering, pickups, motors, airbrushing. transfers etc. and even scratch-building the tender cab. Just in case you're puzzled as to what Florence is, she started life as a LRM NER Class P1 kit.

As of Monday 23rd Jan. Having posted above how you can pick up drafting sets easily, out of interest I had a quick look on E-bay today. To anyone who is interested there is an excellent selection on offer today. Some sets just like mine and a Mercury set who's quality looks excellent. If you've been thinking of purchasing some pens today might be your day. He who hesitates is lost, seize the day etc!! Search for: Keuffler and Esser Drafting set.

You're right Edwardian, freelancing possibilities are really interesting and far better than mere reality. To be really convincing I feel freelance lines or stock must have at least a little basis based on reality or real history. Florence No 12 of the North Tees railway company ran at the turn of the century in the South Farne islands which are of the North East coast of Britain. Lord Ravenbeck who owns the island together with, railway, ironmines and foundry's buys his engines primarily from the North East but not exclusively so. Most engines pass through the workshops of the North Eastern railway on route to his island and all are given a livery reflecting this. Some also have Worsdell domes and boilers added etc. Florence is little altered from a standard Class P1 of the North Eastern railway from whom she was bought, but had an added unique tender cab in a Worsdell style the North Sea is a cold windy place. The livery is peculiar to the North Tees railway but having been undertaken by the paintshops of the North Eastern railway is based around their colours. Lord Ravenbeck has his fingers in many pies and is a major shareholder in the North Eastern railway and gets what he wants, mostly. Underframes North Eastern locomotive red. Main locomotive colour NER dark green. Even the North Tees insignia are in a similar style to the North Eastern railway. Lord Ravenbeck is in direct competition with the Londonderry's on the mainland and with consummate one-upmanship his loco's have to upstage their's with polished domes and brass where possible PS. In the background of the above photo's can be seen the vague outlines of some loco's still to get the Darlington paintshop treatment.

What the finished boiler bands look like. The extra decal is applied like any waterslide transfer and gives very effective bands. Incidentally if you put it on wonky, even when dry 24hrs later, rewetting can allow you to tease it straight. At least it worked for me anyway. The lining on the cabside and tender are pressfix HMRS lining and is noticeably less fine than the boiler bands. Who knows by the time I line my next loco I'll do the lining with a pen also. Having experimented with this however I think brushing in panel corners is going to prove the bigger problem than ruling the lines. (Advice on this gladly accepted) In making this posting I wanted to stress the point that looking up drafting sets is the way to find good ruling pens and compasses on the internet. They seem to be reasonably common second hand and for about £50 with a bit of judgement you get all the drawing and measuring equipment you need for laying out and ruling lines. You also get an excellent set of drawing equipment dividers etc. For people like me who's chance of mastering CAD is zero this is excellent value for money. Ps. I didn't mention the sets compasses which worked pretty much as they came without any honing. I used them to (edge-line) the wheel treads. Again a bit rough but better than using a brush in my hands. More practice needed. Edit: To change HMRC lining to HMRS lining I can almost hear the sound of the approaching lynch mob almost a fatal typo there.

Encouraged by my lining so far a bit rough I admit, but I am a total beginner I decided to line with white gloss either side of black lines. Result NER. style boiler bands. Very rough and not too consistent boiler bands I admit. I feel slow consistent and smooth practised movement of the pen is the key. To achieve these results is not difficult. I then scored either side of the ruled lines to make the boiler band transfers. If you score close to the line this serves to further tidy up any roughness to the outer lines. Pick the best cleanest bits of line for use obviously.

Next thing was to find out if the pens worked. So I spayed up some Extra Decal waterslide decal paper with gloss green paint. (Hannants sell this amongst others.) If you look in the earlier post you'll see next to the drafting set, green decal paper covered in mad lines and circles looking much like the cloud chamber of some atom smashing experiment. These are my first earlier experiments with the pens immediately after cleaning. I decided I needed more practice and a little pen honing. Initially I honed the pens using 1200 wet and dry paper as recommended in this thread and by Coachman Rathbone etal. However only when I got some finer 2000 grade "Crocus paper" from Meadows and Passmore ltd. clockmaker suppliers did I achieve a lovely smooth tip.(www.m-p.co.uk) Ps. Passmores send you a free catalogue with you're order for paper that has loads of interesting stuff with modelling uses. After a little practice and honing. Earlier atom smashing experiment to left upper. As mentioned by others in this thread the paint needs to be fairly thick so as to slowly flow to the tip of the pen. Too thin and it runs, too thick and it doesn't flow.

Most but not all sets appear to be for sale in America and $50 Dollars seems an average price for a decent set. Before Brexit $50 was about £32 and expect to pay £18 for postage. I bought the above set of e-bay and from appearances thought it was possibly made of that strange alloy that was common in lab equipment in the 1950's but reckoned that the steel drawing tips looked good and should prove serviceable. However after cleaning; What I'd bought was of excellent quality and made of what looks to my eyes high quality steel. I cleaned them up using good old Brasso for general cleaning. I avoided polishing the inside faces of the pens. The drawing ink that had dried on the tips many years earlier, after some experimentation I removed with Boiling water and I mean boiling water with Fairy liquid added. (Decades old dried ink is impervious to removal by white spirit and even cellulose thinners.) I found these cotton buds handy for getting into the tips and dislodging loosened ink.

Great thread this and I just thought I'd add my tuppence worth to it. Getting hold of ruling pens seems to be a bigger problem than even using one. The Haff pens website I found impenetrable and should be given a Kaisers Kings award for poor website construction. Thanks to Buck Jumpers earlier posting about buying a Keuffler and Esser pen from Haff, when the Ian Rathbone recommended pen was unavailable. I tried looking up Kueffler and Esser on the web. This was lucky as previously trying to find ruling pens on-line had proved disappointing. However I stumbled across the magic term Drafting Set. Typing in Kueffler and Esser Drafting Set turned up several complete sets of drawing equipment. As seen on e-bay. (This is the set I purchased. Pay Pal in dollars.)

Florence is the first etched kit I've ever assembled. In fact when I started out I'd never even soldered together two pieces of brass. Ask me if I'm pleased with her.

It's me Iainp here again remember me? Yes it was me who started this thread over four years ago to extoll the virtues of freelancing. I know what you're all thinking it's alright me pontificating about what a great idea it is, but where the Hell is any evidence of me actually doing any modelling. Good point you're quite right! So to address this point I now present my latest model loco, in fact my first actual modelling of anything, if you discount baseboards and track, since 1976. Meet North Tees No. 12 the first North Tees locomotive to run in the South Farne Islands since 1915.All North Tees locomotives carried names and Florence was named after a particularly favourite cat of Lady Ravenbeck.

Just to say brilliant service from Chris sent order in by email and card details by phone last week. Chris replied he was waiting for gear supplies but would send out this week. Gear boxes and Mashima motors arrived today. In the runup to Christmas I consider this excellent service. Well done lad.

Thanks for pointing out the thread Nearholmer looks good. Another one well worth a look for freelancers is" Nile's mostly freelance bodging bench" inspirational and instructional. In fact useful for anyone contemplating a bit of RTR. engine and stock bashing.

Bit embarrassing that Phil. Many years ago myself and my father walked the West Highland way.Several days into the walk we were traversing what should have been one of our easiest days of walking, a mere eight miles across the moor to Crianlarich. Unfortunately for me for the first and hopefully last time in my life I was afflicted by a bad case of piles. It was a scorching hot day and with sweat trickling down my back as I winced along my agony can well be imagined.After the longest four miles of my life and in the middle of nowhere we came to a wooden bridge over a shallow gorge in which flowed a babbling stream. Luckily for me my father had been a medic during his national service and was well versed in treatment for my aforesaid affliction and suggested I douse and cool my backside in the stream. In my desperation I quickly removed my boots and stripped down from the waist I picked my way into the centre of the stream and squatted down.As the ice cold mountain water closed over my rear I can only state that my feeling of relief was considerable.Believe you me it has to be experienced to truly know what I mean. My elation was quenched however when I was distracted by the sound of loud laughter and quickly glancing up the hillside I saw my father rolling around in a virtual paroxysm of mirth. Looking up to the bridge above me I was greeted by the horrendous sight of a pack of five girl guides gazing down upon me from the balustrade of the bridge!! My father had some how contrived to fail to warn me of their approach. A bit embarrassing you might say.

A cynic might say this is because they never finish a job before starting another. When I consider the number of part completed modelling projects I'm responsible for however I'm forced to concede this may not be just a female trait. Another thing females are better at is communication, allegedly. I don't know about you but I endeavour to please my loved one in all I say and do.(She's a third Dan blackbelt in Tia Kwon Do so I've got a strong reason to do so.) But I'm always getting it wrong. If females are so good at communication why the hell don't they tell us what the hell they really want! Or is it that being male I'm just too poor at communication to understand what she's telling me? (Of course that's it, I KNEW IT WOULD BE MY FAULT it always is.)