Iain Popplewell

If I remember rightly giant bananas have already been mentioned on this thread.Something to do with Jidenco kits and power boats if I recall. I don't buy Model Rail very often, but I might get next months if Allan's revealing all, but it has to be said I tend to think that Model Rail tend to over-do the photoshopping enhancement, to the extent that you can't always be sure that what you're seeing is actually real.

Lovely modelling.Laughed at your layout tag."Industrial scabbiness"

OH NO! life won't be the same without you around.Hope you'll still pop in from time to time at least.Suffice to say your modelling has been,and I probably speak for all who have participated in this thread,an absolute inspiration and so informative.Crikey I'm sure we'll all miss you.With the possible exception of Allan of course!! No you've got to stay, who'll keep Allan in check now he'll be the undisputed king and absolutely impossible. All the best for the future and keep them oil-rigs coming. Iain.

This thread just gets better and better.Allan you're just showing of know stop this at once. Actually don't stop.This building has the makings of being a classic, I'm intrigued to see how it turns out.

Hi Tony, The photo you posted showing how you eliminated the vertical movement of the valve spindles is also excellent for showing the amount of for want of a better word "slop" to leave between the frames,wheels and connecting rods.For a beginner to etched kits like myself a picture like this is worth more than a thousand words,it's just the sort of thing that makes RMWEB so useful. I'd also like to thank you for your Wright Stuff making locomotive kits videos,together with Iain Rice's two books these are my bibles when it comes to kit making.I say several complimentary things about them in my layout link below.Your videos are well worth buying, if for no other reason than they taught me how to solder!

My favourite is the first.When I first saw this I spotted the blue sky and fluffy clouds and immediately thought,"Oh he's had PeterKern photoshop the whole shebang."It was only when I looked at the other images that I realised that, "Oh my God these pictures are for real!" 3584 posts and this thread still has the capacity to amaze me.The most impressive thing is how little time it's taken Allan to put it all together and not a nail-head in sight.The ornamental barge-boards and roof ridge set off the signal box perfectly,love it all. PS. I forgot to thank Allan for the tip on how to use the page up/down and arrow buttons on my computer keyboard.I'm now whizzing around the internet like Mr Mchenry whizzes around the magic roundabout.Brilliant stuff.

Fantastic Lee, if you can manage to survive the risk of lacerations,burns,electrocution and lead poisoning,let us all know how you get on.Hope to hear from you soon.Be careful,very careful. It was nice knowing you. Iain.

It's a fact that you may regret one careless mistake for the rest of your life,however on a more optimistic note, if the mistake is serious enough that may not be very long.

Crikey Lee,when I said I couldn't wait to see what you'll do next,I certainly didn't expect you to attempt to blind yourself and end up in hospital! Lucky escape if you ask me,cutting discs are absolutely deadly in this respect.I've just been playing about with cellelose thinners this weekend I didn't wear gloves and now have some very dry looking skin on my finger ends. So it's a trip to Tool Mart to buy myself some gloves and an organic solvent safety mask today.As an ex-medical biochemist I really should have appreciated the hazard cellelose thinners present.

Freebs you have astounded me! To think you were fretting over wiring the layout,(something that's relatively straight forward) and then you go and plunge into making up your own hand-made diamond crossings.Brilliant stuff, I can't wait to see what you do next!

I like the new plan Lee.Certainly plenty of play potential and you can easily run four trains at one time.Crikey I'd have killed for a layout like this when I was a kid.Your sons a lucky child.I think the plans really good and your station and goods shed should fit.

I wouldn't worry too much about the wiring Lee what you need to do isn't very complicated and I suspect there's enough of an RMWEB "Brains Trust" to simply talk you through this project step by step.(Track-feed by insulating rail joiner)

Crikey Shaun I thought I was doing well when I used one of the built in switches on my Tortoise point motors to switch frog polarity.The point is,(no pun intended)I'm not really interested in electrical wiring beyond a certain point and as long as it works and works well that'll do for me,although I must admit there is a lot of pleasure to be gained when you pull-off a clever wiring stunt and it works.I can remember my euphoria when I finally managed to solder my first din plug and I've almost forgotten my tearful despair at my first three disastrous attempts.

OK Lee.Firstly common return wiring,(lets forget cab control for the moment you can add that later). You've already wired your two track ovals to presumably two of your four controllers.What you now need to do is pick one rail of your track to be your common return rail.Lets say the rail towards the centre of the layout,the innermost rail of every piece of track on the layout.What you need to ensure then is that all power connecting wires from this rail come back to one common connection near to your controllers (a screw connecting block is quite handy for this).All the returning wires are fixed into one connection.From this connection run wires to the left wiring terminal of each controller.You now have a common return. The wire from the right hand terminal of each your controllers then goes to the specific section of track you want to control from that controller and should always join to the outermost ie the other rail to the one we designated as our common return rail. That's all there is to it and you might say, why bother? well there's a couple of good reasons why; In practise the common return wires of any number of track sections don't all have to go into one connection close to the controllers, they can connect with each other at any-part of the layout provided one common return wire is eventually wired into the left hand side of all the controller outlets.This saves wire and inter-baseboard connections. More importantly should you at some future date intend to adopt "cab control" it's then possible to wire the non common return track feed wires,the wires from the right hand terminals in the example above via single pole multi position switches to allow controllers to control any track section.This is easy to do. All the above is explained probably more clearly than I can in the afore mentioned Peco booklets.

Hi Freebs. Nice to see some progress on the layout.Looks like your lad is keen to see some progress! With regard to wiring and section breaks Coachman is correct,(as always).Insulfrog diamond will be much simpler and probably recommended.For a good simple guide to wiring you can't do better than the Peco Shows you how booklets Wiring The Layout Parts 1,2 &3.You'll need booklets 1&2 for what you intend to do and booklet 3 if you go live frog diamond. Personally I'd recommend you go for common return wiring and Cab control.Although this may sound daunting it's actually not that much more difficult to do than wiring each controller to one track section and operationally it's far better.Each controller upto four in your case can then be switched to any no. of sections indeed to all sections if needs be.Your lad will appreciate this no doubt, don't worry about him learning the switches he'll do that in no time in fact he'll probably love it. You'll probably end up with a control panel looking something like this: Each coloured big knob controls one section and selects any one of in my case three controllers.Switch all knobs to one controller and you can drive a train any where on the layout your lad'll love this no doubt.I know I do! Four or more sections on a layout with four controllers means you can drive upto four trains at any one time. The brown knob in photo is set to controller 1 ie left controller.Blue knob no 2 ie centre controller.Red no.3 ie.right controller.Green and Yellow to position 4 ie no controller at all,this is useful for leaving an engine isolated within a section without using an isolating switch. The Peco booklet no.2 gives a working wiring diagram for three controllers wired into a double oval circuit with a branch.This equates exactly with your circuits and goods yard.So it should be dead easy to do. If you want send me a PM with an address I can post to and I'll send you the requisite booklets I don't need mine now. PS.I think you need a crossover between your two track ovals possibly on the fiddle yard side if only to increase the "play" value of the layout for your lad.

Thanks for the recommendation Bill,but unfortunately I've already ordered myself a Badger 155 which some people recommended and used.I did look at the Aztec but was a bit put off by it's looks and as you say no one seems to have a good word to say for it, many claiming it was gimmicky.If I'd known you recommended it and Martyn Welsh uses one I might well have bought one the ability to change nozzles seems to be very useful.

Thanks Allan. You know I've never really looked before but there's page up and down buttons all over my computer although the buttons with no's on you need to turn of the number lock to use them.There's even two sets of up down left right like you get on a TV remote.I've always used the mouse to scroll up and down the side bar previously.Think the buttons might be better.I bet Freebs is laughing his socks off at this posting.

You know how it is your happily half way through reading this thread when the missus tells you to get of your backside and do some work so you have to come of the computer and when you eventually do get back on RMWEB you have to page through dozens of pages to get to where you left off and its such a pain.Now I know those in the know will all groan when I tell you this but you don't need to do this,you just double left click on the bit at the beginning of the thread that says "page1 of 137"and you can simply go to the page you want.Brilliant or what! It's only taken me over 2 years to find this out.But now nobody can call me a computer numpty now. Mr Know It All. Iain. Edit:Oh shxt I've just realised you don't even have to click at the beginning of the thread you can click on page137 of 137 if you like.Oh my god the time I've wasted over the last two years scrolling through pages.Why was I even born!

Thanks Iain. As a returnee to the modelling world my only experience of model painting is brushed enamels,but as you might have gathered I've just in the process of trying to get to grips with airbrushing.Acrylic inks sound pretty good for weathering. If you need to can you wash them off with water before they have dried? I've never actually used acrylic paints, some people don't advise spraying them and yet others swear by them all very confusing.I am playing around with enamels at the moment.Better the devil you know. As my previous modelling was a frightening four decades ago,when Allan was the main man and you had yet to put in an appearance on the modelling stage, I still think of you as the young pretender,although obviously by now you must be yonks old.Aren't we all,how did that happen?

You seem to have misread my last posting Dr Gerbil-fritters, I clearly referred to the nice Mr Robinson as a young upstart and not an odd aerosol.I can only hope that your posting has not led to any distress being caused to Mr Robinson.I really must caution you to be more circumspect in your future postings,I have found in the past that one can so easily give offence where none was intended.

Hi Allan Sorry to go off topic and change the subject from the state of your mental health,let's face it if you're barmy you're barmy,the men in white coats have been trying to cure me for years.What I'd like to ask is have you any views on the use of airbrushes in modelling.Do you use one and if you do have you got any tips.I don't recall you ever mentioning the use of one, though I know you use the odd aerosol can. Do you think that young upstart Robinson uses one? I don't recall him ever mentioning he does.

Oh Dear, it's as bad as I thought, my worst fears are confirmed.Allan's lost it.

Oh how a true artist suffers for his art.Renoir and Monet must have suffered in just the same manner.Not to mention poor old Vincent Van Gogh. Poor Allan, lets hope he doesn't cut his ear off with the afore mentioned Stanley knife.

Hi Dave. I have just reached the stage of painting my first etched kit, (NER Class P) and the Clostermann primer tip will come in very useful,thanks for that. There is a lot of loose talk on RMWEB about things being inspirational, but let me say this Dean Goods model is inspirational. In the unlikely event that I ever mature into a proper modeller and produce a model as good as this, I will die a contented and happy man. You have every right to be pleased with this model it is truly beautiful.

And by the 70's non of them did.A lot of us on RMWEB, myself included, have still to get over it. I once asked my father, "What did you do in the swinging sixties?" He grumpily replied, " I got married son."