Nick Mitchell

Hi Jim, It is a "Sincere" Geneva pattern 8mm watcmaker's lathe from China. I've had it about 10 years, though they are still readily available alongside a whole bunch of accessories on eBay. The threads of the collets are metric rather than WW, but a WW threaded drawbar is available to use with other fittings. The basic model is around £700, but other packages with various accessories included come and go from time to time. I believe it is a rough-finished out of the back door of the factory version of the Vector lathe, which retails for several times the price. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1Set-Brand-New-Watchmakers-Precision-Lathe-Basic-Machine-New-Free-Shipping/362479888571?hash=item54657c28bb:g:pv0AAOSw~vNb4UgX

Well I learnt from you Nigel, so I guess I have Mike to thank as well! A couple of years ago I posted this video showing the process of making a dome using my watchmakers lathe: https://youtu.be/l4u1OauT-u0

Hello Nigel, I'm interested in your experiments and observations, having recently bought a set of this lining to apply to my Jubilee later this year (he says, optimistically!). I also have a brace of Fence Houses / Association '5's to build... It all looks fiendishly difficult to get lined up - I'm impressed with what you have achieved. Did you apply the tender and cab-side panels in one piece, or separate sections? Of necessity the lining is over-scale, and I think that weathering will knock back the starkness of it and in the process disguise any slight imperfections. I might even be tempted to try weathering a sample (not on the loco) in the same black you painted it in, to see if it will make the lining "disappear" a bit? One thing that does stand out to me is how low the top curve comes down at the back of the tender. I thought the vertical section at the rear of the tender should be much closer in height to the vertical section at the front? Nick.

I doubt it would be the muffs catching, as there shouldn't be anything for them to catch on. Perhaps the spur gear on the driven axle is catching on the side of the worm wheel? If you have a bit of side-play in either the driven axle or the intermediate gear axle, that could explain why it only catches when you rest the chassis on one side. Occasionally I have found it necessary to thin gears to avoid this sort of thing happening. (mount gear on muff, mount muff in drill and use a file?) Have you checked there are no burrs on the edges of the gear teeth that could be catching? You could try putting marker pen on the edge of the gears to see if it rubs away in a particular place. Some people lap the gears if there are rough spots by running them with toothpaste (or more drastically kitchen cream cleaner) to slightly abrade and polish the mating surfaces. If you do this, you need to be careful to clean away every last trace afterwards otherwise you will see accelerated wear. It sounds like you have a more than a rough spot though.

Take one "unbuildable" Jidenco wagon kit, photographically reduce it to 2mm scale, and "hey presto" - it is even more difficult to build... but not impossible! The only components I couldn't use from the kit were some of the brake parts.

It depends on how the shaft is supported elsewhere. There are big brass bearings at either end of the motor, and they ought to be more than enough unless the motor shaft is made of rubber. I have built a loco with a similarly arranged bearing at the end of the worm. (Association Class 11 diesel shunter kit) It has a Maxon coreless motor screwed into a mounting ring at the other end of the worm. The idea was that the motor (with worm attached) should be removable. Unfortunately, screwing the motor in tight upset the alignment and made the shaft jam in the bearing. The way I solved the problem was to unscrew the motor 1/4 turn, smear Araldite round the edge of the fixing ring, and suspend the chassis verticlly with the motor running for half an hour while the Araldite cured. An alternative approach in William's situation would be to fix the motor firmly in place, and then melt the solder on the bearing so that it aligns naturally to the orientation of the shaft. Having built locos both ways, I am happy that both ways can be made to work fine, but experience says the bearing can be an added and unnecessary complication. If the worm won't mesh reliably with the motor, either the worm bore is not concentric (not unknown!), the gear wheel is not concentric (not unknown!), the motor shaft is bent (highly unlikely), or the motor is able to move relative to the gear (???). The presence of the bearing will not mitigate any of these issues. Another advantage of ditching the bearing is that you can use a worm with the right size bore for the motor shaft. This is more likely to make the worm run concentrically than gluing a loose sleeve onto the motor shaft. Nick.

Personally, I would ditch the bearing altogether. The motor you are using has chunky brass bearings, and with the worm being that close to the motor shouldn't need additional support at the other end. Unless you get it absolutely perfectly aligned, that bearing will always be a source of additional friction. It may even stop the motor turning altogether. As Jim suggested, move the motor as close to the gear as you can. Use packing pieces to get the motor to the right height so the worm meshes nicely, then epoxy it to the chassis... like this:

Hi Jim, Planked floor. I conducted a similar search for an interior view just a couple of weeks ago, and came across this on Paul Bartlett's site: https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/grampuszbv/h3e98ef9c See the recent post in my Wagonologie thread to see how I did the floors in my Stephen Harris Grampus kits (which have the plank lines etched): Nick.

Let me shine a ray of light through some of this gloom. I have 2 boys aged 7 and 10, and they love to make things. They have a Lego train set, and the other day I found them playing with paper models they'd made for themselves and taped to the Lego wheels. Encouraged by this I bought some Dapol plastic wagon kits for them to have a go with. Obviously they needed some help, but the enjoyment they got from both building and running their own models was far greater than getting something ready made and perfect out of a box. I live in hope that this attitude will stay with them as they grow up. I think that some of the shows where there are places for kids to have a go at some actual modelling are really on to something. Maybe these sessions should be extended to adults as well, to show complete beginners some basic skills? I bet they'd be popular. My own early attempts at making models were very crude, and I do remember as a 20-something being frustrated with kit instructions that assumed you knew the "how" part of the "what" they were trying to get you to do. The light dawned talking to a trader at York show one year, who explained to me what flux was for, and how to approach soldering two pieces of brass tube together. I found myself going back through old model railway magazines that I'd saved from my teenage years, re-reading the kit construction articles that I'd skimmed over years earlier, with a new-found understanding. I really only started to develop any actual skills once I'd been persuaded to join the 2mm Scale Association and began attending an area group where I could see how other people were doing things. That's one of the reasons I made my epic series of videos (see link in my signature below) to let others watch (warts and all) in "real time" how I go about things. Whether or not people choose to buy RTR models is up to them, but there is a whole world of fun to be had in making and modifying things for yourself... people just need to be encouraged / brave enough to get stuck in and have a go.

No fleas were harmed in the production of the injector pipework! My soldering iron is an Antex TC-660. For most 2mm work I use a 1mm chisel tip. The secret to soldering this small stuff neatly is to find a way of holding the parts firmly, and controlling the amount of solder you put on. I take thin salami slices off the end of a reel of electrical solder with my scalpel, but several of my friends are now using solder balls to achieve the same end. The bodies of the injectors etc. are brass (turned and filed to shape), and I drilled little holes in them to locate the copper "pipes" so they didn't move while soldering took place. The aspect I found most difficult was soldering all the little flanges so they remained perpendicular to the pipes. Here are a few of pictures of various bits of pipework "in the raw" so you can see how much solder there is(n't). Live steam injector: Exhaust steam injector: Injectors installed on the loco with the beginnings of the water feed valves, and the steam valves on the side of the firebox: Round the other side is the vacuum ejector, ATC valve and boiler feed/clack valve: Further back are the ejector control valves (the outline for the body of which was etched, and is the only "cheat" in the pipework) and on top of the firebox the manifold and whistle:

I apologise profusely for my solecism Tony - the only hint of an excuse I can offer is the lateness of the hour. My OP has now been corrected! The little chap who was driving 92008 on Saturday is still in hospital, but is making good progress and should return to footplate duties soon. His wife tells me he lost his left leg and buttock some time ago whilst trying to stand up in a hammock during a storm... Yes, you are welcome to use my video for BRM. The other 9F was built by Keith Gloster (whose parcel vans won the Dreadnought Tropy). I didn't envy your task of having to choose between any of the locos on the competition table. Regards, Nick.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the AGM competition has been discussed on Tony Wright's thread. I posted a link to the following video there, but I thought I'd share it here as well. (Apologies if you get the link twice!) It's just a little sequence showing off my 9F (now it is finally and completely finished) doing a spot of shunting.

This evening I've made a little film showing off my 9F shuffling a few engineers' wagons on a small shunting layout called Clive Road Sidings, while doing its party trick with the reversing gear. The loco is built from the Bob Jones (Fence Houses Model Foundry) kit, with a few little additions of my own. The layout was built many years ago by Mark Fielder, and is now my test track. The wagons (which were also on the competition table at STEAM) are all built from Stephen Harris etched kits.

OK, so I'm replying to myself here, but it is actually an encounter with Simon Grand and Tim Watson after the 2mm AGM yesterday that this is really a response to! Simon casually dropped into the conversation his surprise that I could live with the aforementioned unsightly lump under the smokebox door. Well, of course, as soon as he's said it, I realised that I can't - but what to do about it? It was while I was blanching at the suggestion of cutting the whole front end off(!!!) that Tim chipped in with inspirational tales of how he'd once made a Midland compound out of a PECO Jubilee back in the days when the only options for making anything were to scratch-build or convert a Jubilee. I suspect there wasn't much Jubilee left by the time Tim had finished with his. Anyway, I was left feeling that if you can turn a PECO body into anything, the very least I ought to attempt would be to turn this one into something that looks like a Jubilee. I didn't follow Simon's radical solution, but with a few carefully aimed holes made with a 0.8mm drill, followed by some carving and filing, the offending lump was gone. I've filled in the gap with 0.010" plastic card, and it now has a proper "chin". I've also filled in the gaps between the separate smokebox saddles to represent the later single piece type that all the Jubilees had by the late 40s. I may or may not attempt to add the ribs along the sides and front of the saddle. Better to have them missing altogether than end up with ones either overscale or the wrong shape.... Thank you Simon for your timely intervention. It looks a million times better already:

Also check with a straight edge that the holes in the coupling rods are still in line. They can sometimes get bent out of true. Nick.

My first Gannet (I now have 2 more to build) is finally finished and weathered. Alas, in this very cruel enlargement, the transfer carrier film is visible and the bottom doors that took so long to make are invisible. I bought a sheet of Fox transfers for the word GANNET (couldn't identify a CCT sheet with it on), but didn't use it in the end. I was disappointed by the quality (not very fine) which is a first for me from Fox. In the end I fell back on an ancient sheet of Woodhead transfers - the ones where the printing is reversed and you stick it down face first then peel the paper off and hope for the best. The lettering was white, and has been coloured with a felt tip pen, before attempting to blend it is with weathering. The "London Midland Region" legend comes from a sheet of Modelmaster transfers I had in the box. The other markings are CCT. I've gone for a rusty interior for now. It'll get a load of ballast one day. While I had the airbrush out, the trio of Grampus wagons have also been weathered lightly. The Sturgeon A has also received the weathering treatment inside and out. This time I did use the Fox lettering. It was so fat there wasn't room for the "A" after STURGEON. The running number below (Modelmaster) is much finer and sharper. How I wish I had bought the CCT Sturgeon A pack rather than using what I already had. From the proverbial normal viewing distance, it will probably not look too bad. The steel floor is another shade of rust. This brute is so long I wasn't able to get the whole length of it in focus. Incidentally, the couplings on this wagon are the "locomotive" version of Electras. They are soldered to the bogies. There wasn't an east way to fit the normal rotating kind, to I'll need a barrier wagon to be able to shunt it.

"Peep Peep! I'm heading off to the 2mm Association AGM in Swindon..."

I've been experimenting painting "wood" coloured open wagon floors. Below is a Grampus, before any weathering takes place. I'm going for a fairly new, clean look for the floor as a starting point. I imagine the insides of these wagons would have got pretty grim quite quickly. Being etched, the plank lines are fairly wide, and it would be easy to make it look silly. The floor painting was done with Lifecolor acrylics, brushed on, as illustrated in the next photo. This was done on top of the satin black body colour which had been sprayed. Stage 1 was a new wood beige colour, only slightly thinned. In the photo one coat has been put on, but it needed two. Stage 2 was a wash with a much darker brown to highlight the plank lines and stain the planking. Stage 3 was a very dilute wash of an almost white colour, like a filter, to take away most of the plank lines again, and age the wood. I've tried replicating the same effect (with a much smaller paint brush) on the sides of a Sturgeon A (another Stephen Harris masterpiece) which I desperately want to complete before the Revolution N Gauge ones are released! Again, this is a base for further weathering. The dark brown wash helps enormously in making it look like I've painted neatly up to the lines... though there are one or two spots where it looks as though I haven't been so careful. I need to steady my hand and steel myself to do the other side and the insides now. Any suggestions for improvement will be gratefully received!

Well, the promised several months have elapsed, and my thoughts have turned back to the Jubilee. Over the last few days it has been a case of taking the body back so only the good bits remain. Now I have the challenge of putting the details back again in the right places. The model is going to be a short firebox (a.k.a. straight throatplate) example, as modified with steam dome and separate top-feed, and single smokebox saddle. The first photo shows the body shorn of incorrectly positioned dome, topfeed, boiler bands and whistle. Also removed for replacement are moulded on details: handrail and ejector/pipework, reversing reach rod. I had to glue the cab back on as the footplate at the rear was in danger of snapping off... I've already put the original chimney back on, having scraped the underside to thin the rather chunky flare and at the same time correct the subtle lean to the left it had. I've tried to get rid of the prominent join between the top and bottom halves of the chimney. Also at the front end, I've been removing spurious rivets from the smokebox front ring, and the moulded on handrail and smokebox dart. The buffer heads have been reshaped (they were almost hemispherical) and a replacement dome and topfeed are correctly positioned. These latter are association castings. Something I don't think I will be able to tackle is the filled-in area under the smokebox door. It ought the be further recessed to the saddle, but I will have to live with it. Maybe a pile of ash under the smokebox door will be able to disguise it. The tender hasn't escaped attention, with all the rivet detail having gone. I've made an attempt to thin the sides at the front and rear so the visible edges are a consistent, nearer to scale, width. It looks horrendous on this very cruel photo, but I'm hoping once painted, the eye will be deceived. Finally, I've started adding detail back. The 5 washout plugs on the RHS of the firebox have been filled, and 6 new ones drilled to replace them. Two additional plugs have also been added low down on the firebox sides, with a further four on top of the boiler. There is still a long list of things to do before I can think about painting it...

Now I've finished doing my little dance of delight - yes, absolutely my offer still stands. It will be a real pleasure... but I'm not making a video of it! The test build looks absolutely stunning.

My suggestion would be to build a good kit for something similar, and learn from someone else's tried and tested design-work / thinking in the scale. In building my coal tank chassis from parts supplied in a shot-down etch, I copied the functional design from the Nigel Hunt radial tank kit I had recently built. The usable bits of the etch were basically the main frames, and I guess I was in a position similar to where you will be drawing the frames and having them etched (or whatever you intend to do with your CAD drawing). I copied the methods of frame spacing, radial tuck arrangement, gearing and body fixing, and ended up with a chassis I'm really pleased with. I suppose this is a sort of half-way house between kit and scratch building, but building kits can teach you an awful lot you can apply elsewhere. Nigel has a couple of LMS pacifics in his range. I have built the Princess Royal kit. It goes together beautifully, but is not a kit for the feint hearted (particularly when it comes to forming and fitting the etched taper boiler and wide Belpaire firebox)... I also have a Princess Coronation waiting it's turn to emerge from my gloat box. With a full set of castings (including whitemetal boiler) it is a more expensive yet much less daunting proposition. Although these are obviously not A4s, I suspect mechanically a lot of the way they are built would transfer easily.

I'm thousands of miles away from my workbench at the moment, but sitting amid the clutter and waiting patiently for my return is my embryonic Diamond Jubilee Layout Challenge entry. Recently I made a tentative start laying track, so i thought now would be a good time to introduce my project to the world. The foundation of the layout is one of Tim Horn's laser-cut baseboard kits. I have a second kit, with a cunning plan to build it as two half-width boards to use as fiddle yards. They may end up as platforms for cassettes. I will be using Easitrac throughout, and I have been having fun over the last couple of weeks playing with some of the pegged turnout kits. This is the first time I've used these. The idea behind my entry is to suggest one part of a larger steam shed complex somewhere in the North West of England. I have taken design cues from several locations, to end up with something fictitious (to fit within the space allowed) but hopefully believable. After the competition, it will make a nice scenic backdrop for photographing all the locos desperate to get out of my gloat box and onto my workbench! (If only a Fowler 2-6-4T were among their number...) At the right hand end will be a retaining wall which contains the shed yard, and at the left, a road over-bridge will divide this part of the yard from the non-modelled area. One end of a larger shed is tucked away at the rear left, and the central feature will be a tank-over coaling stage - typical of L&Y and LNWR sheds, and known as a "Coal Hole". Across the front of the layout will be a running line providing access to the shed yard. I've tried to add some interest to the track plan by varying the track levels. The running line is slightly below the level of the yard, and falls away to the right to enter a tunnel. Also, the track in the centre rises at about 1-in-30 (which I believe is prototypical) to deliver wagons into the coal hole. The track plan was designed using Templot and stuck onto 3mm ply. This has been cut between the tracks as appropriate and stuck to risers of varying thicknesses to achieve smooth vertical transition curves where the track level changes. This has also allowed me to cut slots in the upper layers for inspection pits outside the shed. I have made a start on the shed itself using a ScaleScenes downloadable kit. I plan to use components from this and other ScaleScenes downloads to make a vaguely matching coal hole. I'll probably use papers form the same source for the retaining walls, bridge abutments and tunnel mouths to achieve some visual harmony. Below are a few photos showing the overall scheme. Actually, I'm a little further on with track laying, but didn't take any more pictures before I left. The first picture shows clearly the track plan, which features 5 turnouts. 8 tracks will cross onto the fiddle yards, including the shed roads. The incomplete shed and a few vehicles are scattered around for effect. Next, an end-on shot showing the rise and fall of the track levels. Through the crossover from the yard to the running line, the track level drops 3mm. The running line (which is level at the end of the baseboard nearest the camera) then drops a further 3 mm towards the far end. The raised track through the coal hole is 12mm above the siding next to it. I have made a crude attempt to draw in some of the major scenic features, to give an impression of what I have in mind for the scene... Finally, I couldn't resist showing off the buffers at the end of the raised coal siding. These are the LMS version available from the Association shop, and make up really nicely. I have separated the buffer plank from the supports with pads of thin double-sided PCB, in order to have an all-soldered construction and at the same time not introduce a short circuit. I still need to add some cosmetic outside half-chairs to the 3 sleepers where there is a double thickness rail. The mineral wagon is from Stephen Harris' kit.

Sounds like you have done exactly the same as me... which makes me worry how long mine will last. I have tested it quite extensively, but it hasn't had long term sustained running. I'm lucky in that I have the wherewithal to make my own brass versions of these, but I suspect for many people the 3D printed parts are so much neater and easier than the available alternatives. If you're going back to the wire loop, one improvement I stole from Jerry (after seeing it on his demo stand at York in 2018) is to make the loop captive at one end - like in the picture below. That the 3D printed balls click into the sockets and don't fall out is another desirable feature.

Hi Valentin, Out of curiosity, may I ask about the hole you drilled in the ball part? Did you drill into the wider part of the shaft only, or did you drill through the bit where the shaft narrows and into the ball as well? Also, what was the diameter of your hole? The one and only one of these I have used (on the Jubilee, installed about 10 months ago) is still intact. I drilled just into the thicker part of the shaft. I have had it "fail" twice in that time, with the cyano glue "letting go" of the steel shaft where is is glued into the printed part. I wonder if it would be feasible to 3D print these parts in brass or steel? Nick.