jwealleans

I think I'm right in saying that Tony may have built a Pro-Scale V2......

Beg pardon, M'Lud.

Were you prosecuting or defending?

Looks to me like some lateral springing arrangement. I'd be interested to see that too - it might apply equally to my B16 which has a bit of a shimmy at speed.

That rake was all fish, Tom and entirely Graeme's and Craig's work. I think almost every other fitted vehicle we had to hand went into the rake 3 pictures further back, which is the 3.35 KX - Niddrie, the 'Scotch Goods'.

Graeme KIng has posted some of his photos including a good one of the building here.

I think I'm right in saying the caps were a post war addition, or only became very common post war.

Oy!

A mockup of the warehouse has appeared, courtesy of Paul Bolton. He says it's a mockup - I say I've seen worse buildings on exhibition layouts at shows. I'm sure Robert has a photo of it. Worth pointing out that in that lovely shot of Tony's of the C1 departing north, there are 2 D & S, 1 Peter K and 3 Graeme King coaches behind the tender and you'd do very well to tell which is which. Barry, the brake van track cleaner was fine and even removed a small amount of dirt (the track was pretty clean). The CCT didn't get a run on Sunday so I'm taking it to Ormesby tonight to try out. We managed either 15 or 16 A4s in the sequence, so the platform enders at Barrow Hill are going to have to be keen and bring plenty of cheese sarnies and Vimto if they want to see all 35.

What powders are you using, Gilbert? I find the MIG ones will stick to almost anything.

Oh, come on, Gilbert, they're on the HMRS sheet. At least .3 mm high, white on a white background.... I fail to understand how you cannot have seen them. Never mind, I'm sure you'll have them all sorted by Monday. It's not as if you have a lot of locos to do.

Could we dry it out in Graeme's electric underpants?

Started something else this week after getting everything ready for this weekend. In fact, this would be fine on Grantham as well, but it's been sitting near the top of the 'to do' pile for quite some time and I finally got round to starting it yesterday. Bill Bedford GNR diagram 303 Passenger Brake Van. This diagram was 29' long as opposed to the 32' version which D & S have done. Bill's kits are always a bit of an adventure, but so far it's going together well. It runs beautifully on the sprung suspension which is designed in. No castings, as is usual - I'll see what I can round up and ask Dan Pinnock if he'll supply the rest.

Yes, or even darker. They're impregnated with coal dust. If you can get a look at it, The 4mm Coal Wagon by John Hayes will give you a thorough tour of all the internal ironwork on one of these - there's almost as much inside as out. Paul Bartlett's wagon site may help, but I suspect this type of wagon had all but gone when Paul started taking pictures. I think I'm right in saying that Vauxhall Colliery closed in 1923 so you might do well to find pictures of one of these. John Hayes does cover this very kit, though (which is where I picked up the 1923 fact, IIRC).

Not so. Alan and now Colin will both supply frames with holes instead of hornblock cutouts if you specify 'rigid' when you order them.

Snap!

Looking good, Mick. Did you weather the CCT or is that a Hornby job? I see they're saying 'Bauxite' now - the first of those I built from Parkside, the instructions said maroon, but when I checked in Bob Essery's book he said bauxite. I went with Bob - looks as if he was right.

Some final preparation and finishing today ready for the running weekend which is almost upon us. Basic weathering on a few wagons which had eluded it up to now: I made up a few more loads using the last of that very handy lump of foam. I wonder where it came from? I also added chains to the Cambrian Quint I built some time ago. A couple of other items I was keen to see make the cut so we can have them available: GN Luggage Brake. This is D & S and came to me in return for building some stock. It needed some underframe detail adding, buffers and painting. They're very elegant vehicles - IMHO this 58' GN stock was some of the most handsome ever built in this country. Finally a little side project. I haven't bought any of the Hornby Gresley teak coaches as I have plenty of kits and they're just as expensive. Over Christmas, though, I saw some maroon BGs advertised for £18. That had to be worth a go, so I acquired a couple. Starting from this: We came eventually to this: The two sides were done differently to see which was the better approach. In Photo 1 the glazing was removed before the shell was repainted. It's a royal PITA to get out and you risk creasing the side panels and breaking glazing bars. You can see a missing bar towards the left hand end. Side 2 was left in and masked. That would have been OK, but I managed to get overspray from the primer on the back of it and being masked I didn't see until today. I'll have to weather those windows quite heavily as short of scraping it isn't coming off. Photo 1 has also had all the moulded handles removed and replaced with MJT. On side 2 the longer, right hand handle on the loading doors has been left on and painted gold. That remains a matter of personal choice. For the second one I will try to remove the glazing - missing bars are easy enough to reinstate - but it's very much dependent on how much glue the LCL has used when assembling it. The paint resisted all attempts to remove it and it probably isn't even worth trying. I've also noticed that there's no alarm gear - I thought this was present on the other teaks Hornby have done?

Why thank you, Nelson, that's very kind. Don't worry about notifications - even if I were graceless enough not to appreciate something of mine being liked, RMWeb hasn't notified me about anything for years. I hope you find something in the scratchbuilds to help you.

Odd jobs and fiddling about last night - this has been painted but unlettered for years and I thought might stand well in the yard at Grantham over the BH weekend: I have another in the process of being rebuilt but can't find a picture of the prototype. There's a similar one in the old brown Tatlow, so I took a number close to that. I stuck the roof on the cabriolet GE brake van you may have noticed in the video above and repaired the roof on a GC van at the same time. That GC van kit is now with ABS and 'unavailable' last time I asked him. Shame as it's a very nice vehicle when built. Jidenco do a kit for what I think is the same van, but I haven't built one so I can't comment on how good it might be.

B16 now reassembled and in the queue for testing next week. Over the weekend I happened on a likely piece of foam packing from some Christmas present or other which, it struck me, would fit very nicely into a wagon. I chopped it up into some more interesting shapes, stuck sheets over it and hey presto, loaded wagons. Sheets are Smiths - I'm sure we're all familiar with them - and the plain ones are tissue paper sprayed black. The foam holds the load in the wagon but is easily removed if need be. Ropes would be nice, but removable is the key word here. I also sprung the buffers on the loco coal wagon - it wouldn't even couple to some wagons with the cast ones in place.

When the time comes to migrate back north, get yourself up to Beamish and have a look at this. There was a fleet of these as well as the larger bogie version. Available from D & S if one takes your fancy.

This.

I bet someone once told you golf was a simple game, didn't they? Shackles was what reminded me but they're only part of it. Have a look at posts 415 and 417 here. That's how I do it. I did try the Geoff Kent method but this works better for me.

Next time we meet, Gilbert, I'll give you some ideas about securing containers. Something to do when you ought to be getting out more.