Doncaster Green

Just to bring all aspects of my 2mm journey so far up to date, a word about somewhere to run these locos and coaches. I have never, yet, got a layout to the stage where it was a properly functioning stage for rolling stock! I suppose the nearest was my last attempt at 4mm when I ended up with track laid, wired and tested but no scenic work started. That has not changed with 2mm, although the latest attempt did appear to have possibilities before it started to get too unwieldy. For many years, one of my favourite bits of BR was a stretch of the Nottingham to Grantham line from Weekday Cross Junction (where it joined the GCR main line into Nottingham Victoria) to Trent Lane Junction (I believe it was called) where the new (1897) GN line joined the original Ambergate, Nottingham and Boston line to Grantham. Virtually all of this new line ran on a viaduct across the city. When this new line opened, the original A,N & B station became Nottingham London Road Low Level and a new station (High Level) was provided on the viaduct about 100yds away. When I was a little lad and we ventured into the city for shopping, the favourite spot to park the car was in Canal Street and to reach there we had to travel along the London Road. As we crested the bridge over the tracks into Midland station, a view opened up of the new line, with its glass canopied platform at High Level, crossing London Road and the Nottingham Canal and passing in front of an imposing array of factory, warehouse and office buildings that were the Island Street premises of the Boots Pure Drug Co. The line continued east and became lost behind the Eastville Gas Works and the Goods and Grain stores of the Low Level yard. I believe this picture was taken by the father of DaveF on this forum. I have used it in the past with his permission and, I trust, I have it again. This shows the view after the line closed and the London Road bridge removed but with the Boots complex and the High Level station building still extant. It was this view I tried to recreate in a space about 5' long by 18". Unfortunately, although I believe I was being relatively successful in recreating the view, there was little or no operational interest other than movement on the main line. I tried bringing part of the Low Level yard into the picture but it was starting to stretch credibility too far! Although it was a joy to build and a very useful learning curve into building construction, I decided start over. I have kept the buildings (and the computer design artwork for them) in case I feel like another try. Next, aspirations for the future. John

Thanks for that Jim. Yet again I'm not seeing the wood for the trees! And, by the way, I do so like that 65 footer! John

This particular ex Government Servant lost count of the quiet tickings-off received for writing documents and memos in plain, understandable English instead of vague civil service, non-specific jargon with a leavening of Latin or Greek and the odd quote from Churchill or Gladstone! John

May I wish all out there in 2mm land a Happy and Prosperous New Year, although, without wishing to get into politics, the latter may be a bit difficult to achieve! Trying to bring things up to date, I will go through some of the 'Shelf Queens' that have, so far, managed to avoid being completed; a not uncommon situation in the chaos that passes for my workbench. First, a pair of Dia 57 Thirds: These were two of the very first Masterclass kits I built and any number of mistakes were made; door vents not on straight, wonky grab handles, etc. After allowing them to languish in the dark for a goodly amount of time, I revisited them and put most of the errors right. You will note that, unusually, these have couplings (loop one end, latch the other) and vac pipes fitted! But not the interiors! With other carriages, I soldered the grab handles in as part of the preparation of the sides meaning that some deft work with a scalpel blade was required to remove any paint from them. With these I decided to leave the handles to fit after painting - I am now wondering if this was wise. I have visions of scratched paintwork and blobs of superglue all over the place when I try to fit them! I may revise my thinking and solder them in before preparing for paint on the basis that I may be able to control a scalpel blade more easily then the final destination of superglue! Next is a Dia 125/105 Brake 3rd/3rd twin: This requires all the usual things I haven't done; roof vents fitting, couplings, vac pipes, grab handles, interiors, etc. A Dia 65 Brake 3rd: Needs transfers, bogies, interior, couplings, etc. - all the usual stuff that gets left while something else grabs my attention! A Dia 299 Semi Corridor Lavatory: This is the steel panelled version of the Dia 50 I showed in an earlier post. Again needs couplings and vac pipes and the interior finishing. The picture demonstrates a problem I don't have a solution for. The roof is a 3D print that Chris Higgs supplied, along with several others. All are showing a tendency to bow upwards. I did wonder about using v.hot water to try and straighten them but I am a bit wary as I don't know how the material will react. Any suggestions will be gratefully received. And finally, for now: The twin first from the 'Silver Jubilee' as it appeared towards the end of its life in the early 1960s. By this time the side skirts had been removed although, as confirmed by a picture in Harris 'LNER Coaches' taken at York in 1962, the solebar fairings were still in place. This picture also shows no class designation on the one visible passenger door, suggesting it had been downgraded to Standard and was being used as a spare or strengthener. The sides, ends and floor are 1:148 etches by Worsley Works. The coaches, being bow ended at one end, were 56'2" on 55'4" underframes. The sides, when measured, scaled out at 56'2" making the coach actually scale 57'. The underframes, to cater for this, are etches from my own artwork (heavily influenced by Chris Higgs designs) with battery boxes, brake gear and other underframe fittings from Association and Etched Pixel parts. I was pleased with the way the etches turned out; I had made a couple of errors that were recoverable and I will certainly be having another go. I am not totally happy with solebar fairings and may remove them and have another go. The roofs are modified BR Mk1 mouldings from the Association. The end profile is about right and by slicing in half lengthways and inserting a piece of 30 thou square strip the width can be made right. There are a few other carriages in various states of completion, a couple of steel panelled twins and a couple of Thompsons for which there are no pictures at the moment, but, for now Regards John

Most definitely a greeting known to me from my days growing up in Newark, mainly between family and friends in the older generations. Interestingly, my paternal Grandfather often addressed my Grandmother as 'me ducks' and he was from Sarf Lunnon, she was a shepherd's daughter from deepest Wilsher. John

Heilige neues Jahr alle zusammen (as I believe they say in parts over there), Happy New Year one and all or, as they saying around this establishment, 'Thank **** that one's over, let's pray for a better one to come!' Felicitations one and all John

Before I start on the list of shelf queens awaiting the paint shop and other part completed carriages (what's that you say? Finish one before starting another. Where's the fun in that?), may I just present my first two 'functioning' 2mm locos (other than a couple of rewheeled oil burners). Both are conversions based on Farish models using the Association etched conversion chassis: First is a 57xx Pannier Using the Association Flat Can motor this just about moves sweetly. It still needs the brakegear and couplings added which it will receive after a little more running in to see if it will sweeten up a bit more. The second is a 3F 'Jinty': This runs very sweetly. Again it's using the Flat Can. It has been proven to go round corners (proved on Lambourne at Swindon last September) although could probably do with a little more side play on the undriven axles. Just needs a little bit of paint and the crankpin washers soldering on and job appears to be a 'good un'. On neither of these have I plucked up the courage to start removing moulded handrails etc and replacing them. First things first - they work - 'ish'. Regards John

What I should have mentioned in the previous post is that both of these are from Chris Higgs' Masterclass Models kits with additional parts from the 2mm Association and Etched Pixels. The transfers are from Cambridge Custom - a very useful little sheet that covers quite a few of the Gresley Non-Corridor carriages, saving me the laborious process of numbering them digit by digit! Paint is from Railmatch - supposedly BR Crimson but in 2mm almost approaching Maroon. Perhaps next time I will try lightening a little. Regards John

Having bored everyone to death over the last week, I thought I better show some of the things I have achieved over the last year or so. First up, some carriages (as the LNER always referred to them - never coaches). These did appear on the old thread but their mug shots appear to have disappeared and have been redone. First is a Gresley Dia 50 Semi Corridor Lavatory Composite: This is complete apart from couplings and vac pipes. The lack of vac pipes is a result of me trying to find a way of semi-permanently coupling within set rakes with some form of representation of the actual coupling and connected vac pipes. So far all attempts have failed! Next is a Dia 107/108 Brake Third/Lavatory Composite: Access to the lavatory was restricted to the two immediately adjacent compartments! This is also missing couplings, etc. but will have a full DG on the brake end. It is also still awaiting its interior. A couple more later - I'm photographing as I go and making sure I remember where I've saved them! Regards John

Towards the end of the 90's, it was becoming clear that my dream of having big East Coast Pacifics racing around was not going to happen! Certainly not in 4mm! In the mid 90's we looked seriously at moving house into the city; I worked in Bath, my wife worked in Bath and my daughter was at school in Bath and it would have made a lot of sense. Whilst we were not able to find a 40ft x 20ft shed for sale with an attached 3/4 bed house, we did find a nice split level house that had a larger than average double garage that had possibilities. Unfortunately, everything crashed and burned when our prospective buyer pulled out - two hours before contract signing! Any further attempts went on the back burner as GCSE's loomed and my job started to take on more travel requirements. I started looking seriously at N Gauge, but, at that time, there didn't appear to me to be a lot of choice unless you were modelling US or Continental. The UK offering, mainly from Farish, appeared to me to be heavily compromised dimensionally in order to squeeze in the motors then available, the wheels, particularly on steam outline models, looked atrocious and there was nowhere near the range of kits and bits to fill any gaps or to improve what was on offer. I could just about live with diesel outline but it wasn't my preferred era. At this time, although I was aware of layouts such as Chee Tor and had seen Copenhagen Fields, I did not realise that behind them was a whole set of finescale standards that had been around for 30 odd years. All the mainstream magazines, including MRJ, were very heavily biased towards 4mm with a nod to 7mm with very little mention of N, let alone 2fs. I knew of the Scalefour Society, EM Gauge Society and ScaleSeven but I cannot remember ever being conscious of the 2mm Scale Association. I became more than a little despondent and, although I carried on building kits because I like making things and find it very relaxing, I was really only going through the motions with no end goal any longer in sight; resigned to the fact that the end products would only ever grace a display cabinet apart from the odd run up and down a short test track! I even seriously considered not bothering to put motors and gearboxes in them! For a period I even stooped to 1/24 and 1/12 F1 car kits! (The Tamiya 1/12 Lotus 72 was an awesome kit and, as mine was produced before the blanket ban on tobacco advertising, included all the correct JPS decals). It was also about this time that Mrs DG had her first major health scare, a collapsed lung leading to a cancer diagnosis and the loss of a kidney and everything just about ground to a halt! Then, everything started to change. Peco released the 2251 and, later, the Jubilee, Dapol entered the N gauge market and Bachmann took over Farish and started to revamp the range. When Dapol released the B17, followed by the B1, A4 and A3, and Bach/Farish released the Peppercorn A1, my vision of an ECML based layout became possible again. The standard of detail was light years from what had gone before, wheels were much improved and actually see -through. The only downside really was track, very chunky and obviously overscale, but with a bit of judicious painting, etc., I felt I could live with it. Daughter had recently left home and I began protracted negotiations to move the Study/workshop/railway room/spare dumping ground to the larger of the back bedrooms, although for a number of reasons including, but not exclusively, the arrival of grandchildren, this never happened! I did, however, decide that N was the way I was going and started disposing of the 4mm collection. I have kept some, particular achievements or favourites. (I have a box full of Kirk LNER coach kits and was contemplating putting them on eBay until I heard the recent rumour that their re-release may be imminent!) Its hard to say, definitely, when I became fully aware of the 2mm Association. It might have been one of the Camrail exhibitions when it was at Bradford on Avon and was yet to move to Bath and morph into Larkrail, but is more likely to have been RailWells. I took away one of the introductory packs and marvelled at how much better the track looked compared to N. I also built the wagon in the pack and realised, even at this diminutive size, that I was quite capable of wielding the soldering iron effectively. With that experience, and with further sales talk the following year from some guy called Clifford, I finally decided 2fs it was and joined the Association. I won't say I've never looked back because I still have some uncompleted 4mm things I tinker with now and then, but I have found that 2mm suits the way I work. I like that you can't just open a box and plonk it down, you have to, at least, change the wheels and the couplings, and if you are doing that you might as well add a bit more detail, or, even, build the thing from a kit in the first place! Or, perish the thought, scratchbuild it, but I haven't gone there - yet! So, there we have it. My conversion is complete and the learning curve is being climbed and enjoyed. Regards John

Just as I was beginning to really enjoy life along the ECML, their eminences in my personnel management branch decided I was in danger of turning native in a service specific environment and shunted me off to a central role based in Bath. My search for decent model shops continued, however, and I quickly became acquainted with Max Williams' shop in Lawrence Hill in Bristol, Chris Challis' emporium in Shepton Mallett and another shop , whose name I can't remember, in Sandy Park in Brislington in which I believe Rod Neep had an interest. I also discovered The Modellers Den in Bath; not as rich in kits and bits as others but a very good local source for things such as plasticard, paint and such like. Just as an aside, I believe every shop I have mentioned so far has long since ceased trading. I trust it was nothing to do with me! After just 18 months in Bath, a former service colleague at Huntingdon, now serving in Germany, persuaded the powers that be that my services were required in his team. And so began four glorious years. Imagine my delight on finding, in my first week there, that the SSAFA bookshop on the base stocked MRJ. There must have been other modellers there but I never did find them. Not a lot of modelling was done in that four years, but Europe was travelled extensively; Berlin (both before and after the Wall came down - travel the first time by the British Military Train), Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Venice, Salzburg, Monaco and many other places, courtesy of a Volvo estate and a fifteen foot caravan. After the glories of a four year holiday with pay (a little bit of work was required but not an onerous amount), it was back to the grind that was Bath. For the next fifteen years, in between coaching my daughter through her GCSEs and doing all the domestic DiY that a late Seventies house required, I soldiered on building 4mm kits of all descriptions. Gradually, however, I came to realise that most of the finished product would, forever, grace shelves as I had insufficient spare space in which to build any worthwhile size of layout. I did construct a 6' 6" x 15" version of the Fairford track plan but it didn't progress much beyond track laying, wiring up and testing. Interestingly, bearing in mind the baseboard construction Izzy of this parish used for his Priory Road layout, this board was built from 5mm Foam Core and 5mm Balsa wood. It still exists, leaning against the wall in the garage, and is still perfectly square and rigid after, probably, 20 years. Before I embark on the final part of this story (Hooray they shouted!), I would just like to say a few words about kits and clubs as I have found them. On clubs, apart from Scale/Gauge specific national associations, for various reasons of location and domestic arrangements I have only been a member of one formal Model Railway Club. It was a small club of about 25 members of which I was, in my mid 30's, probably the youngest. A club night would never see more than a dozen attendees and the emphasis was very much on RTR. They were building a very large tail chaser where the aim appeared to be to fill every square inch of baseboard with as much complicated trackwork as possible! The whole set-up seemed to me to be a vehicle for three or four dominant egos to vie for being the biggest rather than a group helping each other to become better modellers. From accounts I have read elsewhere of other clubs, I was unlucky, but it did tend to put me off such formal groups. Much more to my liking were the informal, fortnightly gatherings at a local model shop where a group of people of all ages would come together to talk, to learn a little, to be informed by invited speakers, but above all spend a relaxing couple of hours with friends with a shared interest. Unfortunately, in common with all the other shops I've mentioned, this one has also closed. On kits; I have read, on fora and in magazines, about kits that are said to be unbuildable. I have not found that. I have found some that need a little bit of gentle persuasion, some which require a somewhat blunter approach and some that just fall together. In my 4mm days I successfully completed kits by DJH, Milhome, Nu-cast, Little Engines, Crownline/PDK, Alan Gibson, Kirk and Craftsman. Some were more difficult than others to achieve a satisfactory result or needed a little bit of part substitution or even scratchbuilding, but a result could be achieved given time, thought and perseverance. I even managed to make a reasonable fist of a Falcon Brass 'Sir Sam Fay' (LNER B2 - later B19) after being warned that Falcon were totally unbuildable! Later - the conversion! Regards John

It was shortly after the Guildhall exhibition that my new employer made an offer that would significantly change both my working and domestic life. It was also destined to kick start my modelling life. I had expected to spend most of the rest of my working life gradually climbing the greasy pole within HM Dockyard, as did most other Plymothians. But no! Due to my educational qualifications in business and management, they would pay me to train and qualify as an accountant in the space of 18 months. If I was successful I would be rewarded with an immediate promotion plus a not ungenerous specialist allowance. To say I bit their hand off would severely understate my reaction! And so began 18 months of weekly commuting to a military establishment just outside Winchester and a love/hate relationship with the A34, A303, A30 and A38. Now, as everyone knows, the best time to invade England is on a Wednesday afternoon, because it’s sports afternoon for all the military. But what of us civvies? Well, you can cover a few miles in an afternoon and so I discovered Cove Models in Farnborough and Mainly Trains down at Chandlers Ford - more than Aladdin’s cave the pair of them! Repeated visits accumulated kits and bits a plenty - all 4mm at this time - plus lashings of advice and tips for their completion. Qualification meant a job move and I ended up at a Command HQ just outside Huntingdon and additional silver linings appeared. Huntingdon had very friendly and well stocked model shop which introduced me to MRJ and the writings of Iain Rice, Barry Norman and a host of other influential modellers. It was also only a short train ride to London. The London exhibitions (Central Hall, Royal Horticultural Hall, et al) were now attainable. Although I cannot recall seeing Chee Tor or Chiltern Green, I certainly saw the likes of Petherick, Inkerman Street, Hepton Wharf and the early days of Copenhagen Fields. I also resumed some train spotting and was able to witness some of the last days of the ‘50’s’ at Paddington. The 5 06 from KX to Peterborough, first stop Huntingdon, was a fantastic train in those days; downgraded 1st class corridor stock, a 47 on the front and a usually unimpeded run! We’re nearly there, I’m almost stepping onto the road to Damascus! Regards for now John

What the h**l is he going on about? What has this got to do with 2mm modelling? Bear with me and I will explain how three totally unconnected events combined to kick start the return to a love of railways and modelling and set me up for a 40 year journey of discovery of my abilities, or lack of them! Firstly, the company I was working for in Plymouth, a household name in consumer electronics at the time, decided to sell the factory, lock, stock and crt, to a Japanese competitor with a superior (?) product to enable them to beat the swingeing quotas and import tariffs they faced at the time by building products in the UK. This meant redundancy for some 80% of the workforce, me included. This was sweetened somewhat by a very generous settlement for people with over 10 years service. This meant me! As we had a fair bit of prior notice, I had already secured future employment and actually only spent about a month ‘on holiday’ before commencing a career that lasted 30 years. It was while on this month holiday that second event occurred. Wandering around a local fête I got into conversation with the nascent Plym Valley Railway group, the upshot being that I became involved in the extraction of 34007 ‘Wadebridge’ from Barry and its removal to Plymouth. I wonder how many other Barry escapees were welcomed to their new home by a marching band, Miss World and a female impersonator. And I have the pictures to prove it! The band were local (and very good), Miss World was Caroline Seaward who came from Yelverton and the late Danny La Rue was in pantomime in the city. The third event was the first model railway exhibition I had ever attended. It was in Plymouth Guildhall and I came away with one purchase, a part (badly) built Wills A3 kit from the organising club’s secondhand stall, the location of a model shop and an ambition to, one day, be as good as some of the exhibitors. More to follow. Oh! No! Please no they cry! Regards John

My first trainset - sorry, my father's first trainset, was a Trix Twin Tabletop railway; an oval of bakelite based three rail track, a generic 0-4-0, three tinplate wagons, a tinplate brakevan and a hand cranked DC generator to provide the power - the faster you could turn the handle, the faster the loco would go. This would be set up on the kitchen table or the front room floor and great fun would be had until it all had to go away again to allow life to go on. A move of house that meant I didn't have to share a bedroom with my brother allowed something a little more permanent to be arranged. This took the form of a 6' x 3' table, akin to a wallpaper pasting table, on which the original track was laid along with some of the new, fibre sleepered track (and a proper controller - an H&M Duette if I remember) to a design influenced by C J Freezer, Railway Modeller and Mac Pyrke (of Berrow fame). RM had been discovered, was avidly digested and formed the basis of many a Christmas wish list! This was my first excursion into scenic modelling; the table was painted green and a black road added that led from an Airfix level crossing to the never actually provided station building! It was also my first foray into scratch building; a half-timbered country inn concocted, with no reference to scale whatsoever, from fretted offcuts of hardboard and plaster of Paris. Very fortunately no photographic evidence of this has survived! Rolling stock was increased to include some tinplate BR Mk1 coaches, some Hornby wagons (same couplings in those days) and two proper locos, a Trix Britannia and a Trix 56xx 0-6-2. And there things stagnated! The next 15 years were all about 'O' and 'A' levels, Further Education, worthwhile paid employment, marriage and children! Regards for now John

Firstly, a few words about the influences that dictate my liking for the first 20 years of BR Eastern Region. I was born and brought up almost within touching distance of the ECML and some of my earliest memories concern one of our neighbours who had very recently retired as a signalman. He had started work for the Great Northern Railway before WW1 and, after war service, carried on with the LNER and BR(E), retiring in, I think, 1955. He was still friendly with his oppo at his last box, a small cabin controlling a level crossing about a mile south of Newark Northgate, and used to take me down and would sit me in the box (nicely out of harm's way) to watch the trains go by while he chatted with his mate. All very irregular but absolutely fascinating to me. He would point out the different locos, A4, A3, V2, etc, extolling the virtues of the late Mr Gresley; never Sir Nigel, always Mr. As I grew older and trainspotting began, it was always spots between Muskham troughs in the north and Grantham station in the south that i gravitated to to watch the procession of speeding expresses and ponderous freights rather than the dingy, rundown Midland station the other side of town at Castle. Actual train journeys in those days were very limited. Because of his job as a land drainage engineer, my father had to have a car and most trips out and visits to grandparents were by road. However, for some reason, visits to my maternal Grandmother always seemed to coincide with important projects that necessitated my mother, brother and I going by train without him. To me this was heaven. An express to Kings Cross behind an A3 or A4 (sometimes an A1), across London to Liverpool St on an LT RT (this was BR - Before Routemaster) and an electric out to Chelmsford. Apart from the odd shopping trip to Nottingham on the Midland (most trips to the city were either in the car or on the buses of W. Gash and Sons - now long gone) my only other contact with railways was with the Southern in Dorset when my paternal grandparents lived in Wareham. Trips to Swanage were often by train from Wareham as, even in those days the road through Corfe was an absolute nightmare. I could never understand why BR closed the Swanage Branch! So, my boyhood impressions were that the Southern was all lazy, bucolic branch lines, the Midland was slow, dingy and rundown and I had never heard of the GWR! All the glamour and action was on the East Coast, and then, along came the Deltics!!! Next, a little about my modelling journey. regards for now John

Welcome all to my new topic. In addition to my felicitations for the season may I also offer my thanks to all those who offered advice and constructive criticism on my old, Wiltshire Carriage Works topic. It is now over a year since I updated that topic and we've had a major catastrophe/upgrade to the system in the interim which resulted in all the uploaded pictures being lost. When I looked at bringing things up to date I found that I had either not kept or had lost a large number of the images, illustrating my chaotic approach to data storage! That is one reason why I have decided to allow that topic to disappear into history, although all the advice that was freely offered by members here has been copied into a series of personal files that I can easily refer to. Another reason is that I want to widen out the scope beyond just carriages, having progressed into the realms of loco conversion and layout planning as opposed to dreaming. The first few of my posts will serve as a round-up of the old topic plus setting out where I am aspiring to go in the future. Notice, I say aspiring! I don't do resolutions! A resolution is too positive! I can resolve to be as good a modeller as many on here and I will fail miserably, but if I aspire to become as good as them, as long as I improve I am achieving my aim! For now, best wishes to you all and where did I leave that beer! John

If I am not mistaken, reading left to right LNER designation C13, J11 and J10. John

But even then they liked their creature comforts. IIRC the logistics train that accompanied their weekends in the country mustered in excess of 900 vehicles (1991) and included fully equipped bathrooms, not a few barbies and maybe a prefab pub! John

It was truly wondrous, so full of pomp, ceremony and spectacle while, at the same time, being so deeply and emotionally respectful of a wonderful lady many of us have grown up and grown old with. I don’t think I will be alone in believing that we must one of the few, if not the only nation that can stage such a display that is both intimate and celebratory and is in no way bombastic or nationalistic. As has been said by many, a day I will remember for the rest of my life.

BA14 last Saturday! John

Great Dorset Steam Fair?

What a brilliant little show! I suffered an excess of euphoria, firstly because it was the first show I've attended since Warley 2019 and secondly because I found a parking space less than 1 minute walk from the hall. Due to that excess there are no piccies as I forgot the camera and then managed to leave the phone on the seat of the car (luckily where it still was when I returned!). Every exhibit was superb in some way, but I must emphasise two of them. York is stunning; the concept is brilliant and, I believe, really works and the modelmaking is superb, and the embryo 2mm cable incline is absolutely fascinating - it's the first time I've seen an incline that actually works in model form and in 2mm as well! It was so good to meet and chat to old friends I've not seen for over 2 and a half years! My thanks to Jerry and Simon for their hard work in organising the show. My thanks also to Mick Simpson for allowing me to test my loco on the upper level of the incline and prove to me that I have actually managed to build my first 2mm chassis that works properly! John

I don't think they ever 'sold' Red Barrel in the South. They tried giving it away and that didn't work either. John

Well - the second attempt was a success! Rather than trying to chamfer the day of the pin, I twiddled a drill bit (about 1mm I think - I just picked up what was handy) in the hole in the wheel to create a (very small) countersink and, using Jim’s tip about using a pin vice, pushed a pin home. The counter sink made the pin centre in the hole squarely and is completely hidden by the flange when the pin is fully home. I didn’t use any loctite, but the pin seems to be firm enough as is for free running rods without wiggly bits. Perhaps a tiny drop in the countersink when the pin is pushed home would be sufficient. Seems to me an engineer could design some sort of miniture drill press that would ensure the down force is even and vertical - not me, I’m an accountant! Nigel mentioned above that he uses an out of date bottle of loctite. How out of date is acceptable? I appear to have an unopened bottle of 603 with a date on the bottom of May 2011! Regards John

Thanks Jim - I hadn't thought of that. I think I'll still give them a spin in the minidrill just in case the turning has left a small burr on the end where they are parted off. Also the pin vice can be given a light tap of encouragement! Regards John