Doncaster Green

Well - first attempt was an abject failure! With the wheel firmly held in a block, I tried to press a crankpin in and only succeeded in managing to break it off! Luckily I was able to poke the broken bit out with a 0.35mm drill - one less crankpin but no damage to the wheel! I have two ideas for the next attempt. Firstly, I'm going to put the pin in a minidrill and lightly file a tiny chamfer on the end to ease entry. Secondly, I have some brass tube with a 0.5mm bore which I will try to use as a kind of press. Do either of these sound feasible? I'm working on the basis that crankpins are cheaper to replace than drill bits and certainly cheaper than wheels! John

Thanks for that Simon. The J39 is third in the queue behind a J94 and a Jinty so I don't need to worry about the lubricator drive just yet. I'm starting with the others as they appear relatively straight forward, like no reinforcement frames or wiggly bits, and will be a gentle (?) introduction to 2mm chassis construction! The main things I need to discover are how accurate the crankpin hole sizes are (do they need opening out a bit) and how much force is acceptable for a good interference fit without bending the pin! Also, if using Loctite or similar, is it better to apply that after the crankpin washers are soldered on in case the heat breaks any bond? Regards John

I am about to embark on my first use of the Mk5 driving wheels and have been searching, in vain, for do’s and don’ts. Up to now, with Mk4s, I have followed the advice Nick Mitchell included in his Jubilee videos. Does this still apply to the Mk5s? E.G will they, being basically stainless steel, accept solder for holding the crankpins? Are there any other things that I should or shouldn’t do? Any help will be gratefully received. John

Many thanks for that Simon. That was what I was hoping the answer was! Also, thanks for the tip about checking clearances. I would have gone blindly ahead and then wondered why it didn't fit! Regards John

Help please all you loco chassis builders out there! I am confused! I am attempting to put an Association replacement chassis under a Farish J39 and have found an issue with the width of PCB to use. In the instructions on the Shop 3 page the writer refers to 6.4mm width if not using the second set of reinforcement frames and 6mm width if using them. However, Shop 3 only lists 7mm and 6.4mm. Should the instructions refer to 7mm and 6.4mm and not 6.4mm and 6mm or am I looking for another source of 6mm PCB? Thanks in anticipation of, hopefully, ceasing to be confused! John

I can neither confirm nor deny that some or none of the items in that list were or were not worn at anytime or no time during the period in question. Official spokesperson

Ah! I see it now! I was looking the wrong way, thinking it was looking towards the city centre. As you say, the Royal Oak is about the only thing left standing. Most, if not all, of those buildings seen under the bridge have long gone. John

Jerry Trying to get my bearings. Is the building just above the bridge in the aerial shot where Bathwick Tyres are now? I am assuming the factory complex is Stothert and Pitt. Regards John

Chris Most definitely late 1950s/early 1960s. Reliving childhood memories and one of the most memorable buildings in the backdrop wasn’t built until 1957! John

The firmware update for the Portrait 1 doesn’t appear on the firmware page of the Silhouette America website. However, if you enter ‘machine will not connect to Silhouette Studio’ in the FAQ section you will be presented with solutions for both the Portrait 1 and Cameo 1. I followed the instructions using a Windows 10 installation and a USB 2 connection. The firmware updated successfully - the bonus being that when I tried with Windows 11 and USB 3 the machine connected with no problem and everything appears to work properly. All I’ve got to do is relearn how to use it! John

ChrisN, forgive my tardy response to your query. But, I notice nobody else has responded either! Am I alone in making a Portrait 1 talk to Windows 11 through a USB3 socket? The story is, however, long and convoluted. At the time I bought my Portrait (November 2014) I had two machines to drive it with, a four year old HP Laptop running Windows 7 and a two year old Mac Mini (I can't remember which flavour of Mac IOS that was running at the time). The Mac also had Windows 8.1 loaded and running using Parallels. Everything fine and dandy and some cutting was done. Then life got in the way (I won't bore with the details) and the portrait sort of got put away and almost forgotten about while what modelling that was achieved revolved, almost exclusively, around 2mm etched coaches. Fast forward to March 2022 and I wished to restart work on my, very, embryo layout, in particular the buildings for it. So, I dug the Portrait out and prepared to do battle with various types of cuttable material. Unfortunately, in the intervening years there had been a number of changes to the IT setup in the house. The HP laptop had been replaced by a new HP laptop running Windows 11 (Intel I7, SSD), the Mac had been progressively updated to Catalina and Windows on the Mac was up to 10. As a first step I loaded the latest version of Studio on to the laptop (it had never had any version on it before), checked that was working OK and then plugged the cutter in. Nothing! No connection! Not a peep! Searching the interwebby I discovered there were issues with older machines and a combination of Windows versions (particularly 10 and 11) and USB 3 technology. All's not lost I said, the Mac has USB 2 except for one USB 3 socket. Updated Studio on the Mac to V4 and plugged the cutter in. Lo and behold, it connected and showed ready. A quick test to see if it was fibbing, no it wasn't! One site I looked at suggested that the issues had been addressed with firmware updates so I dived into the Silhouette website but could only find upgrades for Portrait 2 or later on the firmware page. While looking for answers, I decided to just see if the Windows 10 on the Mac would connect. Again, upgraded Studio to V4, plugged in and - a connection! Now I had a way of working. The laptop has much the same software on it as the Windows on the Mac plus I have a dirty great NAS drive hanging on the home network. Do the design on the laptop in the comfort of the armchair, copy the files to the NAS and pick them up from there on the Windows portion of the MAC and drive the cutter from there. While searching around the Silhouette support site I started looking at the FAQs for no connection and, bingo, found reference to firmware upgrades for older machines, including Portrait 1. So, firing up Windows on the Mac ('cos I knew it connected to the cutter) I followed the instructions and actually ,managed to update the firmware. In the meantime, I was searching the house for a USB 2 hub that I was pretty sure had been binned yonks ago to see if that would allow the laptop to connect by slowing down the data transfer rate (I believe the USB 2 rate is 5 or 6 times slower) and resigning myself to begging for one at the local computer shop, begging because the staff there aren't old enough to remember USB 2. Failing to find the hub and not having had time to visit the computer kindergarten, I just, idly, plugged the cutter into the laptop (which only has USB 3 and USB C sockets), fired up Studio and got - A CONNECTION!!!!!!!!! Hence, I go back to my statement of ages ago, I have a Portrait 1 talking to Windows 11 through a USB 3 connection! Phew! John

Beautiful Jerry! That's all I can say, beautiful! John

If an underspend was being predicted by the 'finance' bods, the boss would call (around January) for a 'wish list' of suitable purchases! John

Or just before a Royal Visit if the other uniformed services are anything to go by. John

‘Have you tried turning it off at the wall and back on again?’ John

Anything was fair game as long as it was within delegated purchase authority and could be paid for by 31 March! John

Ahh! The ‘March Handicap’! ‘We have some spare cash, what ‘nice to haves’ can we buy and pay for now to use it up!’. I could wax lyrical about the accountancy/finance battles particularly after the department was required to produce a commercial style annual account rather than a cash income and expenditure account. At least two of the sites I worked on in my latter years are now housing estates. On one, which I pass about once a week, the cheapest apartment is about £500k and the most expensive ‘town house’ is well over £1m! Quite a premium to pay for a view of the city I got for free for a number of years! John

That would be Finance Staff in the public sector - the accountants would not be allowed to make the decision. I spent 30 years as a fully qualified management accountant in a major department of state trying to persuade unqualified ‘finance’ staff that value for money and cheapest bid were not synonymous - and banging my head against annual spending limits every time - you can only spend x this year, if you have to spend 2x next year because the contract is carp that’s next year’s problem! John

The barrage has commenced! I think Montgomery may be directing it! A happy and healthy new year to all Night Mailers. I shall now raise a (rather large) glass to say good riddance to 2021 and look forward to better times. Now, where did I put that lottery ticket. John

I cannot agree, totally, with that. Over my 30+ years with the MoD I knew many wearers of the various uniforms who could, quite legitimately, be called ‘very naughty boys’! John

I didn’t misspend my youth to quite that extent. I had lots of gigs to pay for! John

The Shadows, WITHOUT the too squeaky clean Cliff, were probably the first band I really appreciated in my early teens. I still have some vinyl of theirs, although nothing, at the moment, to play it on. By my later teens/early twenties they had been supplanted by the likes of Cream, Zeppelin and Pink Floyd but I still played the albums every now and again. John

I have been stood down from my duties until the morrow. Went the Day Well? I believe so. Excessive amounts of foods, various, have been consumed, along with plentiful imbibing of strong drink. Well, it is Christmas! I am now contemplating the opening of one of the last items from my late father’s drinks cupboard. A nice looking Hennesey that to my certain knowledge has remained unopened for at least 35 years. I trust it will be ok but it may need more than one glass to be sure. John

As my duties tomorrow will be domestic in nature and numerous I will take this opportunity to wish all Night Mailers a very happy Christmas. While I await orders my thoughts are turning towards a small depiction of a railway scene. When tidying the other day I came across a Langley kit of the GWR twin railcar and a chassis to suit. Whisper it quietly lest I am drummed out of the East Coast Appreciation Society, but the final solution may involve Panniers! Happy Christmas John

You may, and by extension, after all the discussion of the war in Europe, can we remember all those involved in the Forgotten War in Burma and Malaya. An Uncle I never knew died at the siege of Kohima. John