jazz

Not all Rob. Very nice painting, your wife is very talented.

My ONLY experience of Ace Kits is the J52. That was a lovely kit to build.

LNER man & don't fancy a one of the pacifics??????????? Tell what Jonathan, I wish I had an excuse his his rebuilt merchant navy class, that is one impressive machine. (Maybe one day for the mantle piece :icon_drool: )

Now for something really different. I have a David Andrews Peppercorn A2 underway. Starting, as usual, with the tender. The chassis has taken all of two hours to assemble. These are lovely kits to build and fall together quite quickly. The chassis. Centre axles are sprung.

Hi All. Quietly beavering away as usual. Just thought y'all might like to see this latest one off the bench. A LWSR Adams Radial. This is a Shedmaster kit and I love it. So much so, I have ordered two for myself. One for the layout, the other, wel, baybe for sale when completed. Back to this one, Just the balance weights to add and paint out the red sides to the gearbox as supplied to me with the kit. The rear coupling will swing side to side as prototype. A neat trick to pass on. Fitting the window glass will be much neater by making a secondary cab front/rear, complete with the backplate attached and the glass then sanwiched between the two as in the last image.

Hi Miss Prism, nice to hear from you again. The loco is very nicely balanced over the rear drivers without any addition weights. So any extra weight could only really be added at the rear of the boiler. I think she is heavy enough to pull up to six coaches as she is. Richard. As stated, the kit is a Lankey kit. Gladiator also do the Highflyer too. Not sure if Geoffs is the Lankey one as it's not on Lankey kits web site. I will ahve to ask him on the the contact. To return to the S & M 'SEVERN' model. The name and number has now been fitted, what a difference small things like that make.

Hi Pete. I never use etching primers. Also do not wash resin casting before assembly (I used to produce resin kits in 0 16.5) I do use a fine scratch brush on areas where the adhesive goes. Then when assembled I wash the whole model in hot soapy water and Ciff cleaner and a stiff brush. Then in fresh hot water wash again in soapy water, then a good rinse under a warm flow of water and a blow dry. Been doing this for decades and my paintwork has stood the test of time on models I still see running from 30+ years ago

As hoped for, all finished and ready to prepare for painting. The kit was no where near as bad as fisrt feared. It has gone very well. No more adjustments were needed than on most kits and nothing that caused problems in doing so. I am now looking forward the second one which is going to be in the later LMS condition. I think it's a very attractive prototype. The resing castings were a perfect fit and saved a lot of works too. Here she is ready for cleaning up.

Just a quickie update before hitting the model today. All the tedious part of construction is done. Now to the detailing. Hopefully that will be done today.

Onward and upwards. A good afternoons uninterrupted spell has the chassis all but finished and a start on the body. Not quite plain sailing as there were a number of clearance issues. Namely the bogie had no verticle clearance and the loco frames would not fit into the footplate hole. The axle bush shoulders needed parring down to allow the wheels to turn. Other than that, so far so good.

Ha, my daughter is a commercial pilot in the USA, nothing a large as the 757 though, just a King Air on on island hopping in the Burmuda tri-angle. Nothing spooky has happened as yet. But her cockpit did fill with dense smoke from a faulty undercarriage motor last month. That provoked a scary emergency landing with almost no visiblity through the smoke. Yes, I know Bill from many, many years ago. Excellent products.

Hi Beoing 757. looks like you forgot to add your text to the above reply

Hi boeing757 (Do you build them or drive them?) Premier Components are a bit elusive. No web contact I'm afraid. You will find him here. 14 Swanlow Avenue, Swanlow Park, Winsford, Chehire CW7 1PB. Tel 01606 554616 Now back to the Atlantic. Not much done today, most of the day spent pressure washing the paths & patio. Here is the chassis so far. Except for the cast brakes themselves, I had to fabricate the rest of the brake gear. One thing about a milled chassis, it's foolproof to get a free running chassis straight out of the box, so to speak. Should make some reasonable progress tomorrow, if all goes to plan.

Aye, I seem to build 'foriegn' locos every week. I doubt there is a UK railway company that has not passed through across WB.

Hi again. Been building more of the same old. But here is something a bit different and a first for me. A Lanky Kits L & Y Atlantic 'High Flyer' I was warned it's was not the easiest kit to build, however the tender has gone together pretty well. A bit basic by todays standards. It's basically just a box on a chassis. The hardest part was forming the flares and forming the half etch overlay to match. Once that was achieved the rest was a doddle. Just started the loco. The frames are Premier milled jobs with milled rods, so that's a good start. The tender. Onwards tomorrow.

Only one way to find out, try it. (Seen my sigmature?)

Hey Rob, check the photos again, it's blue. Not sure weather it ran in blue on the S & M but their locos were were mostly blue.

Hi All. Just back from 18 days staying at our daughter's in Florida and now able to post the photos of SEVERN finally all painted. Just waiting for the name plates now on order. A new item in the WB room is a 32" scenic plank soley for photographic purposes. The back scene is three photos of the Snowdonia mountains, subdued, enlarged and and pasted on the back piece. In front of that is a low stone wall. Here is the results showing SEVERN.

Almost there. Just some minor details and then the big clean for painting. I completely forgot to order the SEVERN name plates. Oh well, that shouldd take about three weeks to have them custom made. This has been a nice inexpensive build. Wheels ??40, motor gearbox ??28, brass ??7, name plates ??7, castings were from the scrap box from previous kit options. The chimney is a cut and shunt sitiing on a NER safety valve base + Halfords body filler, thin brass sheet and careful profiling. The chimney originally had a flared top so I cut that off leaving the small rim. The water filler is a GWR tender one, the hinges removed and a different lifting handle fitted. The smokebox door just need the hinge straps extending. It's amazing just how many parts can be utilised with a little modification. Paint is left overs from previous models. This is it so far. (OOOPS, just noticed the cab handrail needs pulling out a tad at the footplate. Amazing how photos show up faults you miss just looking at it.)

I obtained the drawing from a fellow light railway modeller. The drawing is now 40 years old. I have to say it's not entirely accurate. The main problem is the footplate is too low. I had to raise it quite a bit for the correct buffer height plus allowing clearance for the con rods. There were a few others things that are obvious and easy to cope with. I have scanned the drawing and will PM it to you when the site is running again tomorrow and I can access your PM service. Regards Ken. PS the Armstrong Whitworth was easier to build.

Thanks for the kind comment Rob. Here is a little more progress. I find the detailing very time comsuming. The cab roof took a bit of time to get it right and then cut it out and bend to shape. For the backhead I used plastikard plus a few castings from the scrap box. Tomorrow starts the detiling in earnest.

Elucidating is a speciality of mine (Some call it aimless rambling). Here is the basics of the various tools I use. Other much used on the WB are calipers and a pillar drill, metal shears, bending & rolling bars not forgetting the Leaky riveting tool. After marking out the work using the dividers to check all is absolutely parallel, I then use the fret saw to make the shortest cut. (You keep the thickness of the blade to the off cut side) Then use the yellow handled tool (Squires) and steel ruler to make a groove along the other edge. Again just a fraction to the off cut side. Then over the edge of the bench and holding the work with a thick flat bar, gently bend the work downwards from the groove and back upwards. Doing this twice will break the cut. You then have to use a long flat file to take the sharp edge off and square up the edge(s) cut with the fret saw. On work too small to hold over the edge of the bench, I clamp in in the Metal Smith bending bars instead. They are so useful, I cannot imagine how I managed without them.

Scratch building the recent Armstrong Whitworth has rekindled my enthusiasm for scratch building. I had almost forgotten how much pleasure there is in taking a sheet of brass, a scale drawing and then seeing the finished product at work on your layout. So, a short break from the kit building has me tackling the Shropshire & Montgomeryshire loco No 2 'SEVERN'. This weird looking loco was built by Bury Curtis & Kennedy in the 1840's and is of their bar frame construction. Originally built as an 0-4-0 tender loco was converted to an 0-4-2 saddle tank sometime before being bought by the S & M. (Possibly during the LNWR ownership period). Originally working mixed trains on the S & M was eventually relegated to stone traffic until withdrawn in 1931 and cut up in 1937. First image is the chassis cut from brass sheet and some nickle silver off cuts from previous kit etches. I have used brass sprung axle boxes on the trailing wheels and left the drivers unsprung. Using a 40:1 Roxy gear box and an 1833 Mashima. This motor fitted with 1mm to spare. The motor/gearbox unit actually needed to be flip over to allow it to sit lower. As stated it has 1mm clearances under the firebox and backhead. Now to the body. Here is the basic footplate fretted out and ready for the body. The boiler was rolled and using three laminations the smokebox was rolled and shaped to match the smoke box front. The bunker and cab sides were simple boxes and riveted striped made to attach round the tops. The tank parts are cut and ready for assembly. I used thin card to make templates which make it easy to accurately cut the brass sheet for a perfect fit first time. The tank is soldered up and attached to the boiler. The sand baxes and tool box made at this time, again simple boxes folded up in the Metal Smith folding bars. I forgot to mention the boiler bands. These were attached before the boiler was fitted. So much easier than after fitting it to the loco. The boiler will be filled with lead. I like heavy locos. I now have the cab front/rear & roof to cut and fold. Again I will make a card one first as getting the port holes and bends correct will be a bit tricky. Then it's all down to the detailing.

Another tree wagoms completed today for Pen y Cwm. 1 x refigerated meat van (LNWR). 2 x beer vans (Ex LNWR). All from the Gladiator range. Lovely kits to make up. These are hand lettered, I think I need a bit of practice in that department! Just arriving in Pen y Cwm. Awaiting transfer to the goods yard.

I have to agree, those Patriots do have very pleasing lines. Sadly it would look ridiculous on my light railway. If I ever more again I will have to look at another garden railway. Those were the days. :icon_sad: