jazz

No Problem Sandy. It is possible that Redcraft have addressesd those issues. This particular kit I'm building is quite an old version juding by the heavy tarnish, which is very typical of what Geoff digs out from under his layout for me.

Sandy/60B. Good point, never thought of that. However The guy I'm building it for says the photo's he has of the loco shows one each side. So I guess you are all right on this. I guess this one will have one on both sides, althought I do not see the need for it. Thanks for the input.

Couldn't agree more about being fiddly. (My reason for going automatic) I use the Dingham couplings. They are are very inexpensive per vehicle too. Very easy to make from the fret. You have a choice of attacing them to the model like regular couplings, i.e. spring and split pin. Or, as I do, fitted solid to a plastikard retainer behind the buffer. Dingham actuallly recommend the solid fitting. The reason being they are critical regarding height, keeping central to the buffers and I find they perform best keeping the hook a tiny bit behind the buffer heads. I use a home made gauge I sit on the track to set them at the correct height. The only downside as far as I can see is everything has to face one way. So if you have reverse loops the hooks will end up the wrong end of the vehicle. Ideal on a terminus to fiddle yard layout. The big plus is being able to uncouple at as many postions as you have the electromagnets and continue to push the train to any point to drop off the wagon/s and pull away.

Thanks for that Paul. Returning to the Park Tank. Finally did the lettering and a bit of weathering with Carrs powders. Probably will give her a much dirtier look with the airbrush when winter is over. Too cold in the garage to play around doing that work. Here she is on her first turn of duty today.

Continuing on with the Drummond loco. All the issues in the build have now been resolved. None were a big deal, just a catologue of irritating things that could have so easily been avoided in the design of the kit. Looking at the (very basic) chassis, the obvious thing is the spacers are 4mm too narrow. This was cured by adding a brass nut each side between the spacer and the frame, then soldering up solid. The spacers did not line up with the holes in the footplate. Again not a big deal, just had to carefully measure new holes and drill out. The rear bogie was ridculous. You had just another narrow spacer and a long etched arm for the bogie to swing on. This would have had to somehow be attached to the frames right in the middle of the motor. (no mounting was supplied to do this anyway.) Even if I had chose to mount the motor on the centre axle, this arm is IMHO not the best way to mount a bogie. As you can see in the photo I made a more usual spacer with a slot and made a post with a spring which gives much better riding and control of the bogie. The post is nothing special, just a long 8BA bolt through the frame spacer. A brass tube sleeve over the bolt and a spring and washer over that. This passes through the bogie spacer and is held in place with a nut. The bolt is soldered in place in the frame spacer. The body had a couple of issues. The tank/cab/bunker sides were 1mm too long. The bunker rear 1mm too short in height and .5mm in width. I soldered a full width stip of 1mm thick brass onto the footplate between the bunker sides, then soldered the rear sitting on top of the strip. This brought it to the correct height. The descrepancy in the width was filled with solder and filed to shape. Then I found the boiler was 1mm too short. So I just filled the gap against the cab front with body filler. All the white metal castings are quite rough and ready. The chimney is a solid casting. So careful use of the pillar dril resulted in a partially drill out chimney. A bit of work with Halfords knifing putty will fill al the airholes in the castings. Here she is almost ready for the paintshop. I have one question for y'all, on the HR locos, was a tablet catcher fitted to both sides? Probably a dumb question but I am not an HR modeller.

Hi all.. Been busy beavering away at the bench, mostly just mundane stuff. Here are two you may be interested in. First one is the Park Tank from the Javelin/Gladiator kit. I have just completed for myself. I am awaiting the transfers from Slater's, the ones they sent are lacking the adhesive. on the pressfix ones. I fitted a 20:1 gearbox on her and she can roll along at a far clip as well as good slow running. I have stuffed a lot of lead in ther and she weighs quite a lot for a small tank. A fitting loco for my line as they were found in the Oswestry/Shrewsbury area in LMS days. She is to be in gold shaded red lettering as found in the mid 1930's. Trying to decide what sound chip would be best for her, any suggestions? Driver Glyn the whistle & fireman Davy the shovel in attendance This next one is for Geoff. It's the Drummond HR 0-6-4T banking loco. One of only 10 built.. It's a Mega Kit. Boy, is it a mess to build. The list of alterations and additions is so long you would all fall asleep reading it. Ayway, nearly there now.

I cannot really comment on that as I have never been involved in S7. BUT the DA instructions did say as an alternative the steps could be fitted to the motion bracket. This would have meant they would be a bit too far forward. I have two more of these locos to build in the near future and have decided I will file the step brackets to half thickness. That coupled with the half etch location slot and using a hard solder, will then give a nice flush surface behind the valances. That would then give a tight but sufficient clearance. The steps would still be vunerable though, as there is still no room for my usual strenghtening supports.

Well, after spending a few days trying to sort out my PC, which, thankfully is almost there. I have had time yo finish the Claughton. No real promlems in the build, just very tight behind the front steps. This was sorted by a bit of filing and tweaking the step away fron the valve gear. Here she is ready for collection on Tuesday.

Wow. Where do I start? Well, first off I find most of the kits offered today are pretty darned good compared to the pre CAD days. (An iffy kit can still get through the net on most manufactures though. Mostly where clearances on the frames/wheels/valvegear are an issue.) I seem to get a fair few kits with parts missing. Now whether this is because so many arrive from a third party I cannot say. Scorpio I have purchased for myself have been worst in this area. Lately though, I have had no problems with their kits. I am always pleased to build, not in an particular order, Angenoria, D Andrews, Gladiator, and Connoisseur. That is not to say there is anything wrong with the vast majority of the others. I am not only going by the actual kit but the quality of the instructions and back ground history of the loco. I particularly like kits that have very few words but lots of exploded diagrams Airfix plastic kit stlye) Saves me SO much time in construction. Kits that I dislike building are DJH, Acme and the old Mega Kits. The latter being the worst. I have no real preference as to the amount of detail offered in a kit. On my layout I try to build a kit to a standard amount of detail so all the models look uniform. I do not like to see a very plain model standing against a highly detailed one. Myself, I think there can be too much detail on a model. Unless it is a display model of course. I think viewng my WB thread shows the amount of detailing I find just about right. I have seen models with opening smokebox doors and the tubes on show. Fine but not on my layout. I do like to see rivets where they should be and all the obvious details. As to detail you have to tip the model upside down to see, what's the point. Well it's on with the Claughton for now. Regards Ken

Right then, A good uniterrupted day on the bodywork. The basic footplate/cab presented no problems. The valences and footplate had small half etch lines to ensure acurate alignment. This helped enormously in getting the bends correct on the footplate. Easily acheived with suitably sized steel rods. The cab was a doddle to fit. No fettling or filing needed here. The folds on the cab sides had series of half etches and placing the small steel rod bang in the centre of them got them right first time. I used the beading etch to make sure they were correct. Now this bit I do like. (Gladiator kits are the same. Removeable brass spacers to get the firebox nice and square and accurate. A small amount of filing was required to get the firebox assembly to sit right down between the cab side foldins. It bolts to the cab front. This evening sees the end of a pleasing day. (Hence the odd colour as it's gone dark) Also a small amount of filing is required on the spasher at the front end to allow the boiler to sit properly. (That's for tomorrow though.) The boiler was pre rolled and the ends fitted nicely into etched grooves. Again it made the job very easy. Small etch lines helped in aligning the ends, so when bolted to the firebox all was square and correctly lined up. The firebox is dulled because of the annealing to make the bending to shape easy. Onwards tomorrow.

Hi 28Ten.. Email on the way. Thanks

On now with the loco. Just finished the chassis as far as I go before painting. It is much easier to paint in at this stage, particularly as the cylinders, slade bars and support bracket removes ae one unit. Again I have just the centre azle sprung. There was no issues with the assmble. (Just the nickle silver was VERY hard and took quite a bit of drilling for the piston rods etc.) Quite a bit of filling was needed on the slide rods to get the crossheads to run smooth too. It was very nice to not have clearance problems eith, as the crossheads are well forward of the drivers and well clear of the bogie wheels too. Anyway this is it. Tomorrow on with the body.

Thanks 28ten. I look forward to that. I'll now hang on. Regards Ken

You mean one like this? Didn't pick up on the red ends though. I only had monochrome photos to go on. So looks like beak out the red paint then. Onwards with the Claughton now. Here is the tender waiting a good going over with the scratch brush, cleaning & priming.

Right oh. A long day at the bench. I messed yp and deleted accidentally deleted some of the build stages, then the camera battery went so I will have to show the finished tender tomorrow. To be going on with, here is the difficult bit of the build. The small flares. Being SO small ther are a bit tricky. I bent them over small steel rods and with a bit of tweaking here and there got then to fit nicely. the corners will be the worse to form. These were simply filled with low melt solder. then using round tipped burrs in the mini drill plus large round files blended them into the etched flares. These are the tools I used to perform this part of the task. The trick is to go steady and keep eyeballing the corner as you go. If you take too much off. just drop a little solder onto the mistake and start again. Here we have the finished lares and corners. As I said I will post the finished tender in the a.m., too late now, had enough.

Rob, it's taken me many years to get to this stage. Practise, thats all it takes.

OK. After doing a little modelling for myself a start has now been made on the David Andrews Claughton. Starting with the tender, the chassis has been quick and easy, all parts fitted perfectly. I hope the body goes the same way. We'll find out tomorrow. Here are the tender etches. A couple of hours on the banch and we have a rolling chassis. The centre axle is sprung in my usual manner. All ready for the body.

I'm astounded just how much progress you have acheived since I last checked this build. AND I spy ANOTHER ship in the background. Amazing workmanship.

Hi all, still side tracking building some of the backlog of wagon kits I have for Pen Y Cwm. This was perhaps the most interesting one completed today. This a a Dragon resin kit and using Hayward wheels. It does have very srprung buffers, thw castting where clean and the turned buffer heads very nice. (The Dinghams will be fitted tomorrow when the paint has hardend off. I also used Dragon tranfers.

OK. Moving forward with the NER Sallon Coach. Making up and fitting the wheel units was a very simple affair (Photos further down the thread.) These are attached to the floor with four 8BA nuts and bolts. A great idea as you can remove the complete units for painting etc. The W irons and springs were one etch and location grooves made for easy location. Also the underfloor box and gas tank where attached. I added an extra overlay to the buffer beams as prototype photos showed the rivet detail and the fact that the beam stopped short of the actual ends. I marked out the rivet detail and punched them out on the rivet machine. Also at this stage all handrails, except the end corners which are to added, door handles, lamp brackets etc. are now fitted. This shows the additional buffer beam overlay and the vac pipes I added as they where not included. Now primed and ready for final painting. This shows the simple brake rodding I made up. I used Jim Macgowens 4 wheel coaches I have as a guide. The roof comes preformed and just requied a final teak to make a perfect fit. I soldered small offcuts of sprue to each corner to hold the roof nice and snug. This allows for removal in the future. All the seating, from Tower Models, was then prepared for painting as where the passengers. So into the paint shop and a quick spray with Halfords VW Gambia Red and she was dry in an hour. I used GWR First/Third HMRS transfers on the doors. All black areas where painted with Railmatch weathered black. This is a lovely colour for footboards and the roof. Here she is on a photo shoot. Very carefully as the black is only just touch dry. Then is back to the drying cupboard. Showing the toilet side. The window is actually not a stark as in the photo and looks more like the off white opaque glass which is typical. To sum up. I never intended this to be an authentic prototype, just a typical type of vehicle that couble be found on a light railway.

Hi All. I got a little side tracked by spying this rather attractive Directors Saloon sitting in Gladiators office. Just had to get myself one. Although of NER origin it's ideal for my light railway. Although built in 1870 it is still in use today as a passeger coach on a preserved line. So mine is to be configured as a First/Third. Here is the box that started it. These are the etches. They are very crisp and well detailed. (It's actually an ex Northstar kit) It is a bit basic by todays standards but a little extra work will make a nice model. The build will explain what I did. Starting with the tumble home. I build very few coaches and therefor do not have a suitable bending tool for this job. I use the old way of utilising suitable steel rods. I just gently and carefully rock the etch over the rod, constantly checkig the bend against the ends. A quick tweak with the fingers and in a few minites you have a perfect fit. Next is solder the ends/floor and sides ensuring all is square. It's all a perfect fit and as long as you have the ends absolutely at 90 degrees you will have no problems. Now is the time to add the only provided internal detail. That is the toilet/small corridor partitions. I decided to add a couple fo cross strengthening strips, from sprue offcuts, between the sides as they easily bowed in. Especially as I want the roof removeable. So far so good. Continues tomorrow

Hi all. As mentioned above, I spent the day at Geoff's place today. As promised I have posted quite a few images of just a few of the many locos I have built in the past for him. Plus some surprises. For those interested they can be found in the 'The Showcase' section. Now back to the workbench after a great day off.

Here are some of my efforts on layouts new & old.

Neither could I Ian. Problem is Geoff asked for the steam heat pipes to be fitted???. She is to be County of Worcester as running in her last days. I am starting an LMS Claughton next but will switch to one for for myself after I have met with Geoff, it's a Park 0-6-0T I also forgot to post the weight of the model for Miss Prism. I'ts just 2lbs 8ozs in it's stockinged feet.

Hi all. Sorry I've been a bit slow finishing this build, been doing a few chores around the garden for the winter. Anyway, she is now ready for the off. Been running on the rolling road for and hour and is running very nicely with a Ron Chaplin 2 stage unit installed. The ony real problem was not enough clearance for the drivers under the splashers. Solved this by fitting a thin shim of Plstikard between the footplate and the frames by the fixing bolts. It's actually brought the loco footplate to the exact height of the tenders anyway. So all is fine and dandy. Here she is in her finery. (I will be able to see some of my work in a painted condition painted next week. I'm going over to Geoff's to play trains, my first visit to his place in all the years we have been friends. Remarkable really. 'Still it is a fair drive from here to Coventry)