KH1

I am glad Up the Line inspired you and just thought you might like to know that after a four year enforced retirement it is going to be at the Cardiff show 21st and 22nd September. I have quite a lot to do in the next six weeks and will hopefully manage a blog or two.

If it is anything to do with the GPO Trevor is probably your man. I should be seeing him at the Trent do at the weekend so will mention it then.

Kevin.

Hello Rich,

Very carefully! The sides are mostly half etched 15 thou so that is only .2mm to play with. This does mean that they curve very easily but you have to go carefully. I just used a 12mm rod and gently massaged the the sheet around. When seem soldered along the bottom it all gets pretty ridged though.

I am reading this and now thankfully without adverts as have just taken up the rather good Black Friday offer!

All sounds a bit fishy to me!

Thanks David, and unfortunately my fingers have been a source of some delay and discomfort as they crack terribly at the slightest hint of cold weather and make fine work rather a chore. I have tried all sorts of things to combat this with no success so far but was recently recommended the stuff that diary farmers put on cows udders. As it happens, I do actually know quite a few farmers but will have to pluck up a lot of courage to ask as they will probably laugh at me - a lot! 

1/32nd would have been just a bit too huge - the bogie cars are over a foot long as it is so that would add an extra 4 inches. As everything is being scratch built there is not really a problem with the 24.5mm gauge and as I have a number of 7mm radio control road vehicles already, which will form an important part of the master plan so the scale was  a bit pre determined. The Somerleyton extension ran right  out side my house and am looking at where the passing loop was right now! 

A shocking admission regarding football which could be very controversial with some - but certainly not me!

The big thing I get from your sleeper picture is the colour where the chair was. Having not been exposed to light, wind and rain etc. this is going to be  nearer the colour the sleeper was when new. The real issue then is not the original colour but how old the sleeper is.

Very interesting given my current predilection for trams and the rather large number of passengers they convey. Rather than adapting your figure though, could you maybe add a bottle of something or a flask into his hand which might make for a more 'real' scenario

I will try not to disappoint!

Yes, the BCM does have a 3ft 6 system and some interesting cars but sadly not of much use for research at the moment as local as they are they are all firmly locked down. There are a few books on the subject but sadly, never enough photos. There is a sort of plan in mind but that is being kept firmly under my hat for now so as not too look too foolish if it does not work out. The first step is to make a working tram and find out what radius curves it will cope with. The initial plan was to make something a bit smaller and simpler than UTL but I can see that going out of the window already!

That looks rather fine especially as it is in N. Just one thing shouts out though, but I have no evidence to hand, would there have been some diagonal bracing on the inside of the shed doors?

One possibility for the white paint, and you are not too far off with sighting, is that it may have been applied in the war (Second!), to make the entrance more visible during black out conditions. My justification for this is that there is still clear evidence of white painted edges to the brick door surrounds at the rear access to our house. Our cellar was designated as a community air raid shelter in WW2.

Another thought for removal of polystyrene bits and I am afraid I can't test this at the moment but am sure you could have fun doing so. As they are so attracted by static could the static grass applicator be used to 'Hoover' them up or the old party trick of rubbing an inflated balloon on a nice Nylon jumper - yes that is what passed for fun when I was growing up in the grim 70's!

When I  am faced with a butt joint, I often solder a short length of brass wire to the inside edge of the inside panel by holding this vertically on a scrap of wood with the wire resting on the wood. A bit of blutack or double sided tape will hold the wire in place while soldering if need be. This just gives a bit more 'meat' to butt and solder against. If you wanted to be really clever you could use a higher temp solder for the wire but I am not usually clever!

Bit of a 'Ghost Ship' at the moment actually!  Anybody got any more Adnams beer related tuns - sorry puns?

10 hours ago, Mikkel said:

But how does a GWR modeller justify it?

On a flat bed being delivered!

Just like soldering,  depth of field is pretty simple if explained properly which I am now about to try and do at way past bed time and with a little beer inside! 

The smaller the aperture (the hole in the lens), the greater the depth of field so more will be in focus.  Just remember that a small aperture is a high f number, say f22. The problem with using a small aperture / high f number is that it lets in less light so a longer exposure is needed (the hole needs to be open for longer), or in other words a slower shutter speed, so seconds rather than thousands of a second. If you have the camera securely on a tripod and the subject is not moving as in your case this is not a problem. If anything is moving in the scene you need a much faster shutter speed and thus a more open aperture which gives less depth.

Hopefully you are still with me!

I mentioned before that if you have the camera further away and you zoom in you will get a better depth. The only other variable is the ISO,  a low ISO , say 100 will give better quality but will need more light so exposure times will be great or the aperture needs to be larger. A high ISO (1600 plus depending on camera). means you need less light for a correct exposure so apertures can be smaller or shutter speeds quicker BUT the higher the ISO the lower the quality. Every camera and situation is different so it is really just a case of experimenting to get the best balance between the variables, this is certainly much easier and cheaper with digital cameras than the days of film. 

I am happy to have a chat if you want to PM me

Be careful of mixing different 'colours' of light which can make a very complex brew that automatic or preset white balance cannot cope cope with. Experiment with turning your ceiling lights off while using your new set up. Depth of Field is also influenced by the distance of the lens from the subject so if you have a true zoom on your camera (rather than a digital zoom that just messes with the pixels), try moving the camera back and zooming in with the lens for a greater DoF .

For lighting that area under the overall roof try shining a torch with a focused beam under it for all or some of a long exposure. Do bear in mind previous comment about mixing colours of light although much fun can be had by adding a coloured filter over the torch provided by  a sweet wrapper - equal amounts of enjoyment being provided by the photography and eating lots of sweets to find the correct wrapper!

The other thing to look at with drills are the ones with the oversized shanks - usually 2.3 mm I think. Expo do a set or Squires or Hobby Holidays will sell singles. They are far easier to locate in the chuck and do seem to be an awful lot stronger. Alternately just open the etched holes out with a small broach, far more gentle especially on really small pieces 

Thank you Mike, David and Snitzle for you comments. I have tried everything to get it levellled and seems to work for a bit but then not the bext time (which could be several weeks!), I use it. The filament thing is interesting though as I have used a couple of different sorts without thinking that it might be part of the variation. I have spent a substantial chumk of today in AutoCad and thought I was betting somewhere but now appeared to have changed something somewhere and nothing is behaving!

On 31/03/2020 at 20:03, Andrew Young said:

Those Talyllyn slate wagons are exquisite. What scale are they?

They are 1/32 and built by Trevor Hughes as part of a major project to model Pendre with no compression! Various bits of the project have appeared in MRJ and NGIR with more articles to come and hopefully the finished article but probably a couple of years away. It is all very inspiring and a great mix of traditional modelling with modern techniques where it is sensible to use them hence the 3d bobbins.

I

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don't know how to paint 'gold' skin.

Maybe you could ask your President!

This is turning into a very convincing and VERY well thought out little layout, all those years of visiting exhibitions have not been wasted. It is not that I thought you could not do it - it is more that I thought you would never get around to doing it!

Pit props! I am fairly sure that these were manufactured by dedicated suppliers so would then have to be transported to mines. Larger mines undoubtedly manufactured thier own but small scale concerns would not have. One owner would often have a number of mines so might manufacture them centrally and these would then need distributing. Can't come up with any one source that would confirm  this as has been dredged from the morass of my mind but makes sense to me and would make an excellent wooden load.

Just wondering from the railing point of view if you could cut an elongated V to fit inside the rails in the mouth of the cassette al la re railing ramps. If stock was pushed in, possibly with the aid of a cassette loading / docking station with a corresponding V groove to guide in, everything would be magically and seamlessly aligned and railed.