KH1

Ah! I have built a couple of these in the past and probably would have built a few more if some nice person hadn't stolen the kits from the lock up they were residing in while I was moving house. Never managed to get them to run properly though hence the move to bigger stuff!

I appolgise now for the rather random scatter of subjects in this post but that is pretty much how things have been - just trying to pick off easy little jobs. Just to get the more unusual one out of the way, I decided that the little field kitchen scene was a bit lacking in in detail that made it actually look like something was going on so something to cook. Most of the cooking was done from scratch (an awful modern term for proper cooking!), so with no handy pre packed meat a side of pok was called for. As I stood no chance at all of getting all the gory but tasty detail in myself I printed off a picture of a real carcas, made the outer half of the body from Miliput and stuck it on - pretty pleased with the result; Now for a wagon load. Vast amounts of rubble and hardcore were transported for mending roads so set about making a couple of blank loads from balsa with an old Stanly knife blade glude on top for a magnet to get hold of, then a quick spray of black; Although this looks like the ingredients for a nice Tagine this is not so tasty soil, cat litter and broken plant pots. A wagon body was lined with cling film, the balsa put inside then loaded with rubble and dilute PVA nad set on the radiator to dry; And the end result; Another diversion was that I wanted a few more poppies. Eventually I managed to find the combination of wire insulation I use last time and thus started a stupidly long time making and then planting them. Note also that I finally got around to pytting some posts in to hold the barbed wire; And while on the subject of wire, finally managed to dangle a bit from the insulator on the big building;

Having been still rather starved of quality modeling time I have been snipeing at smaller little jobs that have been nigling at me for ages but will all together add up to me being much happier and having an even better looking and working layout. Firstly though, here are some pics of the armoured Simplex now all but finished. Have kept this one in grey like the preserved Greensands one which will also add a bit of variety to the endless dull green. Only thing I have to sort out is the small patch of paint at either end. I printed up some numbers and WD symbols to go here but being white I had to print a surrounding box in a matching grey which trurned out not too match at all. I then thought that if I weathered over it they would blend in better but just didn't do the trick. Only thing to do was remove them which has left a bit of a 'tide mark'. It won't be too hard to sort out however and will just have to add this one to the list when I next get some transfers done by Mr Blackham. Another thing I have been meaning to do was to add a petrol pump to the old garage. Am sure no one will ever notice this especially as it is practically off scene but at least I know it is there! I then turned my attention to an annoying running issue that has arrisen completely down to my silly fault! On adding drivers to some of the cabs I thought they looked really good hanging half out - which they do! Only trouble is that it means that certain engines won't pass each other if one is in the short sideing and on other occasions a drive will fly shunt any wagons in there as he goes along. The track gang was sent out to realign it slightly which sounded easy enough in theory but not in practise. Main problem was that the PVA I was using just didn't want to dry. I don't know if the glue has gone off (actually not 'going off' is the problem!), or if the downturn in temperature is affecting it. All sorted with a couple of screws and a hair dryer though. A bit more of my sol ballast and some static grass and apart from a slight discoloration where the glue still hasn't completely dried you would never have known that I had toiled for a couple of hours!

I say support Andy and his show! I displayed last year and really enjoyed it, back again this year. A suprisingly varied and comprehensive show in nice surroundings with nice people - what more could you ask for?

Ah no, not this time! As I have too many green ones I thought I would make this one a bit different so it is staying as it is like the Greensands 2182. I do think also that there is a reference in Davies to them being shipped in 'battleship grey'. It is all finished now - just haven't found the time to tell anyone about it yet!

Only problem is foam board is a bit smooth and shiney which doesn't make a good surface for polyfiller to stick to. I have used DAS sucessfully but only after a liberal coat of PVA over the foam board which will then make it warp if yo are not careful with braceing. Sounds like a great time to do a couple of test pieces first!

As you may have noticed by the lack of updates over the Summer, I have had precius little time to do any modelling and even less time to write about it. This, however, hasn't stopped me from thinking about it! One part of my thought has been to how I can use my limited time more effectively and how to manage to finish everything that I start. So here is the conclusion of my thinking and a bit of an exaxample of it being put into practise. At this point I expect you, dear readers, to split into two camps - those that say that is so damned obvious I should have been doing this already and those of you who thing ' that is so damned obvious I should be doing it'! So, this pearl of wisdom is; 'Make sure the thing works before you start on the pretty bits'! To explain and illustrait; Why has the Joffre project stalled? Answer - because I put the valve gear on before I was sure it ran. Why has the Baldwin Gas Mech stalled? Because I painted and finished it before I had got the pick ups working properly. Why has the Hudson stalled? Because I started on valve gear before the pickups and basic running was sorted. I know I am not alone in this but the rush to get a model finished often results in the basic objective being lost i.e. creating a model that works. So, from now on I have resolved to make sure that basic mechanisms work correctly (and smoothly!), before the pretty bits like valve gear and brakes are fitted. This may often mean that body work will need completeing so that trial runs can be made but only really needs to be to a basic level. Pretty simple really and I just don't know why I didn't realise this sooner. In an attempt to put this into practise I made sure with the armoured Simplex that I tested the chassis before I fitted it and reprogrammed the chip before fitting, Then I mounted the Black Beetle before fitting out the interiour and exteriour. All very simple but has meant that I know this admittedly pretty easy project will actually work and that I am not going to be undoing hard work taking it apart again after it has been 'finished'. So here we have a fully DCC sound fitted model which works! Just a bit of weathering and numbering to do and it is all ready for service. After this, I aim to get the Baldwin GM working properly, something that would have been far simpler if I hadn't got carried away with all the fiddly bits!

Hello Andy, I am probably one of the exhibitors that hasn't returned a confirmation sheet because I have never had one! Am still happy to come if you want me though but do rememberI have got a bit bigger since last year and am now 22ft long.

Why did I call it a 'Tin Turtle'? Have always hated that name. From now on it shall be an Armoured Simplex (40hp to be pedantic!). For those of you who may have missed the genesis of this project, which was hidden at the end of a rather indulgent rant at the weekend, I shall recap. The aim is to resurect a Wrightlines white metal kit of a 'protected' Sinplex that was dropped almost exactly a year ago but in the form of a fully armoured version. As there is no kit available a bit of scratch building was in order. Now, the simplest way to make the tank like lid on top of the existing body would have been in plasticard to get those nice curves. Far too simple of course so out came the brass and the soldering iron. All this was actually completed in an after noon and a (long!) evening so pretty pleased with that and the results! First job was to fit some sills across the door opening getting them right this time and sitting on top of the existing body. The sides of the lid were then made from some scrap etch soldered together, cut with fret saw and finished with files then separated to make two identicle pieces. the top then followed after a mock up had been made in thin card to get the length right; And her it is, all soldered up. Next came various bits of brass angle and sheet; This morning it was out with a tin of etch primer to create something that looks remarkably like a CAD drawing! To keep in line with my newly adopted philosophy that things should be made to work before all the pretty bits are added, next step will be to get the Black Beetle and all the DCC gubins (inc sound and stay alive), fitted. Then I have the doors, interior, driver, various brackets and catches, the silencer on the roof, the transfers and weathering to go - so not much! Oh, nearly forgot the rivets. One thing I did learn was that I need to do a bit of practise with my GW rivet press before I trust myself with the next project. My attempts were not good but were easily filled off. Hence rivets will be Archer printed ones!

At Last! I have found two moments to rub together to make time for a blog. My silence over the last few weeks has been down to an unfortunate state of being stupidly busy and thus no modelling worth talking about. But, has not been entirely railway free, so here is a very potted history of last couple of months with a few pics thrown in and, if you make it that far, even a bit of modelling. Much to my Francophile wife's disappointment there has just not been the opportunity to cross the channel this Summer so seem to have made up for it with rather a lot of short trips to North Wales, to which I objected mightily of course. You can almost hear me complaining as I took this pic of Lew double heading Vale of Ffestiniog across the road in Porthmadoc; And the anguish when Merddin Emrys came in; To calm myself I had to then take everyone to a nice relaxing National Trust property - as it happened Penryhn Castle (very impressive in a Victorian bling sort of way), and it's surprisingly large collection of locos and other assorted bits of interest. It was all so distressing I don't seem to be able to show any pics of this bit. Having just got over all of this I was dragged kicking and screaming to the Welsh Highland Railways do with lots of unusual loco combinations and a whole load of appropriate layouts i the shed at Dinas; But the torment didn't stop there - my noisy neighbours, the Severn Valley Railway, have been so inconsiderate as to have their steam gala over four days this year; They deserve an ASBO for the all night running alone. Am just trying to gear myself up for the layouts next outing which is 24th October at Welshpool. Building on the fact that the most consistently good runners have been the Black Beetle powered Simplex I have decided to add two more. As a nice easy project I thought I would resurrect what was in fact my first white metal kit of the modern era which was a Wrightlines Protected. This one had an unfortunate start to it's show career when I dropped it unpacking at Tracks to the Trenches last year so has played no further part in hostilities. My plan is to straighten it all out and convert it to the armored version just to ring the changes. This is all the bits; And this is the mess that has to be made to get a Black Beetle to fit; Having only a few pictures to work from is another challenge that is developing nicely as can be seen from this rather blurry pic of my fitting the angle section that the armoured top is attached to. I know, you will all have spotted immediately that that it should fit on top of the bodywork and not in the gap. Damn, if I hadn't have mentioned it, no one would have noticed. Guess I need to put that right - actually as it is only 1AM I might just nip down the station to see what is in .............

The Range have small (2oz / 5.9ml) bottles os acrylic from 'Docrafts' which are only just over a pound each and work very well. Can be diluted with water for quickly building up varied colour with washes or can be dry brushed.

Electric fly swat from Poundland and a small metal seive - takes no time at all to make and will save you pounds!

Just in case any of you were wondering if I had called it a day at my landmark 100,000 views, I hate to disapoint you but I am still here. The reason for no posts? No progress! I wonder if all these people getting married and wanting me to photograph them know how inconsiderate they are being! And as for schools going on holiday and leaving us with children to entertain....... So brief round up; Joffre is completely stalled after valve gear and gear box exploded on first powerd run despite all being well on being pushed along. This has actually lead to a new philosophy which is '###### the valve gra and all the pretty bits - get it full working first and worry about the wiggly bits later!' This is going to be adopted for the Alco project which is nearly at the point of the frames being cut by Trevor. I am really looking forward to getting stuck into the body work on this one. It is going to be a complete scratch build. I was going to try and convert a Wrightlines Baldwin but soon realised that so much would need changing that it was probably easier to to start from scratch especially with help on board from such a brilliant modeller for the chassis. This is a fairly long term project but would be good to see it making an appearance at Apedale for TTTT2 next May. Problems with the Dick Kerr and Westinghouse that materialised at Burton in June have been rectified with majot thanks again to Trevor. These should both be fully fit for the layouts next outing at Welshpool on 24th october. Another two projects I would like to get ready for then is another couple of Simplexes. I now have two more Black Beetle motor bogies which have prooved themselves to be very reliable so one will go into a new build of a Wrightlines protected and the other into a rebuild of a protected that I dropped at the start of TTT1 almost a year ago and has remained in a suprising number of pieces since. This one I am going to convert into an armoured version just to ring the changes. I have drawings ready so should be fairly straight forward I hope. I still have a hankering for a McEwan Pratt / Bagauley and as another trip to North Wales is on the horizon I might get to visit a real one at the WHR Heritage this time which I hope will be inspiring. So, although I have just been to damned busy to actually create anything you can see that the machinery is still churning away and some more projects will appear shortly. p.s. I am never too busy too busy to turn down any last minute bookings if you know anyone.....................

Well here we are - it has taken two years of persistant blooging but at last have reached the rarefied heights of 100,000 views which, for such a niche interest as mine is a worthy achievement 'though I say it myself! So a big thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and an even bigger thank you for the 591 comments along the way - all very much appreciated. What is more all all this comes on the momentous day of my half century and just look at the great surprise my lovely wife organised with a bit of help from those nice BRM people; That's right it, it certainly isn't small! Anyway, all this is meant to be about modelling, so here is the recent progress; No, I didn't miss anything out - pretty much nothing! Unfortunately a huge amount of real work has got in the way as well as a windy afternoon on Pendine Sands watching Bluebird do it's stuff 90 years on and an extremely wet Silverstone for a damp but spectacularClassic meeting, oh and the Vulcan and some lovely unrestored WW1 era trucks at Old Warden. And if that is not enough I have a 1st class trip on the WHR (all the way for the first time), lined up for this week. On the actual modelling front there has been a one step forwards and two steps back sort of thing on the Joffre which still hurts too much to write about but on a more adventurous note there has been a certain amount of schemeing with the very kind creator of petrol electric chassis on a slightly more steam based project. Watch this space - but not too closely!

Not really that much to report I am afraid but thought I better let you all know that I am still going! Not only am I rather busy with proper work but this valve gear business really is fiddlly! Most of the parts need to be laminated and many of them forked as well. Went wrong a couple of times as well which has meant that the supply of pins has dwindled rather as I have had to re-make parts so am now having to use wire which is calling for delicate soldering skills I never knew I had. One side is almost finished now but the other is going to be more awkward as a couple of the parts were damaged largely due to rather optimistic fineness of parts so am going to have to re-make them myself but a little sturdier. Things have not been helped though by me breaking my smallest broach this evening. These have been so useful in this build and I think that if I had been using drills the rate of part breakage would have been a great deal higher. Things are going to remain pretty busy for a few weeks yet but will keep plugging away at it and aim to do at least something every day.

No carpet monsters here! I have have the joy of bare floorboards instead. It never fails to amaze me how far dropped bits will fly in random directions. Not that I get much of this of course as still religiously use my trays for working over - so convenient and saves all that scrabbling around on the floor.

Completly as predicted, things have slwed down rather on the Joffre build. This is not to say that I havn't been spending ages on it (which I have), but just that I am now dowm to the fiddly bits. A slight critisism of this kit is that others would probably have included lost wax brass castings for some of these bits but here we have lots of etched parts. Is certainly fun putting these together but is very time consumeing. So her is the reversing lever; Some of these bits are seriously small (althoghy the 2mm finesacle people might not think so!) and when it calls for 1.5mm lengths of tube I start to get worried. Got it worked out though. Firstly I cut a slightly oversized length with the fret saw (see later), and a very fine blade. I then set the back end of a suitably sized drill in the small vice useing the depth gauge on the calipers. The piece of tube was then pced over this and filled until it was obviouse steel was getting in the way; Now, one thing that has always bugged me is that being right handed the thumb screws on the fret saw always seem to get in the way so suddenly had the brain wave of swapping them to the other side. Only have before shot but sure you can work out what I did1 So here is the valve gland and despite my complaints it looks pretty good for something I have have done! I have a pretty big collection of valve gear bits all filled off and mounted on a piece of card with double sided tape so hopefully the next bit won't take too long.

Having had enough of the chassis I moved onto some bodywork for a bit of light relief. The tank sides went together pretty well with a rather unusual web arrangement for supporting the tops. Unfortunately, I managed to flatten the curves at the front so resorted to a bit of 'lead loading'. This involves filling the area that needs reshaping with little blobs of solder and then filling and sanding back to the correct profile - simple but effective; Had a bit of a dilemma at this stage as just wasn't sure what to do with the inside of the tanks - weight or electricals? Decision of made for me when I realised that they were just not quite wide enough for any speaker I could find or for a stay alive and only just enough for a chip. So out come Simon's lead which I famously lost a while back only to find it on my foot having fallen from a shelf - ouch! Instructions do warn against filling them too far forward to keep balance but I am just going to add some further back if required. Really don't know where the chip is going to go though; Next up was some more rather interesting bending for the cab and roof but went surprisingly well; Now, one little tip for anyone making this kit - solder up the springs first thing. Reason for this is that they are very delicate and just seem to catch on the other frets as you look through for bits and get damaged. Solder them up first and put them away safe. I found it easier to keep them attached to the fret for as long as possible to help in handling. Just one minor criticism of the fret design here is that there do seem to be a lot of very small parts that need to be cut away from others that you are using and cannot be kept attached to the fret. This has resulted in quite a lot of orphaned parts in a little pot just asking to be knocked over! Being on a bit of a 'roll', I decided to form the boiler next which caused a hunt about the house with a set of calipers for something 16 - 17mm diameter. Cellar, kitchen and workshop yielded nothing and only struck lucky when I hit the bathroom and my wife's lip stick! Pretty please with how it is going together to think that progress will slow down drastically now that I need to address the cab detail and the valve gear. As a slight aside, little Iz has been quite fascinated with how this rather boring set of flat parts is turning itself into a train -she now thinks that 3D printing is cheating!

What glue? The wrong sort obviously! It was Loctite 290 which I think was maybe a bit too thin so just wicked through. With the High Level gearboxes it is probably just one of those things that you don't do often enough. If I made another one tomorrow, I would probably do a pretty decent job but by the time I come to make another I will have forgotten what I did. Perhaps I should write it all down - hang on - I am!

A week into this project and I now have a chassis - I know there things can not be rushed but it does seem to have taken a long time. Much of this though was down to the compemsation and the rather fiddly gearbox. Anyway, on to cocktail sticks. Work was started on the gearbox, it being a High Level one. Now here, i have to admit that despite several attempts, I have never assembled one of this sucessfully and this one nearly joined that list as well. One thing it does have in it's favor though is that it has a final drive gear with a grub screw rather than being stuck on. Now to cocktail sticks. Having bent up theframes and cut the shafts to length (already done in my favorite Matkits ones!), I had to undertake the awkward task of fitting the gears complete with all washers and spacers. I managed this by assembling the gears like a kebab on the stick and then either sliding them off complete then screwing again through the hole of by cutting back the stick flush with the gears and sliding in complete with stick. The axle is then slid in displacing the stick. Well that makes it seem simple! Another use for the sticks was when fitting the motor to keep it in place while fitting the first screw; As per the instructions I then glued the ends of the shafts in place and of course siezed the whole thing solid. Luckily it dissasembled with the aid of yet more debonder but looked for a better way. This I found by soldering a short length if wire as a keep across the ends of the shafts; The drive extender goes the other way when fitted in the chassis. And here is that chassis, complete with wheels and coupling rods and it even works! There is just one little stutter which will mean stripping down yet again to sort out but on the whole pretty pleased - even if it did take ages!

I seem to have expurgated one little episode from my memory but it all comes flooding back now. Having read on Mark's website that he hadn't realised that the crank pins were steel and thus harder to solder I though I would be clever and fit 14ba bras bolts instead. All was well until, after fixing, I realised that the thread on the bushes was wrong. Trying to get the pins out again involved lots of superglue debonder, a worm drive remover and eventually a drill fitted backwards in the drill press but they all came out eventually.

What a lovely little kit this is turning out to be - certainly no walk in the park but not a climb up Everest with no Oxygen! You have the option of building a compensated or non version and I agonised long and hard over this. Would it be best to go for simplicity and a stay alive or the works that might not work? As I was veering towards non I realised that there were no plain bearings included in the kit and I was out of spares so the decision was made - full wobbly bits! Now, I may have been rather distracted by all this decision making but I heartily recommend that you cut out the chassis frames for the hornblocks before you solder up the chassis! I managed it afterwards but with some colourful language! The hornblocks were straight forward to put together but rather time consuming with all the polishing to get them to work smoothly. Next up in the league of awkward things were the coupling rods with have to be fully articulated. Again nothing complicated but some delicate soldering was required and all took time. I found it best to solder up the three part rods with the center section still attached to the fret; Here is the chassis with the coupling rods finished and held in place by jigs with the whole balanced on some metal parallels on top of a piece of glass; Well it was all worth it as on fitting the real axles and wheels it all turned over beautifully smoothly first time! And here is one showing the compensating beam which wobbles nicely; Now on the the gearbox ........

Fit the brake stand just above where the brake rod would come up through the floor.

All in all a very successful outing (did I mention best in show!), and pretty much everything worked far better than before - obviously a result of my highly organised on going improvement program! The easy bit of this is to see what lessons were learned so they can be put into action before the next outing. Biggest disappointment was that both the Dick Kerr and Westinghouse on their clever custom built chassis both failed pretty early on. One I think due to a simple electrical or DCC glitch the other due to the motor mount coming loose. Nothing too terrible but no chance at all to sort out on the day. Due to these failures the two 40hp Simplex had to do most of the work on their BlackBeetle SPUDS. These have probably been the most reliable over the shows so think I ought to order a couple more and get a couple of protected versions going. My new idea of using magnets to fix the back scene worked a treat and have thought of a way of getting the lighting supports hinged to the uprights so I don't have to bolt them in every time. Will update on this when I know it works! Simon and I also worked out a couple of simple running rules to make everything work smoother - we didn't stick to them but maybe next time! We really could do with more operators though so if anyone wants to get involved do let me know. So with all of this to sort out, what have I done? Started a new kit of course! I really have been very good in not starting anything new and it just couldn't last forever. So, look out for an update on the Kerr Stuart Joffre very soon.

No from a rust point of view but I do think the rust colour is a bit uniform. I am thinking that that a bit of good old crud working up from the frame would vary it nicely. I am now using artist pastel chalks for weathering - either scape a bit off or rub with a course brush and stipple straight on. Actually, just thinking that an off black colour wash would have been good but really needs to go on first.