Chris Higgs

Leaving the noise aside, your interesting arrangement shown in previous postings would in the case of a J39 leave the gear train exposed to the front of the firebox and probably not create that much space for extra weight. The short fireboxes and high boilers of 'modern' 0-6-0s are quite a challenge to keep everything hidden. Chris

That method has its downsides too. If you think metal gears are noisy when run at low speed after the worm, just wait until you hear them whine at high speed right next to the motor. Also, given the design of a J39, just think whether you will be able to conceal the worm directly above any of the 3 axles of the loco on a single stage drive. Same applies to a GWR 2251. Chris

Mick Simpson always swears by a bit of slop between the crankpins and the rod holes. Weight is always going to be an issue in 2mm, unless of course you are modelling a P2... But otherwise congratulations. Don't forget to put the loco brake blocks on! Oh, and change the handrail knobs. Chris

As designer of said chassis, I have not built it with a Dapol body but it looked like it would be OK. Personally I think I would drive the loco off the rear axle if using the Dapol body. Although that makes the project more daunting. The Dapol body has the same (correct) wheelbase as the Farish, but shows up how the Farish body is in fact overscale. Just to warn you, getting the original motor out of a Dapol body is the very devil. The Bachmann/Farish 64XX is a better moulding than either of them IMO. There were no 6 or 7mm coreless motors around when I wrote the instructions. Personally, I think 6mm is going to be too puny, but would certainly help with providing space for weight as the plastic Dapol body is a whole lot lighter than the Farish. Chris

Yes indeed. Over the bosses of the bearings. Which obviously you fit first before the strengthener. I say obviously because I have had people ask exactly how to align the frame strengthener so the bearings would fit into it. Chris

Thanks Mark. I would have thought end-on is an ideal shot of British Oak, as it was of Llangarish. Too few layouts provide the opportunity to view straight down the tracks. If there is one thing I would say it is that you should invest some time in building some 21T hoppers from Bob Jones or Stephan Harris kits. Or just half-inch some off Fencehouses. They would look great on the layout. Chris

L&Y fitted brakegear is basically the same idea as GNR/LNER fitted underframes, except it only has 4 brake shoes instead of 8. So 2 V-Hangers on one side, one on the other. If building a steel solebar underframe, use the V hangers attached to the underframe, if wooden then cut these off and use those on the solebar overlays (parts 5a and 5b) instead. The Diagram 62 Covered Goods Wagon were of this type. So for a fitted underfame, use the part marked 2 fitted, together with the central rodding part below it and the two parts looking like coat hangers which are between the solebars on the etch. Brake cylinder in the hole provided on part 2, although I suspect the Association turned ones are not the right size for a L&Y prototype, they look rather larger in photos. For unfitted wagons use the part marked 2 unfitted, these only had brakeblocks on one side. Some LYR 10'6" wagons had a more normal Morton style underframe, the etch does not cover those. The Diagram 68: 20 ton Coal Wagons had a different variant of the underframe and again the etch does not cover those. Some pictures here: https://lyrs.org.uk/wagons/ but if you want more detail you will need to buy the LYRS books. Chris

Valour was often running with her front bogie off on the Saturday. Somehow Tim is able to defy the laws of physics and get his locos to stay on the track regardless. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nP4PyCR1DHDRbLjxb-8bG6ElTDpsZMe8/view?usp=sharing Anyway, here is the man himself making adjustments to the permanent way. Which is what was at fault. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WqXGbcauYyfOuZbH_JNX9Auv_AI9cUvg/view?usp=sharing Chris

I never wrote a full set of instructions. But the chassis is based very closely on that in Bob Jones' Black 5 kit, and also my 8F kit. So what you find on this link should be of some use. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B7V9MIj3SLTgZUJTQUhuVnIxSDQ?resourcekey=0-fGj74oHg2hohWOfCppVk5g&usp=sharing Chris

Seated (LtoR) are Laurie Adams, Noel Leaver, Mick Simpson and Edward Sissling. Standing I do not know. It has echoes of a shot that featured in the 2mm Handbook of Phil Kerr operating the central shop many years ago. Chris

It was a long day for some.

My wife is always pointing out I never get to finish building any of my designs. So I have to go searching for other people who have.

They also have just taken to putting a random selection of locos into a sidings and claiming it's a scrapyard. St Ruth seemed to have had the same idea.

In other news, it appears Network Rail have given up on trying to build their signals with the overscale LEDs in, and just resorted to making the heads bigger. And if you were wondering where the stock of Midland Railway bufferstops went, I think I found out.

Copenhagen Fields was its usual superlative self, and nice to be able to get up close without a barrier in between. Like Pendon it always seems to be more about the buildings than the trains, and that is not the only thing they share in common.

It is difficult to get a photo to show the scale of Fencehouses. So just some snippets.

Some layouts were easier to photo than others. Mark Fielder even had a video of the real British Oak, complete with its yellow liveried Jinty.

The GWR contingent were all placed in one room. The grass really is greener in the West (Wales/Devon). I did not take enough photos of the delightfully modelled Mortenhampstead.

After persuading Tim to get Mons Meg out of the box, it drew a set of of quiet whispers on its appearance ("It's the P2"). Which is as it should be. I learnt that my phone camera does not do moving shots in low light very well. Late in the day our foremost 2mm modeller was demonstrating his precision skills by applying a large hammer to the baseboards on CF. Our antipodean visitors were visibly shocked, At least it had a plastic head...

Some layouts seemed to have decided that scenic sections are a lot of effort to produce, and so put most of the track out of sight. Here we have Ivybridge at the front, Alton towers at the back... The elusive Peter Kirmond is seen on the left.

You can use the 11.75 or 12mm. The 11.75mm have the correct number of spokes and are a whole lot cheaper. Chris

He have of course had this discussion before. I am a bit of a heretic and use an RSU exclusively. Produces very neat joints (certainly compared to a few I have seen over the years) and a combination of using solder paste and the ability to keep the iron on the joint whilst it cools is as good as having two extra hands. You can vaporise fine brass wire if you are not careful. So ... just be careful. Chris

If it's the chassis block you will be in luck as DCC Supplies have those available at 12.00 a set. They used to have the bogies too but not any more apparently.

Oh, and don't forget there are people out there doing etching artwork using non-CAD packages such as Corel or Adobe Illustrator. Chris

As a raw format maybe. Except I use Turbocad (native format tcw), so the dxfs it produces are not the same as those from AutoCAD, particularly in regard to the fills. And besides that, dxf files may contain a completely different set of layers within them as specified by the designer, so combining those with work from other designers is non-trivial. I always send pdfs (over eps) to the etcher of the front and back to be sure I know what I am getting. For my 3D prints I produce an stl, and that should print the same just about anywhere. No worries on things like amounts of undercut. So I don't agree with you. dxf is only in theory a common format. Not at the same level as stl. Chris