Michael Edge

No, they all worked fine for at least two years, cold is not usually a problem in southern France.

The two Heljan Co-Bos hauling the Condor on Carlisle have been running much slower recently, we also have a third one which runs on its own and that one isn't as sprightly as it used to be. All have been re-gauged to EM and fitted for DCC and sound. I've poked about with every possible chip setting without seeing much change, I'm now wondering if this might be a fault with the motors, especially as they seem to be taking more current. They do have to work fairly hard with a long train on a huge layout but one Bachmann class 25 can do the job without much difficulty. Has anyone else seen any problems of this nature with these locos?

I haven't built this yet.

Slowly, all the frame and motion etch was done last year though.

We don't know yet, should be able to say next week.

Yes, I'm fairly sure it was the same wheel casting, all with triangular section rims.

Yes, same 3' bogie wheels on all the LMS pacifics.

Still waiting for lost wax castings for the Fell but we will be able to sell the kit , if only with resin moulded buffers (that's what's on the two built so far anyway). Fowler 3P 2-6-2T sold out again last weekend at the EM show, too late to get any more for Scaleforum now but we'll have more by the end of October. Plenty of interest and sales for the Horwich 0F, not so much for the Harland & Wolff but we did sell one.

Maybe not but the tiebars I use are all PCB so no heat damage. If the wire gets too hot just do a bit at a time to let it cool.

It's an excellent tool for what it's intended for and used in the vertical plane as suggested. One use on hard wire completely ruins it - I have a collection of such tools used once by a customer to cut Tortoise point operating wires. All the Xuron tools are excellent but the hard wire cutter doesn't cut very close - I use a grinding disc for this anyway.

I did once see a drawing of this but can't remember where, there are two swing links, no slots or anything like that, the radial movement is produced by the angle and the length of the links. Swing link pony truck were used in other locomotives but with the links pivoted inside the wheelbase.

B9

No, we haven't done the B7 but as has been suggested, I would like one for Brunswick.

That's why I would like to see the drawing, I've never found a good pony truck solution for these locos and I would be very interested to see the prototype geometry.

If you find the drawings I would be very interested. The pony trucks have swing link pivots (inside the covers) to put the linkage outside the wheelbase. This is because the theoretical pony truck pivot position coincides with a traction motor. The same problem occurs in model 1-Co-Co-1s with gears in the way.

I didn't see that one, the demise of Smiths in Barnsley has made browsing magazines a bit difficult these days. I've talked to Alan a lot about this although his direct experience is from a much later date than I want to run the layout at.

Your cab interior seems to have been based on the two locos built for the LMS in the 1930s as far as I know this arrangement was only in very early locos, all the post war Hudswells had a control desk. I can't find any HC photos of your loco but it's more likely to have looked something like this one (D999). Handbrake wheel position varied, sometimes on the top of the desk.

Most of my output as a professional modeller for more than 40 years has been 00, O and TT gauges. A reasonable number of EM gauge but much smaller number in P4 - S7 and 3mm/14.2mm gauge, I think just one or two of each.

There wasn't much MTK left in the No Nonsense kits, Alistair once told me that he only bought it for the window pressing tools.

I've just built the 4mm later version Hudswell from Mercian and none of the frames or rods matched.

Boiler handrails were normally painted, in this case black.

It would run better with zero sideplay on axles 1 and 5, maximum on axle 4 and a little on 2, 3 doesn't matter. Don't make comparisons with DJH kits, they all have the cylinders pushed outwards to a ridiculous extent. Photo is a 7mm scratchbuilt Crosti with scale width slidebars and correctly positioned cylinders in O gauge, you can see that it wasn't necessary to recess the leading crankpin fastener. The fastener on the second wheel is thicker, the sideplay as I suggested above and it ran easily round 6ft radius curves.

There is another way of using the "American" pick up system which I used a lot in 7mm scale with cast iron wheels. This is to insulate the inner tender frames from the body and proceed as above but with no need for an insulated drawbar. It worked very well for large tender locos and removed the need for pickups of any sort which the customers could easily damage. Changing to Slater's wheels for 7mm work (mostly) made conventional pickups easier to fit - easier than shorting out Slater's wheels.

Production etches for the Fell arrived today, some lost wax castings to arrange and a lot of instructions to write but should be OK for Scaleforum next month.

We are expecting to have two new kits on sale at Partington, the Horwich version of the Kitson 0-4-0ST (should be the same price, for now at least) and the Harland & Wolff 0-6-0DM. Production etches arrived today and everything else should be ready, no price for the HW yet though. Judith & Michael Edge