C&WR

Some more this morning while herself and the boy were out. First soldering wires to a micro connector to take power into the centre car: For someone who hates soldering this was a heck of a job! Here it is hanging out of the back of the powered module: The discolouration is from superglue I used to hold the connector plugs together as they had split into two! The plugs and cables will be painted. The good news is that I have checked this is electrically sound by applying power to the far end of the cable away from the powered module. To my delight the thing set off across the worktop!

Thanks, TSM much appreciated. I have the diagram books, and was intending to do the smaller N/S compartments - fewer transfers to put on! What I am after is which windows had the various stickers. I think not the door ones, but as it all the others?

Not much to photograph tonight - have mainly just been getting the buffer beam of the other DMBSO sorted out and making some preparations to get the lights fitted properly in the first. I've also been orking out which parts should be non-smoking compartments thanks to this fabulous archive of diagram books which I think I've linked to before. Funny thing is the ratio of smoking to non-smoking! As a reformed smoker even I find it quite shocking what the balance used to be. Anyway, anyone have any bright ideas where the first class and no smoking (where appropriate) stickers go on a 117? I've found one pretty good archive picture of a NSE version in the early '90s, but that seems to be all N/S. All the preserved railways have N/S all over the place!

Ah Julian, you have reminded me. On my iPod (which demonstrates a decidedly dual or even triple personality) is a best of Lehrer. Another favourite, apart from an Irish Ballad is Be Prepared. I won't bore you with the whole song, look it up, but the payoff line is wonderul:

Ansells or Bonks's, nectar in my student days!

Right, there was no point moping about. Time to do some work, and get on with the project above. What I was going to do has been going round my head for a while and I had been letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would" like the poor cat i' th' adage. Therefore out with the tools. So I didn't end up with wires all over the place, and so I had somewhere larger to solder to, I used my trusty copper tape to make a bus up each side of the DMBSO that is nearly completed. I then soldered connections from the pickups on the motor to the bus, and then from the bus to the interior and head/tail light circuit boards: The insulation tape is there to cover the ballast - it's metal and of course shorted out the copper tape as while I had left some of the backing paper on I hadn't left enough! I also had to do some fault testing as the head/tail lights didn't illuminate at first. I probed around with two wire-ends from the trusty Duette and discovered the problem lay with the connection from the motor to the bus, of which more later... So, let there be light: In reverse: With room lights dimmed: And in reverse again: I do of course need to fit a driver, and there are other elements of the detailing kit to fit such as destination blinds and lamp brackets. I also need to touch in some of the paint on the window frames, paint the windscreen wipers black, and refit the glazing. Therin lies a problem. You can probably see the capacitor hanging down in the final section of the car. Unfortunately the kit isn't 100% compatible with the old Lima model and therefore this intrudes into the visible area. I will also need to cut away some of the transparent plastic interior to let the thing fit, and one of the support pillars. However this is minor, and having some of the glazing beneath the carriage lighting circuit board will help keep it in place! Lessons learnt: 1. Old Lima chassis parts do not mix well with soldering irons. The smell of molten plastic has just about left the house, but at least the damage is minor and hidden by the coachwork! 2. Molten plastic from old Lima chassis sides is not electrically conductive. My connection from motor to bus looked solid, but it was not held place with solder but more a rather gunky black material. 3. If Julian tells one one makes something look easy, despair. He said that about my soldering of etched windows a long time ago, my first time with an iron in 25 or so years, and I have not made a good or neat joint since 4. The Kynar wire supplied with the kit was superb. Can be stripped between nails of forefinger and thumb, and only has one strand so it's relatively easy to solder, or stick in place with molten plastic... I'm no looking at the micro connectors which can be used to take power from one coach to the next. They are not going to be fun to fit, but it will be worth it!

The Small Controller tells me off if I run any of my expresses at anything like scale speed. "You'll have a derailnempt, Daddfy," I am gravely told...

Can one obtain a Faller Road System Little Tank?

My Paternal Grandparents had one, it fascinated me. They had a huge garden and were practically self-sufficient for fruit and veg! Sadly it's now gone (as has the garden, the philistines who bought the house grubbed out about ten or fifteen good fruit trees & grassed over all the beds) so I haven't a prototype to work on. Anyway mojo sadly lacking for my own work even my tank. Hoping to get back to it soon, maybe a bit of therapeutic soldering on Saturday... Edit to add: Dad can no longer bear to drive past his childhood home, and it's on the way to somewhere he has to visit relatively often. He prefers to take the long way round, with traffic lights, rather than see the vandalism!

Fabulous as ever, Al. I thought I'd gone a bit nuts when you inspired me to make an anglepoise lamp and a swivel chair out of Evergreen, but the lawnmower is quite a thing... It's been a difficult couple of weeks at home and work. This thread (and other friends' stuff on here) has temporarily put a smile back on my face...

I didn't know he flew during the Battle of Britain...

First of all congrats on 8,000 views. You have built a following. Spalding pics are great. An awful lot to see there, and it would be unfair to single anyone out. However I remember Whiteoak well from the Aylesbury Railex this year, and I had a pleasant chat with the chap who was with it when I was. The French layout is also rather splendid with so much atmosphere. On the cornfields front I rather liked this from the Beaconsfield show this year. I believe it is on the Club practice layout, hard to believe this is where they let people loose to refine techniques: I'm told it's all plumbers' hemp very carefully arranged. The corn that is!

From The Daily Telegraph letters section 17 Nov 14:

Rather nice gray pays we used to get when I was at University in the Midlands. I say "rather nice", perhaps what I meant was an acquired taste...

Having finally got round to reading the BRM article (I was off sick on Monday and yesterday) this is just astonishing. Your videos and photos give no sense of how compact they layout is - I had expected something many times the size!

Suppose it would work at the seaside bit:

Now this really confuses me. The description clearly says: And this: But it's just a bit cheeky, IMHO, to put all the pictures of loco and box up. Hope someone doesn't get their fingers burnt here...

The other little project, while waiting to get some good images of an HST power car roof so I can get on with that, is painting and populating my Class 117. I found out about the Black Cat interior lighting set and couldn't resist, although I'm having some trepidation about wiring all the way through! Having stripped the cars down I gave the interiors a coat of Tamiya primer and then the seating sections a coat of Tamiya IJN Grey, which seemed about right. The seats are painted in RailMatch Rail Blue, with a touch of silver on the inside-top bits to represent the grab handles: I did toy with using little bits of maskers to make the antimacassars in First Class, but this was just too fiddly so they're done in Humbrol matt white: I should probably flushglaze it, but after the disaster with the Peak I'm not going to. I gave the reveals in the windows along with the car interior up to window level a touch of Citadel Skrag Brown. This was the closest I could find to the old wood-effect formica (?) I remember from my childhood... Edit to add: Typical, I forgot the last photo. You must have thought I had gone mad!

Anyway, first little bit of work this weekend was to add some lamps from the Paignton Model Shop to Tornado:

Cheers, Al. As I said right at the start I was rather intimidated by the quality of the modelling & photography, & the sheer knowledge of the members. However it's been really welcoming & I'm glad I'm here...

The fourth shot in #2459 (over the fence, with the washing line) belongs in the "how realistic" thread. Lovely stuff!

Thank you on both counts, Jaz! I have some pictures of the current project to put up at some point, but I need to get them off my camera...

Deeply disappointed RaR got in first about the buildings. I was going to ask if a Nissan hut was somewhere to store Japanese cars. Even military people get it wrong, and there's another thread in that... As for Wimpy Bars they were a treat when I was a nipper. My elderly aunts/grandmother would enter as there was cutlery! The biggest treat of all was to have a knickerbockerglory. one of Julian's posts reminded me. During the Foot & Mouth disaster in the '90s (?) we were not allowed to use the usual hides on farm land for training so used to go to airfields as they had a lot of dead space. I had to get a special driving licence to go on them.

Trusses look good. Inclusion of these was what I loved about the Scalescenes Goods & Engine Sheds. For finials I've seen ornate cocktail sticks used, or cocktail sticks with beads.

Just to confirm, the organisers of London Poppy Day 2014 are about to report to the press that we made £1,250,000 last Thursday. Not bad for 12 hours on the ground!