Annie

You've put me off picking daffodils forever. I didn't know they fought back Electrickery techniques for removing rust as well as electroplating might be a step too far for me; - though I do remember a HRCA member in the local group I used to belong to doing this. Ordinary paint might just have to suffice for my efforts.

Yes there's all kinds of little details that look more homebuilt than factory built as if somebody has made a copy of what was available from the trade at the time. The driving wheel castings are different too and the coupling rods are held on with nuts instead of shouldered screws.

Yes it would be an LSWR road van like that one that I'm thinking of. On branchlines and light railways road vans are far more useful than the normal vanilla kind of brake van. Mentioning laser cutting is all a bit too modern for me since I'm still very much a craft knife and razor saw kind of girl. It's also a cheap method and only requires time and I've got plenty of that. I'll most probably do the underframe in wood too just to be really old fashioned. There's a chap here in New Zealand who has his own micro sawmill and he cuts the most beautiful stripwood and it's not expensive either. My own part built G6 looks at me in an accusing fashion whenever I take it out of its box. I had a set of reproduction Leeds wheels for it, but they seem to have gone missing. Most probably happened when I moved here to the rural countryside which is a bit annoying as the chap in the HRCA who made them for me said he wouldn't be doing any more.

There's an 'O' gauge 3 rail loco on ebay at the moment that caught my eye; - not that I want to buy it as £75 plus is a fabulously unbelievably large sum of money for this woman of slender means. Its wonderfully old tinplate non-scale appearance is exactly what I like and I've taken considerable notice of its construction so I could perhaps build my own. The vendor has it written up as Bassett-Lowke, but I don't think so. I think it's somebody's handbuilt loco on a commercially made mechanism; - not that I'm any kind of expert I hasten to add. This is the link to it......... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1931-LMS-O-GAUGE-3-RAIL-ELECTRIC-POWERED-LOCOMOTIVE-BASSETT-LOWKE/192453238861?hash=item2ccf1b604d:g:gqsAAOSwj1hagAfG I have no idea what forum policy is about posting photos 'borrowed' from ebay so if I've been naughty somebody please tell me and I'll go sit in the corner for a couple of hours without any prospect of getting a nice cup of tea. I've often seen links here on the forum to what might be interesting things on ebay, but of course they go out of date after a while and end up pointing to nothing. Posting the photos from an auction creates a far better record, especially if something is a rare item not often seen. Anyway I think it's a nice old fashioned model that captures the look of a 'Precursor' tank engine without getting all picky over those silly marks on rulers. I'm not especially a LNWR fan, - it was the Midland, the Furness and then the LSWR that floated my modelling boats, - but I find myself very much liking this venerable old engine

Lovely pictures Kevin with all the atmospheric delights of tinplate. I can appreciate a finescale layout as much as anyone, but tinplate and coarse scale always draws me back. I think it's because my imagination fills in the details which I find to be much better than fastidiously modelling every square inch of a layout. Leeds Model Co solved the six wheeler problem by having no flanges on the centre wheels of their coaches which might sound crude, but if it works and needs no pivots and swinging links it's all good in my book. I have pictures stolen from ebay of the undersides of Leeds coaches, but I don't know what the policy is here on posting such pictures. What style and type of brake van do you need Kevin? My totally pretend 'Foxwater Light Railway' is supposed to be sited somewhere in LSWR territory and I'm going to be looking at making brake vans in the near future. I'm a wood, card and litho type of 'O' gauge modeller so while I can't do tinplate or etched stuff semi-Leeds/Milsbro/Annie interpretations are very possible. Nothing would be instant as the illness I live with makes me very fatigued and tired, but it certainly would be nice to start building some wagons & etc again.

Thanks for that Kevin. I'd forgotten about molasses. The thought of handling gooey trackwork in the aftermath and cleaning it off is a bit daunting though NCB, as far as I know Jenolite is based on phosphoric acid so I suppose it's not surprising that Coke removes tarnishing.

Not really sure about that as I'd want something that chemically kills the rust and can be then cleaned and dried off rather than leave any kind of oily residue.

'Our Iron Roads' is available from the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/ourironroads00will

Wow! that LSWR coach side is much better than anything I was able to make for the LSWR. Excuse me for a moment while I go find a hat so I can take it off to you. Very interested to see what you've been doing with Train Simulator. I run the other one by Auran as I've never been able to get to like Trains Simulator's control interface. I also like the fact that Auran's version is a bit more custom modding friendly. To add to your list of interesting engines I would love to see someone produce a 7mm scale bodyshell for 'Lady Margaret' in original Liskerad & Looe Railway condition and not as rebuilt by the GWR.

And that G6 drawing you posted earlier looks to be the one I used for my model. So thanks for posting it as somehow I've managed to lose my copy of the drawing and it's sort of essential so I can complete my model.

Thanks for the quick reply Linny. Yes very much a coarse scale and tinplate 'O' gauge girl here. I would want two vans with drop link couplings as I find the Hornby auto coupler to be cumbersome and a tinplate scratcher to boot. A chassis wouldn't be so critical for me though as I'm quite happy to make my own to fit the dimensions of the laser cut parts. In fact on thinking about I think I would prefer just to have the body kit parts themselves whatever final size you make them and I'd take the rest from there

Thanks very much for the white vinegar tip bigherb. Sounds much better and cheaper than trying to source some Jenolite True enough Chris, clockwork locos don't really care what the track is like, but should I want to do an electric conversion later by installing a brazing rod centre conductor it would be best if I've got the track as good as I can get it to be.

Anything with holes will get binned as I'm not quite that desperate. It's mostly the track that is sound, but has suffered some rusting that I'm concerned about. What you've suggested is quite doable though. I live in the very rural countryside so anyone doing sandblasting is many many miles away, but wire wool and or a wire brush followed by Jenolite and painting sounds about the level of technology I have access to. Thank you for your reply.

I've been liberating my 'O' tinplate collection from where it has been stored for far too long. Unbeknown to me the lockup garage where everything has been stored leaks like a sieve when it rains so much of my collection ended up being exposed to water. Fortunately most of the really important items were in lidded plastic storage containers so very little harm was done. Other things were in cardboard boxes which I'd fortunately lined with a double layer of heavy duty black plastic rubbish sacks so while the boxes looked terrible and were crumbling the contents were largely fine. But one box containing Hornby clockwork track didn't have a liner and why I didn't do this I really don't know, - and some of the track has suffered badly. To my surprise though quite a lot of it while plainly damp is fine and just needs drying off, - plainly they used good quality steel back then, - but it's the items that were more to the bottom of the box where it was sitting on the concrete floor that have suffered most. Some pieces are just too far gone with pieces of wet cardboard rusted on to them, but other pieces of track might be Ok if I could kill the rust and clean them up. Any advice would be very gratefully received.

Yes that drawing is very odd. I've got my part built coarse scale 'O' G6 in front of me as I type this and that drawing really does look nothing like it. And Kevin, repro Carrette G1 carriage buffers make very nice LSWR loco buffers in 'O' which is what I used on my handbuilt LSWR engines. Is there any further news on the 'O' scale version of the condensed milk van as I'd love a couple for 'Foxwater'.

I'm not sure if it's because of food packaging regulations or not, but cereal box cardboard is actually a really high quality cardboard that remains the best freebee modelling material bar none. I can't use plastics as a modelling material because the solvent glues are not at all friendly to my health situation, but I've never missed not being able to use it. Wood, paper and card are much more fun to work with and I think they are a much better fit when used in combination with our old coarse scale trains. I have buildings in these materials planned for 'Foxwater' and I'm quite looking forward to making a start on them. Thanks for posting the 6 wheeler pictures Kevin I found those really informative and interesting. The two different styles and approaches to the LSWR livery on the part of Ace and Darstaed are of interest too and I think the Ace version is the better one. I made some artwork for converting Hornby 4 wheelers and bogie coaches to an LSWR appearance and it's not an easy livery to reproduce. Folk in the HRCA who purchased LSWR lithos from me seemed happy with them though so I must've done something right. Unfortunately I no longer have this artwork as it got lost in a hard drive failure, but I would like to have a go at them again as I'm going to need some LSWR coaches for 'Foxwater'.

I've been sorting my way through my fairly mundane 'O' gauge tinplate train collection which had been stored away for far too long and in the bottom of a storage crate among a litter of Hornby level crossing bits and MO stations I found a tinplate bodyshell for a very not Hornby tender engine. Despite the paintwork being quite shabby and with patches of rust the Midland Railway livery on my unusual find was quite magnificent with all transfers still in good order. Definitely by Bing as the trademark was on the cab floor and the smokebox door had '281' in tiny gold letters on its front. Outside cylinders and very much looking like it was an 4-4-0 though the front bogie would have to be fairly short wheelbase. It has Ramsbottom safety valves a painted diecast dome with the usual slightly overscale and exaggerated chimney that manages to look very nice all the same. The only missing part is the cover piece for the front right hand splasher; - everything else is there. Sorry I cant post a photo as I don't have a camera and my computer refuses to talk to my ancient Nokia cellphone. I may be able to get my daughter to take a picture tomorrow though. The thing is I didn't know I owned a Bing 'O' gauge tinplate bodyshell like this one. I did use to have a couple of small Bing tank engines including a quite delightful early one, but when I became ill I had to sell off my handmade models and my 'good' 'O' gauge tinplate locos in order to do important things like eat and pay for meds & etc. So how this quite delightful piece of vintage tinplate came to be tossed loose in amongst other tinplate odds and ends without even some tissue wrapped around it to protect its paintwork I really don't know.

I had a look at the milk van and the open wagon and they both carry a 'RM" trademark in a little black panel just above the couplings. I haven't found the rest of the lithos with the makers name on the sheets yet, but I did find my original Milsbro open wagon lithos (sooo precious) so perhaps it wasn't a completely wasted exercise.

I use a good quality waterproof PVA to attach my lithos and it seems to have lasted the distance Ok. I don't varnish the lithos before fitting them, but I do give them several coats afterwards paying particular attention to corners and edges. I stripped down a sad old coach I'd bought once that'd had lithos attached with epoxy resin, but the epoxy hadn't been smoothed out properly leaving all kinds of ridges and lumps. It took some cleaning up before I fitted it up with a Midland brake third litho of my own devising using good quality PVA. I don't know if epoxy could be made to work, but after what I saw with that old coach I'm not game to try it. I did sell some of my coach lithos to New Zealand HRCA members and one chap asked me to print them on A4 sticky label sheets instead of photo paper and he seemed to be quite happy with the result. I don't know how long they might have stayed in place though. I lost a lot of my litho files in a hard drive crash, but I still have this one which I used to give away as a freebee. From memory if you print it to fit an A4 page it will be the right size.

I have a complete Lionel 2-4-2 loco with the diecast bodyshell and I was thinking of stripping it for the parts to get my old Leeds loco into a functional state again. I have no interest in Lionel trains as such it was just that some years ago when the Kiwi dollar was sailing high against the US dollar I purchased quite a few Lionel locos from the US and sold them on to fund my British 'O' gauge ambitions. I thought I'd sold them all, but then I found this one in one of my storage boxes lacking a tender and that's when I started to seriously think about using it to provide parts. I've got other odd Lionel loco wheels, mechs and spares left over from my horse trading, but with a complete loco providing the necessary parts I won't be scratching around trying to find any missing bits. It will be a 4-4-2 as I've got spare wheels and I've got a nice set of Walsall's bogie castings I can use to make the front bogie.

I agree about the decent printer John. I've got an HP Photosmart 7660 that does nice high quality prints. I make my own coach lithos and other such things so a good printer is essential. I hadn't noticed the price difference between ebay and the LCUT website, but I suppose that's to cover ebay's fees which is understandable really. As to the shipping thing I haven't placed an order yet so I'd be interested to find out if that was a mistake or not. Some of the shipping costs some suppliers on ebay Uk are wanting are just plain crazy where shipping can be up to three times what an item might actually cost. Needless to say I don't even consider buying from these traders no matter what they might be selling.

All my paper and card models and lithos get sealed Kevin or else they wouldn't last the distance. From memory this one was done with several coats of semi-matt polyurethane varnish and even though it's now a good decade since it was done and has survived a house move and being in storage for 5 years, it looks just as good as when I first did it. I do have some other sheets by the same maker stashed away somewhere and if I find them I'll post the details. This is another of the lithos by the same maker that I got all clever with and used as the basis for a PO wagon. Castings for the wagon came from the long departed and much missed 'Home of 'O' Gauge' which used to be my 'go-to' source for things 'O' gauge until they finally closed down.

This is my own litho overlayed ex-LSWR milk van that I put together sometime ago from a very down on its luck Hornby 4 wheeler. Please excuse the terrible photo as my cellphone is very old and the camera side of it is not up to much. Edward is one of my toy dollhouse people conversions I made for my 1/16th scale narrow gauge trains and he helps me out with things about the place. I'm not sure who made the overlays I used, but they were on the HRCA spares list I had at the time.

Thanks for the picture Grahame Yes that's something I really liked about the way the kits and parts are designed. The capacity to be modded and customised is very much built in to the whole range. LCUT's arches and retaining walls are something I want to be using for my layout so your experience is very much noted Ian. Due to this illness I live with lengthy sessions of cutting things out with craft knives is out, but kits of pieces that can be assembled and painted are just the job. Yes John, the business of having to try and print a 4mm Scalescenes kit at 175% is just plain too frustrating. I like the look of 3DK's printable kits too, but the same thing applies with trying to print them out. I like card as a material and provided it's properly sealed it's very durable. I don't use plastics as with my dodgy immune system solvents and me just plain don't get on. I like your engine shed and something like that is likely to end up on my shopping list. Since my layout will be representing a small 'what-if' independent railway the question of prototypes and what a kit might be based on doesn't worry me so much as it might for someone who is looking for a railway company specific building.

The buildings look good Chris. Yes with any kind of paper or card modelling it's a good idea to seal the material with some kind of spray on sealant coating before trying to do anything with it.