PatB

Actually, I may have to revise my opinion of Sam's Trains. As I'm going through a slot car phase, I was googling around the subject and stumbled across his vids on Wrenn's Formula 152 slotcar system. Whilst not exactly historical reference material, I found the contents both interesting and informative, and there was plenty of footage of the cars running which is, after all, the point of slot cars (although many makers of slot car vids seem to forget that little point). Even Sam himself was less annoying than he sometimes is. Maybe I'll be less inclined to skip to something else next time.

Did they drop the Wolfrace Sonic wheels that,IIRC, came on the early ones?

As a bodger who lives in a dry (usually, it's tipping down and 150% humidity right now) climate, assuming the concrete is still structurally competent, I would be tempted to fix battens to the deteriorating surface, and clad with something more attractive (weatherboard, decorative corrugated tin, what have you) to protect the exposed rebar from direct weathering. Obviously it would be important not to protrude beyond the roof overhang, and the gap twixt concrete and cladding would need to be open to atmosphere top and bottom to allow air circulation. Guttering (which doesn't seem to be fitted at the mo) would be needed to keep things dryish. Then I'd think about framing out the inside to (a) provide somewhere to put insulation, (b) create a structure that will keep things upright if/when the concrete crumbles to dust, and (c) allow you to screw things to the inside walls. Pretty much all of it should be possible with secondhand materials to keep costs within reason. I make no claim to this meeting local (or, indeed, any) building regs, or guarantee of it working acceptably in the perpetually damp UK.

If you're feeling a little creative, a simple Darlington pair transistor controller is dead easy and cheap to construct and can work very well. I have a minor hobby of breadboarding Roger Amos' designs (with adaptations to suit components that are locally available and/or didn't go out of production 30 years ago), and have found them all to be pretty good with the limited variety of motors I have available for testing. Basically, X04s, the cans used in the Chinese Smokey Joe, and the open can thingy in recent Hornby 0-6-0s. Oh, and, in substantially beefed up form, the ancient and current hungry wound field pancake in vintage US made Marx 0 gauge stuff, but that's probably a bit niche to be relevant. And, yes, I'm well aware that real electronics experts consider the Darlington pair to be ridiculously outdated. Quite possibly true, but I like simple and cheap, and it works for me.

My only experience of a GM V6 was the 3.8 in my company Holden Commodore. It was quite nice, with a moderately lazy 200 bhp available. I'd be interested to have a go in one of the (factory) supercharged ones.

No permanent damage done, but it took what felt like an eternity of seesawing the drum off the hub, a tenth of a thou' a side at a time, and the top joints of all my fingers had gone an interesting shade of purple by the time I got them back. I must have been young and stupid at the time as, round about then, I was taking the steering wheel off the same Landie and it was, again, a bit reluctant. So I thumped the backs of the spokes a bit. Obviously it immediately de-stuck and smacked me across the bridge of the nose with its rim, which was a "valuable educational experience", both for me and for anyone within earshot. Come to think of it, I used to quite regularly damage myself in new and innovative ways whilst working on vehicles. Teenage idiocy will out I suppose.

Does it matter? Perhaps the videos you link to are being watched by those with a very specific interest in the models reviewed (and so, arguably, are reaching the audience that counts for their specific subject matter), whereas Sam's Trains vids get watched by a much more general audience. Not saying that is the case, it's just one possible explanation. Regardless, I think you've actually rather neatly made the point that Sam's Trains is not the only source of video reviews out there, and there is material available that may appeal more to those who find Sam to be the YT equivalent of nails down a blackboard.

Alone in the shed, late one night, I did once attach myself to a Land Rover by the fingers, when I was thumping a reluctant brake drum into place and it suddenly went, trapping both hands between drum and backplate. Of course, it then stuck firmly, leaving me unable to reach any useful levering tools, and beyond earshot of any likely assistance..

And now a perfect example of why some people shouldn't be allowed to own... well, anything really. https://www.autoshrine.com/registry/1966-Triumph-Spitfire-MkII-FC64791.6739/ Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and pour bleach in my eyes.

I don't know that living vicariously through a screen is really more of a problem now than it was a few decades ago. An awful lot of people spent an awful lot of hours in front of the TV in the '70s, when there were 3 channels and most of the content was banal cr@p. And I'm sure the same pertained 20 years earlier, with even fewer channels, only access to the medium (basically, disposable income) limiting consumption. Plus ca change and all that.

Not to mention at least one Cricklewood Bentley that started out as a pair of headlamps.

Hasn't the standard advice, for decades, to newcomers to the hobby, been "join a club and see what more experienced modellers are doing"? Well, what is YouTube but a vast, multi-interest, international club? Suppose your local club (even if there is one, and joining is an option) doesn't have a track building expert and you want to learn to build track. Or your interest is learning to build etched brass kits of pre-grouping prototypes and the local group only does post-privatisation rtr. Or the only bod who knows how to do figure painting won't talk to anyone who hasn't done 20 years of being club gofer? Pre-internet/YouTube, there were any number of ways that an individual modeller could find themselves isolated from the hobby at large. Now anyone with a data connection and a mobile phone can see what thousands of others are up to. That's not to mention the potential for cross-fertilisation of ideas. Military modellers, RCers, electronics buffs, slotcar enthusiasts, plastic kit builders, dolls-house creators, photography experts, etc. all have tips, techniques and pointers that can be useful in railway modelling, and I'm sure at least some of us are able to reciprocate. That sort of potential breadth of interaction just isn't going to happen in most clubs. On the downside, as others have noted, YT is a largely unrestricted public platform, so it's going to contain an awful lot of dross. Unless your search skills are better than mine it's a fair bit of work sifting through the rubbish to find the useful stuff. However, I've found that I can generally tell within the first 30 seconds whether a given vid is going to be of any interest/use, and it doesn't take all that many goes to work out that a particular channel/poster isn't worth bothering with. What is/is not worth bothering with will vary for the individual viewer. Personally I avoid Sam's Trains as I find Sam irritating, and he doesn't cover much of interest to me personally. However, the apparent success of his channel suggests that others enjoy his work, and who am I to say they shouldn't? Stuff like running a train set in a paddling pool is more of a stunt than railway modelling (though I'm interested to find that it works), as is stuff like "Thomas vs dog racing". It might or might not be amusing, but it's fairly obviously not railway modelling, so don't watch it if you're looking for P4 perfection. It's really not hard to tell. Then there are the vids by people who are clearly very expert in their field but who are, shall we say, somewhat challenged in the areas of public speaking, teaching and video editing, which deficiencies can overshadow the genuinely useful information. No shame in that. All those things are also skills which need to be learned, and at least they're having a go. The tedious repetition, pointless digressions, andlong pauses while repositioning the camera are easily enough avoided by skipping forward a bit. All in all, YouTube is a resource, like any other. A very useful one, IMHO. But like any other resource it requires some practice, familiarity and discrimination to use effectively. Or we could go back to maybe 3 magazines a month, containing a few dozen B&W photos and 15-20 contributors. At least they took toy trains seriously.

I should, perhaps, emphasise that I have no problem with the fitment of flashing indicators. It is, indeed, sensible, if not absolutely essential. My problem is with installations done appallingly badly, and cheaply, when better methods, materials and budget are easily available and don't involve butchering panels that have survived 60-70 years intact.

And half a washing machine in bits, don't forget.

Thing is, it's only (relatively) recently* that alloys have become affordable and robust enough for daily use. Although I wasn't actually there, even I'm aware that a set of 6J steelies was about as exotic as it got on even fairly hot road cars, apart from real exotica. C1970, even stuff like T-buckets had to make do with banded steel on the back and, maybe, Rostyles on the front.

My own pet hates are, in order, cutting original steel to install the cheapest, ugliest, least appropriate indicators available, spending loads on having the interior reupholstered but only springing for vinyl that would have been rejected by the most tasteless of '70s discount sofa manufacturers, and putting bloody whitewalls on everything pre-65. Oh, and I'm not keen on chrome wire wheels either. Silver-grey (or other) paint was the go originally, and doesn't make you look like an East End wide-boy showing off his ill-gotten gains.

They'll be needing the bastard file and the big hammer on that. Funnily enough we heard nothing about it here in the west, presumably because it couldn't be blamed on renewables.

The main challenge being to find a prototype only requiring one, slightly wobbly, connecting rod and crosshead.

As I discovered, during my air cooled VW phase (I'm much better now, thanks), all advertised Beetles and buses are rotten, worn out, bodged up rubbish. Yes, even the shiny ones that have had squillion spent on them. Even ones where the right bits have had money spent on them are rubbish, because the parts all come from Brazil or Mexico and are about 60% junk, straight from the factory, with the remaining 40% ranging from "probably won't kill you first time out" to "almost OK if there's really no alternative". German parts are very nice, where available, but are expensive so nobody buys them. I'm unimpressed with the fabled knowledge base too. In years of reading VW content on the 'net, I've found maybe 2 writers who I'd judge to actually know what they're talking about, and the better of those was inconsiderate enough to die a decade ago, thus halving the pool of useful information. So, in summary, I wouldn't touch another Beetle without a verifiable and continuous history from the moment it left Wolfsburg, detailed receipts for every component ever fitted, and the credentials of everyone who's ever done more than put petrol in it. And if such are car exists, I can't afford it. [/rant]

I'm pretty sure it's not GEM, unless the LNWR had an experimental diesel design .

They'd do better, and spend less money, properly maintaining their fuel system, which is the usual culprit for spontaneous combustion of air-cooled VWs. That and bodgy electrical mods. There are two main risk areas for fuel fires in VWs. Firstly is the point where the metal fuel line passes through the tin shielding that separates the inside of the engine compartment from the outside world. The hole in the tin should have a rubber grommet to prevent the sharp edge from sawing through the fuel line. Replacing said grommet was part of a proper dealer service, but as such a thing hasn't existed for 50 years, most rotted and disappeared decades ago. Result is that the fuel line gets chewed through as it vibrates against the raw metal edge. Eventually it's holed and will dump the entire contents of the fuel tank (this point in the pipe is pretty much the lowest point in the fuel system) over no.3 exhaust header (which also happens to be the hottest one), resulting in lots of lovely petrol vapour looking for a spark. Whooof! Second failure point happens when someone "helpfully" puts an inline filter in the fuel line from fuel pump to carb. The extra weight of the filter waggling about unsupported eventually pulls the nipple out of the carb. The engine continues to run on what's in the float chamber whilst the fuel pump delivers its full capacity spraying around the engine compartment as the disconnected pipe waves in the breeze. Petrol + hot engine + sparky, unsealed distributor generally lights things off very nicely. And once the engine compartment is ablaze, if it gets really fierce, there's a good chance the magnesium alloy crankcase and gearbox housing will catch, and, at that point, there's not much to do but get the marshmallows out. On my own daily driver Beetle I caught the first before it happened and was lucky with the second that the loose fuel didn't go up.

Nice. My slightly tongue in cheek Europa comment was based on a distant memory of a JB article on said Lotus in Old Motor (so no later than early '82, when Old Motor morphed into Classic & Sports Car), in whose introduction he quite candidly admitted to favouring the Elan, and not having any great liking for the Europa. In typical JB fashion, though, having declared his partisanship, the article was, as far as I could then tell, and now recall, a very fair summation of the car. Certainly more useful than the sort of puff piece an unabashed fan may have written.

I just found out that the husband of one of MrsB's friends has quite an extensive 4 lane Scalextric layout in their shed and hasn't had much luck recruiting fellow racers. I've promised to offer some competition when I can find the time. I'm now scouring the interwebs for interesting slot racing material, and finding there are all sorts of rather nice 1/32 car kits available for not a huge amount of money. I smell a project coming on. I note that 70s and 80s Scalextric cars are in quite strong demand, though, which, I assume, is down to the usual UCDS* exacerbated by lockdowns increasing interest in indoor pursuits. *Unfulfilled Childhood Dreams Syndrome

As a middle-aged bloke with an e-bike, I will say in my defence for such foolishness that I specifically bought a legal conversion kit (I'm qualified and capable of riding a real motorcycle, so there's no motivation to break the law for the dubious pleasure of riding a Chinese moped), and ride where it's legally allowed. I confine my annoying people to posting power assisted times on Strava, which seems to upset those who take it all a bit too seriously.

I suspect that may be John Bolster himself. The 'tash and the age would be about right. I wasn't aware of his participation in trials, but he was always hugely enthusiastic about anything with an engine in it*, so it's not impossible. *Apart from Lotus Europas, apparently.