MickRalph

Pulborough was retired from the exhibition circuit in 2008, so that this was its first appearance for many years. It is the same layout, with just the scenery upgraded. During its time in storage, it had suffered from damp and mice, so that it required considerable work to refurbish it and bring it up to current exhibition layout standards. The river board, particularly required complete rebuilding from the baseboard upwards.The plan is that the layout will appear only once or twice a year at exhibitions, as Barry Luck's Plumpton Green is now on the circuit. We had a few teething troubles with the running of the layout, as it hadn't been possible to set up the whole layout prior to the exhibition, but these were generally sorted out by Sunday. I think that it is a superb layout and very interesting to operate the timetable based on the WTT of 1912 - I say that as a operator, not one of the building team. Mick

I did the drawing and scribing before I saw your use of the salt water etching process. I have been thinking about trying it sometime. There is, I think, some vinyl in the pack which came with the Portrait. Perhaps when we get into the autumn/winter and we stop rushing about going to France and Northern Ireland, I wiill give it a try. Mick

There are two points I meant to post a few weeks ago about the software we use. Silhouette have released v4 of the Silhouette Studio program - this is supposed to be more user-friendly, with wizards to guide you through use of the program, though since I only use it (Designer Edition) to load the svg files from Inkscape and then cut them, it doesn't make much difference to me. Recently, version 0.92 has been released for Inkscape. In this version there has been a change in that "The default resolution was changed from 90dpi to 96dpi, to match the CSS standard." This results in drawings when opened in SSDE being too large. I have previously been using SS Designer Edition to import and cut objects created in versions 0.48 and 0.91 of Inkscape. In this post I reported that I found that to ensure the drawings were the correct size when imported into SSDE it is necessary to edit the document properties to set the general units to mm and the "custom size" units to px (if the custom size units are set at mm then the size of the object is reduced by about 20%). Now, with files created in v92 and imported into SSDE, the drawing increases in size such that a rectangle 100mm x 50mm is recreated at a size of 106.67mm x 53.33mm (note that for the increase in resolution referred to above, 96mm is 1.0667 x 90mm)' Consequently, I have had to stop using v92 of Inkscape and revert to v91. Has anyone else updated to v92 and found the same issue? Mick

I have used the Portrait machine to mark out nickel silver sheet with the parts for a tank loco - frames, footplate, cabsides, tanks, etc; just like an etched kit, without the tabs. I used the diamond dresser which I used to score the cuts in plasticard before using the blade. However, I haven't yet got round to cutting out the parts with a piercing saw, but that will be no different to marking out the parts on metal by hand and then cutting them for scratchbuilding. I have used the same file to cut the parts to make the body of the loco in plasticard, but I can't make the chassis until I cut out the parts from the nickel silver sheet. I got the idea from this post by Mike Oxon when he built a wagon in brass. Mick

According to the government passports website: "Your countersignatory must either: work in (or be retired from) a recognised profession be ‘a person of good standing in their community’" so no need to maintain the professional status. As the retired Secretary of a r ecognised profession, I seem to be able to countersign passport applications. Mick

I make quite frequent trips to the brewery to buy a new supply of their ales - they do a great selection. My own favourite is probably The Kiss, named after Rodin's sculpture, which was first brewed in 1999 to celebrate the return of Rodin’s famous sculpture to Lewes (from where it was commissioned) for a summer-long exhibition. Mick

I have to confess to my shame that having been born and bred in Sussex (apart from 4 years in "The North" at university and teacher training college), I had never heard of Sussex Charmer, nor Twineham Grange, Cheese. I must look out for some. Mick

I am currently in France using a Tooway connection. I don't find the forum to be any slower than in the UK, though downloads are often very slow. However it is so much faster than the dial-up connection which we used before we down the satellitre route; at home in the UK we have Infinity broadband, so no comparison. Mick

PM sent to Gary with a link to download those of the photos that came out OK. Mick Ralph

I promised to aend some photos - I did take some, but I am away until early next week, so may not be able to send them until I return home. Mick

I'll get Barry to pose the loco in a quiet moment and see how well I can capture it. I meant to add a link to Barry's blog site, where there are details of the layout (and his other lasyouts) and stock. Another of his previous layouts (Pulborough) is being refurbished and will be at the Bluebell Railway Model Railway Exhibition on 24th & 25th June. Mick

Fans of pre-grouping layouts will have a treat at Scalefour North in Wakefield next weekend, with 3 layouts on show. There are Cheddar S&DJR (Simon & Chris Challis); Witton Junction (NER by Ken Bateman, Dave Fenney & Ian Sadler); and the layout I will be helping to operate - Barry Luck's portrayal of Plumpton Station on the LBSCR in 1910. This layout features a fully-interlocked lever frame for points & signals (actually 2 frames, as there are releases on the main frame for the levers in the ground frame), bell block instruments, and Barry's superb scratchbuild locos. All these are in P4. I hope to see some of you at the show. Mick

When cutting out designs, such as window frames, with narrow sections, it is best to use the facility to cut lines of different colours in a specific order (or indeed to turn off cutting of lines of any colour on a particular pass). This enables you to cut out interior shapes first and then the outer shapes, avoiding the possibility of the item being displaced from the mat before the close lines have been cut. Silhouette Studio also has the option to "sort interior contours first", (Advanced otions on the cut settings menu) ie to cut interior shapes first; I have not experimented to see how well this works. Mick

I think more usually known as a "scrawker" - Eileen's Emporium and others) sell them. Mick

It is certainly possible to cut down to 0.4mm, which makes quite a difference for glazing bars. I think I have cut some lines at 0.3mm spacing Mick Edited to correct spelling and to add that even smaller than .4mm should be possible

There was discussion in Jason's original Silhouette thread of the DXF eport options and the conclusion I had come to was that exopoting to DXF required using the LWPolyline option. However, I don't use the export to DXF format, as I purchased the Designer Edition of Silhoutte Studio, which imports SVG files straight from Inkscape. Mick

Jason - thanks very much for finding the tutorial on bezier curves; it is something that I should have done for myself a long time ago. I always have trouble drawing the coach ends to match the drawings, though the drawings themselves are not consistent, in that the two sides do not mirror each other. I usually create half the end and then mirror it, but end up with a "corner" at the middle where the two halves join. Having played with tracing the pear, I should be able to do better with the ends; I think I tend to use too many points along the curves. BTW - when doing the drawings, I first duplicate the half end, mirror it and then slide it sideways to make the end. I then duplicate the two half-ends in a different colour and play about with them until happy with the shape, flipping them horizontally to see how symmetrical the revised shape is compared to the original. Mick

I haven't had a problem with Inkscape freezing when copying lines/shapes to different layers (or indeed at all), but I do sometimes (often?) find that I have inadvertently duplicated shapes, so that there are multiple shapes covering each other. There are two ways of selecting shapes - clicking on the shape selects the topmost copy, whereas using the selector tool (the top icon {an arrow} on the left) to enclose the shape selects all the shapes within it, so that if there are multiple copies on top of each other, they are all selected. You can ckeck whether you have selected multilpe shapes as at the very bottom of the screen it tells you how many and what types of shapes are selected. Mick Edited to correct a spelling mistake

The relevant post (with a link to another file) is here. Mick

It does look as if there is the word "Smoking" in each of those toplights, though whether they are opening is not clear. The panelling over the other windows is the standard panelling, as used by many companies. For the LSWR, Gordon Weddell says that from 1866, when smoking was allowed in designated compartments, a printed Smoking sign was placed in the centre of the door panel, but from about 1870 the word was etched into the quarter-light; there was no difference in the panelling of smoking or non-smoking compartments. Mick

I had the problem of sides being undersized when opened in Silhouette Designer Edition and I found that to get them the right size I had to set the "Custm Size" units to px while leaving the "default units" as mm in "File -> Document Properties -> Page". As I have Designer Edition, I save in Inkscape SVG format (I haven't had to save in plain svg format), so I don't have to worry about dxf conversions - problems with sizings was the reason I went for DE. I changed the Inkscape default document to these units so that I don't have to remember to change them when starting a new drawing. I covered the px v mm issue in this post in the main Silhouette Cutter thread

I too have problems - I think I can do freehand lining better than Inkscape!!! I also thought that outset/inset would be a simpler method of creating bolections or the waist panels on Mike's LSWR Metropolitan carriage, but again the path is not enlarged/reduced correctly. Interestingly, the quarterlight was a path of 9 nodes, but both inset and outset create a path with 5 nodes. For the lining test, the larger of the original paths has 12 nodes, but the outset shape has 10 and the inset path has 8 nodes; while for the smaller shape, the 12 nodes of the original are reduced to 4 and 3 respectively! Further study needed to see whether there is another setting which needs tweaking. Mick

I had to use a more long-winded procedure to create a 70th birthday present for my wife's French school penfriend. On the internet I found this design, which I turned into this I did this by using the "trace bitmap" function to create a path with many nodes; in node edit mode I deleted the original names; found a suitable hand-writing script to create each of the new names, joining the various letters to form a single path for each name; and then moved them separately to the appropriate position on the tree, connecting them up with the various branches of the tree. This is done by using the buttons on the edit-node toolbar to delete nodes, or to connect two nodes with a line. When I had finished the design, I cut it out on the Silhouette using a wood veneer obtained from Crafty Computer Papers To create the "S" on the wagon, you can use the bezier lines tool to create nodes on the periphery of the letter to form a joined up path, and then use the edit-note toolbar buttons to create the flowing curves - if you click on a single node then moving it alters the path between the two adjacent nodes, or clicking on a line segment allows you to alter the path between the nodes at the ends of the line segment. Mick

I thought that the bolections sit on top of the panelling layer for the LSWR (like the rectangular pieces at waist level on your model) - they do on the bogie coaches I have been making, so that I have to prepare a vey thin rectangle to go round each quarterlight. I am in France and don't have my copy of Gordon Weddell's book with me, so that I can't chreck that this was the same for earlier coaches. Mick

The tool is also called a "Skrawker" and Olfa make them (see the third and fourth items in the link). You can probably find them in a good model shop. Squires Tools also sell them (see page 188). I wouldn't be without mine, which is the OLFA PLASTIC CUTTER P-450 in the Squires catalogue. I think that Iain Rice suggested grinding one up from an old hacksaw blade. Another useful tool for scribing plasticard (planks etc) is a scraperboard knife, as suggested in MRJ by Geoff Kent in his series on coach-building. They are sold by the likes of Eileens Emporium and Hobby Holidays (and craft shops). BTW a fascinating thread. Mick Edited to add the reference to scraperboard tools. - Anfy G - I have long felt the need for a squarker in my life. I would be surprised if no one made such a thing, but, if not, presumably one can fashion such a thing from another tool. Does anyone have a suggestion for a squarker/groove making thing?