craigwelsh

Another way of dealing with the bowing is to scribe the door panel lines in deeply and bend the sides along these door lines before its assembled. It'll keep the slight outward bend when finished then. I did this successfully on all of my Parkside wooden body minerals previously.

That really does want me to have one on a shelf! Or hurry on to mk1 coach detailing in 4mm, one of the two . Looking great so far and I look forward to the finished item.

That shelf will look excellent when populated

Dick doesn't use Templot and he seems to draw these things quite quickly (his double junction was in the current MRJ). I tend to draw mine like this as well now just in AutoCAD and not by hand. I've never had the chance to sit down and learn Templot and I guess Dick hasn't either and had no need to when he finds it quick by hand. I know Templot could do these things and probably quite quickly once learnt. Thanks for the pointer on the sleeper gap, I probably will shove the sleepers up a bit when I fill in the gaps and replace the initial ones that have the rivets a bit off now the gauges have been on it. I'll try and write up a manual template creation sometime as people might find it interesting to compare.

A turnout is made of two parts, a pair of switches and a crossing. The REA set of standard parts (used by everyone apart from the GWR/BR WR from the mid 20s, broadbrush speaking here!) basically had A,B,C,D,E and F switches getting larger radii each time and crossing of 1 in4 etc. B7 being B switches with a 1 in 7 crossing. These switches are flexible - rail flexes, older switches had a loose heel and rotated. I have an LMS book for designing the stuff and it gives the radii you could fit each set of bits into and the length of the closures - bit between the switches and the crossing. GWR/BR WR didn't have an A switch but kept loose heel for that and did have stuff equivalent to B-E switches then went for 30', their crossings are also a bit different. GWR Switch and Crossing Practice by the GWR study group is the bible, C+L sell it.

With the main up and down lines completed and running before xmas the remaining scenic pointwork now needs completing and laying. Tonight Dick has been laying the goods loop at the right end of the layout on the outside of the running lines while i've made a start on the crossover from the branch down into the goods yard. I've started with the point on the main running line and will do the other point that leads onto the headshunt later. There is a board joint in between the two so they have been modified from the original templot 1:7s to something like a 1:6.5 and a 1:8 to avoid issues. This was the same sort of thing adopted for the good loop exit crossover. The running line is on a 110" radii with the turnout road on a 48" curve. The 110" curve used in the initial laying out of the 1st rail is in shot. This is the first bit of pure ply and rivet i've done and follows Dick's approach. Note I only fitted minimal sleepering at first and the other sleeps will go in later allowing the riveting to be more accurate. It also means its much easier to get it off the paper again as only 6 sleepers have tape on them! Although I said the crossing on this was a 1:8 I ended up making a 1:7 from the Portsdown models jig as it fitted the plan better for some reason. I didn't bend the rail through the nose of the crossing just the loose rail sticking out. Wagons run nicely though it so far but I need to file up the blades and fit the check rails yet. Cosmetic chairs to finish after i've replaced the initial sleepers which had roughly placed rivets which end up a bit misaligned. The Exactoscale 1:7 shows the straight nature of even the best settrack but also the extended nature of curved pointwork on the closure rails between crossing and switch. General view through the flow of the track.

This came up when Tim V was building a Prairie and Comet supply a generic one rather than something specific, the Markits one isn't correct but probably the best thing about unless you get some Mitchell ones which are correct but cast not machined.

Ahj post 61, for some reason i'd got it in my head they were supposed to have been introduced in '61! That explains it as the photo i'm looking at right now is p35 south wales main line pt1 and its 30-03-62 on the B4 bogie. Most of the pics are from 61 and BR1 bogies so i'm ok to use the same coaches for 60 and 61 . Have you managed to get exact coach numbers for these sets? Does the info exist as i'd like to know coaches used in the Capitals if the info is out there. I should probably ask on the Yahoo group but its a slow project this one! Hope you aren't doing that rake too in the future! Its possible Ultrascale does a true 14mm wheel but they cost more than the coaches and ideally you'd want something like 13.8mm anyway for a bit of wear. Great info from Bob there too.

Interesting you mention the Red Dragon with the prototype B4 bogies (i'm not sure if they had the torsion bars fitted on the prototype at that point or it was a different type as seen in the Parkin book) as i've only found 2 shots of coaches in the rake that show them rather than BR1, it must have been just the one summer or something? I noticed the rakes changed a bit in '61 compared to 60 when researching which is annoying when you want to span even a couple of years! The 3'6inch wheel is an annoying issue in P4 trying to design an etched bogie as all of the wheels available are greater than 14mm (14.2 - 14.5) to represent 3' 7 1/2 so you can't have anything close to scale brake clearances.

no don't replace the screw or it hits the flywheel and burns out the motor! (as per the HST) If any cl70 models suffer from mazak rotting chassis in the future you can quickly renumber them as 70012!

Not prior to TOPS though hence the point Stationmaster was making. Like panel backed transfers on models these panels do seem to weather differently to the paint on the main loco.

So when are you building it a colliery?

I've read a couple of notes that when they did couple them up they tended to leave the instanters in the 'long' position or not do up the screws and break the pipes anyway. Cardiff docks had great big metal beams between the rails too for the coal hoists that happily stripped all of the fittings off the bottom too! With the slope sider the sides were actually one piece of bent metal as built and do there wasn't a join between the slope and the upright section, its where the later 'fixed' Bachmann release (not the early one with the odd proportions) scores over Parkside. Some were later plated up to the bend line anyway though.

The vents on the end of the vanwide seem to have gone awol..

I find putting the coaches back together again is the harder part, the body is a tight fit on the chassis at the ends and you can easily break the solebars where the bogie pivots. I need to take all of the door handles etc off mine now to apply some t-cut to try and breathe some life into the maroon finish. Possibly rub down the roof a bit too to take the over the top riveting down a bit.

You can use Combine Z5 or one of the newer releases linked to to do this. http://www.hadleyweb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/CZ5/combinez5.htm

My brake third took a few minutes per curtain too, thankfully there were only the 6 on it! Good luck to anyone who needs to remove them from a rake!

Was the RB just added into an existing set replacing the ex GWR restaurant vehicle or was the whole set renewed? If it was added in i'd assume it would have a newer coat of paint than some of the existing set.The colour match looks pretty close anyway though really especially if you put a little t-cut on the Bachmann brown.

Ah but Tony went for t'Northern version . With apologies to people in the north who get annoyed enough with Michael Mcintyre doing that.. Doh! Well you certainly caught me out with that one! I was suggesting the view followed quite a few prototype shots anyway in making the platform look shorter.

They didn't stop short of the corner as they didn't aim there (generally and officially noting Pennine's point), the line stops at the top of the end door and is a diagonal from that point to the bottom corner of the section. See : http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p52574486.html for a new example though most of Paul's pictures show the same after some use. I don't tend to use a transfer for the line but paint between two lines of masking tape giving me something that distresses a bit better. The basis of mine is Bachmann or Parkside though as i'm not old enough to have a cupboard of Airfix costing pennies . Wooden minerals this year though in general, steel next year once i've done the chassis!

That does look good, especially the 3rd picture with the train in the station. The foreshortening apparent in the station shots compared to the overview of the board is interesting to note. Pity we couldn't magic up some buildings for Slattocks with the track running again but we have to design them yet .

Needs to go on a diet, its got a bit tubby.

So 18 months after we started digging it up we now have two line running on Slattocks again! Here are a couple of poor videos of the occasion. The Pannier was on DCC and the other locos were running on DC. The new track and ballast has really improved the ability to take closeups on the layout without the basics looking bad. The missing bits can be filled in now that the droppers are in and the cess installed up to the shoulder. This LMS pairing from Dick Petter was in the display cabinet at the Manchester Show and had a good run on the layout before posing on the bridge while Dick got some awards for it! Just the point motors to install on the mainline before we do the other lines off the junction and also the goods yard.

Where have you got the drawings of these parts from and do they have these sorts of drawings of the vee hangers etc in the set? I haven't really looked for these at the NRM where they must be somewhere but do want to do new etched parts for the underframe in 4mm. Your 3D graphics are very good. The CSSC minutes are in the Parkin Compendium volume (I think its the full minutes in there anyway or at least good notes)and that book adds a lot to the main volume. It might be that Southern Pride resell the MJT/Dart castings?

Don't the roof tanks need removing completely if you aren't doing the WR type of RU anyway? I still need to do the window mod on mine to add in the extra full size window. Must admit I started reading your first two conversions and thought "you'd just use a Bachmann now" and then scrolled down . Vee hangar is the wrong type for a lot of mk1s and the other end of the shaft is on the wrong u/f member. Most of the catering car boxes were pretty similar and there is always Comet to get some new ones. Thanksfully with the Bachmann it all plugs in easily enough to move it around.