Rich Papper

Given that the last of new Hornby ones I've been slowly collecting for about 3 years arrived on Wednesday, I might be tempted to cry a bit. Given the quality of other wagons from the Cavalex stable though I shall find a way to squeeze some in!

Looking very nice - well done. You're inspired me to get on with mine now - still in many bits and with no door furniture. Rich

I use one of these for stripping body shells in IPA: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lock-Rectangular-Storage-Container-Clear/dp/B0000AN4CL?pf_rd_r=BBKTAJTHBZG5C16FVB79&pf_rd_p=15b60bc4-354f-4e4b-9ad1-7f12f925a65d&pd_rd_r=a2252132-6699-447a-ab55-4214702a77d1&pd_rd_w=n2TDt&pd_rd_wg=DfZvy&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_d Fits everything I've put in it so far and clips securely tight to avoid leaks. Remember to put a little water in with the IPA - no idea of the chemistry, but neat IPA doesn't seem to work, add about 5% water and it does. Rich

Yes please. Always good to see some kit bashing. I'm building a 119 at the moment, but have gone the hard way with some spare Hornby 110 bodies. Would love to see a 442. Rich

Some very neat woodwork there Dale, well done. For the lift-out section on my home carbuncle I went with alignment dowels which I soldered the power feeds to. Lines up every time and means there are no hanging cables for my children to swing on. Photos below if any help. Good luck finding more wood, by local B&Q seems to have sold out of pretty much every type of wood Rich

And door handles! Just looked at the picture above and realised I haven't done that either!

Hello All A couple of 119 updates. Work is progressing, but many very slow and tedious tasks. All the glazing is now fitted. This involved taking the original Hornby 110 windows and cutting around 1.2mm off the bottom of each and filing them to shape (about as much fun as it sounds). I decided in the end not to sharpie the outside of the window pane as this seemed to highlight the thickness of the windows and bodyside. I fitted them and then brushed a tiny amount of gloss varnish on the underside and let capillary action do the rest. I've then done the toilet filler and exhaust pipes. I didn't have any handrail knobs or similar so went with the Bachmann method of hole in the end, hole in the roof and then bend wire to fit between. I'm surprised at how well this has turned out. I've never needed to do it before - I seem to have either modelled vehicles with no toilet, or just gone with the moulded ones, but having had to make the ends from scratch I had nothing to fall back on. For the exhausts I've used some Peter's Spares Lima DMU replacements (available here). They are cast metal, allowing the little bend specific to the 119s to be made at the top. Photo below awaiting a bit of filing / painting / weathering. The centre trailer is now largely complete and has been trundling around to test it's pickups. The driving vehicles will be a little longer as I still have to make windscreens and destination blinds for them. Then some weathering. I might take the Bachmann 121 and 117 into the shed for that too if I'm feeling brave enough. Weirdly, despite the hours spent on this, I'm still more reluctant to weather something I could just replace (albeit for a price!). Stay safe all. Rich

Completely agree. They'll get a weathering when I've done the couplings. I'm currently a bit torn between a couple more or a few Grampus to run with them. Of course Grampus are a different colour challenge altogether. I think they were actually painted with rust somehow. As for the 73, I have all the bits to build a GLV (hopefully soon, I'm a bit DMU'd out at the moment). When that gets to the painting stage I'll strip the 73 down and do them together.

It's been about 25 years since I last did, and my memory isn't what it was! I do like Cambrian kits. I've never had a problem building them, it's getting around to painting them. And I usually seem to leave it long enough for someone to announce a RTR one anyway.

Was just an assumption to be honest - the yellow is exactly the same as the lemon shade on the 73 that was widely lambasted at the time of release. It was my impression that in the 80s warning panel yellow and dutch livery yellow were the same, so I assumed if it was wrong on the 73 (it's certainly a different colour to the warning yellow panel on everything else I have) then it was also wrong on the wagons. More than happy to be corrected if I've jumped to the wrong conclusion here. Wagons will get a heavy weathering anyway, but I don't think I can disguise it on the 73. Rich

I'd love one if you get a chance please Mark. Don't have any OO scale cats to hand, but I'm pretty sure I could swing more than a few of them in the gap. Rich

Good Evening All A bit of a room upgrade this afternoon but should make a bit of a difference to the layout. A before and after photo of the same bit of ceiling below: Replaced the single pendant light with a 6ft LED batten. Massive difference in the room - I keep seeing things I haven't noticed before (as well as the occasional ('why did I paint it that colour?' moment). Did a bit of reading around on colour temperatures (they all describe them in different ways - one company's 'warm white' is another's 'neutral white') and went for one that is roughly 4000K. Given the size of the room I didn't think I needed anything brighter. A few pictures to test. 47602 on an enterprise. 73102 on some new turbots. Note to self: need to repaint that 73. And stick the detail bits back on. And sort the colours on the turbots. And fill the handrail holes. And invent some shorter couplings. (come on Dapol!) Pictures definitely look clearer in this light though. I suppose because the camera is having to do less work with the light level. More soon. Rich

Just received my 3 of these from the second batch. Dutch livery looks very neat, one of the three has handles and end steps, the issues with the incredibly long couplings remain. Lovely wagon though for the price. Rich

Good Evening All A little more progress this week with the 119, although with little to show for it so far. Windows. Of course having made the window openings the right size for a 119, I then had to cut and file all of the glazing to fit back in them. Not as difficult as it sounds, but extremely tedious. Then, having done that, they all needed to come out again to have the various glazing bars painted the correct NSE blue. Also tedious, but: Fairly happy given my usual ham-fistedness. 5/0 brush and a cotton bud and thinners to hand. Next stage is possible tweaking of how they fit. I learned with the laserglaze that running a black sharpie around the outside of the pane prior to fitting makes a big difference. This is of course much thicker material. In the picture below the window on the left has had the sharpie treatment, the one on the right is as filed. Even the new Bachmann 117 has a little prism effect going on with the glazing, it's inevitable really with the thicknesses of plastic needed, but jury's still out on this. I think it looks better, but you get a slightly odd effect with the open windows where the black is reflected in the underside of the open section. Only other achievement this week was getting Edward working (yep, another Sodor resident). Picked up new on offer about a year ago but has never run properly. Finally got around to taking it apart and stripping out all the random diodes and resistors it didn't need. Hard wired the chip in and it runs perfectly now, so at the very least I've gained an 8 pin socket for the spares box. Hopefully get some windows back in the 119 this week. Going to have to make my own for the cab fronts as I remember using the original Bachmann glazing from the 108 cabs on a DC Kits 114. Stay safe. Rich

A belated big thank you for this advice, I've only just had chance to have a test. Clever feature, but not sure I'll always be on the ball enough to use it! Always nice to learn new things on here from the wealth of collective experience. Rich

Quite true, all were static models supplied on their own piece of plastic 4 rail 'track'. Some of those I converted had wheels that weren't even circular!

Hello Thank you for the kind words Chris, that was exactly my plan. I knew that there wasn't enough space, but I've had trouble matching the colours of these backscenes and I wanted the sky to be continuous above. I do have a box of seafoam earmarked for the job, but haven't got around to it yet. I'm still not completely sure on the name Catford, the station will be closer in design to Caterham, but it seems to have stuck now. Rich

Thanks Scott. It is getting a little bit #NSE at the moment even for me! I do think that the next home based one will be the last - I do actually long to work on some wagons for a change. I'm pretty sure I have 101, 104, 108, 115, 117, 119, and 121 covered for NSE and I'm leaning towards a 116. First and last of the 117s below - hard to tell but I think the one on the right is the Bachmann. The Lima was the first one I had in NSE and I had someone else do it as I was too scared to have a go at the livery at the time (more years ago than I care to remember!) I do sometimes wonder what would tempt me towards something more modern. My son is 4 and loves the modern things that go past our house - what if one day he turns around wanting an 800? So far the only thing I've seen that would even vaguely tempt me is something like that very nice 68 that you're testing at Redbrook! Rich

Just had a catch up with this fantastic layout. I really like the four rail technique. I've only ever done it in tube tunnel, but if I ever do realise the dream of something Metropolitain I'll certainly go for your method. Thanks for sharing. Rich

Wouldn't I still need to shake the can to get the varnish out of it in the first place? I'm very happy with the finish, I'm just concerned the can is going to disintegrate before I've finished it. Rich

Hello All 119 has now been matt varnished. Spray can continues to deteriorate despite only being half empty. It gives a great finish, but not sure how much longer I want to use this can - not sure what will happen if it actually breaks open at the bottom. I can't even stand it up, it bulges about 1cm below the bottom rim. Some good news though - like most spray varnish the nozzle gums up almost immediately in normal use. I usually take the nozzle off and leave it in a jar of thinners between uses, but even this wasn't solving it with this stuff. I found on ebay some replacement nozzles (here). Seen in picture. I think the same supplier does wide angle ones too. Only problem is that now ebay thinks I like graffiti gear, so I'm off to put on a hoodie and lurk in an underpass. Rich

The 117 is here! A bit of a running session this afternoon to put it through it's paces. No issues so far. Unsurprisingly it runs very nicely with the 121. Another reason to think that I really need to get on with that shed though... Needs weathering too. It might end up with a once over when the 119 reaches that stage. Rich

I've just had my 117 and 121 apart to see how easy a body swap would be to represent a 121 substituting for one of the 117 cars. Short answer is no, as can be seen in the picture below, the clips are in different locations - slightly odd choice given that about 2/3 of the interior is identical? Wouldn't be a problem if you were determined though, only a bit of plastic to file. The trick would be adding the second cab detail, but looking at the picture below it does seem to be a separate moulding to the area around the chip. So would probably come down to: do you want to rewire the coupler or file some plastic. Using the 121 chassis for the 117 would be relatively straightforward: remove the cab and file the end of the chassis flat. Given the prices though I might just stick to doing all this with Lima ones for now... Hopefully the above images save anyone else the trouble of getting them apart to compare. Rich

Mine arrived today too. Just finished running it in and it seems happy. Did have to do a bit of propping up to run in both power cars at the same time as I didn't have enough rollers. Only peculiarity I found with Bachmann chip was it was set at a bizarrely high default momentum. Probably realistic but took half a lap of the room to stop from medium speed. Very pleased though. Rich

For another good load of first gen DMU cab views - albeit of a 115 - I recommend Video 125's 'Chiltern- Take Two'. Young lady at the controls has fag in hand and can of Quattro on the go for most of the journey! Can strongly recommend Video 125 for some very good quality cab shots of a range of things. No connection, etc. Rich