ChrisG

Hi,

 

To clarify this a bit further, I have started breaking up returned O2 models for spares as the spares are still problematic from China.

 

Please note I am breaking up otherwise fully repairable (with the correct spares) locomotives which is costing me greatly, and in the main I am not even charging those that need them, not even postage.

 

However, despite sending bits and bobs out over the last few weeks to customers who wanted them, I have yet to even receive a cursory 'thank you' from some of them which is very disconcerting.

 

I appreciate that spares aren't totally available yet, and I am trying my best but a thank you would have been nice.

 

As an aside, the total number of spares supplied for the J94 is at present 5 items. I've got enough spares to make around 60 loco's from scratch too, all paid for and wasting money unfortunately.

 

Cheers

Dave

That is indeed positive news. Did you see my e-mail to you a few weeks ago (sent on 28th May to your "info" address) enquiring about the availability of the retaining screw and spring for the rear bogie of the O2?

Chris

Yes, I know Mark - and I've operated Bembridge quite a few times! He's retired it from the exhibition circuit now though...

And intends to return it to the circuit in due course having replaced the trackwork with handbuilt and simplified the electrics...

Well DJM have from day one made plenty of comments about full spares availability from time of release, made it a bit of a sales pitch in fact. http://djmodels.co.uk/?page_id=253

If those spares aren't available you can hardly complain about customers complaining about a service or facility promised, but not delivered.

Thank you! Spares were specifically promised for the O2 and have not materialised. We have been let down...

Chris

Same as me, when I lifted Ventnor off for wheel cleaning a few of months ago, the bogie was left on the track.  No sign of screw or spring but could have been missing for ages, track cleaned and vacuumed once a week and lots of it.  Runs OK without being properly attached, but no back-up for spares it seems.

I have finally cleaned the wheels on mine after weathering it savagely. The basic mechanism works fine, but put back on the track with the trailing bogie not screwed on, and without the spring, the running is most unsatisfactory. It badly affects the haulage capacity and the rear wheel on the trailing bogie no longer revolves. Pretty unsatisfactory. I will start searching on the internet for possible replacement screws and a spring. But mainly I am just angry with Kernow (for passing the buck) and DJM (for failing to commission a supply of spares). 

Chris

I no longer have a copy but the February 1963 Model Railway Constructor had a prototype feature article on Hayling Island Station which may have a drawing. 

Chris G

Alton

Hants

Hi Chris - there hasn't been much progress recently, as I've been too busy with other non-railway stuff.

 

I have built one and a half more points (the main station throat one and halfway through the coal siding one), and the frame for the baseboard under St Mary's Road bridge - photos will follow when I've got a bit more done!

Life's often like that unfortunately: other things come first.   Still, it sounds like progress and doing a little whenever you get the chance soon accumulates. I've just sent off the CADs for the Ventnor West water tower. Base to be cut from 2mm ply and the tank will be plasticard. 

I've certainly seen colour photos of the pull-push set at VW in crimson - there's one on the cover of one of the issues of 'Southern Way'

Brilliant. I found the photo in an online search. Click the image to enlarge.  http://www.crecy.co.uk/southern-way-issue-no.-10

Thanks

Chris

A belated addition to this thread... I've used Railmatch Universal Primer many times now and have to agree. It takes days to dry, it doesn't cover well and doesn't provide a good painting surface. I have also observed that the spray nozzle clogs well before the can is finished. Having assumed these problems were all self-inflicted I finally read this thread and realised that I'm not alone.  I won't be using it again! The other product I have been using, with much greater success is provided by Howes in an aerosol, a grey self-etching primer. Designed for use on metal it seems to work well on all surfaces.

Chris

Alton

Hampshire

It's been a month since we last heard from you Nick. Have you been able to make any recent progress?

Chris

Thanks, 

all these comments have been helpful and certainly encouraging because it seems that almost any combination of livery and lettering was possible. The narrow window I have in which to run BR stock to Ventnor West (my exhibition layout project) is 1948 (Nationalisation) -1952 (when it closed). This makes Malachite green with Southern numbering with BR prefixes the most likely combination. What one really needs is good dated photos of the relevant stock, but unless someone has bothered to ensure the lettering is in view it is going to be guesswork as to which vehicles are involved, except of course the push pull sets.

In any event, recent attention has been on the layout itself so the coach in question has made no progress!

Chris

A few more from Arun Quay. I think you can tell that I like it, a lot! Congratulations to Gordon and Maggie.

 

all the best

 

Godfrey

Sublime modelling and beautiful photos. I was feeling quite proud of my own layout until I saw these photos......

Chris

Hello John

 

Sadly I agree totally with you. I gave up on my 02, a loco I was so looking forward to and have 2 M7's in service again both running superbly after many years now and soon to be joined by the new Hornby 0-4-4T.

 

I know others have had no problems with their 02's but I have a layout running to timetable requiring many smooth starts and stops and shunting moves and the 02 I received was just not smooth or reliable enough. Hope to be over at Kernow again early next year - perhaps I can find one there that suits after a good test run. I really do want one for the gate stock when it arrives.

That really sounds like a one-off rogue model because generally speaking these locos are lovely runners. 

Chris

I thought I would break cover to report on my latest IOW coach exploits. The one I'm showing here follows a number of exploratory and ultimately rejected attempts based on Ratio Midland coach sides. It is intended to be more prototypical and is based on Bill Bedford's brass sides for a diagram 377 saloon composite. this one numbered S6364. It will be running on my Ventnor West layout and has therefore been finished in the malachite green I am assuming it would have carried between 1949 and 1952. It has BR style lettering which could be wrong as it may not have received that until it was painted red. 

In the pictures you can see

1) The Bill Bedford brass sides (one has been glazed the other not yet);

2) The main body shell (floor, chassis, partitions and ends) which were custom cut from 1mm Rowmark by York Modelmaking from CAD files originated by me. Two drawbacks of this approach are that the footboards are a bit thick and the material is harder to stick than styrene sheet;

3) The false roof, again custom cut, this time from 2mm ply. It will be clad in thin brass sheet which I have had custom etched to the precise dimensions, with half etched lines to aid the bending;

4) Roxey Mouldings SECR heavy Fox bogies. After one failed attempt I managed to master the art of soldering the footboards to the whitemetal bump stops. Not the easiest modelling job I have ever done!

Still to do are finishing the roof, couplings (Kadees which I use for fixed rake coupling), underframe, end details, and weathering. 

Chris G

Alton

Hants

I finally plucked up the courage to weather a locomotive, the chosen subject being one of the Kernow O2s. I started by renumbering it to 32 Bonchurch in late BR livery and then as per Martyn Welch's book spraying it with acrylic varnish to provide a protective layer against the assault which was to follow. In the process I chose the wrong time of day and ended up with the loco misted with large white spots. At first I thought it looked horrible and then I warmed to it, deciding that it would probably work well if I weathered on top of it. The white misting was not unlike certain shots of life-expired O2s in the mid 1960s on the Isle of Wight. Especially good was the effect around the smokebox door which looked like limescale. In the process I ended up with a locomotive more heavily weathered than I intended, but pretty much looking like Bonchurch in her last days of service.

Then the tale took a turn for the worse. I had recently had a letter published in the Modeller essentially replying to an article by Steve Flint about the difficulty of servicing and maintaining modern RTR products. There was considerable discussion on this forum about the lack of spares for these Kernow/DJM models. John Flann was particularly vexed that he couldn't get a separate smokebox door...  In the process of weathering said beast, the screw and spring which attach the trailing bogie to the chassis took a dive to the floor, and resisted all attempts to find and recapture to  them.  A polite though buck-passing reply from Kernow referred me to DJM who, at the time of writing of this, have not replied.

Hmmm. I own 4 Kernow O2s with no visible manufacturer's support, and I have no idea how long they may last - they get heavy exhibition and home use. I also have a number of kit-built O2s for which I have many spare parts in stock, plus the ability to perform any maintenance task from re-wheeling to re-motoring to refitting detached detailed parts. I am confident they can be made to last a lifetime, and have no such confidence in the RTR equivalents.

Does anyone happen to know enough about screws and springs to advise where I might find said articles from an independent supplier? I am guessing they are standard products and not proprietary to Kernow or DJM. 

Chris Gardner

Alton 

Hants

Do you mean Ventnor Town or Ventnor? Ventnor Town was the station which was renamed Ventnor West and closed in the 1950s.

So far nobody has mentioned Karl Crother's forward.

I'm not sure that Railway Modelling is conducive to good mental health, let alone holding back the onset of Alzheimer's.

I've known more than one friend whose modelling activities nearly brought on a divorce, and thus associated mental anguish.

Following through Karl's list of the evolution of modelling from one's first introduction, kits, layouts, exhibiting etc., I have travelled that path, and a healthy mental experience is not the way I saw it, yes a few highs, but many, many lows, especially in the early days of etched kits....  

Indeed at present, I'm wrestling with extreme anguish over some models I would like to complete now, they have lain dormant for some 25+ years, they are giving me some extreme mental anguish - probably because I've forgotten how to do things etc.,

 

I'm tempted to say, if anybody ends up with Alzheimer's, by that time they are probably out of the main spheres of modelling, and have little contact with the wider social scene.  

I'm certainly aware of a couple of very competent modellers who have Parkinson's.

I too found the editorial interesting and was moved to write a letter to the editor. However I have found  no earthly evidence of the magazine or the publishers having an e-mail address, although I cannot believe they receive missives written on paper and then re-type them for publication.

The day after my issue arrived there was a short programme about Dementia and Altzheimer's Disease on Radio 4 in which the experts admitted that the diseases are far less well researched and known than others, even though Dementia is now the no. 1 cause of death in this country. They believe some of it is genetic (inherited) whilst for the rest the general rule of "if it's good for the heart, it's good for the brain" seems to apply.

Railway Modelling is generally a pretty sedentary pastime and whilst it provides the occasional intellectual challenge I suspect that by and large, and apart from certain phases of design and construction,  it doesn't challenge the brain much, and it certainly doesn't provide aerobic or anaerobic exercise. The great strength of it as a hobby strikes me as being that it involves all the stages of creation, from conception to building to detailing, to fettling and maintaining, and many practical disciplines such as drawing, designing, woodwork, metalwork, electrics, electronics, painting and so on. I don't think anyone should regard it as ticking the box on protection against dementia in the absence of other physical activity and intellectual challenge of reading, debating, acting, solving puzzles, learning new skills, and so on.  

That doesn't stop it being a jolly good hobby to have of course, but I certainly don't think it compares with group music-making or fluency in more than one language, which I believe are among the proven activities which do help. 

Chris Gardner

Alton

Hampshire

Signal box just requiring it's true surroundings !!!rake1.JPG

That's a beautiful model of Cowes signalbox!

Thanks!

 

I've got a few ideas as to how to simulate the 'gravity shunt', not sure what will work yet though...

Hi Nick and all other honorary "Islanders",

Many years ago I made contact with Dennis Nix, who had built a model of Cowes with the gravity shunt. I think it was featured in the Model Railway Constructor at some point. He was basically an LNWR modeller and a built and exhibited Cowes as a temporary diversion. He sent me a video of it in operation, which I probably still have on a VCR tape and should find and get copied. It also had some footage of my old Cowes layout, dating from before my own attempt at the gravity shunt. Dennis's was an authentic approach because he built the layout on a slope and let the stock roll down by gravity. The video showed the fairly vigorous descent and hard stop at the bottom! It certainly was a talking point at exhibitions. It needed careful setting up with adjustable feet on the baseboard legs and his stock all had to have the same rolling characteristics. 

My own version used a rake of carriages with a black beetle motor bogie. The layout still exists but has spent the last 15 years stored in the roof of our garage following a) an attack by a marauding 3 year old which damaged a lot of the scenery and track and b) a change of life's priorities. If I bring it down it will probably be to scrap it, but I was fond of it as the first layout I had ever got to anything like completion. From memory, there was a controller built into the baseboard and set at a fixed speed for the gravity move. Once the loco had detached and run back over the crossover, the points were thrown and switches thrown to connect the track to the fixed controller. The carriages moved to the end of the platform where they were stopped by an IRDOT. The operator remained in charge of the loco and with another flurry of switching brought it back onto the front of the train. As the designer of the system I used to be able to work it but visiting operators tended to struggle. I realised at the time (this was before I had DCC) that it could have been completely automated with more IRDOTs, but the layout met its end before I got around to doing that. It was exhibited maybe four times in its short life and I got a lot of pleasure from it. 

My new attempt is part of a more ambitious loft layout, it has no gravity shunt, although as a DCC layout it could be implemented with motorised coaches. However, for the complexity it involves I feel it doesn't bring enough extra to the overall operation of the layout and the complexity of having coaching stock which is motorised in circumstances other than a simple terminus-to-fiddle yard layout puts me off the idea. It might be worth fitting a motor bogie to one set of carriages, and operating these as a fixed rake on a Cowes - Newport - reversing loop shuttle diagram. I'll have to think about that!

My Cowes to Newport layout is currently rather sidelined whilst I build an exhibition model of Ventnor West, and I expect to get back to it next Winter. Medina Wharf (compressed) is the next section which needs trackbuilding. There's a blog covering its construction somewhere else on RMWeb. 

p.s. shall we all get together and built a modular exhibition layout of the whole Island?

Chris Gardner

Alton

Hants

They look quite marvellous!    Chris

rake2.JPGrake2.JPG

Hi

 

This is a picture of some of my EM gauge SECR and LBSCR 4mm coaches. I am miles away from getting to Chris's excellent layou

I received the newsletter and was similarly enthused. I have built a 4mm scale O2 tank loco from a Wills kit, using a particularly snug gearbox and a small motor to leave as much space as possible for the wireless control gear.  Lo and behold the list of products for 2017 includes a battery (cylindrical 45mm by 10mm) which will fit in the boiler and an unbelievably small control unit which has many possibilities for fitting - above the motor, in the side tanks or in the bunker. Plus exciting possibilities for charging. This looks like the year it is going to happen. Like previous correspondents I am convinced this is the way of the future, and an article in the latest issue of Scalefour News contains the view that totally reliable slow running cannot be achieved whilst current is still being picked up from the track. I tend to agree.....

Chris

Alton, Hants

..and the roof profile is the signature point of the SECR coaches, which you have captured very well!

JF

Which was my main objective!  At a normal viewing distance the eye will say "ah, an SECR coach".  The eye, looking a bit more closely may of course also say "too many compartments and too small luggage compartment" but we all set out own modelling standards, and I am always happy when I manage to reach mine (whilst also aspiring to, and admiring, the levels above me).

Thank you for your kind comments  :-)

Chris

With the lack of any simple alternative, I think that's quite a good idea! If you could sort of square off the bottom of each window it would  add another subtle difference in appearance and probably be quite convincing.

Cheers

JF

Thanks Jon for the suggestion. I can certainly see the point of that, though I won't be adopting it.  I'm applying the art of compromise at the moment for the sake of getting things built. There will be around 8 passenger rakes on my layout when it is fully operational, I only have 2 right now, so anything that looks sort of right is acceptable. This particular batch of coaches needs to blend with what is already there, and as I said I have some proper etched sides on hand for future builds. The standard will rise, and at the moment I am happy to have demonstrated that with judicious use of laser cut components I can achieve reasonable results more quickly than ever before.  

I'm also helping everyone I'm sure, as a certain result of moving into building SECR IOW coaches will mean that one of the RTR companies will introduce them. Though funnily enough, having taken the Kernow O2s on board I have been sufficiently unimpressed with the durability of all the fine detail, that I am going back to kitbuilding them!

Chris

I also tried the Bill Bedford recommended way of building roofs, and stuck 2mm by .5mm plastic strip to the formers. I am very taken with the result, still without the tissue paper. I think it's going to make a very convincing looking roof. Total time to get to this point  around 3 hours.

Chris

I've been working on a way of creating representational models of the SECR coaches as quickly as possible. I settled on using Ratio Midland suburban sides, cut and shut to length, and to commission laser-cut components based on CAD files which I created myself. The photos show the results of a proof of concept which I regard as successful and will form the basis of a completed model in due course. 

The laser cut components are made of 1mm Rowmark and are

The floor

Compartment walls

Ends

Ceiling

Roof formers

The brass roof is from Branchlines (universal brass roof) which can be easily bent to the correct profile.

The sides do not bear comparison with real SECR sides, there are too many compartments and too small a guards compartment, but the aim of the exercise was to create something which created the right impression and was a variation from the diet of LBSCR coaches.

I do have some Bill Bedford brass sides which I will use for a next batch, with modified laser cut components. 

Some grainy iphone pictures below which show the idea

Chris G

Alton

Hants

Here's a link to a couple of pictures of the coaches built by Andy Gannon, Featured in the September Scalefour News, and on display this weekend at Scaleforum. I saw them and they were completely breathtaking. Had a long chat with Andy about his methods. These really are in the top notch!

http://www.yorkmodelmaking.co.uk/community/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/December_2015.pdf

Chris G