jrg1

Let us all know if you intend to produce models for sale-a rake of these would be ideal for my project.

These are not carefully designed company liveries, they are paint jobs, and horrible, cheap and inappropriate. The steam shot of Grantham is far more interesting, and shows how the modern railway has been stripped to its bare essentials-dull, boring and unedifying. The Grantham of steam days was fascinating-a business-like air, busy, crowded and something happening all the time. Today it is almost like waiting at an enlarged bus stop.

I believe his locomotives were heavily weighed, and had Pittman motors

And that is before I consider what a sight a Bachmann Blue Pullman would make running through LB.

It may well be unauthentic, and not happened in reality, but a BR Blue era on LB would photograph beautifully-and who would not want to see a HST cruising through the station?

Buffer stops had a long life and seemed to be moved around-I saw an NER example at Pyewipe Sidings in Lincoln (GNR).

Looks the part-an unusual prototype that is all yours.

Leave the somersaults in place! They look great!

You're right-the straight and square sets off the pipe runs. The B1 looks the part.

I totally agree with Lecorbusier. What is correct on the real thing may look very different in miniature. I aim to have handrails and pipework as per works drawings-I feel that any distortion or droops looks like bad workmanship. Putting dents in an A4's casing would look like someone clumsy dropped it, as far as I am concerned. Decent weathering gives individuality-TW's O4 would have minor damage all over, plus a dropped buffer beam to have fidelity with a workhorse getting on for 50 years worth of hard slog, but the model still looks the part with a decent build and judicious weathering.

Paring off boiler bands is tedious, but worth it, as the cast bands are far too thick. They can be scraped, and I find that finishing off with fine glasspaper then a fibre pen is better than clogging up needle files. P4 May look much better, but if I was considering again, I would go to EM, and save money and time, for almost exactly the same result.

I agree that RTR wins on cost, looks and finish. As I model in P4 the added cost of a new chassis and wheels makes conversion expensive; I would like to simply use RTR bodies and build the chassis for them-but nowadays body spares seem as rare as hen's teeth.

I suggest plastic rod-I use this when bending copper tube for pipework.

I discovered on my DJH kit that the can motor mount etch was too thick and the lugs broke off when bent; the frame spacer etches were too thin and flimsy, and the locating slots in the frames were around three times the spacer thickness-therefore useless. Detailed etches, such as the front bufferbeam, were around 0.005"-wafer thin, and needed fabricated backing pieces-the supplied W/M piece was too thin. The cab sides also need backing plates making up. The cast bogie assembly and guard irons were discarded. The crude cast footplate was utilised for ballast.

I have an old DJH kit, and the etches are laid out crudelyI had lots of waste preparing the components

Looking very good- and cleaned up well! The chassis looks like the makers took DJH for inspiration-although my springs are part of the chassis etches. The spacers are a mixture of screwed tube, as yours, and etched-which were useless, and replaced anyway, for P4. The screwed spacers are good for setting up the chassis, but I do not rely on them, and after set up and soldering the new spacers, they will be removed. The cylinder and spacer assembly should be treated with caution-the accuracy required for cylinders, slide bars, valve gear and wheels running smoothly means that a cast assembly will be at best, hit and miss. I am preparing a folded brass spacer to locate in frame slots with half round cut outs for the cylinders-similar to the Kemilway 76xxx chassis. The DJH slidebars are in one piece-the end folds over, located the actual slidebars and is soldered to the cylinder. There is also a combined frame spacer/slidebar support to make the assembly rigid. To locate the nameplates, you could consider driling three small holes in the splasher top for brass wire to protrude and fix the nameplates to these.

Looks excellent to me, and the added copper pipe detailing lifts the model. The bogie may look too low as the chassis cut outs could be deliberately too deep, to provide wheel clearance on curves. Check againt the drawing. One way to minimise this is to fabricate the correct cut outs and locate them inboard of the actual cut outs. Alternatively, with the cylinders lined up in position, it may look OK. Considering the cylinders, some manufacturers do not give enough thought to the cylinder mounting. I have W/M cylinders that are spigotted into a hole in the frames and then locked with a self-tapping screw (DJH)-rather hit and miss, expecially with the tight clearances and the fact that the cylinder centre line is at an angle; you have the same considerations. My solution is to make the cylinders and slidebar supports part of a sub-assembly consisting of a fabricated set of frame spacers located and screwed in the frames and the cylinder assemblies soldered to it. The lot can then be removed if necessary.

The class 114 DMUs would tow fish vans from Grimsby to Lincoln and beyond on evening timetables-seeing the vans sway at speed was captivating.

It is very easy when building fold-up gearboxes to end up with misalignmentand poor meshing. Comet boxes are similar, and each stage of the build should be checked for accuracy. I would image if you dismantled the gearbox and rebuilt it, you should be able to rectify the problem. Looking at the images, perhaps the gearbox screw and shaft location for the Mashima may need to be adjusted (Eased with a file). Good luck with the build.

You could seal or spot solder the gap along the bottom with LM solder, press the boiler to shape, and fill with LM. I suggest making a card template of the correct diameter and using to check the boiler-you will need to cut the template in half to use.

I agree entirely. For the cost of the A2 kit, I rate the components as no better than average-the castings are generally good, but the etches are far too flimsy, and in the case of the motor mount, too thick, and breaking when bent up. The original NER boiler supplied was assembled with the boiler backhead. I will need to reinforce this with an inner brass tube for strength, and also the wafer thin cab sides. Although the kit was purchased in the nineties and is no longer available, I expected a better product for the price, and am using the kit as a set of components to produce the model, along with Nick Easton etches, Markits detailing and various items sctatchbuilt. The tender is an easy build, but still inferior to a PDK LNER tender that I am building at the same time. At least it is not an MTK or Q Kits product. I suggest Mike Edge or Comet as examples of decent kits

It is a DJH Raven A2 with LNER wheel tender. I decided to build 2404 running with a Gresley boiler. SE Finecast supplied the boiler and Nick Easton supplied the footplate and cab side etches. Various kit components have been replaced or modified. I am looking for information to convert the tender chassis to sprung P4.

Know the feeling-here's a DJH kit being brought up to speed

I am enjoying this build. The class had an unusual gestation, and looked rather unique. Bulleid held trials which revealed that the King Arthurs were more economical, so they were usually confined to secondary work. Those loaned to the GWR during WW2 were considered the equal of the Saint class. I see the footplate looks all square-the hardest job to do with a W/M kit, in my opinion, and vital if the engine is to look correct. Oval boilers can usually be persuaded into alignment by using a soft-jawed vice. "the odd design of the kit means that in order to get the firebox sides straight, there needs to be a gap along the bottom of the boiler"-not sure what this means. Looking a tthe image, if setting the boiler correctly then leaves a gap at the firebox base, this can be filled with W/M solder and cleaned up. I use Carr's Red Label 70 flux for W/M soldering, and have had no problems. Fibre brush cleaning beforehand needs to be thorough. With a vintage W/M kit such as this, careful calibration of components is advised; be prepared to replace with scratch brass items or salvage parts. Good Luck!

Hello Ray I like the shunters-NB I think? I wondered what springing arrangement you have for P4?