thegreenhowards

Gladiateur has a wonderfully uniform aura of grot about it!

Many thanks both for those photos - very useful. I think that confirms that I can get away with painting it in teak livery. There’s no real difference between real teak and scumbled teak from my POV.

They always seem to match reasonably well for me so, I’m afraid I can’t shed any light on your problem.

I think the Hornby A2s scrub up very well and there’s nothing wrong with the colour once treated to a bit of Klear.

I think the rail aligners work well. They have proved reliable and the horizontal alignment is good whereas on other joints we have found that it doesn’t always align. They don’t do vertical alignment although we haven’t had any problems with that. I still think they’re pricy at £10 for two pairs but they do work.

My next project will be finishing off this D&S O gauge 6 wheeler. I bought it in this condition for a bargain £40 at the Guildford O Gauge group open day. I believe that it’s a Diagram 407 Lav Third like the OO equivalent shown here. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/s-models-ds116e-ger-lner-wheel-third-275303419 But I don’t have any details or drawings with it. So before I wade in, I wonder if I can pose a couple of questions. I can see it needs some rain strips on the roof and probably some grab rails. Are there any other details which are obviously missing? The other question concerns livery. It will run on our club O gauge which is set loosely between the wars. I believe that these were unlined teak originally and then lined GER red. But how would they have been finished in early LNER days? I’d like to go for teak livery so they could fit in with the similiar coaches which @wokois building for our layout in GER livery. But I’d also like it to fit with my other LNER stock - hence the slightly later livery. I fear that they would have been painted in coach brown in LNER days which is rather dull, but is it likely that some lasted in teak through to the grouping and then were finished in varnished teak LNER livery? Thanks in advance for any help. Andy

On Monday, Rob (@woko) brought his 3D printed GER 4&6 wheelers down to pose on the layout. I think they will look the business.

I like the Crescent bridge viewpoint. We don't see photos from this angle very often.

Excellent. I’m really looking forward to the Howldens. Are you going to the club tonight?

Impressive progress Rob!

It’s a long time since I posted on here. Progress has continued over the winter but at a much slower rate than during lockdown! We’ve ballasted some track and started producing the retaining walls which are being cast in resin from a 3D printed master designed by club member and 3D printing maestro, @woko. Thanks Rob. We’ve decided on a name. The layout will be called Smithfield. I’ve also been test running some stock. Here is my sound and smoke fitted N1 debuting on some Gresley twin arts. The layout is designed to be able to represent any era up until the 1970s with a few tweaks,so here is my Heljan 37 representing a later era.

I’ve been admiring the pictures of your Turbots and I think I need to get onto mine. I’m modelling early ‘80s so I think mine will be cleaner or less rusty at least. I’m also thinking about a load. We’re they used primarily for spent or new ballast? Or could it be either? Also what wagons would they have run with? Presumably things like Dogfish or Grampus?

John, That kitchen car looks the business! It’s certainly crisper than my Kirk cut ‘n’ shut and you’ve got the correctly recessed doors which I didn’t know about when I built mine. Shame about the roof but i know the feeling of I cant face going back to correct that. Looking at photos I decided that the windows were more frosted than white. What made you go for white? As for part finished projects I have loads. Sometimes they just get put aside for something more interesting and I forget to go back to them! Andy

I visited on Friday with four friends from our club. We were all very impressed with the layout and really enjoyed our day out. If this is the last outing then I’m doubly glad I made the effort to travel down from Surrey and the one club member who missed out through Covid will be doubly gutted! Heaton Lodge is a true inspiration for its scale and ambition. You should be immensely proud. I thought the mini show format worked really well. The other layouts were well worth seeing and we spent six hours there in total. Great value for £10.

I’m similar to Rob, in that I always leave plenty of time for the paint to cure (7 days+) but sometimes leave the masking tape on too long while waiting to get round to a second coat.

Rob, That paint removal happens to me all the time when masking. It’s very frustrating. I’ve now got to the stage where the only thing which I will mask is a factory finish. Anything else, I know it’s not going to work and generally either hand paint - if there’s a clear line to paint up to - or leave well alone. If anyone has the solution, I’m all ears! Andy

I love the weathering on 39. Very convincing.

The combination of RMWeb being Down and the nice weather last week encouraged me to get the garden railway out for the first time this season. I managed to wire in point motors (Cobalt digital IP) which all work nicely and fettle the track to eliminate some annoying derailments. This mainly consisted of putting extra pieces of roofing felt under the track in certain positions to eliminate undulations. I also found that some banking on the curbed sections helped. This was again achieved with strips of roofing felt laid underneath outside edge of the sleepers. I did a lot of test running, most noticeably for my 37 and 20 which I sound fitted over the winter. I found the volume needed turning up outside! Here are some videos of them both working.

Well RMWeb being down did result in some modelling but probably not as much as it should have done. I’ve finished off five LMS wagons which I bought in a job lot off ebay for £50. They were described as needing work or similar but in practice they were just unpainted and had rusted up on the wheels and buffers which seems to be the norm for Slaters wheels. I gave them a spin with a brass wire brush in a dremel and then some oil and they’re all now fine - even the buffers spring nicely. I then painted one in bauxite and did decals for them all and gave them a good weathering. Here they can be seen on my garden railway (which I spent a good deal of time fettling/ playing with during the warm weather last week). All in all, excellent value at £10 a wagon!

Thanks for your advice. I have tried gluing the ploughs to the outer side of the cast chassis using cyano. This worked well as I could hold them on with the screws while they glued and then remove the screws afterwards. I now have ploughs and working buffers on my 37051 c.1982 early West Highland look. As you can see Railmatch BR yellow doesn’t match the Heljan version, but I hope this will be lost under weathering. So, unless anyone can see a problem with this, I intend to do the same at the other end. Andy

Tony, I sell quite a bit on eBay and must have posted 100-200 items over the last few years. I have had one lost (marked as delivered but the purchaser claimed not to have received it) and two damaged - in both cases I probably could have packed them better and the damage was much less severe than your recent experience. Two were with Hermes but I’ve now switched to using Royal Mail and the second damage was with them. I claimed for the loss ( although the bureaucracy meant it wasn’t really worth it for a £20 loco body) but the two damaged items I took back in one case and gave a small refund to the purchaser in the other. I've also bought a similar number of items and only once had had a problem with them. That was a glued together white metal A2 which semi collapsed in the box but the problem was as much down to the use of epoxy rather than solder. I got a partial refund from the vendor and will solder it back together at some point. I’ve had nothing like as serious damage as Jesse’s A2. So, I think he was very unlucky although I’d always be nervous about posting something as valuable as that….especially from the other side of the world! Wrong day deliveries and not asking for a signature are very common. I hope you get it sorted financially even though that can never really compensate for losing a rare model like that. All the best Andy

Evening Tony, That Burgundy red doesn’t look very gloss in the photo. It will need to be gloss to hide the carrier film on the Modelmaster decals, particularly if they’re going over the beading. Regards Andy

Evening Tony, Looking good - they do go together quickly don’t they! I think you’ll find that the ‘polo mints ‘ need cutting off the thin strands they’re attached to and gluing into the holes in the chassis. Andy

Thanks for coming back to me. They certainly will fit in front of the cast bit as in my second photo above but this means that the buffers don’t compress with the screws in place. I could glue them in place in front of the cast bit and then remove the screws which would allow the buffers to compress. I haven’t tried directly behind the buffer beam but again they would need to be glued in place. Did you attach yours with glue? directly behind the buffer beams.

Good afternoon Tony, I also make most of those substitutions with Isinglass kits. But I’m surprised you feel the need to replace the torpedo vents. I think the Isinglass ones are nicely produced. If you have a pair of Hornby bogies with the original clips on top they clip directly into the ‘polo mint’ bit supplied by Isinglass which saves some time. I also use the Isinglass battery boxes as I think they’re well printed but I can see why you’d want the weight down there. Decals are in the post. Andy