Norwenglish

With all this european stuff appearing I better add my good evening from the Western Region (of Norway) Taken at our local preserved railway this summer on a birthday outing. Stuart

I've heard it was a great day, had a phonecall from Dad which made me rather jealous and I will try and get him to put his pictures online once he has flown home on wednesday. Also Grandma apparently made the mistake of mentioning the 'Southern' word while there! Stuart

Sounds like it was a great day, can't wait for Dad (SRrich) to fly home on wednesday and show me all the pictures he took today. Just talking with him on the phone this evening got me rather jealous, so hopefully I'll have the funds for flights etc to make it for next years tour. Stuart

Just a quick update from us seeing as we havn't posted in a while! All modelling has currently ground to a halt since my last post due to us being extremely busy with our other main hobby/ commision work, but during our evenings and free time we have been working on this; Finally starting our first layout, which is a very exciting prospect, and I expect a thread will be appearing on here in the not too distant future. I have also been building a little scenic plank as a tester of how to do stuff, which Dad has kindly added some signs to. Stuart

Unfortunately work has come to a halt on the O2, as I need to order a motor and gearbox for it. Luckily we recieved our Narrow Planet order yesterday, so I have now stuck the numberplates onto the Q, R1 and Prarie, quite nice how just putting these little bits of etched brass adds to the look of an engine! Stuart

Just to update from my earlier post in this thread, I unfortunately won't be able to come, but my dad (SR Rich) will be coming. Stuart

Thanks SRman! Stuart

Really lovely bit of work Dave! Stuart

Just have to take a short ferry journey over here for sun if last summer is anything to go by

Hi Tony, I have spent quite a while reading through the whole of this thread, and I would just like to leave a message of thanks. After reading many of your articles and watching the Right Track DVDs, my father and I have both now been inspired mostly by your work to try our hands at building kits that involve soldering. I myself am working on a Finecast O2 and he has obtained a Little Engines Q1, and I have to say that after following your methods, soldering is quite a pleasurable experience and not as intimidating or difficult as I felt it would be. Again, thank you! Stuart (an under 30's modeller)

A few quick questions for anyone 'in the know', were the inside faces of bogies also painted red? Or was it only on the main frames? Also did all engines in olive green passenger livery have their wheels painted green? Thanks in advance. Stuart

Slowly making progress on the O2. Today I have done the very fiddly job of soldering the brake gear, certainly a good amount of explicit language used with burnt fingertips, pieces disappearing and reappearing and parts not staying in place after being fixed. Despite the 'problems' I'm still really enjoying the whole first time soldering a kit experience and am already keeping my eyes peeled for the next project, and hopefully with practice I will one day get to a skill level similar to some of the more well known modellers on here Here you can see I have done the Brake Gear as a seperate assembly that can be easily taken off if needed. This is how the chassis now stands, just needing a few more coats of red on the inside of the frames, a clean up of the black and a coat of paint on the wheels (not sure whether to go black or Olive Green). Stuart

We're actually not quite sure about that, we know we can't vote in national elections here as we still have english citizenship...but they'll let us vote in local elections. Normally the answer would be yes, living near a city with an average of 200 rainy days a year normally leads to a slight case of precipitation, but today the sky has turned a shade of blue with a big warm yellow thing bearing down on us!

If that includes sausages to expats stuck in countries that don't know what a real sausage is, then count me in!

Another update on the 02. The frames are now soldered together and the bogie has been assembled, and the whole lot has been pushed up and down a test track and rolls very freely. The test track is another project that we are assembling, so we can test rolling stock over points and try out scenic techniques before moving onto a small layout that we have planned (for which a thread will definitely be appearing in the future!). I have to say, the soldering isn't as difficult as I first thought and I'm very happy to have gone ahead with trying it. Although there must be something addictive in the fumes, as I don't want to stop soldering now! The body has spent a few days in an acetone bath to loosen the pieces which were held together with epoxy, luckily this worked and they have been cleaned off and I am now working on dry fitting all the parts together and doing a spot of filing and filling here and there to enusre a nice close fit. Stuart

New project! After spending my easter doing some wood carving for a local museum I was able to buy one of these: Quite exciting as it's my first time soldering anything other than electrical wires, and last night I did my first bit by soldering the bushes for the driving wheels into the frames. Stuart

Hi Dave, A quick question from me, we have now been sitting spending most of the afternoon discussing gearboxes and motors, and I was wondering if there is any rule of thumb to follow when selecting a flywheel to go with the motor? Thanks, Stuart

Thanks Dave. The crane wasn't that bad, the only fiddly bit was putting rod to represent drive shafts in the body of the crane itself. Unfortunately due to unemployment at the moment i find myself in the opposite position to most with lots of time, but no money to buy projects to put the time to good use! Although I'm crossing my fingers that the situation will improve soon If i remember rightly from helping Dad strip the Q1 down into the parts you see in the picture, there is definitely a motor (neither of us have any idea what type), and more of a motor mounting bracket that is meant to be soldered into the chassis than a gear box. I'll see if he can get a picture of it tonight. Stuart

Hi Castle, glad that you like our work! I have actually been following your thread since starting here on rmweb and find it very interesting to read through. We are also looking into flying over for your tour at Didcot in July, so hopefully we'll be there! As for updates from me, the transfer sheet for the Prarie is ordered and on it's way, and we've also placed a reasonable sized order with Narrow Planet for brass plates to put the last touches on a few of our Southern and some of my GWR engines, but I havn't been idle! The GWR rolling stock I mentioned in previous posts is finished! GWR 6-ton Crane built from a Cambrian kit. And a Shunters Truck also built from a Cambrian kit. These were quite fun and easy to build apart from the handrails on the shunters truck. I expect the next thing to appear from me will be the Prarie as it takes it's last steps towards completion, but after that I have no idea as I seem to have run out of projects! Stuart

Quick update time! The prarie now looks like this; All it now awaits is some matt black on the smokebox and cab roof, transfers (which seem to be pretty difficult to find), vacuum pipes and numberplates. It's also now running very happily after having I don't know how many years of grease and gunk removed, all the electircal connections cleaned and then been re-oiled. Stuart

Back again with this week's update! The Wrenn R1 is finished! For this one I have carved off the old handrails and added proper ones, carved off the smokebox numberplate, added lamp irons, hooks and vacuum pipes on the bufferbeams, grilles for the rear windows, better looking coal, and given it a repaint. I've also given it a new magnet in the motor and it runs ever so nicely, even crawls very well! Very happy with this as it was picked up on ebay for around £15! Also another ebay buy was this Ratio Bogie Luggage Van Very nice to build and well detailed, apart from the brass etch which was a pain in the backside to use, especially the door hinges! I have decided now to wait with the GWR wagons, as the success of the R1 has inspired me to give the same treatment to this Airfix Prarie. Todays progress can be seen and it is now sitting to dry after getting an undercoat of black. I have also stripped down the whole of the chassis to it's component parts as it wasn't a very good runner, so hopefully a good clean and a new magnet will get it running at least a little better. As far as livery goes, I'm leaning quite heavily towards GWR Wartime Black. Stuart

Yet again it's now my turn to do an update. Work is now finished on the horde of passengers, although I passed on painting the eyes! Now they are just waiting for Dad to finish the carriages for them to ride in. I also realised I had forgotten something on the Z Class! So I have now resculpted the cylinders to the right profile using modelling putty which got roughly cut down and then filed to the right shape and some plasticard cut out with a leather punch for the discs at the ends. Lamp brackets have also been added using the cut down staple method. Next up will be an old Wrenn R1 that I have been improving, some GWR wagons and some more Southern luggage vans. Stuart

I find it very good, (been using it to paint Games Workshop products for 10 odd years now), but I always have a quick brush over with black to make sure I get any areas it has missed. I imagine it can be used without any painting over, but of course you risk flooding any shallow detail when trying to get those hard to reach places. But I have found it's pretty hard wearing, although it can rub off of brass quite easily. Hope this is of help Stuart

Would that be the spray? or paint in pots?

Thanks Colin, we try our best and are both rather impressed ourselves with these being the first loco kits we have built. Currently we are painting our own models apart from me doing the passengers for him, and Dad has used transfers for his lining, although I might have to rope him in to help when it comes to me doing something that requires lining, as like you say, it's very well done! Also I have a small update from me today! Work is slowly going forward on the passengers with all the skin areas done, which I can say was quite the challenge! Also I have taken this picture to show how the size of these figures compare to what I have got used to painting over the last 15 odd years. Quite the difference! To finish this post, I have been working on making a pair of Hornby Railroad Pullmans look a bit better, after being inspired by watching Tony Wright do it in one of the Activity Media DVD's. For these I have repainted the roofs in dark grey, chopped down the height of the interiors ready for them to receive lighting units when funds permit, given the interiors a coat of paint, and painted 'curtains' on the inside of the windows. You can also see above and below, my homemade corridor connectors which I think will look good enough at normal viewing distance, and if people would like, I can make short picture tutorial for how I made them. The white you can see in this picture is just some blu-tac holding them in place for the picture, this will in time be replaced by something more permanent. Stuart