Memphis32

It matches the sofa quite well...

How does one store/transport these artic sets? Do they come apart at the joins easily?

I'm astonished people make these comparisons. Magnolia is often suggested as a good colour for walls when one is selling a house, as most would find it inoffensive, but would you wear a magnolia suit? And I'd imagine a brown herringbone tweed jacket was perfectly acceptable when that comment was made, but would the same pattern and colour look good on an MG?

Amen to that - and to grab that tangent and run with it, I imagine very few here would appreciate the German class 45 2-10-2, but I think they're fantastic!

Seems to me you're doing half the job you've already paid for with that track...

Re: soldering iron stands, the plastic bit isn't there for cost saving, it's to reduce the chance of damaging the plating on the tip. I've been using Weller irons for years, with that type of stand - I've never had any burning or melting of that plastic bit.

Sounds like you might need to disconnect the switches and check what is isolated from what with a multimeter (or LED, resistor and battery)

On the speed issue, a guide I often use in 12":1' is to halve the mph number to give metres per second. A few extra conversions leads to multiplying the target mph number by 6 to give mm per second in 4mm:1' (or multiply by 6 then divide by 10 for cm/s). So 60mph would be 36cm/s, which surprised me somewhat!!

Two three-ways and a single slip - that's beautiful :-)

Brilliant. I did what I thought was an extensive search on YouTube before I posted here, but didn't see that second one - that should be all I need!

15 I'm happy with - 32.50 is worth me trying to fix it myself first!!

Same shop, though it's €15 on their own site. €17.50 postage though.

Hi there, I have a Bachmann/Liliput 18.3 with poorly valve gear. I tried getting the complete assembly through Bachmann UK, but Liliput have sold on all their parts for these to a german shop, which charges a fortune for postage. Since I'm supposed to be a modeller, I figured I'd have a go at fixing it myself, except the motion appears very different from standard Walshaerts. Wikipedia tells me they called it a Heusinger motion, except wiki also tells me it's the same as Walshaerts, which it clearly isn't. Could someone who has one please do a short bit of video of the valve gear working, and upload it/send it to me? Or even better, if they're in the vicinity of Cambridge/Newmarket, let me have a look myself?

I've just acquired a Crownline conversion kit - I'm hoping that will be a good stepping stone into kit building... My biggest worry about kitbuilding (or conversions) is the painting/finishing - I've seen too many magazine articles proclaiming the virtues of kit-built and scratch built locos on a layout, and I've thought the finish was appalling!

Guest weekend, perhaps? Though would need some very good planning!

Tinning wire to go into screw terminals is not a good long-term plan - it makes the wire just behind the solder brittle, and more likely to snap when bent a few times. Ferrules crimped on the stripped ends is the correct way to terminate for screw terminals.

Find as close to a head-on photo as you can, then maybe tweak it to the right shape using Gimp or other favourite flavour of photo manipulation software. Then print out to the right scale (might take a few goes). Stick to card, cut out, and you have your template.

Good when you're sure the gear is going to stay there, but not if you need to shuffle it over a bit, which is where this conversation started...

You can create any polygon you want - there's a tutorial on the scarm site.

As a musician who has played and studied (in the academic sense) J.S.Bach for much of my youth, I'd put him in the craftsman camp - he very skilfully summed up the Baroque period, but most of what he did was maths, not art... I'd say a few of his pieces could be called works of art though!

I think you mean Grantham. P'boro North is all handmade points...

Ahh - I'd read '2" added to long sides' to mean it was 2" longer, not wider!

I'm a bit concerned about the outside loop running along the edge on the long sides...

You'd get a lot more out of the wood if it was cut in quarter-circles...

Going back a couple of subjects - just been leading through my Dad's Ian Allen ABC - Eastern N.E, Scottish Steam, i noticed 60097 Humorist, apparently missing a 'u' - was this named after an American-owned racehorse? Also, on the subject of favourite locos, I've always been a fan of German steam - I can't say they're pretty, but they give me an impression of power and presence, which is probably foremost when I consider what I want to achieve with my own layout (eventually!!)