LSWRmodeller

In order to remove the moulded stripes I used a chisel type attachment in a Swann Morton knife. As long as you work slowly and don't try and take too much off in one go its works OK. I then just sanded the body to make it look as neat as possible.

Without wishing to intrude on Brightsparks topic I thought it might be of interest to see my version of the Airfix/Dapol kit modelled in EM Gauge as “Crewkerne” in mid 1950’s condition. It is running on a Comet chassis powered by a Mashima motor coupled to a DJH 2-stage gearbox. All the wheels are Markits. Both the loco and tender have been enhanced by various bits from the Albert Goodall range. I found the most difficult bit of working with the kit was removing the raised moulded stripes down both the loco and the tender which are not easy to get rid of neatly. After that the only issue is to decide how much extra detail to add and when to call it a day.

I don’t know if anybody has had the same problem as me with PDH Drawing Services but I have paid them money and not received the goods I ordered. When you order drawings from PDH you can either do it by post with a cheque or online with Paypal. I chose the latter option but couldn’t see how to enter details of the actual drawing I wanted. Hence I completed the Paypal payment without details of the drawing. Now I fully accept that it may be me being stupid but I couldn’t see how I could enter the drawing details on the Paypal transaction. As a result I sent 3 messages to PDH via their website (where you have to show you are not a robot) and received no reply to any of them. I then sent a signed for letter which was duly received and signed for but again I have received no reply. I have therefore taken the only course open to me to raise a dispute via Paypal so as not to fall foul of their time limit for raising disputes. I don’t wish to malign this supplier as there may be good reasons for not supplying but the lack of replies to my various messages is to say the least unprofessional. I would be interested to know if anybody else has had the same problem. Incidentally I was trying to order a 4mm scale drawing of an LMS Fairburn 2-6-4T – if any knows of any other source for such a drawing I would be interested.

I can readily sympathize with folk trying to build an H15 due to the wheelbase of the front coupled wheels. I have no experience of either the DJH or PDK kits but I have attached some picture of my scratchbuilt model of 330, which was one of five (330-335) rebuilt by Urie from Drummond F13’s, which had an 8’1” rear coupled wheelbase. As far as I am aware there has never been a kit for this particular variant. My model is 4mm scale and built to EM gauge out of a mixture of plasticard brass and whitemetal plus an SEF tender kit. I have cheated inasmuch I have stretched the front coupled wheelbase to 26mm rather than 25mm and used Markits wheels intended for a Black 5 which are the right size but only have 19 spokes rather than 20 as on the prototype. In P4 you could probably get away with the correct wheelbase using Gibson wheels. With regard to drawings all prototypes are covered in the April/May 1994 edition of Modellers Back Track magazine, albeit the drawings are 3mm/1ft so need rescaling for 4mm.