JimHearne

I had a pre-order for an Early black E4 with Hattons. I contacted Hattons this morning when the Kernow newsletter told me Kernow had some in stock. They couldn't tell me when they were getting stock, or if they would be getting enough stock to cover all pre-orders. So i bought one from Kernow (same price) and cancelled the Hattons one. Jim

Unfortunately, it seems floppy disks are rather prone to grow a sort of mould if they are left for a long time, especially if in a slightly damp atmosphere like an attic. It seems to vary make to make, some are really bad, the mould actually breaks down the oxide on the surface of the disk. Other makes don't seem to suffer from it at all. If you put a disk with mould on it into a drive it will often rub some of the mould off onto the head and then the drive won't read anymore disks. Get enough on the drive head and it will start rubbing the oxide off the surface of other disks. A head cleaning disk may get the head clean again but put another mouldy disk in and you will start all over again. If you look at the surface of the disks carefully (slide back the metal cover on 3.5" disks) then you can often see the mould as light grey splodges on the surface of the disk. Rotate the disk carefully to check the whole surface on both sides before putting the disk in a drive. Last year i tried to recover data from over 100 5.25" floppy disks containing software for a rare Powertran Cortex computer from 1986 or so. They had been stored in a garage for many years. Most of the disks had mould to some degree. Some makes were so bad that as soon as the disk was put in a drive the oxide just pulled off the disk. I tried many ways of removing the mould, some of which would horrify computer engineers. In the end i managed to read about 70% of the disks completely, most of the data from maybe 20% more and the rest were unrecoverable. I also got through 3 5.25" floppy drives and had to clean the heads manually with cotton buds maybe a dozen times. On the plus side, i did discover how robust floppy disks and drives can be, the warnings about not touching the surface of the disk seem to be a bit of overkill compared to what i did to some of them. Jim

Doh, sorry, i had totally missed the triangle. Or rather, i had seen it and thought it was a bit of the background scan. Many thanks, Jim

Hi All, Is there a way of re-sizing the background image in SCARM. If not, what DPI should the image be for 4mm scale. Hmm, not sure that makes sense. I have some prototype track plans which were drawn at 1" = 160ft, so 1" = 640mm in 4mm scale. I've scanned them at 600dpi but loading that into SCARM comes out at maybe 10% too small. (1" on the plan compared to a 640 length off flexy in Scarm) I know i can resample the scan to a different DPI on a semi trail and error basis but i just wonder how SCARM decides what size to make the background image. Many thanks, Jim

Thanks for the link, that is one that i do already have. Jim

Does anybody know of a source of this book at a sensible price please. I've bought several other of Iain's books but this one seems out of stock everywhere, or about £50 Many thanks, Jim

Be careful telling a seller you will post negative feedback, I said that to somebody a few years back and they reported me for "feedback blackmail", I received a warning from Ebay. Jim

The online ordering gives you a choice of about 5 delivery options but they seem to ignore if you select the standard Royal Mail option. Jim

It seems silly that Hattons online checkout lets you select Royal mail or Yodel and then they ship it differently anyway. Why let you select if it doesn't make a difference. I placed an order on Friday, selected Royal mail 2 day as it's my work address, there would be nobody there till Monday and the postman always comes during the day. It was shipped by Yodel, not sure why but they didn't try to deliver on Saturday (maybe they worked out from the Unit part of the address). Delivered to the unit next door at 16:57 on the Monday but no card left for us or details on the tracking that it was next door. I had to go round the other units and ask if they had a parcel. Jim

Actually it now seems that selecting orders or pre-orders gets you to the same order page (via a different route) which does have links to let you remove individual items from that order. Not sure if i missed the remove buttons before or they didn't appear on the different web browser at work. For the moment though i'm going to trust what i was told and leave all 3 pre-orders on the same order. Jim

Except that Ebay say you have to accept Paypal. If you refuse you will get a mark against your account for not completing the sale. Jim

Unfortunately Ebay won't accept a photo of the buyer collecting the item as proof of collection, some sellers have found this out. It might put a buyer off putting in not received claim afterwards if they were thinking about it though. It is a bit silly that ebay say you have to accept Paypal as a payment method, even for collection only items, but then provide no way of proof of collection. Jim

Yes, taking paypal for an item to be collected is not a good idea. A common scam nowadays is to pay with paypal, collect the item and then put in "item not received" claim. Without any tracking details ebay will give the buyer their money back. Always say cash on collection with any expensive items being collected, even though it's against Ebay's rules which say you must accept Paypal. Sorry if this has been mentioned before. Jim

Well, the box has just arrived from Gostude, very well packed. The contents are exactly the same as as if I'd bought them new off the shelf at my local model shop, no sign of them being opened or second hand. So I'm happy paying new prices for them even if they are old stock. Can you tell me where I can get them new for cheaper than that ?, I know Hatton's are often down to around £7 but I've exhausted all the current Bachmann part numbers that are correct for my region and timescale. As I have this thing about not having more than one item of stock with the same running numbers (and I've not got to the stage of renumbering) I can now only collect the older part numbers where I can find them. None of the mail order retailers seem to have much older stock, unless I've missed one. Many thanks, Jim

Hi All, I've just had a online chat (easier to do at work) with a nice lady at Hattons. I asked about the "quirk" with their system. She went away to check and said: "I have spoken to our IT manager and our business development manager who confirm that your order won't be pushed down the queue once your first item comes into stock" I asked if it was a problem that had been fixed. She said: "I'm not sure to be honest, it is a complicated system, but I believe our business development manager will address this with the editor of RMweb to clear up the confusion" So hopefully somebody will be in touch with Andy Y to clarify things. I've left my order as it is at the moment. Jim

Ah, I see your point now after looking at that auction. I will let you know what state my New MIB Bachmann wagons from him are in when they arrive. The prices seemed reasonable, £10.50 to £11.50 for discontinued part numbers, free postage. Jim Hmm, reply quoting original post doesn't seem to work for me.

Thanks, a good point. I need to contact them, you only seem to be able to cancel complete orders online. Jim

Hi, Is the person referred to as "Gosturde" the same as the ebay seller gostude ? If so can somebody enlighten me to the reason for the insulting name ? I bought half a dozen Bachmann wagons from him on Ebay, arriving tomorrow hopefully, before i came across the end of this thread. Thanks, Jim

I don't like the sound of the pre-order problem. I've got 3 locos on the same pre-order with Hattons, a Bachmann H2, Bachmann E4 and a Dapol B4. They were only ordered 4 months ago. Should i cancel them and reorder them all separately. Thanks, Jim