saxman

you might find it less crowded on the Sunday - it usually is.

What an excellent idea - and well executed. You are being a bit hard on yourself - the ridge tiles are difficult to do convincingly. In real life they are seldon super flat on old buildings anyway - they've often been taken off and repointed - resulting in them not lying quite true. Any imperfections on the main slates make it look better. Slate is a natural material and is not uniform. A really helpful article too. Thank you Charlie

Done a bit more at 42355 Coal in the bunker Cylinder heads Char on the running plate.....got to get a bit off the sides of the frames. Quite pleased with the way that has turned out. Still got to do the missed bit on the ends of the buffer beam.

Hi Here's my first contribution to our Duddeston Road blog This is actually a loco I am doing for my brother - but its bound to appear on shed sometime. We bought this Fowler 4P at the Huddersfield MRC show. It looked fine and ran well. When I came to start weathering it I realised there was a horrid gluey thumbprint on the LHS tank. I carefully reduced it with a fibreglass pencil, a scraper and some very fine abrasive. Martin had given me a prototype to base it on and here are the results so far. Still a way to go. There are a couple of spots on the front buffer beam that Ive missed, the cylinder fronts are yet to do - probably with powders - coal and lamps. I've never shown any of my stuff before - so I'd welcome any hints or comments. Chas

Hi Son Looking really good with the overlays going on that 4th picture is cruel on the corner join Chas

Hi Ive had the problem before. It pretty much always turned out to be the little horizontal tabs on the point blades not making contact with the underside of the main running rail. If you clean them then GENTLY bend them up until they just prevent the point blade moving all the way and then push them down a tad, I find you get a reliable contact and so a good current flow. Sounds a bit more Heath Robinson than it actually is. Hope it helps Chas