Caley Jim

I put them in the sink, give them a spray with CIF or something similar and then brush them gently with a small stiffish artists brush I have (don't know where it came from, it's years old!) followed by a good rinse. Make sure the plug is in the sink, or do it in a basin so that any parts which are not securely soldered don't go AWOL. In fact, giving them a fairly firm brush identifies any such parts. Finding a bit which hadn't been as well secured as you thought it was coming adrift during or after painting is a right pain! HTH, Jim

Including the despicable one of shooting songbirds as they migrate across the island. For no other reason than sport. It is decimating songbird populations and should be banned. Jim

As a humble (ex) hewer of enamel and drawer of roots I bow to the superior knowledge of the chemists among us. Jim

I remember doing that experiment in Physiology labs at uni back in the 19........'s (well, a long time ago!). Is frog juice a French specialty? Jim

I always understood that MEK stood for Methy-Ethyl-Ketone, IIRC from my Higher Chemistry, a ketone has a butane ring at it's centre.. Jim

No-one has mentioned DL-Limonene. It appears to be relatively safe,but the bottle does say 'Flammable, Irritating to the skin, very toxic to aquatic organisms'. In view of the latter it might not be a good idea to use it around frogs, unless you call them by their proper name, crossings! Double (or possibly even quadruple) tech drawing for me as i try to draw up the artwork for an etch to built Kirkallanmuir signal cabin! Jim

If we are accused of being round the bend, the important thing to assert is that we are happily round the bend. I'm in my own little world, but it's OK, they all know me here!! Jim

Izzy, when I clicked 'agree', I meant I agree about the chamfering making a difference, not that your skills are in any way lacking. Jim

I think the chamfer on this type of vehicle is an important part of the character. I reproduce it on my 2FS etched kits by having the top ½-etched layer set back slightly from the edge of the layer below, letting the paint form the chanfer. Excuse the crappy lettering, this photo's coming out at about 4x life size!. Jim

Wellington's famous quote about the Highland regiments, when inspecting the lines before Waterloo, is 'I don't know what they do to the enemy, but they scare the hell out of me'. Jim

It is,of course the name of the seat of the Duke of Sutherland who not only had his own private saloon, but also his own locomotive, named 'Dunrobin'. Whenever I see that as a house name I often wonder if it belongs to a retired lawyer! I suppose our house should be called 'Dunfillan'. Jim

That's what they did at Kingmoor. Polmadie just sent them round the Cathcart Circle! Jim

Which makes sense, since the tender will be lighter than the loco (per foot length), so the overall CG is likely to be somewhere around the firebox area. Jim Edited to add the bit about length

A bit OT, but we had a talk at Probus this morning on the Jacobite uprisings, to which the speaker had brought some typical weapons used by the Highland clansmen,targ, dirk, basket broadsword, Lochaber axe. Makes these present day thugs look like softies!! Jim

There was more to whether a loco would fit on a turntable than just the wheelbase. If the 'table was hand operated it was much easier to turn if the loco was balanced on it i.e. the centre of gravity of the loco was over the central pivot of the 'table. This meant that there was much less of the weight on the outer carrying wheels and so less force required to turn it. The CG of a loco was not necessarily at the mid point of the wheelbase and was obviously affected by how much coal and water were in the tender. It wasn't unusual for a driver to move the loco slightly backwards and/or forwards a few times in an attempt to get it as well balanced as possible. Jim

I was merely trying to illustrate the general layout of the sleepers on the diverging road relative to those on the straight road, not necessarily intending to indicate that this was the exact spacing. That drawing looks remarkably similar to this (undated again) CR one. Jim

Many turnouts in sidings remained on interlaced sleepers well into the late 20th century and in fact most companies didn't change to through sleepering untill the early 1900's. One reason was that most sleepers were baltic pine and there was an import duty on timber 9' long and over, which is why sleepers were 8'11". I have seen a report by Mathieson, the general manager of the CR, following a visit to the USA, commenting on their use of though timbers on turnouts, but saying that the CR preferred interlaced timbers as they held the gauge better. That looks much better, Nick. It's hard to tell from the photo whether the sleepers on the EKR are parallel or aligned with the track. Jim

That's exactly what I did using Easitrac sleepers with the web cut away as necessary. See my earlier posts again. This also avoids the need to gauge the closure rails off the stock rails as the chairs on the sleepers do that for you. Jim

I beg to differ. That depends on which department you are working in. To a PW engineer the formation where one track diverges from another is a turnout. The movable rails whose position determines which track a train approaching from the facing direction takes are the switches and the tips of the tapered ends of these are the points. On the other hand, an S & T engineer (and a signalman) is only concerned with moving the 'points', so they refer to points and on signal diagrams and signal box lever identifiers they are referred to as points. Screen snip from here. I rest my case M'lud. Jim

As has been pointed out to you elsewhere, I think you've got the sleepering slightly wrong, in that the sleepers on the diverging road should be at right angles to that track, not parallel to those on the straight road. This how the NBR did it. And how I've done them on Kirkallanmuir. Jim

I noted that too. In any examples I've seen the sleepers were always at right angles to the line of rails i.e. they are radial to the curve of the diverging track. The only exception is on a tandem turnout where the sleeper supporting the nose of each crossing is parallel with those on the main road. This does result in some quite wide sleeper spacing in places as can be seen in the photo in my earlier post. (Way back on page 217) Jim

Does Fred's boss know what his office boy is up to when the boss is out of the office? He's obviously not giving him enough work to do! Concerned of Biggar

Far too modern for my taste, but CFMRC of this parish is your man to answer that! Jim

When I decided, in my early 20's, to switch from Hornby Dublo 3-rail to 2FS the first piece of track I built was a 2ft radius turnout, on the basis that if I couldn't make that work, there was no point (sorry) in going any further. At that time I had no knowledge of turnout design and simply drew 2 straight lines 9.5mm apart and then used a trammel to draw tangential curves to these from a common centre. I equipped myself with a set of gauges and set about it, being methodical and meticulous in not moving on to the next stage until I was certain everything up to then was correct. The resultant turnout served as the end of the run round on Connerburn (and still does, though the layout has been in storage for over 7 years). What I'm trying to say is the turnout construction is not rocket science. Be methodical, gauge accurately and you will be surprised at what you can achieve! I would say that the satisfaction from successfully building your first turnout is only surpassed by seeing your first loco chassis propel itself along! Jim PS,I wish I could churn out buildings the way you can, James. To me they are akin to a necessary evil! They seem to take me forever.

Since all the trackwork for Kirkallanmuir is long completed and I have no plans to build any more, can i offer instead 6 CR mineral wagons which have still to be painted? 1. designed the etch artwork 2. built the kits produced from this 3. will provide a series of photos of the painting in progress (when I get the round tuit for carrying that out|). Pretty please??? Jim