Sun VI

Great news! FREE parking ! Morning All, I discovered last night that the public car park behind the Public Hall in Fleet Street, Beaminster, DT8 3EF, is currently free to use. The car park entrance is on the right hand side of the hall and is quite large. There are some works at a nearby property so drivers need to be careful when passing scaffolding in the road. The weather forecast looks good too. Hope to see you at the show.

Thanks to all for your responses so far. My problem, I think, is in my lack of wrist control. For woodwork, I've tried mitre boxes, Japanese draw saws and so forth. While these have helped (the draw saws are brilliant), I only cracked making decent vertical cuts when I bought a power mitre saw. I went to the local picture framer yesterday who was most helpful. He showed me a catalogue from Lion, vendor of picture framing materials (https://www.lionpic.co.uk/). There are two items that I've seen on line that look as though they would do for occasional use: a 'Dafa Hand Mount Cutter' at £16.48 inc VAT or a 'Logan Team System Plus 610mm' at £58.40 inc VAT. I'm inclined to the Logan item - there's a link to a very useful You Tube video demonstration too.

Thanks Tony, yes, I'm making several cuts, possibly up to 6, but to no avail I'm afraid. Cheers

Good afternoon All, I'm currently trying a Scalescenes sample coal / weighbridge office that I've had enlarged to 176% for 7mm scale. Where the instructions are to use thick card for backing, I'm using the basic 2mm grey board from an art supplies shop. While it is a nice, stiff card, it's rather tough to cut and, using either a Stanley knife or a scalpel, I'm not achieving vertical cuts. Can anyone suggest what I should do to improve the situation? Are there better tools to use? Would laminating card from serial boxes be better? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers

On Scalescene's pages, John Wiffen has very thoughtfully provided a table of percentages by which prints of downloads have to be adjusted to make them suitable for a variety of scales. Go to the foot of any page on the site and look in the centre section for 'Not modelling in N or OO scales?' or use this link - https://scalescenes.com/not-modelling-in-n-or-oo/ I downloaded the box file layout yesterday. For anyone who's interested, there are 271 instructions over 25 pages and 37 pages to the kit, including one page of glazing to be printed on an OHP transparency.

I'm looking forward to this, especially the new venue which should have far more room and free on-site parking.

Summer? Coming? Really???? Sadly I reckon you'll have plenty of modelling time this year, good luck with it though. May I suggest a pair of vee blocks - I find them so useful for a whole variety of things, handy weights, paint brush / flux brush rests, props to hold components square and so on, and that's without the clamps.

I can't speak from experience, but from what I've read, you'll get a more natural effect if you mix in some other shades and lengths, even in small quantities. You could try a more yellow / straw colour for an area to suggest an area in full sun that's parched. I think that if you go with one shade and length, it will look too uniform - though this may be the result you want.

Thanks for that Luke. I too use a Kato 103 to power the traverser on my Crossways Wagon Works, I'm very impressed by its smoothness and controllability with an ordinary Gaugemaster controller. Cheers and good luck with your layout.

Hello Luke, would you say whose make of loco kit you are building, and the type of chassis that it runs on? Cheers

Hello Phil, a delightful layout, many thanks for the photos

Only two days to go but it looks as though I'm going to miss it this year - blast! All those home made cakes, and the bacon butties too. Still it will leave some spare for the rest of you. What delights has Bob in store for us this year ? As usual, looks as though he's keeping his cards close to his chest. Still, here are some of last year's delights to whet your appetite. Wagon Repair Works, Sevastopol Street Yard Shunter Yard Shunter Yard Shunter Longmoor Gravity Sidings 1950 River Taw Pier I'ad That I'ad That

Yes, that was from Geoff, our chairman, who also posts on RMWeb as Dad-1. His modelling is superb. He did mention that he's had to borrow the loco for the diorama as he doesn't have any LNER engines.

Bridport club held its first diorama competition yesterday evening, 31st October. The rules were simple: base board not to exceed 24"x16" and to contain a railway or model railway connection. Here are the entries with prize winners, as voted by the members, noted. John's Work Bench, generally considered to be the most tasteful entry, in fact so tasteful that it never made it home ... Third place Second place First prize Overall, our chairman, Geoff, was delighted with the submissions for a first event.

Hello Hayfield, thanks for your response. Perhaps the following photo will show the relationship of the standard and narrow gauge lines. Imagine that the preservation society running the works had been able to get hold of a load of standard bullhead rail either free or for a knock down price, hence its use for narrow gauge instead of buying proper narrow gauge rails (- that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

Hello Southwell, I'm very impressed with what you've achieved on the layout and by building it in within your flat - great going. I love the muted colours, the whole layout oozes atmosphere, and the night time shots work really well.

Good for you. A micro layout's a great way to dip your toe in the water without committing a load of cash and space. Wishing you success.

Thanks Andrew, I do wish they were made to a standard size though! Cheers John

Thanks Martin, yes I've used code 125 for both standard and narrow gauge. As both standard and narrow gauge lines are on the same sleepers, I preferred to stick to one track size. The S Scale Society chairs certainly warrant a closer look.

Peter, many thanks for such a prompt response, you given me another option to think about.

Hello folk, I'm seeking some help or advice regarding placing chairs on soldered track. I'm building a small O and O9 layout and have hand made most of the track, my first attempt at this. It all works, but I want to improve the look of the track by adding chairs. I bought a bag of two bolt GWR pattern plastic chairs from C&L at the RailWells exhibition, thinking that I could cut these in half and stick them each side of the already made rails. I hadn't considered that the chairs appear to be made to slide on to rails before being glued to the sleepers. Consequently, the top of the chair is about level with the top of the rail, rather than fitting into the web at the side. For the half chair on the outside, it's not visually great but for the inside half it's not visually great and interferes with the smooth running of stock. Should I give up on this idea? Are there chairs that would fit? Is there anything that I could do with the existing chairs to improve the situation? If new chairs are recommended, it doesn't matter to me what pattern they are, the layout's part of a preserved line and I would claim that anything goes. To view the layout, Crossways Wagon Works, please see http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/110496-crossways-wagon-works-an-experiment-in-7mm/ Many thanks

I think your puddles look excellent. Just a suggestion, what about one coloured green or red or whatever by the barrel end, to represent chemical spillage? First class work overall, great going.

September 2017 Sidmouth Model Railway Group has just been set up for railway modellers in the vicinity. We were able to take a table to publicise the group during an exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the closure of the Sidmouth branch line, the centre piece was Richard Harper’s outstanding 4mm model of Sidmouth Station in the early 1960s. I took Crossways to provide some additional interest on our stand. To protect the layout from the over-inquisitive, I made a fascia to hold a removable piece of 2mm Perspex, plus side screens to mask the fiddle yards. Here it is as set up: Michael Pritchard, a chap who knows a bit about model railways stopped for a chat. I think he was disappointed that I’ve used so little in the way of Peco products in the layout. Perhaps it would have cheered him up if I’d remembered to tell him that the traverser runs on four Peco N gauge wagon chassis. By chance I happened to get this photo’ several years ago of him with one of his layouts. I made a start on placing chairs on the narrow gauge rails, though this hasn’t worked as well as I’d hoped. I bought a packet of chairs from C&L at the Wells show recently but these are designed to be slid on to a rail and then glued to a sleeper. As my track is already soldered, I cut some chairs in two to glue them either side of the track. The problem is that the chairs sit too high against the rail, the tops being almost level with the track top. For the chairs on the outside of the rail, this is just about acceptable if you don’t look closely. On the inside, the chair is high enough to interfere with wheel flanges. It looks as though I’ll have to make a choice from the following options: don’t bother with chairs; only put half chairs on the outside of the track; trim back the chairs to provide the required clearance. This last option is the best visually but the worst to do, as the split chairs are so tiny. Has anyone any other suggestions? Lastly for this post, I’ve varnished the fascia and am pleased with how neat it looks. Shame that the only ply I had to hand for the right hand side has had to be used with the grain running horizontally rather than vertically. Still, I can put a page of information over it and no one should notice.

From post #11: '... DCC is a 'when I win the lottery' project for me, though it's value is undoubted; I simply cannot afford it and would have to convert the whole fleet at once as well as investing in the control kit, perhaps 5 or 6 hundred beer tokens. I'd like it, it is clearly better, but there was a mix up in the maternity ward when I was born and I got sent home with the working class people. Any of my old bosses will tell you that I am genetically suited to a life of complete indolence and idleness, and suspect that I am in fact really Royalty, or at least nobility, if only the truth were to come out. I have the weak chin to prove it! ...' Dear Johnster, I was deeply moved by this heart-rending account of the troubles you experienced as a mere babe, and the lasting blight cast over your life. I have news, however, and I believe that rather than being a member of the Royal family, you are in fact of native American descent. I have (almost) incontrovertible proof that you are from Norway House Cree Nation, Manitoba, Canada. Please see the attached from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41128368 How! With kind regards Sun VI