NCB

That's fine. The "0.7mm" for the buffers is actually a fraction less, so may not even need the drill. I've ordered 4 lots; the postage works out less painfull that way! Thanks a lot. Nigel

1.5mm pin-point bearings for wagons. There is a thin flange about 0.25mm thick, then the main body of the bearing which is about 1.6mm thick and 1.4mm deep. Allowing say 0.3mm for nickel silver etched W irons, then the body projects about 1.1mm, or a tad more, beyond the W irons. These are 3mm Society products. There are also heftier Kean Maygib 1.5mm bearings but I don't use them for wagons (but they're useful with MJT coach bogies). Cheers Nigel

Alan Received the Cambrian 15T coal wagon; looks fine. I should be OK for W irons; I'm working on a couple of etches at the moment, one of them including wagon chasses, and can add the coal wagon to that. However, the 3D printed axle boxes would be very useful. Also, if you're going to bring back your Cambrian buffers at some point, 3mm versions of those would also be useful; the 3mm Society does some nice steel buffer heads with a 0.7mm shank. Cheers Nigel

The Barrowmore group's Johnstown Road layout has a Cambrian 3-plank wagon running on it; see: http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/jr_Harrogate.html Might be worth checking to see if they have a source of data. I like their idea of invisible green, almost black but with just a green hint to it. Nigel

I wondered about the solebar because I half expected to see those semi-circular things on the solebar above the wheels, as the solebar on my RCH wagon has, but couldn't see it on yours. Sure enough the drawing shows just bolts on the outside of the solebar, apart from the outer V hanger. The side view has the legend -STEEL SOLE PLATE- on the solebar, and the end view appears to show 5" x 12" solebar (presumably wood) faced with a 5/16" steel sole plate. Didn't realise that the NRM shows thumbnails; looks like being useful, where they exist. That's the drawing I have. I'll bear in mind the W irons and axle boxes. I'll wait until I have the print and then see what I need. Re the transfers, is it a question of filling up a sheet of a particular size, or is it more flexible than that? Other thing, I've yet to find a good source of information about particular Cambrian wagon brandings; I wondered if you knew of one, or is it a question of scrapping around to see what one can find? Cheers Nigel

Alan Like it. Have ordered one. I've a copy of a Cambrian General Arrangement drawing for a 15 ton 8 plank coal wagon, not dated but has drawing no 900 on it and signed off by Herbert Jones. As far as I can tell this looks to be identical. This is drawing 9002 on the BR/OPC lists obtainable from the NRM. Originally I thought it had an all wood solebar, but looking at the drawing it seems to have a steel soleplate on the outside of a wooden solebar. Cheers Nigel

Bit difficult to know at the moment what I do need in 3mm. What I've decided to do is go ahead and build the stock I'm interested in (wagons, coaches, locomotives) without worrying about the livery, and when I have a reasonable variety then starting thinking about transfers. Doing it that way should be easier to think in terms of quantities and type, and should be easier to see if something can be worked out based on the transfers you do produce. So far, apart from the gunpowder van, I've done the following three wagons: The brake van and 2 plank are scratch built, done to gain experience at it; the coal wagon is cheat and simply a 19C RCH wagon kit! The transfers are Dragon 4mm ones. With the 2 plank the idea was to eventually come up with masters for resin casting, as the 3mm Society was inviting members to produce masters of unusual prototypes to widen the stock available. The strapping is microstrip with brass wire rivets; I'm thinking of experimenting doing another with etched strapping to see how it compares. I've also a van in mind. Cheers Nigel

Like 'em! The crest in particular is very good. If you can do them in other scales any chance of some 3mm ones? Cheers, Nigel

Afraid not, I was looking for something like this myself; I'm sure they must be out there. Let us know if you find one. I take it you've thought of Nigel Lawton's 6mm x 12mm coreless motors? Cheers Nigel

According to Slinn the change to simple chocolate and cream, initially without lining between the colours, occurred in 1927, and the Garter Crest disappeared in 1928. The lining appeared pretty quickly. I reckon if you're using simple chocolate and cream with the Garter Crest then there's a fair chance that the coaches wouldn't be lined. Also, such coaches could well have carried that livery into 1929 and maybe later. Hope that helps Nigel

The chat I had with Powsides seemed to indicate that the transfers were produced some time ago and not via the techniques they now use (maybe they were hand-drawn?), and hence didn't form part of the body of what they now offer. But probably this isn't a big stumbling block.

Richard The 3mm Society are working on an easy-to-assemble LMS 4F 0-6-0 which might be a good place to start. I believe some pre-production bits were on display at the last AGM. Brynkits chasses via 3SMR are relatively easy to put together and some can be used with existing whitemetal kits, eg the GWR 57XX pannier; only problem is Brynkits stuff isn't always available. Cheers Nigel

Powsides did some for me last year in 3mm/ft. I'd noticed the Cambrian gunpowder van set and when talking to him about doing a 3mm version (he's done quite a few 3mm versions of his transfers in the past, some were offered by Finney & Smith and are now part of the 3mm Society products) he revealed the "3 plank" version so he did some of those for me as well. I'm not sure about the "3 plank" bit; think these would do for both 2 plank and 4 plank. Anyway they should be fine in 4mm. For 3mm he did say he might have a bit of trouble reducing the feathers crest (think it was done as a special and wasn't easily rescaleable) and indeed it does seem a bit large so may be the 4mm version, but otherwise think they look great. Here's the gunpowder van: I think he'd be open to doing more Cambrian transfers if he had a good source of information. I could do with van and brake van transfers, as well as other things like locomotive and coach transfers. I'm not hugely enthusiastic about using Pressfix style transfers, so what I do is whack the complete set down onto decal paper, varnish it, then treat it like waterslide transfers.

Mike That looks an effective system. The pivots look to be in the right sort of position, so that the end axles move to help with the curve but not so much that the coach end swings out too much. . Must dig out my 35 year old attempt and see what I did; from memory it used similar pivots but not sure about the position. Any ideas where the transfers came from? I'm thinking of some Cambrian coaches (in 3mm scale) but lack of sources for transfers is putting it off a bit. Cheers Nigel

Hi Richard No problem with the availability of 3mm Society finescale wheels. Not only is there a comprehensive range of sizes, but there are variations for each size (eg number of spokes). The actual sizes for driving wheels are 9mm, 10.5mm, 12mm, 13.5mm, 15mm, 15.75mm, 16.5mm, 17mm, 18mm, 19mm, 20mm. There are comprehensive stocks of these. Shouldered axles for use with the wheels are available for 14.2mm and 12mm gauges; the wheels take a 2mm diameter axle and the broader bit of the axle is 1/8th inch. For other gauges folk normally use a 2mm diameter axle and set the gauge using BtB gauges. One member now offers a service of squaring the holes in the wheels to take square-ended axles, provided as part of the service, to obtain automatic self quartering. There is a moderate charge. Wagon wheels are listed as 9.25mm (I've a vague idea this might change to 9mm, it was discussed but not sure about the outcome) spoked or 4 hole disc. Coach wheels are 10.5mm disc or Mansell. Bogie/tender wheels are 9mm, 9.25mm, 10mm, 10.5mm, 11mm, 12mm, 12.5mm spoked or 11mm and 12mm disc. Bulleid and Webb drivers have been talked about but as far as I'm aware not yet available. Hope that helps Nigel

Just stumbled upon this thread. Re the Cambrian 61 class, WRRC have a drawing in 7mm/ft by Mike Lloyd, originally published in MRC, of which I have a photocopy. For the locomotive it shows bogie wheels 3'6" diameter, bogie wheelbase 5'6", distance from rear bogie wheel to leading driver 6'6 1/2", driver 6'0" diameter, driver wheelbase 8'3". For the tender it shows wheels 3' 10 1/2" and wheelbase 6'0" + 6'0". I also have the G.A. drawing by Sharp Stewart for the tender, stamped at the top Cambrian Railways, which confirms these dimensions. This drawing was from the BR/OPC collection, and I believe is currently available from NRM York. The NRM is a bit short on detailed drawings for Cambrian Railways locomotives; I think the BR/OPC collection had rather more G.A. drawings. I did intend to check and to approach the NRM if some were missing, but haven't yet got around to it. The NRM has some useful Cambrian wagon and coach drawings, originally in the BR/OPC collection. Cheers Nigel

I once butchered some Ratio OO 4-wheelers into representations of Cambrian 6 wheelers. Finding that the chassis was too stiff to go round much of a curve I knocked up a Cleminson chassis for one and was pleasantly surprised that it would go round 12" curves. As the middle wheels moved to one side the end wheels would swivel, so that they were close to being tangential to the curve, which helped a lot. In fact the 6 wheeler was much better at curves than Ratio 4 wheelers. I suspect that if you arranged the wheels on a 4 wheel coach to swivel slightly then you'd improve the road holding no end; the pressure of flange against rail would be enough to cause the swivel action. Nigel

Early? All things are relative! The last but two went in 1939, but the two finally went in 1945 I believe. OK for a 1930s GWR modeller like me. With my 3mm one I kept the leading driving axle rigid but had the trailing one pivoted in the centre, filing the axle holes into slots to allow vertical movement. It's fairly easy to balance the loco (at least an etched one) so that the weight sits over the drivers. I constructed a sort of internal pony truck for the leading axle with a weight on it to keep it on the track. It works, but if I was to do it again I'd use twin beam compensation on the drivers and a central pivot for the leading axle; that way all 6 wheels are firmly on the track and all carrying some weight. I think your approach would work but you might have to stick some extra weight in the smoke box to balance it.

Re minimum radius, in 14.2mm finescale I try to work to a norm of 40" radius, with 36" OK and an absolute minimum of 32", which is along the lines suggested by Phil. However, due to an error of mine in measuring up the site for the layout, where the running line curves across a corner I've had to shove in a 29" radius curve at one point. On the bit of test track I put in place to check this it appears to be OK for nearly all of my stock. I don't think S3 would cope, because in S3 the distance measured over the outer faces of the wheel flanges is noticeably larger than 14.2mm finescale, hence less slop on the track. On the other hand, that bit of track of mine didn't use gauge widening, and with that in place S3 might be OK. Nigel

I'm pretty sure nobody has, apart from the experimental models Phil mentions. I think there were two thoughts behind the 3mm Finescale standards. One was that they gave a fine scale look but were considerably more forgiving than S3 would have been. The other was the difficulty in manufacturing stuff to S3 standards with the required degree of consistency (consistency of manufacture is something that the 3mm Society needs to keep a close eye on even today and even with the tolerances built into the Intermediate and Finescale standards). There are reasons why 2mm Finescale, which Phil mentions, isn't finer than it is. Personally I'd like to see somebody give S3 a go, if only to see if it could be realistically achieved, but so far nobody has come forwards. Me, I'm happy in my 14.2mm gauge Finescale comfort zone! Cheers Nigel

Sorry, wrong thread!

Cambrian Coast line at Picnic Island just east of Penhelig, on the Dovey estuary, 11/2/2010

I've built a 3mm scale version of the Roxey kit, as seen below; this included an etch done by a 3mm Society member to produce a closed-cab extended-bunker version. It can make a decent model. I'd say the kit is typical of its era, with less slot-and-tab construction than you might expect to find now. It's essential to work from a good diagram of the prototype, to get things like tank length and position right. Proceed methodically, checking everything as you go, make corrections as necessary, and it should work out OK. I was building it to run on scale width track (14.2mm gauge in 3mm) and did hit one problem; the coupling rods fouled the valence under the footplate. Seemed to me on looking at the diagram that the prototype would have had the same problem. Looking closely at available photographs I convinced myself that the GWR joggled the valence out over the rods, so that's what I did; you can see it in the photograph. Nigel

Kyle of Lochalsh, 1984 and 22/5/92

Fort William / Mallaig bound train leaving Bridge of Orchy, 30/9/15