Northroader

Another way you may want to experiment with, for a finely textured rough surface, is seiving dry polyfilla. It's an extension of what you do when laying ballast,putting ballast down and then using an eye dropper to put a mix of watered down PVA with a drop of washing up liquid to secure the ballast. The Americans do similar with dry plaster mixed with powder paint called "zip texturing". I have trouble with this, in that droplets can form on the surface spoiling the look, so I put the well diluted PVA with detergent mix down on the surface first, and shake a light skim of polyfilla over this, so it gets wetted from underneath. Does SWMBO have a fine wire Flour sieve in the cookery department you can borrow without repercussions? Load the sieve away from what you're working on, and then hold above the surface and tap the rim lightly. It only needs a thin film, to keep a level surface, if you add more you get into more uneven ground cover effects. When dried out, I paint it with acrylic paints, the artists type you mix with water.

Ooh, good, we're back on making bangs. Again, a large empty biscuit tin, this time with the lid off and a small candle burning inside. And then... no second thoughts, better not.

Overheard outside the Castle Aching Casino: " I hear that nice Mr. Edwardian is applying foam in unusual places" " oooh, really???"

Really liked that operating session, you've got me thinking hard about couplers.

I've just visited this thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/119965-uncommon-7mm-scale-lnwr/?p=2672578 (it's a LNWR site, so it's the place to be seen) where I was able to post some shots of a layout they were mentioning. As you know, I'm fond of giving examples of layouts which I like, so I thought I put the pictures here as well, with a layout plan. It's called "Alexandra Yard" created by Mr. Jim Dale, and done in 7mm scale. I saw it at the Westinghouse Chippenham MRC show back in October 1997, don't time go? It's a small goods yard site, with a run round and two sidings facing opposite ways, so plenty of shunting involved, and the sidings serve a variety of purposes. (There's also a shunting horse, which is a nice touch) I thought it was really compact, about the smallest O line I had seen at that time, well made and thought out, quite simple, and a Crewe feel to it. (Water tank, signal, yard offices, brickwork, besides loco and rolling stock) it's on two baseboards, with a barrow crossing to cover the join. I'd guesstimate that the boards are 42" ? x 18", with a fiddle yard at the one end. It struck me that the space between the loop lines was very close, which does help in keeping the overall length down, and something you can do in goods yard. The runaround takes four wagons.

Just come across this thread, and happen to have some old shots of Alexandra Yard, which I saw at a show in Chippenham in October 1997. I really liked it, in fact looking at them I'm going to put them on my thread too: You'll see in the middle of one of them is the loco you're on about. I'm also putting a shot of a loco I've made with an Allan front end, in answer to Argos' question, Hope I'm not oversimplifying, as this is an On16.5 Highland outline type using a Hornby Desmond chassis, and you'll see the piston rod is missing, but you'll get the idea.

London like Brum? I think I'd go along the canals in both places to pick up likenesses, then you could always drain the canal out and put a railway in. The track layout intrigues me, presume there's a short traverser under the bridge? Then a longer one at t'other, and how do you enter that? And then theres the short line in the middle? The yards got a nifty look to it, quite railwaylike, somehow.

Wherever the stone bridge will put it in the end, you've definitely got a very Midland feel to things. Will follow with interest.

I like the video, though I dunno about the music. You've got trains running, hang on, YOUVE GOT TRAINS RUNNING! That's the main thing. I particularly liked where you were pacing the train from overhead looking down, it reminded me of what having an oval was about, the sheer joy of watching a train in motion.

That's got the potential to make a really good looking model. Yes, indeed, good luck, will enjoy seeing you making it.

Here's the next episode of the Double Slip Saga, dammit. I've been running test trains through, including propelling wagons, all going well, but I was finding that they needed to be rolling. If I slowed down to a shunting crawl, the loco would check on the crossing (frog). If I then gave it a bump on the controller, the cutout would trip, so the wheels were shorting at the point where the rails came closest together leaving the crossing. I've lifted the double slip out and examined it, considering what I could do, and I've decided the best course of action is to ditch the idea of a crossing with the rails insulated from each other, and do a crossing which is one electrical unit, and switch its polarity with the point throw, using a slider switch to combine the two functions. This has been my normal way of going on until now, serves me right for trying a new way, I suppose. Luckily I've got two Marcway 12degree cast brass crossings left over for an old layout, also some of their 6mm copper clad fibre glass sleeper strip, as I've been using quite a lot of that in the fiddle sidings. Now the old crossings are out, as well as the sleeper strip under this area, and the new bits in. Here's a view of one end, also showing the GOG gauge which shows up my shortcomings when looking at the flangeways. Now I can paint it, lay it, and wire it up with slider switches and linkage. Then with any luck Robert should prove to be fathers brother. ( and it looks as if I can pop round and play at CA, goodee!)

I don't think what you're thinking is a gap in the middle is really a gap. Ain't it a band, placed there to stop the windings going "ker-zoing" when the centrifugal force hits them?

Watching Harry Potter films.

With that, though, you do have to carefully rake the ballast in a pattern, and arrange a big rock and a Little Rock (damn this American spell checker) in a precise relationship.

I like the P2, just wondering about the combination lever?

Looking at the new overhead in the middle of Reading recently, I noted the spans had differing numbers of droppers, bearing out the spans do vary quite a bit.

What I don't get is our bedroom clock radio decides it has to go forward an hour 48hours before it should, so it's been BST in the bedroom since Thursday morning.

That sounds almost like the opening phrase from - " I did it my waaayyyy", and a very good way, too. It's nice to get down on to the beach, but I'm going to miss going down to Kent, smelling the sea air, watching the ferries coming and going, and what's happening around the railway. Thank you so much.

Mum lets us go out to play together.

Here's a shot of the underside of the superstructure:Most of the old locos had the running plate running flat straight between or over the bufferbeams, so I cut a rectangle of brass, around .018", the length and width of the loco, and in this case add a bit extra on the length. I then do the flares across the full width of this, and concurrently bend two pieces of square section rod or tube, in this case I think 1/16", to match the side elevation to form the angles underneath, and then check all the curvature matches. When I'm happy, i solder this up, and trim off the end to the right length, then add buffer beams and buffers, mark centre line, and mark against the chassis for the holes where the frame stretchers are used to attach the superstructure. (I've left the screws in to show where these are) Then it's just a question of fixing the running plate on the chassis and marking up where clearance holes for wheels and motor go, and carving these out. The rest of the superstructure follows, with the bottoms of splashers, tanks filed to fit the flare. With larger modern locos the running plate goes up and down all over, but I leave these alone. Edit: the running plate may need further reinforcement along the narrow strip above the frame between the wheel slots and the motor hole.

Well, it's taken some time, phased in with other jobs, but I've finally got the feed mill done. You'll see from the boxcars nearby that it's not that big, but I'm quite happy with the way it fills the corner, blocking out the short yard entrance, and adding some balance with the other two buildings on the line, and of course forming a realistic traffic point.

I deeply admire EE as well.

Sorry, Don, you're right. I've edited the dates to conform.