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Hi Jerry The majority of legwork on this project has been undertaken by Alan Smith and Nigel Cliffe and we should be extremely grateful for all that they have done to move the project forward. The rest of the committee and myself have basically just been cracking the whip and asking stupid questions. I think special order wheels might be a little while off yet, as an Association offering anyway. Meanwhile, as an Association we are quite happy to offer components (rims, axles etc) so that members such as Julia might develop their own ideas. I'll ask Alan for a drawing of the axle and then get a small supply into the shops. Anyway, the first batch of wheels are now securely packaged up and on their way to Shop 3. Enjoy!

Hi Julia I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t. The next batch of sizes should be coming soon. I’ll look to put the axles into shop at the same time.

More sizes coming soon, btw!

I am pleased to confirm that Shop 3 can now accept orders for the new Locomotive Driving Wheels. The first batches, which I will post off to Steve tomorrow, are shown below. Please see website listings for prices. These wheels feature centres 3D printed in stainless steel with our regular turned rim and a new turn axle. I look forward to seeing these tucked under many a new locomotive!

They were near the top then?

Like these?

You can’t really mix anything into the pre-mixed lightweight fillers. They’re a bit like a soufflé.

I'd agree, or one of the own brand equivalents. I managed to source one that was light grey when building Brafferton, so there was no danger of ugly white showing through. I painted it all with a very thin acrylic wash of browns and blacks. As Nigel says, it is very light and flexible. It's also fairly easy to plant fences, trees etc, unlike some fillers.

You can tell it was the “olden days”. They’re all white...

Satisfying amount of progress made tonight. All six frames are now fabricated and have been tacked to the side timbering. It all seems fairly true, so I’ll leave it to harden overnight.

Point sleepering is wider than plain track, I believe.

At the Wigan show, I managed to make a start on the goods station building. At Leeds, last weekend, I picked up some plastic profiles to construct the frames for the train shed. I made two last night and another four are required. These will then be joined with longitudinal girders and roofed. I’m thinking that there will be small tubes outside each track to take the shed legs. This will make it removable for track cleaning etc.

I spent the day playing trains at Leeds Model Railway Exhibition. In addition to St Ruth, there was also John Aldrick’s Ivybridge; very picturesque. Thanks to the chaps on St Ruth for inviting me along; John, Andy, Ian and Steve.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

I can’t see any wires to your capacitor, Tim. Are you sure it will work? I don’t want you getting all in a spin later on...

You’re quite right Jim. While Gordon has retired from loco wheel fabrication duties, he has kindly offered to continue reprofiling wheels for members. His details are in the Yearbook.

If you email Steve in shop 3, I'm sure he'd be happy to measure one for you.

Indeed. The book value is what was paid to acquire them. The realisable value is what they’re actually worth. You might spend £10k on a second hand car but due to the fact it was a former write-off and the mileage has been fiddled with its worth £100. What we pay for something isn’t necessarily it’s true value. If it’s not a worthwhile exercise creating tooling based on a CAD (lack of market/inability to recover tooling costs) then that CAD is worthless regardless of the time and money expended in its creation.

Wouldn't a further belt be required to power the elevator/conveyor? If I were the farmer with the benefit of only one conveyor, I'd use that to get the wheat or whatever up into the thresher, not to move the lighter straw just a few more yards along. So I'd line them up, engine - elevator- thresher and transmit the drive through the elevator.

The Chinese are not going to put cost price on the customs declaration. It’s not in their interest to reveal the phenomenal margins they’ll be making. Additionally, if HMRC inspect one and feel the value is understated, they’ll impound that and then be on the lookout for similar packages. VAT and duty on a £285 model will be over £60. As a private importer, you’re unlikely to be able to get the VAT equivalent, levied in China, back. Oh and Royal Mail will levy a £8 fee for handling the VAT/duty collection.

Indeed, they are all part of the Masterclass Limited Edition Range. As the name implies, they were never intended to go on and on. When Chris advised me that he didn’t intend to have further etches done, I listed them as WSL and put notes on the website and in the Newsletter. Prior to this most of the chassis were selling well within single figures per annum, so that obviously weren’t that crucial for the vast majority of members. As an Association, we stand head and shoulders above most other organisations in terms of the kits and components we make available. Most of that is down to a slack handful of dedicated designers and developers to whom we should be very grateful.

I might be wrong, but there is no indication that the gears are used for speed reduction once you've gone past the initial worm/gear. The initial gear seems a similar size to those on the wheels and the intermediate ones are irrelevant. And would the gear onto the worm not be skew cut, or are we working on Chinese-near-enough technology?

https://www.gov.uk/register-a-design It can only be the configuration of the design. The appearance, physically shape and decoration are not new (they exist on the real thing already). If you were to produce a model with an identical configuration of components, then DJ Models (or their successors) may have a claim against you.

Very good.

https://www.registered-design.service.gov.uk/find/mibc2je9/92393612/designsbyowner