Dave John

The inside motion has printed very well, it would be a lot of work to fabricate from brass bits. Must have involved a fair amount of design too. 

I must admit to cheating on a few builds, I just stuck a photo of inside motion between the frames.

An excellent blog as ever Mike. 

I have always tried to check dimensions with as many sources as are available to me and even so I know I get things wrong. You are a long way back  in history compared to my modelling and you have no photos to work off. 

You use an interesting phrase, " based more on the skills of individual craftsmen" . 

There are two levels of craftsmanship involved.  Firstly there is that of the men that built the originals and I can see how they interpreted rather than followed the issued drawings. Indeed I have detailed models on little more than a marginal note . 

The second layer is your craftsmanship, taking the available information and creating a model. You are concerned they might not be perfectly correct, but if they look right to you then the chances are that they are a highly realistic model. 

I sometimes comment on my blog that if further information becomes available then I'll correct my assumptions. It rarely does and I suspect your models are as accurate representation of history as you can get. 

I have tried sound Mikkel but with the camera sitting on the baseboard to take video it just comes out as annoying noise. 

Thanks Kit.

I have a Nikon D3400 which tbh I wish I hadn't bought. I have a lot of difficulty focussing it and annoyingly it doesn't support tether mode so I can't connect it to a big enough screen to see what I'm doing. So for video I use manual mode and try to lock the focus, which it promptly ignores and tries to focus on the background. Same as your phone. I then use iMovie to edit, again I'm not an expert but it does correct the hand cranked look and I can chop out all the video of floors, hands and so on. 

Honestly, there are lots of folk on rmweb who take far better pics and videos than me. I sometimes read about the gear the pros use and look at prices. Then I go and lie down in a dark corner till the shock wears off..... 

Probably should be at the end, but then folk would have to watch to the end of the video...

Nice build , and and interesting quote from Gooch. 

An excellent blog, shows the rate of development during the early period very well. 

Hi Scott,

If the etch has just been proportionally increased to S then I think they should be ok. I had to file back the lower side beading a little to get a snug fit too. It looks ok in the brass but once it is in primer I will be able to judge it better, I suspect a bit of filler may be needed. 

Hi Mikkel,

I think it makes painting and lining the sides on the flat easier. 

Hi C126, Don't worry, it has been happening to all of us bloggers to an extent. 

One tip if you want to get things back in some sort of date order. When you edit a blog there is a bit down the bottom that gives a publish date , or a publish now box which is ticked by default. Click on the publish date box and a wee calendar pops up. This lets you backdate the blog so they all appear in correct historical order. 

So, a sort of summary of the project so far with regard to the objectives I set myself.

I mentioned at the beginning of  the blog that I wanted to go a size bigger than 1/76 but perhaps without some of the restrictions of 0 at 1/43.5. Something easier to see and use in my dotage. A couple of photos for comparison.

1/50 does give me a bigger chunkier model, essential since I wanted to use off the shelf batteries and radio gear. I doubt I could have got them into anything smaller and still had fully open cabs. Even with 20 mm track it doesn’t feel small.

It will happily negotiate a 600 mm radius curve since it has axle hung traction motors. The buffer / coupling design means it can operate with wagons at that radii. If in the fullness of time if I end up with a 1/50 layout it won’t be large, so that gives 1/50 metre gauge a distinct advantage over O gauge, and possibly over the more scale varieties of OO.

I am pleased with the remote coupling system. Again, looking to my dotage with failing eyesight and short arms do I really want to be messing about with 3 links ? Ok, I accept that the buffer/coupling system might be a bit overscale and not to everyone’s taste but for my purposes I shall put operability over appearance. I could even fit a bigger push button to the controller for it if I have to.

Availability. If I am going to play with 1/50 th for some time then I don’t want to be stuck with special stuff becoming unavailable. None of this “I must buy all of these locos before they sell out” sort of thing. Well, since it is all scratch built using basic materials we will be in serious trouble if they can’t be got. I have also made a lot of jigs to help with future projects.

Cost. I have no idea what my financial future will be in these uncertain times but I have a nasty sneaking feeling affluence will not be a part of it. I have spent about £60 buying stuff, perhaps another £30 or so for material I had in stock.  Oh, and £8 for a hundred figures  So, let’s call that £100 for about 4 months of fairly intensive model making. Less than £7 a  week in real terms. Ye cannae get a fish supper for that these days.

How far I go with all this will depend on time and resources. My main interest is still Kelvinbank, but we shall see.

Another interesting build Mike.

Were the frames timber flitched with iron plate ? 

Good to hear you have started your retirement with a cracking holiday, some wonderful pics there. 

When I was just a lad my mother would say " David . Mrs Mazawattee."  Which was  me getting my orders to brew a pot of tea. The tea itself came from the co-op, it was only years later that I realised that Mazawattee was a brand of tea. Anyway a  daft tale but seeing the advert for it on the station just reminded me  of it. 

I have often tried to explain to folk that model railways are about far more of history than just railways. Sherton Abbas is a wonderful example of that. 

First class blog Mikkel. 

Thorough historical research, then using or making models to create a period scene is very innovative, few modellers would attempt it and even fewer would do it so well. Many pay close attention to the trains, but the dioramas you have created there really do bring the history to life. 

Hi RoL . 

The link takes you to utube.

When you upload a vid to utube it gives you a specific link.  Copy that into a post here and you will get the embedded version which can be viewed directly on rmweb. 

I just used the tiny 2x1 magnets Mikkel.  Might work with some careful drilling in 4mm. 

Great stuff . 

26043 will be better than it was brand new.  

Thanks Mikkel.

Oddly it is the Caledonian stuff that I have to research more comprehensively since I never saw any of it first hand. I have been involved with engineering and construction since the 1970s so a loco from the late 1950s is something I have experienced and worked on.  That gives me an understanding of what is generally needed and  so the design of the model just follows the logic of the real thing.

The internet is a great help, I have accumulated quite a lot of drawings and photos of locos of this nature, since it is freelance I can just take the features I fancy and use them. 

I did want this project to be an ideas testbed, that is a lot of the fun of modelling for me. 

Those are gorgeous,

I can well imagine how much work went into scratchbuilding them. 

That sounds fun Simond. 

I went for the 118 ratio, I can't see me ever needing speed. Usefully Eileens  do a brass tube of 3.5 od , 3mm id which fits the n20 shafts perfectly. Should be loads of room for 2 per bogie in 7mm.

Actually, squinting at those bogies I made they do look a bit hymekky, though I didn't look at a hymek when I was thinking about them.  I actually had a big big hymek years ago, I swapped it together with some red track and a coach for a pair of rugby boots. Oh, the idiocy of youth ............... 

Look forward to seeing how you get on with it. 

Hi Mikkel , 

Historex do them in the uk. I don't think they can be bought direct. 

https://historexagents.com/#product-gallery

They don't specify a scale, just a size. 

I think it probably is tempting me to more detail Mikkel. The brakegear components would be a lot smaller and probably too flimsy in styrene, those are right down at the limit of the silhouette. The 2mm modellers make some amazing things with etched metal but the cost is higher. 

I might buy some of the even smaller boltheads and see whether I can actually work with them in 4mm scale. 

One interesting question is that of the overall bogie design. I have built those like real bogies, frame round the outside, motors in the middle, mainly to avoid the whole gearchain to a body mounted motor thing. Others have tried it in the smaller scales with some success but the appeal for me was using the cheaply available n20 motor. That might be just a tad too large in a smaller scale. Of course the question is why bother given the variety of rtr available in 4mm. 

If anyone wants to think about it here are the n20 dimensions; 

Cheers Mikkel. 

You are right, it is fun. Somewhere in my head when I was contemplating this was the idea that going for a novel scale would let me try different things since there is no rtr or kits to act as a reference. I also feel that since it is all experimental I haven't made a big commitment to it, which I might well feel if I had splashed out on expensive rtr of kits. 

One thing I have learned is just how good these n20 motors are. I can see me using them again in the future. 

It is an interesting point Mikkel. Ready made stuff has improved significantly in recent years, but I like you take pleasure from sitting down and actually making things. 

There are people who collect vintage models, so we might end up as another subgroup, vintage modelmakers. A strange bunch of folk who like to cut, solder, glue and paint for the visceral enjoyment of doing so rather than just for the objective of owning a model. 

Just a thought.

Feel free to play about with any of the ideas snitzl, I have borrowed a few of your ideas in the past.

One of my main objectives with the 1/50 project is to think about the way things are done and to mess about with new ( or recycled ) ideas. Some may fail, but they tend to be inexpensive failures, so the experience is worth the cost.

Hopefully that is true of a lot of my modelmaking. Either way, I enjoy it all. 

That is looking excellent. 

A tough build, but I am impressed by the delicacy of touch for all soldered construction.