Damo666

Hi David, Good drawing, should be very helpful to lots of people. Can you check dimensions C and J between the plan views and the isometric. One appears to show the dimension along the slope and the corresponding letter shows it on the true elevation. Otherwise, wonderfully clear and explanatory (at least to me, someone who's been making / reading such drawings for, well, lets say a long time). Thanks

I can totally relate to that. No matter how long you stare at the screen and examine everything in close-up / zoomed-in detail, you'll never see the error. It's only after the plot starts coming off the printer that it immediately stands-out.

Just got an email from Toolstation that the C.K. Wire Stripper is reduced to £14.99, saving about £4 (~22% off). As I said in my earlier post, I've found this tool to be superior to the Lidl/Aldi clone.

To add another voice to the chorus of applause for Hattons customer service. I bought a Dapol Bubblecar in Aug last year and left it in the 'Trunk', waiting until I had a few other items so they could all be sent at the same time. For Christmas my daughter gave me a present of the exact same model, so now I had two. I pondered what to do, and today eventually decided to ring Hattons today and explain the situation. As the item was still in their 'Trunk' Michael said he'd be able to refund the full amount and put the item back for sale: No admin fee, re-stocking fee or depreciation deduction, even after 5 months! I'm not only very pleased but also very impressed. . . . So much so that I immediately spent the money on something else in their shop. Thank you Hattons for excellent customer service.

Are the plastic bag of green waste not collected weekly? I don't pay a lot of attention to it as I'm an infrequent user of the 'service' (tend to see what I can mulch around the side of the house) but I think the green waste is collected weekly (open to correction).

That would be great, thank you. I envisage it as a go-to depositary for factual information on the subject, not something that would be diluted with a lot of cross-talk and off-topic discussions. Somewhere where a forum member just goes to for the information and the construction principles are available there. I know that @chris p bacon has contributed good factual advice in the past on other threads. Sometimes it just seems to be the same questions been asked again and again. Maybe Chris could nominate one of his articles as the basis of the sticky, I'd be happy to contribute too. Then the article could then be locked unless amendments are needed.

I did a bit of research for a gutter & downpipe system last summer and ended up going to this company. https://www.guttering-expert.co.uk/ There was a company on eBay or Amazon, cannot remember, which supplied / manufactured the whole kit in the Netherlands (IIFC) but 'Guttering Expert' seemed to have the same product. A little more expensive but arrived sooner. Now with us having left the EU, there might be additional import costs if you were to go direct. The nice thing about the kit is that it was complete and sizes to suit the cabin, I needed the extended brackets for the gutter. Screwfix / Travis Perkins only seemed to have the domestic gutting, too large and OTT (and would have been more expensive too).

Is there a gutter on the roof? This makes a huge difference. Wind will just blow the rain that falls off the roof onto the logs.

I would be looking to get as much of the wood preservative into the end-grain as possible. Obviously remove friable / flaking paint as you know, but if sanding gets me access to more end-grain then I'd do that. At least 2 coats of wood preservative (I must have put 4-5 localised coats on the joints before final stain coat went on). I did the end-grain, then the log sides and went back to the end-grain again. Repeated the next day.

The company I specified a few years ago states this in their assembly guide: Your paving comes in front of the cabin walls. After you undertake any further wood preservative treatments and external stain coats, paying particular attention to the end-grain and overlapping log ends, I would suggest you then run a bead of mastic down the 3 vertical edges which are on each of the lapped corners, especially to the elevations facing the prevailing wind. Because of the way these cabins are made, the overlapping logs on each external corner will form 3 'Right-Angles'. Does this make sense? I cast the slab then built a 1 brick high sleeper wall to support the timber bearers (for the floor and the external walls). This kept the timber bearers off the concrete slab so if water found its way onto the slab it wouldn't be in contact with the timber. The strip of DPC (Damp Proof Course) is then on top of the timber bearers. (I would have preferred if the builder had listened to me and this was on top of the brick sleeper wall / under the timber bearers). In case you are wondering why the weird arrangement for the brick sleeper wall, this was to provide support for some insulation boards I wanted to place between the floor bearers. This kept the insulation above the slab, maintaining the ventilated air gap without the need for additional fixings. By alternating the bricks I had full support for the timber bearers and stop-start support for the insulation. Method in my madness. You'll understand better in the next picture.

I recognise these issues exactly. How old is your cabin? If the timbers are soft then look at a way of stabilising the fibres (wood hardener) before doing anything else. I would then apply a large dose of wood preserver to the end-grain of all the logs. I've used Blackfriar Exterior Wood Preservative Gold Star in the past (Other similar treatments like Sikkens, Sadolin and Cuprinol are available, and other suppliers too). Give them a couple of coats over a few dry days. Do this on the inside corners too, it won't be as effective but some will saturate into the joints. Everywhere you are seeing that discolouration on the logs / planks, liberally apply several additional coats of preservative. Did you apply wood preservative before the cabin was assembled or after it was erected? I'm not sure what your external finish is, but is this still porous? Can the end-grain absorb water, if so then it'll take the wood preservative I've mentioned above.

I would say it's more important to allow the walls to move according to the season (expand / contract due to the moisture in the air). The roof will move less so, as you may be aware as it's got a waterproof layer on it already (Felt?) and if this moved too much then it would have ripped. Option 1 is the preferred solution, as this will allow any internal vapour (from you and any other water sources) to escape through the ceiling T&G boards (I note that you have removed the existing waterproofing, this needs to be done, don't cut corners and leave it there, it will act as a vapour barrier in the wrong place). Option 2 will (a) lower your ceiling head-height and (b) more importantly, trap water vapour between the insulation and the waterproofing. The vapour in the air will condense once it gets to the cold side of the insulation and then cannot escape because of the waterproofing. It will then saturate into the timbers and then you've got big problems. For this to work you would need to introduce ventilation above the insulation and below the roof T&G. It might be possible to introduce cross ventilation in the side walls of the cabin. There is an argument that these log-cabins are quite air leaky anyway, so the issue of moisture being trapped within the structure is reduced, but I wouldn't risk it on my cabin. @AY Mod I would like to propose there be a sticky for the basic principles of insulating sheds (or lofts for that matter). I see this question come up frequently and I know @chris p bacon has offered his advice many times, others with a construction professional background have provided advice too. There are really only a few options when it comes to shed / loft insulation solutions, anything else risks damaging your investment (shed or the structure of your home), so the answers are essentially consistent: Warm Roof v Cold Roof and how you manage moisture in the air.

I fully understand and agree with you, Hornby don't need this forum to be on their tail nagging them (I'm guessing the web tech people at Hornby who are dealing with this are probably not even reading these posts anyway and are focusing on the site's issues, or at least I hope they are focusing on it and not reading RMWeb). But in fairness I think a lot of the posts here are the observation that the site appears to have been rushed out without proper testing / proper cataloguing of their stock (wrong eras, incomplete or inaccurate searches) etc. The 5 of the first 6 posts on this thread were very complimentary.

Here, try this link instead: https://www.Bachmann.co.uk/category/model-railway (Now, wonder if that'll get Hornby's attention )

Agreed. I think western society as a whole could learn a lot from the way Japanese society works, and it would be for the betterment of all.

Was in Kyoto exactly this time last year, and that brought back such happy memories. Thanks for that link. What an phenomenal band!

I was more familiar with the Belcoo (NI) and Blacklion (IRL) crossing. One petrol station would be doing roaring business whilst the other looked like it was deserted years ago. At one time it was worth driving 40 miles there and back just to get a full tank (although there was the added bonus that you could get groceries in the North that you couldn't get in the 'Free State'). I remember such boring shopping trips as a captive child to Wellworths (not a typo) in Enniskillen.

Can you disconnect the controller from the fiddleyard and connect it to the opposite length of track. Then see if the same thing happens at: (a) The exact same position on the track, or (b) A similar distance along the track? As the ViTrains 37 probably isn't new, could there be a stay-alive within?

I thought we had it complicated enough with our H0 -v- 00 (and EM, P4 and all the variants in between). And that's before we go to 0 Gauge and N Gauge. But have a little sympathy for our U.S. Cousins. Came across this today (I thought they had it all sorted in H0 being the holy grail of scale gauge track -v- scale models): H0, H0n2, H0n3, H0n3.5, H0n30 S, Sn2, Sn3 0, 0n2, 0n3, 0n30 N, Nn3 Z, Zm TT From the https://www.handlaidtrack.com/quicksticks website.

Is Mevagissey Model Railway (in Saint Austell , Cornwall) still around (talking about in 'normal' times)? I recall visiting there 18 odd years ago with my young son, before the bug hit me. They had a permanent layout and lots of Hornby models which they claimed they tested for Hornby before going into production.

If the shed is your model railway room, how much would it cost to replace water damaged baseboards, or soaked cardboard buildings, .... Or if you have your DIY tools, boxes of personal files, washing-machine, food in the shed ..... At least that's the way I look at it. It all depends on how you value the contents of the shed. Addressing Flashband, apart from the difficulties you have already mentioned trying to fix it to undulating and flat surface at the same time, I wouldn't consider Flashband as a permanent solution. I would consider it for a good temporary repair. I know people use it for a more permanent fix, but it's not best practice. OK for small junctions around a protrusion (chimney stack, pipes etc) but not long straight runs. I've seen it on long runs of roof edges and it tends to get stretched.

Understand. I'll need to consult my Lead Association Handbook next week to check. It may be Code 4 as you say, (but you won't go wrong going up a step and I didn't want to suggest an inferior solution.)

Your best bet is to get a corrugated flashing that matches the profile of your sheets, and then dress another flashing over this. A corrugated flashing with a flat abutment. Then another flashing over. Typically this would be Code 5 Lead, and it would be dressed into a chase into a mortar joint about 150mm above the top of your roof. The supplier of your corrugated bitumen sheets should be able to advise of a suitable matching flashing profile.

Did (s)he ever pay up?

And neither did the report suggest that it was Stephenson's Rocket involved in the incident. (I dislike Hyperbole / extreme exaggeration, but you started it ). I agree that a general description of 'Freight Train' was perfectly adequate to convey the storey. The incident, danger and message looses nothing by an incorrect description on the type of rail transportation.