Damo666

I've a £10 voucher from eBay if I spend £10 using their online app, expires midnight tonight, so went looking to see what I can find. At £80 / coach, this look OTT. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Murphy-Models-CIE-MK2D-Rake-7-Coaches-Orange-Black-Irish-Railways-including-EGV/353207991179?hash=item523cd63b8b:g:~ewAAOSwArNfZfh6 (BTW, haven't found anything yet. Not going to waste £10 just to get something for £10 off)

Well that's absorbed this evening's free time! Surprised to see this, a 'Dozer just going across the tracks. Would this be allowed in the UK? No surprise they have derailments if any 20 ton piece of plant can just drive over the track.

Now I want a 'SAD' face.

Before I returned to the hobby a few years ago, I tried to hack an old smoke detector to convert it to a leak detector. All OK except for my soldering. The solder would just stay on the tip and and bead-up. Could never get it on the circuit connections. Chatted to my brother-in-law who's first questions was "What solder are you using". Dunno said I, label long gone. He kept asking some questions to which I didn't have the answer, then when I started to describe the solder the penny dropped. I had this big spool of solder, quite thick 'wire'. "Ah, that plumbers solder. There's no flux in that and, besides, it's totally the wrong stuff unless you are soldering copper pipes." Lesson learned. Wouldn't totally agree with that (see, now I'm an expert ). I have an old soldering iron from my childhood days, which was already old at that time. It has a lovely brass (or brass/copper alloy?) tip which can be filed. I've done this rarely as I don't want to file it all away, but when the tip gets bad it really helps to carefully clean the tip. I do this by filing the solder off and then just a smidgen more until I see the shiny brass/copper stuff.

Not a great pic of the crane, all went past too quickly.

Thanks for that, got to grab a few pics with about 30 seconds to spare. What has surprised my is how the Colas container colours are so close to the new Freightliner livery. 66418 & 66419

Hope you don't mind, but I found the colour cast a bit off-putting, so I tried to correct it a little.

My experience is that not all glues are the same. PVA from Poundland would need to be a brand I trust before I'd buy it for anything other than a hobby. Unbranded PVA is OK for fixing most scenic materials on a model, but I wouldn't rely on it for anything that I would consider vital or durable, like furniture. It's your judgement call, but the way I look at it is, if a good glue costs 100% more, but that is the difference between £0.99 & £1.99, is it worth the time and effort in re-doing the job later with more glue if the first attempt fails (and potentially causes a catastrophic failure in the material / joint)? If you think you'll have a lot of jobs needing PVA I would suggest getting a larger bottle of quality PVA from places like Toolstation / Screwfix etc, it'll work out a lot cheaper then the smaller 100ml bottles and it keeps.

Hopefully eBay will sit up and start taking notice, bow that a National newspaper has published a similar situation: Guardian 31st Aug 2020: I could prove I had been scammed but eBay wasn't on my side

I don't wish to detract from the wonderful pictures of Mr. Casserley, but I found the video below which neatly links with the above image.

PM sent

I worked out the overall height I needed for each of the scenic boards and placed 32 x 32 aluminium angles on the sides, As the aluminium is only 1.6 - 2mm thick and I had countersunk for screw fixings, I wasn't happy that this would be sufficient to support the baseboards, so I placed a strip of timber batten under each angle. Again, I cut out some holes in the side to significantly reduce the weight. It also allows easy access to the baseboards if they were to get stuck. This already happened when testing when some cables dropped down and got caught on a building. I had planned to leave slight protrusion in the cut-out end supports to allow a ratchet strap to secure the rack in a van if I ever wanted to transport the whole shebang, but for some reason I forgot to do this. I'll now do this as a recessed cutout. The holes in the side were based on having at least 125mm of ply all round and that the cut-out would still be useful, being the same width as the rack. (You can see this at the end). The rough diagonal timbers are temporary bracing.

Time for an update. The foldable option was a step too far, and I feared that they whole thing would either become unstable or over-engineered to compensate, and then far too heavy, so I went an alternative route of reducing the width of the baseboards (more on that elsewhere). Having made that decision, I ploughed on with making my new storage rack. The base is 12mm ply. It started out like this, cut to 628mm wide x 1220 long (the standard sheet width).I I put a second strip of 12mm ply along the edge glued & screwed to reinforce the base and prevent any sagging. (the 4 screws in the pic above are temporary). Overlapping this strip by 12mm it also allowed an edge for the sides to sit. I also let it over-hang the end to allow a shelf for future use (if needed). A hole was cut to reduce the weight. This gave me an idea later on. And this is the view of the underside: The extra strip on the sides was idea for the wheels for giving extra fixing. (2 free-wheeling and 2 lockable).

Exactly that. Glued along the edge just under the flange. Gently prising and it came out all undamaged. Thanks to all that helped. As I'll be converting the layout from late 50s steam to modern era diesel, what to do with (1) the turntable and (2) the hole in the baseboard?

Haven't seen any mechanical fixings so far, but they may be under the ballast. I'm hoping it's just been glued down. Thanks

I might have to do this too, but I won't get an answer until Monday at the earliest now, so.... I want to remove the Peco Turntable from a layout I bought, and I don't know how it was fixed to the board. The layout has scenery and ballast topping all around the turntable edge and pit base, obscuring some of the detail. Could anyone who has fixed one tell me, is it just glued on the outside flange to the top of the cut-out, or are there some hidden fixings i need to find? If I could get an answer over the weekend then I might get a little work done, unless I find something else to distract me. TIA.

We had a lovely robin visit us in the garden for the past few weeks, would come down and wander around us or come close in the hedge. My wife seemed to get more enjoyment out of its presence than I. This morning my wife found the Robin dead in our hall. Our cat is in the dog-house. It's the one thing that I dislike. We feed it really well and it's inside most of the day, but I hate to see it kill mice, voles and especially birds. I think birds and other wildlife has it hard enough with what us humans are doing (cutting down trees, chemicals on the garden with it's collateral killing of insects, the bird's food) without cats also decimating the bird population too. Our's has killed at least 7 that I know of in the last month. Multiply that by each month of it's 9 years..... I guess I won't get much sympathy on this thread, but still.... Just saying. Wife & I were genuinely sad at seeing that poor robin this morning.

Interesting your story, I had something similar. Bought 5 Philips LED 75W equivalent bayonet bulbs from Wickes a few years ago. Not cheap at the time (certainly a lot dearer than incandescent). After 12 months one started flickering so I contacted Philips and they send me a replacement. Different model number and colour hue. Less than 6 months later the same thing happened with another bulb and again Philips send me a replacement. 3rd bulb went and again Philips were good. Never asked for any of the the old bulbs to be sent back to them, so they must have known there was an issue with that generation of LED bulb. The remaining bulbs were relegated to the garage. And totally agree with your comment on MK. Best to have quality fixtures.

My teenage son and his friends cannot say a sentence without using the word 'Literally'. Literally!

Sorry, you are way off. It's North-West London, at the end of the Piccadilly Line.

Then let me be the first to use it. Well done Pete.

This must be Number 24! Seen on a walk in South Wales.