TangoOscarMike

Well, we all agree that the roof moulds don't seem to be much use!! Here is the end wall assembled, with all the ghastly joins that spoil the concept. I think the gaps don't matter so much - they will be concealed later by mortar. The real problem is the columns of half-bricks. In an effort to camouflage the joins, I'm covering them with air-drying clay (also terracotta) and then scribing the mortar lines back in with various tools (mainly a toothpick). And this is the result. Somewhat improved, perhaps. One of the risks of using Linka is excessive uniformity in building proportions and features. But as @Paul H Vigor says (and indeed, as the original instructions say) one is permitted to cut up the pieces. These are the ingredients of a porch: Chopped into pieces: And assembled:

Pictures, perchance? It would be cruel to ask you for pictures.

A log scale of sound pressure, but a linear-ish scale of perceived loudness. Unless I'm wrong, which happens a lot.

For those who don't remember Linka, this picture of some of the moulds is probably self-explanatory. Wall pieces are cast in plaster and slotted together to make buildings. I had some of these moulds in my early teens (hand-me-downs from some friends who had grown out of them), but I never achieved much with them. It's difficult for all sorts of reasons - brittle material, flawed castings, unsightly joins..... Recently, in a fit of nostalgia, I bought some moulds from Ebay. I've decided to build a house similar to the the Airfix thatched cottage. I'm imagining someone admiring the general layout of the cottage, but wanting a bit more room and slightly higher ceilings. I'm starting with an end wall, and I'm making things easier for myself by using terracotta coloured plaster. Getting the pieces to fit requires quite a bit of fettling, and the pieces from some moulds are clearly larger than those from others. My digital calipers are broken, but I estimate that some pieces are 1/3 of a millimetre taller than others. I'm gluing them together face-down on a piece of glass, and reinforcing the joints with tissue paper.

The other side.

The second attempt as pickups looks a little more promising. These two are held on with epoxy, so if there are problems then that will be.... problematic.

I've just restored the pictures to my 4-wheeler modification thread, and I'm now feeling inspired to finish the unfinished break conversion. Alas, there are several pictures from other people that I can't restore.

I like what you've done so far. Shameless plug - I have 3D printed duckets for sale for these coaches (follow the link in my signature).

The 3D print includes small pegs to which I hope to attach pickups. The first attempt consisted of a strip of phosphor bronze with a hole for the peg and a wire soldered on. I decided to attach this with hot glue, in the hopes that this would anchor it nicely, but also make it possible to remove. For a change, the picture makes it look much nicer than it really is. There are two huge, horrible blobs of hot glue that interfere with the wheels, and the wire interferes with the springiness of the bronze. So it's on to the second attempt, in which a more complex pickup shape will remove the need for a separate wire soldered so close to the wheels. I've printed four of the new shape and glued the paper to the bronze. I'm now cutting them out with a knife (and frequently snapping off sections of the blade).

I like all this, and I'm looking forward to seeing the structure connecting the two halves. Would it benefit from more diagonal bracing timbers? Is your passageway wide enough for the suitably-sized carriages (also, is it tall enough)? I suggest you think of more ways to break the symmetry. Could you introduce a small angle between the two buildings, and maybe move one slightly forwards or backwards?

There is a boss on side of the motor where the shaft emerges. And this impinges on the gear wheel, forcing the motor slightly to the side. So here is some plastic, glued on to support the motor in this shifted location. Rather than carefully analyse the possible short-circuits, I've chosen to insulate metal parts as much as I can. So here is some more (thinner) plastic to keep the wheels from coming into contact with the motor. And plastic coverings over the gear shaft ends, just in case. Widening the chassis like this raises the possibility that I won't be able to have a correct back-to-back wheel separation. I think it's going to be OK, but when I assemble the chassis with cocktail sticks for axles, there is too much wobble to be certain. Next: pickups.

I often find myself setting a project aside because I seem to have reached my limits but I'm not happy with the results. And then I find, a few weeks later, that I'm perfectly happy with the results, and so I can carry on. This is what has happened with the wheels. Here are six painted and varnished wheels with no primer. I'm happy with them. Work has expanded to fill my life recently, and I've been working strange hours and long shifts. But these are actually good conditions for pottering away at wheel painting, a little bit at a time. In other news, I've fitted the wheel-less gears (should these be called "idlers"?) into the chassis. The first one did not turn especially freely because (I think) the last blow of the hammer on the end of the shaft caused it to splay out and impinge too much on the brass tube. It had to come out again, and for my second attempt I used a pinpoint axle as a drift for hammering the shafts in (they're a snug fit in the gear wheel, which is why hammering is needed). One of the gear wheels needed a larger hole for the 3mm shaft of the motor. I made the schoolboy error of thinking that I could simply drill it out. Perhaps if I'd gone up in very small increments it would have worked, but I went straight to 3mm. The resultant hole was at a pronounced angle. But it was about right at the end where the drill had gone in (next to the motor). So keeping this entry point intact, I expanded the hole on the other side into a cavity. The motor shaft now sits in this cavity, with the space taken with hot glue. It's a mess, but I think it might work. Here is a dry-fit of most of the parts, with cocktail sticks for the axles. The design did not include detailed mounting arrangements for the motor, so my next step will be to glue in addition plastic supports.

I'll have to forego it since the seller doesn't post to Germany (or accept returns).

If I'm not mistaken (and so often I am) the die-cast footplate and bits and bobs are (and always have been) part of the saddle tank (the Caledonian pug). Those two pillars at the front of the cab poke up through holes in the plastic moulding - their rough knobbly tops are the coal in the bunkers. And as you've found, underneath it's always the same chassis.

Sophia Scissorhands! May we see pictures of your ice sculptures and topiary too, please?

Wow. I have a couple of bow pens that belonged to my grandfather, a cartographer. I haven't had any luck with them (or rather, plenty of luck, all bad!) but perhaps grimy antiques are not the best starting point. In any case, I will not attempt lining on these wheels, by this or any other method! I decided to refine my tools a little bit by trapping the wheel in a piece of plastic, in an effort to minimise relative movement of the masking tape and the wheel. And I realised that my attempts to tidy up the edge of the paint were being thwarted by the grey spray primer that I'd used. There's a tendency for the paint to come away from the primer, but not the primer from the wheel. And even before tidying, the painted wheel has a visible halo of primer (the wheel on the left). Since the red paint is pretty opaque and dense, I tried applying only paint, and running the blade around the edge before removing the tape (the wheel on the right). It still isn't perfect, but I think it might be good enough for me (both wheels look perfectly fine at normal viewing distance). I will, however, varnish it.

Nope! Unless you're talking about the right-hand hardware, but even then "cruel" is a too harsh.

<captain_obvious> Hopefully WS&F will work out better in larger scales, since scaled-up to 1:1 the "grain" size is smaller. </captain_obvious>

For what it's worth, this is what White Processed Versatile (a.k.a. smoothed white strong and flexible) looks like with only the application of paint - no filling/sanding. It's visibly knobbly, but not as bad as one would expect from the raw plastic finish.

Thank you so much for your advice and encouragement! I set out to tidy up the edges, and quickly decided that I needed a jig or tool to hold the blade in the right position while turning the wheel. After a few false starts (I used a craft knife blade and ploughed up the paint grievously) I came up with the following. On the left, a razor-blade holder, on the right, an axle holder (bass tube sandwiched between pieces of plastic) and some plastic and paper shims. Assembled it looks like this: At some point in this process the penny dropped, and I realised that this device would make a much better job of cutting circular holes in masking tape to begin with. And this is the result (on the same wheel, including the mess I made through my experiments). I think this masking tape hole is much neater than the punched one, and also much closer to the correct size. I'm going to try to get the paint off this wheel (I think my son has some paint stripper) and have another go. Hopefully the same tool will work for the cutting of the tape and for the tidy-up afterwards.

I had piano lessons as a child. I now own a mandolin, a mandola, a concertina, an (unplayable) accordion, a modular analogue synthesizer (built partly from kits), a harp, various whistles, a hurdy-gurdy, a viola da gamba (about £40, I think, from a second-hand shop) and, inevitably, a guitar. I can play all of them or none of them, depending on ones point of view! A friend once saw me play the concertina and said "well, you know where the notes are". I suppose I pick up the mandola most often. As with instruments, I'm a dabber when it comes to styles and genres. But I'm most often drawn to folk music (leaning towards early-music influences). Last summer I wrote and directed music for an outdoor production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with cellos, recorders, singers, a violin and tuned percussion. I played a little bit, but mostly left it to the proper musicians.

Meanwhile, I have glued some brass tubes into the chassis. Then I trimmed and filed the tubes, leaving a skinny bearing on one side and a more substantial bearing on the other. I found quite a few schoolboy errors in the chassis design, with structural pieces that interfered with the wheels and the gears. But with a bit of carving and filing I was able to put some of the moving parts where they belong.

Indeed - your models clearly don't simply fall into your lap! It always amuses me to hear people who envy the musical talents of others. To be a skilled musician requires: Plenty of hard work - there is no possible doubt about this. An innate musical talent - this is a bit hypothetical. For my own part, I struggle with focus and concentration. I'm a musician too, but I have a large collection of cheap instruments that I don't play very well. I've had more success with writing music than with playing it. As far as my toys/models are concerned, I tend to spend time pondering ways to produce tolerable results without requiring dexterity. And I stumbled across the following: My wife teaches in a kindergarten, and she was looking for a large hole punch for a craft project. I found a punch belonging to a set of eyes for tarpaulins, and I used it to make a hole in a piece of masking tape. It's a little bit under-sized for the tender wheels, but not too much. Clearly it could be better. I'm trying to decide whether or not it's good enough for my purposes and tastes. And I've also shown my hand - I'm not planning to paint this locomotive an authentic colour. Instead it's going to be a Splendid Red Engine.

Thank you. That is indeed what I tried, and on the strength of your recommendation I will try again. Your C2 is astonishing. I'm pretty sure that if I try to praise it properly I will be reduced to babbling! I don't think that I could achieve such a finish on a 1:6 scale model, or even a full-sized locomotive.

And now a request for advice. I want to paint the wheels, and so I'm looking for ways to mask the tyres/rims. My first attempt was to use masking tape on the whole wheel, then try to cut a neat circle for the hub. This was not so successful. My second idea was to remove the hubs altogether for painting, but they seem not to be removable in these particular wheels. I'm now thinking that if I rotate the wheels (perhaps in a drill) then I could apply some liquid masking agent with a paint brush, and get a fairly neat circle. I'm also wondering if I could use PVA glue as a masking agent, to avoid having to go shopping for the real thing. I would be most grateful for suggestions!