VRBroadgauge

Truly epic Nick. Drws-y-Nant is a thing of beauty. The photo of that landscape is not dissimilar to what I'm planning to do. I hope to get somewhere close to this standard. I gives us all great encouragement.

The canting of your track is just a work of art Laurie. I could watch trains run through those curves all day.

You're well in advance of me Klaus. I ordered the wrong gears and I have to figure out how to adjust the external chassis rails to accommodate the gauge widening. I must say it's looking pretty good. Which gear set up are you using Klaus? I decided to go the full monty and gear all the wheels. Still have to figure out the motor mount.

The first of my S flats beautifully constructed by the Burpengary Wagon Work’s chief Engineer @Sithlord75 I’m extremely pleased with the result. 2mm Finescale 10.5mm broad gauge Victorian Railways. Nickel silver etch with 2mm Association finescale wheel sets. Custom decals to be applied and Z scale Microtrains couplers to be fitted.

I love your work Ian. I'm a building designer (architectural design draftsman) by trade. One of my pet peeves is not getting the detailing right. Modellers tend to take short cuts with structures. Not here. A suitably fine structure for Laurie's fine layout.

I’ve finally got the worm in place temporarily. I can rotate the worm with tweezers and the drivers rotate at a glacial speed. My mathematics has held up. However, having ordered worms with the incorrect bore there is a problem. There beasties have a 1mm bore - not the required and designed 1.5mm. Upon having drilled this bore out to the correct size (during the 2mm Association AGM last evening) I foolishly used a reamer for the last little bit. I stupidly forgot about the taper. A rookie mistake. No press fit. I did think about loctite but I just know that the shaft would pull the glue through and weld itself to the bearings. Back to the shop I go. A lesson learnt. At least I know my gearbox design works. First time. 😁

My late father always had a dozen or so chooks (and a rooster) for years. We always had fresh eggs which we shared with our Scottish neighbours. If they didn't lay dad used to sit in front of the chook yard and sharpen his axe. Worked a treat but if it didn't we ate poultry for a while. These were the days when everyone had a vege garden and a lemon and orange tree in their yard. There was quite a competition in the family with the growing of tomatoes. My late folks were wizards in the garden. Dad had champion camelias and even had a new recognized variant named after mum (Elegance Perle). Their skill skipped my generation....

Nice chooks Jerry

If I drive the trains fast enough they might just make it…….. 😊 Jerry Jerry Kinevil.......

Sometimes providing kits is like herding cats. I'd put it out there and see what happens. There's a finite number of etches that can be produced per sheet. That's your minimum sales. It's easy to get all excited about what we've created and think that you can retire off the proceeds of sales. I have myself. The reality is somewhat different. It's a very small market place. For me I'm more about the art form. If I can create something that is a nice model I'm happy. If it fills a need in the modelling world then it's a big bonus.

This is my proposed layout (as per Jerry's thread). It will be built in a purpose constructed "shed" as part of a new house that we are building in the next 12 to 18 months. Attached to the model room will be a workshop/studio, a bathroom and a guest room. The space will be 12m x 7m (about 40' x 24') which is designed to fit in most of what I want (it's never really big enough). The structure will be built out of Bondor panels (basically insulated cool room material) which will make it comfortable for the two extremes of weather we experience in the antipodes. I've learnt the hard way that if it's too hot or too cold nothing gets done. There's a lot to do. We were talking about big spaces. Because I have a reasonably big space I'm able to model bits of this to scale. The Mitta Flats viaduct is a timber trestle with 232 20' openings. I'm able to model the existing natural surface as I have the original center line levels and plans. This is over 9.2m long but fortunately it's level and straight for the good part of it. Tallangatta yard, Beetoomba yard and Cudgewa yard will all be constructed to scale off the original plans (including the topography as there are included contours. Bits of the Darbyshire 1:40 grade and the dual gauge military sidings at Bandiord and Bandolier are also to scale. I wanted the scenery to monster or dominate the trains and that's what I'm trying to achieve. There's a lot to do but I don't plan on doing much else. You could say that this is my final hurrah. :) LAYOUT CUDGEWA.pdf

Me too. Jerry said to me that 2mm FS was the perfect vehicle to model the big landscapes of the Australian country side. My proposed layout is attached. I'm currently in the planning stages of building a new house and this layout will be in a purpose built "shed" as part of that. I'm about 12 to 18 months away from the build. I plan to build this layout over the next 10 to 20 years time and health permitting. If people are interested I'll post this on my thread so that I don't hijack Jerry's. LAYOUT CUDGEWA.pdf

That's a good space Jerry. The way you've constructed your layout makes it seem much larger. I'm a big fan of sweeping curves rather than "trainset" beasties. Your design works very well. Whilst we may have more real estate out here in the antipodes area doesn't always matter. It's what you do with it that counts.

Love your work. What's the dimensions of your layout space Jerry?

Bogies fitted to UB wagon chassis. I’m happy with the bolsters. The heights are pretty well spot on. The problem I have with some of the N scale “kit” versions of bogie stock is that the heights are incorrect because the bodies are too narrow. Because I’m working to scale off the GA drawings I don’t have that problem. Most satisfying.

Working on it....

We adopted the yank terminology which was the arch bar. I think this design is close to yours but not the same.

The first of many archbar bogies. Still need a couple of cut down BA14 bolts for the coil springs. I’m happy with the results. Construction by Steve Bigelow. Basically a one piece etch that just folded up. Apart from journals there is a reinforcement bar on the underside of the bolster to keep the bogie in square.

The latest in a long line of etches. This one is of 4 No. vehicles for my VR broad gauge stable. They are a tri axle T van (ice refrigerator), a tri axle U van (louvre box), a bogie UB van (louvre box) and a clestory tri axle F wagon (horse box). This is an S flat (bogie). I’m modelling in the second war period so these will have carriers, matildas, lees, stewarts, blitz trucks etc as loads. Archbar bogies that basically fold up in one piece. Rods and a few other bits and pieces for a Maunsel U class and a King Arthur class for @Laurie2mil GWR fruit wagon chassis for @Sithlord75 Also included were a trial jig for pressing corrugated iron sheets, some curve boards, some detail parts for my T class, some N scale (!) signal ladders and some architectural fascia’s and gutters. That is all.

Probably can. Fibre optics and a bit of a hinge on the signal head would be do-able.

Have a crack at the Association's Class 08/11 kit. I'm currently putting one together. It's a very nice model.

After joining the 2mm Association I've never looked back. Best thing I ever did in the modelling world.

Can you model successfully in 2mm FS. Yes you can. Does it require effort? Yes it does. I've learnt more in the past 3 years in 2FS than I have in the previous 50. There are many in the 2mm Association that will help you when you need it and many have (and still are) helping me. I'm modelling 5'3" broad gauge (10.5mm) Victorian Railways (Australia) so I'm scratch building everything. It's way more satisfying to build things that you just can't get commercially. N scale doesn't cut it for what I'm achieving. 2FS is much better for scale (2mm to the foot). I try not to compromise on my models which I my case is a problem with converting N scale commercial beasties. It just requires effort and knowledge.

It may be difficult but there's always more than one way to skin a giraffe. I'm a big fan of Nigel's designs and if he says it's problematic then game on. These sorts of projects would be a collection of people's experience and skill sets. It's the part of model building and design that I most enjoy - problem solving. I've sort of cut my teeth on wagons and whilst they're still work in progress (I'm working on a retro fit braking system - sorry Kev) there's not much I can't do. I've just finished some bogie flat cars for my system so that's just about every disipline. I've drawn rods, guides, cross heads and other details for @Laurie2mil and we'll see how they go. I'll just be asking a lot of questions. We'll sort something out that can be built without too much pain.

An "un-etchable"?? Challenge accepted. Send me some drawings.