Lochgorm

What was dangerous about the F111 display was that the afterburners were lit whilst the aircraft was jettisoning fuel. The stunt was ultimately banned I believe after a bit of singeing of Aussie derrière. Charlie

A proper slide rule of a circular type used by many a steely aviator to find their way around the skies of the world! Charlie

ZA148 definitely not at Filton!

Very similar to my treat for tomorrow night based on a Josceline Dimbleby recipe first spotted in a Sainsbury's cookery book "A Traveller's Tastes". This is just about it https://www.lovefood.com/recipes/60705/josceline-dimblebys-rich-red-quail-curry-. Having an aversion to picking out small bones from little birds I always use pheasant breast meat although tomorrow I will have to mix in some partridge breasts to make up the quantity. The recipe suits turkey meat works as well. Charlie

A more fitting tribute would to spell his name correctly! Charlie PS I am surprised that nobody has picked up on this particular howler before.

I am watching the match as Amazon has given me a month’s free trial of Prime. Bit of a no brainer so go on the Amazon UK website and see what is on offer. You can even live dangerously and watch the new Borat movie. Charlie

You can see one from the North British Railway Company though! Charlie

Correct. Slaters wheels achieve the correct B2B by the machining of the axle and moulding the wheel so that the surface of the brass centre and the inside of the steel tyre are in the same plane./ Charlie

For the 0 Gauge 3/16 axles the thread is 6BA and the it looks like a 1/4" socket screw is required. I can see 1/2" ones on EBay but maybe some of the specialist screw suppliers can assist. Charlie

This is getting far more complicated than it needs to be! The is big red herring here is not which part of a Slaters wheel the back to back is measured from. Back to back is determined by the length of the round part of the axle between the squared off facings which secure the wheels. This dimension is 29.2mm. The exercise then becomes a matter of measuring the distance over the faces of the wheel bearings and comparing this to 29.2mm. It should be shorter! It is then a matter of using packing washers to minimise slop whilst maintaining running clearance. Slaters supply these washers as does Jim. I would advise both suppliers to get a suitable combination of thicknesses to do the job. Charlie

Nowhere in these instructions http://www.jimmcgeown.com/0 Gauge Starter Loco pdf print off.pdf does Jim recommend 1.5mm of slop. The instructions state that the chassis has been designed narrow for coarse scale wheel sets to be used, and go on to say that the bearings should be eased out for finescale wheels. Jim reckons that a distance of 28-28.5mm over the faces of the bearings is just about right. Charlie

PRComponents sell a nice 50thou Allen Key set in a solid brass handle for Slaters wheels. I can't advise of the present cost as I got mine some time ago but it has certainly stood the test of time. Charlie

I think that the sign refers to the name of the hauliers. Charlie

Amanda, These jigs are available from the Scale 7 Group stores: https://www.scaleseven.org.uk/index.php?id=165 I don't know if these components can be sold to non-members of the group but membership costs £25.00 and one of the benefits is a 10% discount on Slaters products. Therefore the membership cost can be recouped. Charlie

A year's membership of the Scale 7 Group is £25 and as well as access to the Scale 7 stores members benefit from a 10% discount on Slaters products. It doesn't take long to recoup the cost of membership. No prizes for guessing which organisation I left in the spring and which one I joined. In fact it is a major disappointment that the continuous, circular and acrimonious whinging from the Guild forum has spilt over here. And before any bright spark suggests it, wild horses wouldn't tempt me to rejoin the Guild. Charlie

This how to do it properly! Charlie

This has been done before using Tri-ang Lords of the Isles. Hopefully somebody can point you in the direction of the 50+ year old copy of the Railway Modeller (or other contemporary magazine) in which this has been written up. Charlie

Mike, You do seem to be a long way off piste now led astray by some idiosyncratic etching and lack of instructions. I was typing out some thoughts on how to continue from where you had reached but I have just seen that you have resolved you own plan of attack. Therefore I will keep schtum and watch your posts, as I usually do, with interest. In spite of your experiences I would still recommend the Ambis units as the NBR examples work for me in my choice of pre-grouping Scottish rolling stock. Good Luck! Charlie

Interesting, do the bearing carriers not have a half etched groove so that they can be folded down at the top? Charlie

No Mike, the bearing carrier is mounted as you have shown in your photo. I may have confused matters with my example by dispensing with the outer layer of the bearing carrier and using instead the axle box which has suitable rectangular area on the back. The holes for the spring wires are drilled 0.5mm 3mm in from the back of the axleguard as close to the top of the fold up crossmember as possible. The spring wire just straddles through these 2 holes secured by bending the ends over allowing sufficient length for full downwards deflection. Yes I have folded the tops of the bearing carriers over on the inside. The projecting tabs on the carrier can sit on the spring wire thereby eliminating the tricky operation of attaching the spring wire. Soldering steel can be difficult and the joint may not be reliable for long term use. I find the width of the whole fold down axle guard unit is fine to fit between sole bars set at a scale distance of 42mm apart. I leave the upward facing projecting tabs as they do seem to set the ride height correctly. On the top I fit a rectangle of 40thou Plastikard between them to give a better gluing area for the Araldite that I use. You could choose to refine this by screwing through the plate instead. Hope all this helps. Charlie

Mike, Ambis instructions for the axleguards are in the Hobby Holidays website. You will find them by selecting ‘Links’ on the Home page. The instructions are included amongst the downloads. However, the instructions are not exactly helpful leading me to experiment using my own instincts. I have attached some photos which shows the results of my efforts. I drilled some extra holes in the frames of the axleguard frames to take spring wire. I haven’t yet worked out the optimum diameter of spring wire but 0.3-0.4mm to avoid overweighting the wagon. My trials are ongoing also! Charlie

Absolutely nothing wrong with the Comet 4s! Charlie

Sorry the path of life has not been exactly smooth since taking over Lochgorm Kits. I am looking forward to being at Perth again on 27 and 28 June this year. In the meantime most of the Lochgorm range in 4 and 7mm scales is available either from stock or to order (which takes a month). I shall be at the Glasgow Show on a personal basis on Friday 21 February. I will be mainly around the Highland Railway Society stand. Members there will know how to winkle me out if I have gone walkabout. Otherwise, please contact me on enquiries@lochgormkits.co.uk. Charlie

Apart from the mentioned written references, Am Baile (https://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/pages/ambaile.html) is thoroughly recommended for research on Highland Railway locomotives especially as most of the Highland Railway Society's photographic collection has been transferred and is available for reference. This photo from Am Baile shows the footplate/valence cutaway on a Skye Bogie: So there is some intrusion over the front of the piston cover (but with enough wiggle room to remove the cover) so Pete Armstrong's model is not entirely incorrect. In fact the most glaring error is the tender has been built with a running plate. Until the Big Goods and the Lochs Highland tenders followed Crewe/Stroudley practice with the water tank sitting directly on top of the frames. Other photos on Am Baile show that the discs of the cylinder covers were completely exposed on the Duke class engines. For info the pistons on these Jones engines were attached to the piston rod with a nut. Therefore, once the front cover was removed, the nut could be undone and the piston pulled forward and extracted. The piston rod and crosshead could then be removed by pulling backwards them over the slidebars. Hope this helps. Charlie