D-A-T

Christmas tradition from my late Dad is a box of dates with a little plastic fork and a box of gooey Turkish Delight covered in icing sugar. The dates especially bring a tear to my eye.

I always thought it was Boxers. Just goes to show, every day’s a school day.

Thanks all. I had rather thought to get January out of the way as people might be paying off credit card bills, had another salary payment in. Also note the Sunday listing/ending. Makes sense as many people available then. Thsnks for advice for £1 listing. Will look for that. I’m very tempted by just listing with a Buy It Now price. Maybe means I can control things a bit better. As you can tell I’m an eBay novice. Thanks once again.

Is there a more “profitable” time to list and sell on eBay? As I have now decided my future modelling direction I have an awful lot of my collection I’d like to dispose of. The question is, is this the right time? “Time”meaning after Christmas and into the January and February period. Will people be short of disposable income due to Christmas and COVID-19? Time is not an issue to me and if needed I’ll just sit on it for a year or so before disposing of it. For information, if it makes a difference, the part of my collection I’m going to dispose of is Heljan O gauge diesels, BR Blue OO gauge diesels, Southern Railways steam and a few BR(ER) steam and diesel.

Shed envy!

Seems ok to me. https://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/catalogue/judithedge.html

Following with much interest. Especially for EM gauge. A range of larger radius turnouts, slips etc would be highly welcome.

As a relative novice I’d say they are an excellent product. My small taster layout is coming along nicely, I may even enter the Chairmans Challenge. By cutting the webbing between sleepers they can be coaxed into a sweeping curve. Hopefully they have been a commercial success so more sizes are introduced. A single slip would be an enormous boost in my opinion.

Glad it wasn’t just me reading to much into the instructions then! Enjoy the build and it would be good to see the occasional progress photo or two.

The Cookson vice is well made. I’ve just checked the jaws and there is under a thou run out in the jaws over the full width at different opening depths. I also have the same maroon clamp on style vice shown in the thread and that has 18 thou run out over the full width at different opening depths (it got worse the wider the jaws were opened). You pay for quality and accuracy. PS I too hunt out older tools. In the main they are better quality and more accurate. It’s just the “supply” that seems to be contracting.

Thanks for the information so far. Having read the instructions in detail several times and reread your posts on here I’ve concluded this kit is a step beyond my current skill level, and likely future skill level. Therefore to avoid it becoming lost in that fabled modellers black hole , the “round tuit” cupboard I’ve decided to give someone more skilled than I the opportunity. Better that than my cack handed ruining of an excellent kit. I know he follows this thread so he may introduce himself in here soon. Good luck with the build. I’ll follow avidly.

Following a previous recommendation on here I also have the Cookson vice. It’s very well designed and manufactured. Thoroughly recommended.

Good news for the C14. The Southern one, being much smaller, could be known as “Junior”.....

I’ve got the 4mm one by Mike Edge as well. 7mm is proving to be a little addictive. Wish I’d never started.

I didn’t know that. But I wanted one and one became available on eBay and I decided to pay what was required. It was more than I anticipated so if it does become available again I may have paid an over the top price.

Very timely. Following with much interest as I have just obtained said kit. Being a coward I might wait until you have completed the build before commencing mine as you have much more kit building experience than me and might identify problem areas, ie the coupling rods already.

Agreed. My hobbies are my escape from real world cares. My sanctuary.

I have an Alan Gibson F6 in the kit pile but wasn’t overly impressed by the chassis. So I ordered one of these: http://website.rumneymodels.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/X.01-Marcus-Burrows-F4-5-6_Chassis_Instructions.pdf It uses pony trucks but integrates them into the CSB.

What type of motor is in the Proxxon? I’m sure there was a thread on here about replacing the motor in a Unimat 3 with a sewing machine motor. It strikes me if the motors were similar you could use the sewing machine foot control to vary the spindle speed?

Luxury. Sheer luxury. We dreamt of having a teabag. But it weren’t for likes of us. A taste of tea leaves and lick damp off t’cobbles were closest we got. Aye, and we were grateful.

17 teabags! Luxury, sheer luxury! When I were Under-Porter’s assistant rag carrier we had to make do with t’old grease from t’axle boxes in a cup full of luke warm water from water column next t’fire devil. And we were grateful....

My modelling skills are fairly modest and so I seldom make a contribution on RMWeb but I am an avid follower/reader for all the hints and tips I can glean. Inspiration also. However I feel compelled to make a comment about Mr J Bennett’s letter in MRJ. ”Priggish self-righteousness” ? I did wonder if we had been reading the same article. I buy MRJ to be inspired to raise my own modelling standards and to be shown how to do it. I want to be set on the right track not mislead or allowed to bumble along in ignorance of the correct way. We, after all, go to school to learn from those more knowledgeable than us. CF is a work in progress and matters maybe addressed but I can not see that the buildings are too uniform or the colouration too clean, to select just two of Mr Bennett’s further comments. But what really made me make this post is the final paragraph “I hope my comments are seen as helpful and suggest ways to improve CF rather than simply criticising in a most insulting manner other modellers’ efforts”. This was crass in the extreme. Indeed borderline insulting to a team of people whose best is very good indeed. I debated long and hard about adding the following comment but I will. I await seeing Mr Bennett’s excellent models and hopefully layout. Photos on here or via MRJ will be most welcome. Then I can use his efforts to further inspire me to lift my modest efforts. Sorry. Rant over. Carry on Mr Watson and CF team.

A couple of questions if I may. When you started did you envision this time scale? I know a layout is never finished and how long is a piece of string etc but do you have an idea of when it might be “finished”? (Finished possibly meaning when you can no longer make a material difference to the layout beyond gilding the lily).

Which Slaters kit did you use?

I looked at the Proxxon but for the reasons given above decided against it and bought a Clarke CMD10 Micro Milling / Drilling Machine instead. More expensive but didn’t need any modifications and was suitable straight out of the box, particularly the RPM.