MrWolf

Minor crimes: Coaching stock largely made from cut n shut Triang clerestories. Running an ex M&SWJR locomotive that was scrapped c1930 on a layout set in Shropshire c1938. Having no idea where I should position signals or what type or how many. ( In mitigation I will soon be pestering you all on the subject and I give you advance warning that it will be like trying to show your grandma how to use Skype / Whatsapp / AutoCAD.) Major crime: Probably dragging a WW2 German railway gun round a layout with a Triang Lord of the Isles at a scale 200mph.... As for SWMBO, To offset any guilt about spending your dough on big boys toys; DO take her somewhere expensive and buy her the kind of pretty, shiny things she loves. I did, it may not have been the smartest move...

Thank you all, this is exactly the level of scruffiness I have been looking to achieve. I have a number of vehicles to go at, so I had better get the workbench cleared and work on them as a batch.

That I will be trying, I have used washes in the past to good effect and the first thing that you are ever taught about the use of colour at art college is never, ever use pure black or pure white. Even if you are painting something that is in reality black or white, it doesn't scale down and looks plain wrong.

Thanks, never thought of graphite. I have a rainforest worth of 6B pencils.

I know this is probably a tired old question, but can any of you share your thoughts on how best to give those infernal white rooves a suitably varied weathered finish? I have quite a few to do and it is mostly stock that would be a bit long in the tooth. Also, I don't as yet possess an airbrush, it's something that I just don't use with my regular artwork. Perhaps I should get one, but that opens the which one? can of worms!

Generally with Victorian buildings of this type, a chimney would be on the end wall of a building if serving only one room, or as you say on the partition wall between two rooms, serving two fireplaces built back to back.

I did have one minor problem with the paintwork, I used, as I always have, Railmatch paint for the company colours. In the past I have airbrushed their enamel over good old Halfords white primer. A good base for the cream which is naturally not that good a covering colour. Over this, the chocolate brown. Normally this sticks like chewing gum to the proverbial blanket, but this time, even after a few days hardening off, a lack adhesion caused much profanity. The only difference is that this time I was using an aerosol and what an utter aerosol it was.... But I flatted back and it worked. I've painted an entire car with aerosols before with no problems. The paint may have been of indeterminate age, who knows. Railmatch has never caused me any problems before and I have always found that the high pigment level gives a superior finish with fewer coats. No doubt that after a 20 year gap in modelling it's a case of pilot error.

Thank you, a bit of encouragement / validation always helps motivation. I await some bronze bearings and in the meantime I am using a chopped off compartment as a pattern to make compartment dividers for this and three other Triangstein's monsters.

I think you're right, there are several photos of it in the E. C. Griffith book of 1948, which appear to show an iron underframe, the natural light highlighting the lower flange of the channel section. No mention of the number it carried on the GWR or when the BCR acquired it unfortunately.

I wasn't aware that the K&ESR had an AA16. Does anyone know any details of the AA16 that ran as brake van No1 on the Bishops Castle Railway? I have seen photographs of it in service dated 1928 and it worked on the demolition trains in September 1936. I don't know what happened to it after that. Presumably it was cut up in the yard at Craven Arms as was Kitson 0-6-0 "Carlisle" ? It's difficult to tell from the photographs if it's a timber framed example.

Nice work and an interesting conversion. Last time I built one was ten years before that! Judging by what the AA16 kit is fetching now, nobody is producing one anymore. That said you photographs are much clearer than 90 year old originals so give me more motivation to scratch build one.

I've been out on the motorcycle today, testing a new carburetor setup and tuning. I stopped to check things over in the relative shelter of some woodland that had quite a good growth of self set Rhododendrons. There were so many growing around where I lived as a child I never took much notice of them. Reminded of your above comment on colouring, I had a closer look. The younger branches and twigs are indeed a reddish brown, but once they grow much beyond an inch or two thick, they become a slightly silvery grey in colour, usually with a hint of mossy green on the really big branches. At twenty feet away, all grey. At 90mph on a seventy year old bike, just a dark green blur, but that's another story. But I wouldn't worry too much about the rhododendrons. I do like the way you are working on all the structural aspects of the layout at once, shouldn't be too much juggling of features or nasty surprises. I haven't got many buildings sorted for my layout yet, but I do know the footprint sizes. I'll be cutting out some bits of card marked Crossing keepers house ' etc. It will at least give me confidence to fix the track permanently.

Thankyou Corneliuslundie, I found a copy via the dreaded ebay after going down lots of dead ends with booksellers websites. Usual thing, advertise stuff you sold ages ago, but anyone browsing will probably buy something else instead. I might just be awkward, but that sort of thing usually has the opposite effect on me. It only works when I can ask a seller to keep an eye out for something for me. I believe that has been rebranded as "networking" If I can create a passable AA16, I will share the process with you all.

I've long had a fascination for the old GW brake vans, they must have been murder to operate during a hailstorm though. Does anyone know where I might obtain a drawing of the later, AA16 outside framed van with channel section solebars? Twenty odd years ago I built the old D&S kit, but I no longer have it. I was watching one on that auction site the other week and it went for £64.... I can't justify that for an ancient lump of white metal and if I did, no doubt Miss R R Hood would (quite rightly) chase me round the garden with a sword.... The smarter option would be to scratch build a body on a modified chassis and roof.

Still have a good way to go, interior to fit etc, bu try the basic colours are now on and I think I have got away with the hacking about.

Back together, nothing broken. I will have to do away with the orange lining on the cylinder lagging!

Thank you everyone for your help and advice. The body is off, no damage, no dramas AND I didn't have to resort to Miss R. Riding Hoods' suggestion of how to get the body off...

Thanks Jason, that article is really useful. It also reminds me of a project I had in mind 20 odd years ago. (I have only recently got back into railway modelling, so I hope you will forgive the outdated knowledge!) I thought it would be interesting to build a Great Bear tender behind a Hornby County 4-4-0 and create a County of Leicester. But doing away with the tender drive put me off! Did consider a powered bogie for a while. The moulded mountain on the Dean goods gets a reprieve and no doubt I will run it until it blows up. Gives me time to focus on other projects rather than worrying about what might happen. Looks like I need to scrounge a lump of coal.

Moulded coal is a relic of the days of one piece bodyshells with moulded on handrails. Whilst I appreciate the extra expense involved in the more complex tooling to create the bunker interior, when you consider the price of rtr locos now and the improvements in manufacturing techniques, I don't think it too big an ask. As for front wheel drive, I could go on for hours about the disadvantages, complications and general porkies we've been sold, but consider this: A quadruped is pushed along by more muscular rear legs, steered and supported by lighter, more agile forelegs. Back to bodyshells and coal, I have a couple of old tender drive Dean goods, possibly the worst offenders for having an entire South Wales slagheap in the tender. Other than that, they're pretty good detail wise. At some point I will have to figure out a way of converting them to loco drive, thereby losing the moulded mountain and the mechanism that sounds like it started life in a clockwork Snoopy...

That seems to be a problem with the majority of rtr steam locomotives. It could be worse, you could be trying to coal up something tender drive. I feel the same way about tender drive as I do about front wheel drive cars, it's against nature, against god and just plain wrong.

It runs very smoothly, none of the usual glitches, doesn't sound like a worn out full size WD and no signs so far that the chassis is turning to Weetabix. I'll get the body off it and have a better look. I will have a look at the service sheets, thanks. Are there any particular faults with this model? It would be useful to find such information on all of my locomotives to be honest.

I have considered doing exactly the same thing as you with the little hut, I tend to modify a lot of things. I suspect that whoever designed the kit did so from an old photograph. I have definitely seen a photo of a very similar hut with the window arrangement as per the kit. It looks like one of those Crittall steel frames which date back to the 20s, but to me just looks odd. The six pane window is a definite improvement to my eye. Your paintwork has also lifted it out of the ordinary, it no longer looks like a generic kit seen on every other layout. It shows what a good basis that kit is with a bit of observation of the real thing.

Thanks all for your help on this. I didn't want to be dislodging anything that doesn't need to be by going for the obvious looking screws. Why am I doing this? I was lucky enough to get a 45XX in very good condition very cheaply. The only thing stopping me from buying it was the BR black livery. I then found a brand new body in prewar Great Western livery for half the price of the BR liveried bodies. Even with the postage it cost less than an example in the early livery that had stripped threads in the mountings (so that the body fell off!) and a damn sight cheaper than those offered at exhibitions and swapmeets. So I ordered a new body and bought the 45XX. Forgetting of course, that removal is no longer a matter of a 2BA screw down the chimney

Hopefully someone else out there has removed the body shell from a Bachmann 45XX prairie tank? I have one, cat. No. 32-129 and there doesn't appear to be any advice in the paperwork that accompanies the model on how to do this. Could anyone out there advise please?

The bogies have arrived from 247 Developments, along with a few other bits and pieces. I am currently keeping this project on the back burner whilst I get the layout up and running, (first train ran tonight) I realised that I needed another left hand point, so hopped on the bike and shot off to the local model shop. Idly browsing the secondhand shelves I spotted these two future projects at a fiver each.... This Triang clerestory addiction is escalating... I hate you all....