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Mountain Goat

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  • Location
    Wales, U.K.
  • Interests
    Freelance modelling in 7mm Narrow Gauge.

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  1. Lifetime guarantee when it comes to bicycles really is a lifetime as in my first job working in a bicyxle shop we sold Dawes bikes, and I worked there around 1990 to 1992 but I came back to work there on and off now and then usually before Christmas or peak summer if I was availble, but this happened around 1991 or thereabouts. A customer came in with a Dawes frame that had issues. I do not recall what was wrong with it, but the frame dated right back to the 1930's or '40's? The bike was around fifth hand and my boss got in touch with Dawes who were a good company in those days, and Dawes sent the customer a lovely new replacement frame. We were all impressed by that, but to Dawes their reputation was at stake. Todays Dawes was taken over around 25 years ago and the new owners had very different ideas as to how the company should be run and to be perfectly honest, they lost their unique selling point when they made great changes without understanding their customers who year after year would buy a Dawes. Most Dawes customers went to Pashley though would have preferred a "Proper" Dawes as they were more practical for their cycling needs.
  2. I have a wierd senario in that I have bought a loco that I was hoping to use as a donor loco, but it is a decent Pugbash in itself. It has a Hornby Pug body and a Bachmann 0-4-0 chassis. Those Bachmann chassisis are very simply made. The Hornby versions seem more luxurious to me in their construction apart from the piston rods themselves. It is such a good conversion though even though the body does not have a means to secure it (Can easily be rememdied if I wanted to) that I am almost reluctant to make it into something else. (7mm NG). On a narroe gauge site a member has bought a lovely 7mm NG open cab Hornby Pug conversion which looks impressive. To the member above who made the nice 4-4-0T. That looks fantastic. The painting and lining really make it stand out.
  3. Buy a double and chop it in half and you will have two? Maybe not quite...
  4. The circular table concept could be used for a model railway but it would need to be hollow to run trains in it
  5. That is it. They did an electric one as well which was a heafty little thing.
  6. There was also an old Triang 0-4-0 with a large rectangular dome. I assume it is a dome? It was also made as a clockwork locomotive.
  7. After the Triang Connie/Nellie style loco came the continental style dock shunter (I am not referring to the diesel loco. This was a very cheaply made little steam loco and one year they tried using square axles on it. It was of a similar design to the later 0-4-0's but I felt that the later 0-4-0's like "Smokey Joe" were of better quality build when it came to the way they had been designed. Smokey Joe style bodies were certainly not the first to use the chassis. The GWR 101 Holden design bodies predate the saddle tanks by a couple of years as they came out in the late 1970's while the saddle tanks came out in the very early 1980's. Also, in regards to design, the majority of Hornbys market in those days were the younger generation which is why it took a long time before Hornby decided to make serious attempt as super detailing their models. If tey had done this in those days (Which they could have easily done as they certainly had the expertize) then they would have had had to raise the retail price which would have lost them a sizable chunk of their sales as adult collectors hardly existed, and adult enthusiasts who actually ran their models were a smaller percentage of Hornbys market. (The large kit market available in those days was thought of as being the realms of the more serious modeller. How times have changed now that we seem to want ready made ready detailed models and we call ourselves serious modellers! It is why I really love this tread as I can watch some really nice attempts of good modelling being done. To me, I actually prefer freelance because one has to learn how the real things worked where if one was copying an actual prototype one just copies. (Ok, in many ways freelancing is easier but this is not always the case as one has to learn what to include and how things worked to make ones model convincing).
  8. Yes, I have one of both designs ready to make hybrid chassis for 0-16.5 conversion potential.
  9. They are a simple push fit. The new Chinese chassis take some tugging to pull them out. The older versions of the chassis were easier to take the crank pins out. The whole wheel centres (The plastic part) can also come out. While the older versions were very easy to dissasemble and assemble, the recent versions can be a pain as they have a new design of pick up which needs about three hands to put the things back into place. They do run better though! Oh. And on the old versions the motors simply unclipped with that wire clip. The new ones both had the wire clip and now have a sticky substance to hold the motor moee firmly in place. Not a problem though, as one can stick the motor back where it was. The new ones also have soldered wires to the pickups. The old ones were not soldered. They simply had the pickup design touch the motor terminals so did not need it.
  10. As I understand it, though they are superior in the way they run, many are prone to mazak rot along with the Toby chassis. I did once own one of the later Toby the Tram locos which was one of the few which did not have issues because the last few made were ok. I was going to use it for a Smallbrook Cadera kit but I looked at a Lima class 09 that had its con rods where I wanted them and I just had to use that instead, and Toby was sold to a Thomas collector. To use rhe Lima chassis took a lot of work and fettling, mainly with the body of the kit itself. Its while nose had to be milled and slightly raised to accomodate the motor and it also had to be set back a few milimetres from the front. It was a lot more work then I had inticipated but worth it. I will have to play with the motor and gears a bit to get it to run nicely. I had done this in the past and had it running beautifully when it had the 09 body. For some reason it needs a little fettling again now it has had its new body. I have not quite finished it yet though and I will do it after I have finished the rest of the loco.
  11. I have built a few of Smallbrook Studios kits and I am pretty pleased. I do tend to customize them a bit to make them "Mine". :D
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