Trev218

Hi all, I've been hunting around to try and identify the shade of grey (silver?) on the roof of the mk3 coaches. Two of the donor coaches I've got for the ElectraGraphics vinyls are farish blue first great Western mk3s and they have a shade of pale grey that looks pretty good...the other one is an old IC swallow mk3 which has a very dark roof - I can't seem to find the name of the lighter shade - either the fgw roof grey or ews management train colour - so I can spray it up to get them all matching. Here's one of the fgw ones done...as best I can see from photos it looks close enough. And yes, I know I need to turn the roof round

Looking forward to this one as a newbie to the world of rmweb...tagging along with Sully / Neil / Black Rat / he of the startling shirts lol

Definitely convenient...right up to the point when it doesn't fit One of the joys of N!

That looks neat. I'll try those decoders on the handful of 66s that need doing. The main problem I had was the size of the connector on the chip - if it had been solder contacts it would have fitted in that space like yours has but the connector, as well as increasing the thickness, effectively lengthened the thing by around quarter of an inch longer than the space available

Be interested to see pic of that. I've managed to get these in by butchering the cab interior a little - the lights at that end won't work but I'll make that the inside end in a train and put all the buffer beam detail and remove the coupling on the other...and not use those chips on a few more that need wired connections!

So that's 2 oldish 60s chipped and running smoothly with a couple of wheel sets replaced...now I'm stuck trying to get the flippin bodyshells back on - can't find enough room for the decoder

While waiting for that ballast to dry I made up a bit of test track - in the cabinet there's a load of unchipped locos and a selection 6, 18 and harness chips waiting to be fitted! The DCC Concepts rolling road is a neat little thing for a bit of running in although I found a couple of locos that have intricate bogie assemblies like the 92s didn't sit on it particularly well. I also have started finding out how many Farish locos have split gears - comes from being sat in the cabinet for so long I guess - first one up was the British Steel 60 - particularly annoying after the fiddling harness soldering! Now I'm waiting for a few spares from BRLines

Been a quiet few weeks on the layout front...although on Monday I did get a chance to bite the bullet and make a start with ballasting the left hand baseboard. I find it both therapeutic and infuriating in equal measures, depending on how its going! Will let it thoroughly dry then pick off all the bits that have ended up where they're unwanted

This is very much a make it up as I go along sort of experiment It's good fun learning though!

Hi, thanks very much, appreciate it I've sort of been winging it all somewhat! The Peco turntable went together nicely, before everything is glued though make sure you've got decent electrical contact on the sprung plunger things with the brass strip that has the power feeds on it, I ran into a couple of issues with that - in the end it was just a case of making sure the little springs were positioned properly. I motorised it with the Locomotech kit - it's not indexed but does turns it nice and slowly and I'm getting the hang of when to let go the centre-off switch to leave it aligned! The pair of engine sheds I put together by cutting out most of the adjoining walls, just leaving enough to become the interior supports...and then tidying it up with offcuts and the brick paper sheets to cover over the joins

Not a lot of activity over Christmas and all that...but last weekend I made up some folding legs so I could set it up indoors on occasion, not just in the man-cave

Ta for that...I'd limited myself a bit by using acrylic paints - they sprayed nice and dried quick, but it was the quick drying that bit me in the bum when it came to trying the weathering. I was just trying to achieve a used, grubby effect, it's all a steep learning curve!

Definitely - far better than all grey or EWS!

Happy New Year one and all The last 3 or 4 days off work have given me a chance to finish off the wagons and also make up the little Ratio coaling / watering platform. The seacows have taxed me to the limit and I'm pleased to get them to a finished state. I did try a bit more weathering on a couple of them...cant decide if it's worked or if it just looks like smudged crappy paint! The results didn't wow me anyway so the rest of them just got the sleeper grime dusting yesterday and a last spray of varnish today.

then it was a case of putting on some of the decals and giving them a spray of varnish...now I'm pleased with them...do I pluck up the courage to have a go at a bit of weathering?! I'll do the obligatory light spray of sleeper grime along the bottoms and I'll try and make the discharge chutes look a bit battered and then see where I go from there

Superb...your earlier layouts were among the ones inspiring me to get my finger out and do one of my own! Really like your track plan, lovely flowing curves that work so well in N gauge

The other bit I gave up on pretty much straight away was the tiny handwheels on the bogie etches - the moment I tried to fold them over they just snapped off - maybe I had the wrong end of the stick with what I was supposed to be doing! Other than that, assembling the bogies and fitting the steps etch was straightforward enough

Some of the etched parts defeated me - I had a job working out the inner frame things and couldn't get the fine wire through for the hand wheel mountings - so I just stuck the wheels on the frames - that was definitely the hardest bit. The end frame and overhead protection was quite straightforward in comparison, which was a relief as if they'd ended up cocked-up it would stuck out like a sore thumb!

Another thing I did before the fiddly bit was to make some loads for the wagons. I cut some plasticard rectangles and dolloped some filler on them, which I them sanded to shape. Then on went some pva that I could scatter some ballast in to. Before they were fixed in place I chopped up a bit of lead sheet and epoxied them into the bottom of the hoppers to give a bit of substance to the wagons. Then it was on to the brass etches - blimey they were hard going and I was teetering on the brink of out of my depth!

Was thinking more the unmade kits

Wow that's a result! I've got 3 unbuilt TPM class 60 kits stashed away...I'd built a couple a few years ago in BS blue, Loadhaul black & EWS...then when Farish brought out their models, the kits have taken a bit of a back seat. Maybe they'll be handy for a scrap line in a future layout!

The next tangent was some wagon kit building It's not something I'd done before and I'd always wanted some Seacow ballast hoppers - it was obvious I'd never get my hands on any rtr ones without parting with large amounts of money so I got hold of some of the N Gauge Society kits and gave them a go. I'd also had a compressor as a pressie xmas 2020 - wanted to start using that so I knocked up a spray booth out of a couple of extractor fans and some tumble dryer hose - seems to work fairly well The plastic parts of the kit went together nicely and once they were done, sprayed the body shells while it was easy, before all the fiddly bits

Great stuff, love that whole station area...my next layout will definitely be based more on a location rather than making it up as I go along!

Thanks for that Mark...blue was the era of my youth, same as a lot of folks on here I'd imagine...and I do like it. Mind you, various eras since then have been interesting too and now the collection covers all sorts! Most of these are going to need a bigger layout lol

Wiring done and time for a bit of testing