chris p bacon

I watched it while casting some moulds, I played spot the record title/lyric.

Nail on the head. I'm making up some patterns for some coach parts I want, if the moulds go to a few more they'll be passed to friends, if I was looking to try and make money from this there's no way I'd be choosing a GN vehicle and yet that is what I want, if I wanted to try and sell these I'd have to invest a significant sum in a professional production run rather than home produced. The reality is that with the big manufacturers sourcing from China and to a higher quality they have raised peoples expectations. There are already grumblings about the price for new RTR coaches (£50+) I've used approx £20 worth of silicon for the moulds + bits and bobs, I only want 3 coaches so the cost is probably going to be a tenner without underframe, bogies & wheels (donor coach) If I can get the mould to go to about 10 then each coach is approx £6 + underframe+U/F parts+bogies+wheels+postage This would bring it up around £30, this is with no profit to reinvest and the customer sourcing their own parts. Of course Injection moulding is cheaper but only if you have the knowledge, if like me you don't then you're reliant on a 3rd party for the tooling which is a significant part of the set up cost. Crowd funding.......no, never in a million years. A group of knowledgable people to take it on with experience in tooling is a better bet, but it's likely they're already doing something as that is their mindset. And this is the other problem, where do you site any production, if home based it still has to be a reasonably proffessional set up and if space is to be rented then up goes the cost. I've just reduced the size of the workshop which is sited at home as it can be overbearing on home life. I do wonder that a successful company such as Parkside hasn't in the past picked up Slaters etc when they came on the market. Could be they just weren't interested or that the product just wasn't viable in the first place, hence the sale.

I was thinking about that after I posted and remembered that they did recruit more after the war from Italy. And yes, if Italy win at football, they all still drive Fiats around and around St Pauls square flag waving. Sorry, back on topic...

So would I at that price.

Excellent pics, the trams in the first post are a reminder of (part of) a childhood spent in Nagasaki, 10 yen a journey (600 to the £), money dropped into the tray and a salute from the white gloved driver.... gaijin....

Not quite right, most of the workers in the brickworks were ex PoW's who stayed here after WW2 as they didn't want to return to Italy (probably traces of fascism) it was the families (wives children) who were eligible to come after many years. We were desperately short of bricks after WW2 and they were offered the chance to stay if they worked in Stewartby. There's a huge Italian community in Bedford still as well as a pre-war Polish one. As companies like Texas Instruments moved into Bedford so the Italian workforce moved to there to be replaced in the brickworks by mainly Asian workforce. The family had an Italian PoW billeted with them for work, they were no guards as they had no desire to escape back to Europe, he stayed here and set up a successful business in Bournemouth.

Aaaah, I was thinking coaches, specifically the 12W stock (65'), I'm just doing a test pattern at present on a 53' and started moulds last night.

Cost is the biggest factor against 3D for mass production, designing and having printed a locomotive which is only required in small numbers suits 3D, wagons which could sell by the 100's is more suited to injection moulding as once the tooling is made the cost per wagon is pennies. The cost is the tooling and machinery to produce (this is ignoring factory overheads)

I'm looking at resin castings for the ones I want. Only low volumes though.

As you'd guess it's much older than that, it was used in the 1800's as a means of making your house look much more "up market" than it really was by immitating very expensive hardwood. Here is the back of my office door which is softwood/pine This is the original 'graining' from 1893 which has never been touched but has been re-varnished to protect it. It's got a few marks now but I'm loathe to cover over such good workmanship which has lasted 120+ years. PS. If anyone wonders why in the home of a carpenter there's a broken handle on the door, they're £78 a pair and you have to order 5 pairs at a time.....as it's the only one it can wait.

Scumbling or graining - that's the term in decorating

No, not yet. The rooms upside down while I cable up underneath to the new panel, then all the boxes go back under. Also I was using an old Duette for power and the reason I couldn't control easily was it was basically an on/off switch so I need to dig out my other one. Excuses.....excuses..... There just might be a new coach for it to haul soon.........

You could have saved some MDF by using Mikes axleboxes.... Looking good though.

I stuck one down about 30 seconds after the announcement. If I manage to sell a bedsit before they're produced it'll be 2!

I won't comment on the parking, but the Harrow Rail disaster showed us that scoop and run was not the way to deal with patients, and that triage and assesment should be carried out before setting off.

I missed this first time, are you saying that I'm going to have to make a trip to the 4D shop again......I'd be heartbroken.....and penniless...

We went to the theatre over xmas......I'm ordering one of the smoke machines they use to fill the room! I've noticed an increasing use of wood in your modelling....you're not turning into a lumberjack by any chance........you are in Canada after all.. Q song.....Ooooooh I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok...etc I have a feeling It won't be long before you fell your own spruce and whittle it into an Atlantic using a sharpened bears tooth the way you're going.

A ship we sailed on a few years ago in the Caribean had a woman on board who'd been on for 18 cruises (7/9/10 day), Much as it's a nice holiday it would have driven me mad for that length of time.

And at Biggleswade for the EBMRS show on February 18th. A shameless plug I realise.....

A pig would work a treat on the apples, it would probably then move on to the lawn, veg plot, fruit trees,kitchen, carpet, tv, remote........etc

We've had a flock (6-20) of redwings over the last few weeks and they've slowly stripped the holly of berries, hopefully they'll move into the back garden and strip the windfall apples we leave on the ground.

By chance I've been going through some of Andy's material while having lunch yesterday and today and cataloguing it for the societies archive.

Morning Pete, You've confused the club discussion on Finchley Roads weighbridge with this one, Bern had the drawing for B'wade which I've sent. see you in Feb Chris...................Dave.....Chris............Dave..

I knew there be someone out the who would have something. How about this. Its a drawing from MRC inc some dimensions, I have a higher res version but too big to post here so can email it if you PM me. The pic is courtesy of Bern Munday, our one time (well 34 years) chairman of EBMRS who after sniffing Mek Pak for several years while constructing the buildings for Finchley Road has regressed into ....we're not quite sure?

The reason we use Magnolia in New builds is because it is bland and inoffensive, it then will show off any furniture or pictures the owner has which are their own taste. I have been in houses where they have painted rooms Black and others Luminous Lime Green, neither are to be recommended.