Nicktoix

I was under the impression that all fluxes are acidic to a greater or lesser degree and part of their action is to cleanse the metal immediately prior to soldering. I bought 2 x 500ml bottles of glacial phosphoric acid when I sold my business in 2000. I have just finished one. I use it diluted to about 15% with no other ingredients and apply it in very small quantities with a piece of wire. No brush it applies far too much. It helps solder steel, brass, nickel silver and white metal no problem. Wash it off at the end of each session under a hot tap. It does not rust steel loco wheels as many suggest but will blacken the. Nick

MMP kit with real rust from Delux Materials Nick

800 grit wet and dry works quite well but plays havoc with your cutting blades. Nick

I use half an old H&M point motor with a slice of a nail for the armature. Works well for O gauge Dinghams. Nick

There is an excellent series of articles in Midland Record 32 to 34 on Kirtley 240s with GAs and .a side sketch Better to work from a GA where they exist rather than a weight diagram which are notoriously unreliable. Also remember to check that the horizontal and vertical scales are the same. Printing often causes distortions. Nick

Quote from a popular science website "Graphite is an interesting material, an allotrope of carbon (as is diamond). It displays properties of both metals, and nonmetals. However, like a metal, graphite is a very good conductor of electricity due to the mobility of the electrons in its outer valence shells." Pencils very rarely contain much graphite these days except for the more expensive artists types. Nick

I cannot post the drawings on here because of copyright issues Nick

Swiss Railway archives have drawings but they are only available by personal visit. They have sent me a part ga which is what I am working from. I have almost finished the etch drawings for the chassis and the body drawings are well advanced. I have the crossheads cast and will be doing the same with the valve guides. John - PM sent.. Nick

Very clever Nick

Re Chapel en le Frith Leeds MRS layout. The track was drawn on Templot, the main lines are on a 40ft radius through the platforms going down to 6ft at the ends of the visible area. It was all built to 16.2mm gauge through the paintwork and using C&L for the plain track. No attempt was made to reduce the sleeper length. I think it is the sleeper spacing and narrow flangeways which makes it look "right". Some years ago on another club layout at an exhibition a well known trader tried to run his EM loco on our 16.5mm layout. Thanks for the compliment. Nick

That's great work for your first etched kit. Well done. Nick

RCH stands for Railway Clearing House who set out specifications for wagons rather than building them. If the were built to that spec the railway companies accepted them on their system. Nick

You might be as well to get the opinion of someone who has built this in 7mm. Ace kits come from various original manufacturers and vary considerably in their quality from acceptable to impossible. Nick

I am working on building one in 7mm scale. Swiss Railway archives hold drawings and they were kind enough to let me have a GA of the first batch. The drawings are too delicate to copy but you are welcome to visit them. I am working on etches for the loco. The body is fairly straightforward except for turning the monster dome. The chassis is a very different matter. I have done some experiments on the gearing for the rack and can see how to do it and some of the pitfalls the main one being getting the rack wheels exactly on the centre line. This is a pinion; 4 layers of etch pinned to the gears. The drive from the low pressure cylinders will drive the smaller gears. Two motors will be used one driving the main wheels and the other the rack mechanism. The importance of having the pinions exactly central can be seen here. Finally I was lucky to visit the railway earlier this year and got plenty of pictures. There are static locos at Ooty and Coonor and it is very relaxed visiting Coonor shed. This is going to take some time to complete but it is a challenge. Nick

A couple of pics with a very young MDE. The office building is a Midland building recovered from one of my layouts. Also the large signal box. The station building was built in plastic and. I'm not sure where the drawings came from. The arches for to support the overall roof were cut in 12mm ply and covered with plastic and. It was VERY solidly fixed to the baseboard, a good thing as someone once thought it was a handle to lift the layout with.

I think the track was laid on carpet paper basically a thick plain grey paper. On expert advise from "herself" it is SJR not St Enodoc The points were worked with H&M point motors of which the club had made a bulk purchase. Initially we turned the top plates over so we could adjust the switch more easily. Eventually we changed to using micro switches from Whistons in New Mills. (Who remembers them. Source of all sorts of goodies such as farmer's mixture nuts and bolts and all sorts of electric bits and pieces).

Steve Roberts had big part in building the traverse. I seem to remember he used a large inside micrometer to set up the angles in which ran Charlie's balls? But that's another story

The baseboards for the first stage were built by Ken when were at Armley Mills Museum. That was just one of our many homes in our peripatetic existence. Nick

My mistake should have said new track which was soldered PCB. Making the half track for the plain line was done in a jig and was very tedious. And there was a awful lot of it. Nick

The original design was 30x15 with 5ft x 2ft 6in baseboards. All made in plywood with separate trestle legs. On a trip to Barrow in Furness exhibition the legs did the splits on a polished ballroom floor. The layout was stabilised by a nail into the stage and string passed round the layout. Baseboards built , no track and a young St Enodoc Nick

Look for "Making stuff" by Ian HC gives a comprehensive guide. About 2016 Nick Link added https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/17473-getting-started-on-the-mmp-1108-etched-kit/

Somewhere amongst the blogs on RMweb is an account of building the kit so the springs work. If I remember it involved thinning some of the leaves. They are very good and accurate kits and make up a super model but they demand care. I have built several and still have two 8 shoe to build they will be interesting. Nick

That lathe is also seriously heavy. I know cos I've moved it. Nick

Only two. I might need more or even some Scottish bog water.

This is my 7mm version from my development of Mike's drawings which he kindly let me have. I haven't built up the courage yet to line it out. Nick