Ruston

Thanks! I missed Ozzy's comment first time around - sorry. So who is right?

I know very little about coaches so could someone possibly identify builder/railway company of the coach in my last post, please? Today at the Tanfield Railway. Gunpowder van?

The following were all spotted in the last week or so. Near Ilkley. Normanton. The Old Coach Road near Keswick. And this coach was seen on a B road near Thirlmere.

I've been doing some work on the other end of the railway. Here is the tank filling stage, backscene building and the tar still. I cheated and bought the brick building. It's a resin product from Skytrex and I've added the canopy, pipe brackets and pipes. I bought it for £25 unpainted but the painted items sell for £50! Are there really people so rubbish at modelling that they'll shell out another 25 notes for the sake of an hour or two and a few pennies worth of paint? The tar still and other bits. It's scratchbuilt and loosely based on something real but what all the pipes do is anyone's guess. If in doubt blind them with science! ;-) It needs weathering yet.

Thanks, Tim. I don't think it was DAS and I've thrown the empty packet away so I can't tell you what it was. I'll look in the model shop where I bought it the next time I'm there. I settled on clay after considering painted foamboard and deciding that it was too perfectly flat and textureless. I also considered pouring polyfilla, as I did with the loading shed yard but didn't want a repeat of all that mess again.

I've finished the car park. I started work on it a couple of months ago by rolling and laying air-dring clay. I could only roll up to a size of around 6x5 inches and eventually covered it all by butting the pieces up against each other but as the clay dried cracks appeared at some joins. The clay was painted with Humbrol acrylics. I've taken advantage of some of the cracks by filling them with weeds. I was asking elsewhere on the forum about weeds and grass for O gauge but I found this Noch stuff in my local model shop today. I also built a chain link fence out of suitably sized softwood strip and off cuts of netting intended as a fly curtain for the conservatory. This is made from nylon or something similar and the holes are hexagonal so I thought it would be ideal for a fence.

Hi Marc, I've tried to quote and show one of your pics but I can't get that to work so I'll just ask the question. What did you use/how did you do it to get the foliage in the foreground in the very first pic? My layout doesn't need much in the way of greenery but I'd like to put some grass and weeds in a few corners. In N gauge I just use bits of Woodland Scenics coloured foam stuff but that's really not good enough for O gauge.

The Markham is almost finished. It needs some pickups fitting and it's ready to go. I've fitted the decoder but haven't been able to test it yet. It has been tested on the rolling road with straight DC and seems quite smooth. As you can see I've really gone to town with the weathering! Looking at the photos It could do with some representation of grease on the buffer blocks so I'll see to that when I have it apart to fit the pickups. The acid test for the springing will be once it's actually running on track. This is the first one I've built with springing so we'll see how it goes...

Cheers, Debs! Nowt much to report lately but I have been working on another loco kit (although I really ought to get the wiring fixed and get the layout working again) that's been unbuilt and in its box for far too long. I won't bore you with the construction as I think we all know what a load of flat sheets of etched brass look like. It's a Markham 0-4-0ST an the kit is from Agenoria. I intend this one to be really filthy and uncared for so even at the basic paint stage I've already used Maskol over a rusty coloured base coat and pulled bits off to effect peeling paint and a nameplate that's either been stolen or sold to an enthusiast. I've only just made a start on the frames, which are to be fully sprung, using Slaters hornblocks and guides.

There is no magazine review as it's never been in a magazine and there's no website for it either. As for youtube there's only the little video that I made but that's not a review. Haven't I put that on here already? Anyway, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H6HHxk0wpY

From the Farmers Weekly 18/8/1967

Not a van but another tank. I found this one yesterday in a haulier's yard at Hoyland Common. From the 1920s, I guess?

I wonder if what you're describing, Paul, is a J&F Howard loco? 1930 may be a little early for a Hibberd but then the Hibberd that the Roxey kit represents was ripped off the Howard design by Hibberd. In fact Hibberd were known for ripping off other peoples designs. Just look at the Guiness 0-4-0DMs - if they aren't a rip off of a Hudswell Clarke then I don't know what is! Then there's the bent-frame narrow gauge petrol locos that were almost a straight copy of the Simplex design. IIRC Simplex took Hibberds to court over it.

T'is to glory we steer! A friend of mine recently wrote a set of naval warfare rules for the Napoleonic era and knocked up some ships from balsa and cocktail sticks. I reckoned I could do better but couldn't get on with balsa and reverted to good old plasticard. HMS Mars (74) a third rate line-of-battle ship. It's 1mm to the foot scale and entirely scratch built. I'm quite pleased with it considering it's the first ship I've ever built. Clear for action and run out the guns! Engage the enemy more closely! The hull is plasticard, the masts and spars are plastic bar, as are other details such as the anchors. The rigging is cotton and the sails are handkerchief. The figurehead is an N gauge figure that has been altered somewhat. On the first outing on the war games table she destroyed one French frigate and another struck its colours and was taken as a prize.

Hi Tim, It isn't. The bonnet wasn't part of the "kit" and so that was one thing that needed to be made completely from sctratch. I tried brass sheet but couldn't get it to conform to the curve so I tried thin plasticard. That's where it all went wrong - it sagged in the middle after I'd put a little too much plastic weld on and then it oozed out of the side, all over the louvre detail and ruined it. In all it was an expensive experiment so I'm waiting on someone to produce an etched kit now. You've made a good job of that 48DS. I can't believe that they made a kit in 7mm that only drives on axle when there's all that room to play with! Another little thing is the air horn - is that part of the kit or is there a bit of modeller's licence going on there?

If you look in the Industrial section there is a pic of the interior of my model. It's pretty authentic in layout. The controls consisted of a brake lever, a forward/neutral/reverse lever and a 3-speed clutch lever. All of which come up through the floor. The other controls were an engine speed control and the engine stop control that were on the cab bulkhead wall. Later models, with the enclosed cab, had a Smiths round heater, much like that on old Land Rovers that was also on the wall. That's about it really. Despite what you sometimes see on models they didn't have any kind of control cubicle covered in dials. The only instrumentation was an oil pressure gauge, again on the bulkhead. There were also tiny pedals in the floor to operate the sanders. If you want detail of the gate for the clutch lever you've only to look at photos of any DL series narrow gauge loco. The top of this casting was flush with the floor on a 48DS so you only need to model the top bit and the lever. I do have some Ruston & Hornsby works photos but they're prints so even if it wasn't against the forum copyright rules I can't post them.

That looks much better, Rob. Those rivets - are they just heads or have you drilled lots of holes and stuck actual rivets through them? I had wondered how you were going to put all the rivet detail on the frames but now I know...

A few more from me. Nothing exotic though. A pair of ordinary BR 12 tonners near Junction 24 of the M62 Another of the same type at Altofts. Planked version at Crich and with 3-part pressed ends instead of the usual 2-part. This one could be a bit more exotic. Not a clue what it is though as it's probably been altered somewhat.

The ends look to be sticking out too far, If I may say so? If you look at the prototype the dome starts immediately from where the barrel ends. That's how I've done my barrels but then I guess the diameter of this one is greater so if you lose that tapered part of the can the end will not be wide enough. Personally I'd have used the Slaters ends on the brass barrel but then who am I to criticise? The detail of our tank filler and lid and the fact that the whole chassis is made from brass makes my effort look like a steaming pile of excrement... Edit: I've just looked at the first page and I see that you have already made one with the Slaters ends. Perhaps make the ends on this one from laminated plasticard?

I may as well give some detail then... You need the thinner type of can - well that's what I used. I'm not sure if the fatter type, such as normal coke tins have a wider base or not but stick to the thin stuff otherwise. I used some cheapo fizzy pop from Morrisons (other supermarkets are available) but as I don't drink either fizzy pop (did you know that "coke" contains phosphoric acid and can be used to free off rusted nuts and bolts? Yuck - I don't want that stuff inside me, thank you very much) or tinned alcoholic beverages, I got someone else to empty the tins for me - waste not, want not 'n that. To get the dome you need to turn the can on end so that the opening is at the bottom and the bottom is now at the top. Then take a file to the ridge around the bottom of the can, although it's now at the top. Keep turning the can and filing until it becomes so thin that the end dome falls inside the can. Rescue it and discard the rest of the can. Once you've cut the drainage pipe ( I say drainage pipe but it's probably got a technical name in plumbing circles; it's the sort of stuff you'd find under the kitchen sink) to the length that you want, you mix up some Araldite (other 2-part epoxy glues are available) and spread it on one end but toward the inner edge. Although the can dome is of a greater diameter this does not matter. Place the dome as central as possible, measuring using the Mk1 human eyeball, and leave long enough for the glue to harden (although the blurb on the packet may say it's ready in half an hour or whatever, this is invariably a lie - leave it overnight). Once the glue has hardened take a file and go round the dome in much the same fashion as you did when filing it out of the can. Only this time you are filing the overhang thin enough to fall away from the tube and the glued-on dome. Repeat the process for the other end but as one end now has a dome it won't stand up straight so you'll need to old the new one on with rubber bands whilst the glue hardens. Job's a good 'un

Here are the tank wagons that I have been working on. The first is a Slater's kit. I made my own transfers and painted it in a livery suitable for class A products. The other uses Slaters parts up to the much-modified frame. Above frame level is scratch built. The barrel is a piece of plastic drainage pipe, covered in thin plasticard that has been dimpled to represent rivets. The barrel ends are drinks can bottoms. The fixings are brass wire and plasticard with a bit of milliput to conform to the profile of the tank ends. The filler neck and cap are turned brass and aluminium and the valve wheel is a brass etch. The pic above is just after spraying the whole lot black as a class B tank. Weathering and lettering to follow. It really could do with some strapping over the tank so I'll have to do that before weathering.

Thanks, Debs. I haven't posted anything on this for a while but I have been doing bits here and there. I'm making a tank loading thingy and another tank wagon at the moment. I've not taken any pictures of the work because the camera on my new phone is hopeless and I can never be bothered to go and get my proper camera. I've also not attempted to run the railway at all. I got a whippet pup earlier this year and he ate through the wiring under the baseboards. I also had to erect some acrylic screens on the edge of the layout to prevent him from taking things off the layout. He ate several resin oil drums!

Some more of mine. BR 12t at the Chasewater railway Another at the same location. Ex LNER(?) van near Diggle.

I thought it was a Mogo at first, due to the end door but I haven't seen pics of any with those side vents. This Mercian kit of the Fruit A does have 4 vents each side. http://www.modelrail...larger/LG11.jpg

Sorry about starting another one, Andy. I did a search for Grounded van bodies and all I got was this message: So being that the word van only has three characters and it's the key word to the whole thing I gave up. That's computers for you! Anyway... This photo, taken near Kirkoswald by a friend, looks to be a GWR FRUIT A if I'm not mistaken? It's had some of the side vents replaced by windows and one end cut to make doors. And on the same site, a BR meat van. This must be GVB gold, being that they only built 150 of them. One of my own, a 14ton anchor-mounted tank. Seen near Westow, Nth. Yorks.