The Fatadder

Going through something of a modellers block at the moment, the projects I have on the go either aren't capturing my interest, or are stuck awaiting components.... Clan Line is now once again hold up awaiting components, having realised that I dont have the right grade of wire for soldering up the con rods. I also havent managed to separate the long rod from the cylinder assembly, so will probably just live with the Hornby part there. I am also thinking about soldering some washers onto the Hornby con rods so that I can fit them for the testing, then go back and fit the Bedford bits once I know it all works (too many bad experiences with bent Class 08 rods...) The Class 59 again has hit the blocks, a combination of the fact I really hate painting on one (particularly with the buffers getting in the way of masking) and the tedious task of removing materiel before fitting the triangles behind the headstock on the other. Will probably get on with the latter at Stafford and may try and get on with the paint tomorrow so I can have a finished loco at Stafford... Bogies are on hold until I decide if I can be bothered with the casting... Finally the PTAs, again this is a painting problem. It takes quite a while to carefully hand paint the black chassis and I just cant be bothered at the moment. Maybe once I have the bogies for them sorted I will be more inclined to get on and finish them..... The only real modelling I have got done this week, has been building 3 pairs of ASF bogies for my Cambrian Salmon. Again they are now on the pile to be painted, although I am in no rush given the actual wagons are back in Devon... I will be at the Stafford show on Saturday on the DEMU stand (though hopefully will be escaping early to get home/to a pub for the rugby). Hopefully this will motivate me to get going again. Another thing I have just ordered is a new type of back to back testing device from a design by Tony Sissions (available from Scalefour Stores to members, or at S4 North), its basicly a tapered strip of steel with 2 lines forming a 'good' area. The wheel is rolled down its length and if it stops between the lines its back to back is ok, if not it needs correcting. The accompanying article mentioned very good results in terms of improved running as a result of this device, so rather looking forward to getting on with sorting out my fleet. On top of this things are about to get a lot more busy, given that I've finally found an internship that is suitable so will be doing the 9-5 thing + coming home to study afterwards. On top of that its still a case of keep on applying for grad jobs for September... For some reason I suspect free time for modelling is going to be a lot less than it has been from now onwards..........

Completely agree there... How exactly is it any different for Bachmann et al to announce xyz today and release it in 2011, than for them to announce it in 2011 the week before release. the latter dosnt mean that you get it any quicker, just that you lose the ability to plan future modelling around it!

Firstly returning to 59004, I mentioned in an earlier blog that for 59104 I had modified my method for constructing the new fuel tank so that it reuses the Bachmann detail for the gauge and filler cap. The end result of this was that I was not strictly happy with the part fitted to 59004 that had scratch built gauges/filler caps. As a result I turned to the Lima moulding that was left over from 59104's original chassis, while this was a bit too wide for the new chassis (by approximately 1mm) the curve radius was an exact match for that of the Bachmann tanks (and I suspect that the Lima moulding is too wide as a result of the flat solebars on the Lima chassis protruding too far at the bottom). So after cutting away all of the excess plastic, a cut was made along the length of the tanks followed by filing to match the width of the Bachmann part. The two parts were then glued together, along with fitting the Bachmann end detail and a plasticard inner end (with clearance for the motor.) It still requires extra detailing (both with the additional pipework to the left and an etch for the square surround to the filler cap) Another area I came across while looking at fuel tank was that the battery boxes were mounted on brackets so there is a gap between them and the solebar. This was modelled as a solid piece of evergreen strip glued to the boxes and then glued to the chassis, (this was then repeated on 59104). Finally I have finished the new air tanks for 59104, again I have slightly improved my method here. Instead of cutting away all of the infill on the twin tank side, i kept a small amount of plastic in the centre (hidden behind the other tanks) which forces the two tanks to stay the correct distance apart. These are now drying, requiring the filler removing tomorrow and fitting. Next I really must get on with those new bogie frames......

Another interesting topic, getting me very tempted to fire up solidworks and start drawing up some wagon bits..... The SLA resin stuff looks even more promising as well! Will just need to brush up on the program now as its been a few years since I last used it....

Much better that they keep delaying it and retool bits that are wrong to make them right(like the changes with the data board that are presumably holding it up now,) than rush and release the model wrong.

The roof is now finished, New roof pods were formed from some evergreen strip filed to shape, and then fitted with 10thou square plastruct strip on the end and groves across the top working from http://newimages.fotopic.net/?iid=ykqh3x&noresize=1&nostamp=1&quality=95 These were then glued to the recesses at each end, again working from Martyn's photos. I have also turned my attention back to the underframe with the new fuel tank is now glued into position, and the Lima battery boxes/air tanks removed from the moulded chassis block. The next job for this afternoon is going to be a light dusting of primer over the roof to check the new work is ok, and then fitting the required plasticard to the underframe bits to bring it up to full width. Once thats out the way its onto the bogies..... I have also started to make a list of the other bits that I think will need replacement parts drawing up, currently the list stands are: Roof grill, side grills, Horn grill, cab side window frames, cab front window frames, 59/0 light surrounds, pipe runs, and finally I'm tempted to have a go at a 59/2 for which a 66 style cab door would be handy... I am also getting very tempted to give resin casting a bash, and have a go at casting some new bogie frames (after hacking one set together to fill the gaps in the corners.) All of this is looking more long term (for a start I'd like to try and get a tape measure over a few of those components first) so for the time being work is going to continue to get as much as possible done.

sounds good, having messed about with brass when trying to get the exhausts done for my wessex 150 without a lot of success I will give that a try. My big problem was getting the curve on the bottom right, and using wire sounds ideal!

I have a feeling I may have already asked this, but what have you used for the exhaust?

A quick update, I've now picked up the rest of the bits so can get on with 59104. The body needs a little more work to get a perfect fit on the chassis, This is a result of the Bachmann WIPACs being mounted about 30thou lower than those on the Lima 59 body, (rather than just filing a hole to match the wipacs, I carved them off as a complete unit for reuse elsewhere...) a couple of short lengths of 30thou strip cut to fit will sort it out nicely. Other than that its going to be a case of doing the same work as on 59004, along with some additional modifications to the roof to correct the locations of the radio pods (for which I could really do with a couple of decent photos to work from!) This will later get a full respray (the Lima nameplates are too big, though I am a little suspect about the accuracy of the Shawplan replacement plates as well as iirc they were a bit on the small side). The lima reproduction on the Hanson logos was a bit rubbish as well, another good reason for a full respray!) Once this one is out the way, I will then make a start on the next 59/0 (probably 002) and think about having a crack at working on some etches. I've also finished off 66539 (thanks to Keith for sorting me out with the Transfers). Just need to touch up the buffer beam pain now, along with the usual detailing. At some point it will get the P4 wheelsets out of 66522 (when I finally get round to selling the latter).

Will sort some out in the morning, though I would say that it does look a real mess at the moment as given the doubt about how I will continue the project I havent bothered with any cleaning up around the added components yet. need to find some more photos I think, ideally a top down shot over the end of the coach to give the end profile.....

After being given a Hornby Networker shell by a mate on Friday, yesterday I got back to work on my 325 conversion. First off I repeated the process removing the end, side and roof detail on the other 3 doner coaches. With that completed the next step was to replace the glazing strips, I had originally planned to use plasticard for this (thinking it would be a more consistent base for paint than the clear strips), but when taking the dimensions off the Hornby strip I realised that it actually was made to the profile of the coach (and as such required reusing the Hornby window strip.) This was cut into 3 lengths and then glued to the coach side with a gap between them in the location of the doors. With that done the next step should have been adding the doors and corridor connection recess, however I was a little impatient (and for once it looks like that impatience has paid off). the process was a simple one, cutting just behind the cab door on the new cabs and at the appropriate place on the coach. However once you try to match the two parts up you realise that there is a pretty significant difference in profile on the lower coach side (would require approximately 1mm of materiel removing along the length of the coach to get it to match the cab profile.) So this then got me thinking about alternative methods, - The first option is to modify the cab to match the coaches, I think that if you cut back the moulding to remove the cab doors then glued to the coach and filed the final 10mm of coach side to taper to the cab front (then added the door detail) would blend the cab into the coach. - Knowing that people have had success converting a Bratchel kit I broke the cab off one of my 456s and test fitted the networker cab to that. Here the side profile is closer (but still there is a difference of just over .5mm at the base) this is compounded by the Bratchel body being slightly wider than the Networker cab. I dont really want to pay upwards of ??100 for a kit to convert thats still going to require major work. However I then got thinking about the 456, it dosnt fit with my 3rd rail plans, and the 2nd unit still requires a scratch built underframe and cabs to correct the rubbish that came with the kit. One option would be to convert this to built the 2 driving coaches, and use with a pair of converted mk3s for the centre coaches. - While thinking over the bratchel option I started looking at the networker shell again, thinking that at least the cab will be a direct match with it. I believe that the body is a bit long for this application (by about 6mm or so) so it would need to be shortened. theres also a potential problem with the inner ends, which lack the taper in on the sides that the prototype have, and are a lot flatter than the mk3/bratchel (though I'm not too sure which the prototype matches, as the only end on photo I have found does look very flat (plus has the other details matching the networker.) The big problem here will be sourcing the required components, I already need one more body (along with the one I have) to provide inner ends for a 465, in order to do a 325 I would require 6 bodies (4 forming the coaches, and 2 extras to get the additional inner ends that would be required.) I suppose that this could potentially be reduced slightly by casting the inner end, but I think the extra effort wouldn't be worth the cost saving. A couple of years back there were always hundreds of networker shells on Ebay, not to mention the likes of Model Spairs et al. now they appear to be a lot more scarce. - The final 2 options are probably a bit less viable, but worthy of consideration none the less. First there is the simple give up, the units would almost certainly never be seen on my planned layout, let alone be a common sight. So it wouln't be any real loss if I gave up on the idea. The other rejected option was to etch sides/roof/end along with the Hornby cab, While this would work nicely, it would be much too high cost (particularly allowing for the number of dud test etches before getting the profile right!), and at the end of the day is too much work for something thats not really needed.

That would depend on how accurate you want it. To do it properly (in the way I have done) it needs drilling. but it is possible to use the etch as it is intended by Hurst, which just requires painting and gluing into position.

Sounds like it may well be ideally suited to what I want it for (1928 Pullman roofs) Will have to buy some and do some tests. Is there a UK stockist ?

the chassis was tested tonight, and worked very nicely. Just need to add some better spacers to the driving wheels, and spring the bogie now.... My C&L order was dispatched today, so hopefully on Monday I will be able to get the con rods soldered up

Out of interest, say you have a strip of 20 rivets to add, do you have to apply them individually or can you apply a strip at a time?

Sadly all but one of the bottles were gifts for people who work for my father (I was given the tough job of going shopping for them, and the last bottle (+ the crates) was my payment! (and that bottle has now been put in the cellar for another couple of years before it will get drunk...) Always a chance that a local off licence may have some empty crates out the back though that you might be able to blag when buying 6 bottles.

Still haven't managed to find the photo I have been looking for, but I did get sent a link to this http://philgrain-railway.fotopic.net/p2199933.html 2001 photo earlier, on which the 3rd and 4th bullet appear to be relatively clean still. So certainly they dont all have to be filthy, for now I've settled on just ordering the 4 weathered ones (I suspect that once the model is released it will be possible to find a better price on the clean ones!) Hopefully its a success and they follow it up with another batch of weathered wagons with different numbers so I can add the last 2 to my rake!

Different kind of debt I think, at any rate the debt associated with investing in a new stadium is mitigated by the gain in balance sheet value that the asset (ie the stadium brings). in Utd and Liverpools case the debt dosnt have a corresponding asset given that rather than being finance raised for a specific project, it was just the debt from the owners takeover being dumped on the club. The difference is that excluding exceptionals like transfer fees, Arsenal Football Club runs at a profit, whereas MUFC runs at a loss...

As ever there are exceptions though, I have seen a photo of a rake in either 97 or 98 which had a single clean wagon in the consist, rather annoyingly I cant find it now though! Ah good' date=' thats one question answered! [s']Just hope that they get the numbers right as well. Will not be impressed to buy weathered wagons and then find out the numbers are wrong for the prototype![/s] - Edit: They are correct

My usual stock storage boxes are formed from box files with foam inserts, with one box holding a single rake of stock. Annoyingly these will only hold 6 Mk3 coaches, meaning that a rake of Mk3s has to be split over 2 boxes. Yesterday I found a great solution which best of all was free! Wine crates. Best of all they come full of wine (though sadly you have to pay for that bit!) The crates that I am using (6 bottle), will each hold 2 full HST rakes of 8 Mk3s and a pair of powercars lieing flat on their side, the width is just a a small fraction wider than a Kaydee fitted mk3 (so there is enough room to get the coach in, but no room for it to move about. I plan on adding a foam covering to the floor/ends (the stuff Bachmann locos used to be wrapped in) along with card dividers between the coaches, along with a second floor so that I can have a base for the 2nd rake to sit on. Other than that the only modification I plan on making is to fit a set of hinges to the original lid, and reglue the sides into position (given that they are bowing out slightly)

Really impressed, When I saw the pre production model I thought there wasnt a chance of that standard making it to production. but now it looks like they managed it. Will be making an order for one of each of the weathered ones and one clean one this afternoon! Couple of questions, I seem to remember someone saying that the numbers Kernow had chosen were for a different diagram of bullet, has this now been corrected? secondly, the pre production samples shown on the Dapol site appear to be missing the large data boards on the sides, I assume that this will be fitted before they go into production?

of the 'Big Four' only Arsenal would qualify (I understand in the last report on premiership club profitability, Arsenal were on top.) although Chelsea have recently been reducing their debt with Abramavich changing his personal loans to the club into equity) No idea about their financing, but at a guess Villa and Spurs maybe as well? Certainly those rules would hit Utd, Liverpool & City. The interesting question in my mind is how it will affect the Spanish clubs (especially madrid), and their 'unique' funding system behind those stupidly large transfers....

Always a sad time when a club moves away from its traditional home, made worse by the new grounds being designed by architects who just seem to be out there to design a big impressive looking building (but not giving a dam about maintaining the clubs traditions.) I remember in the run up to the move away from Highbury there was a lot of talk about how the new stadium would preserve the atmosphere of the North Bank, something that never happened in practice. (I see that both Liverpool and Spurs have said the same thing about their respective new grounds, again I cant see it happening...) Would be even worse for West Ham moving into the Olympic Stadium, given that being designed for running etc the fans will be too far from the pitch. Still I guess it was pretty inevitable that one of the London teams would move there after 2012....

Having come up against something of a brick wall with the work on my 1951 U stock, and not having the funds to start buying up the kits for the 1935 D stock, I've gone back to working on the K stock. As mentioned before this includes 1928 built Parlours Lucille and Zena, kitchen Ione and the 1925 Ibis (rebuilt in '28 to a similar design). Lucille, Zena and Ione are all converted using the Comet sides, unfortunately though their design they have left off the raised beading (so that they could include the window frames on the same etch). While this would be very easy to add onto a normal plastic side, I'm not too sure how I will add it to the etches (particularly as I only noticed this after gluing the sides onto the first 2 coaches.) at the moment I am thinking towards some thin evergreen plastic strip and superglue. Ione is also missing the vents on the back of the kitchen (though I have no idea if these are a VSOE addition or if they were built that way.) All of this brings me onto Ibis, to start with it has a slightly different window location to Ione (with one less oval window on one side, and I think slightly different window spacing on the other). As such it is going to require new sides etching, and this is where I come to a problem. I think I could do a better job of etching the sides than the Comet ones, with half etched sides (so as to get the beading detail) and separate window frames. However that would then mean I'd really have to go and redo the other 3 coach designs as well (which given they are fitted with the Comet sides already would be a bit of a pain). The other option is to design them to match the Comet ones, thus getting them consistent with what I have. One idea I was thinking about was to get the beading done as a vinal sheet, so that it can be just stuck onto the etched side. I've attached the current drawing below, though it still needs a fair bit of work tidying up the windows (and then needs to be redrawn as an etch) The other area which needs a lot of work is the roof, again there are 2 designs here (Ibis having a lot less ribs than the other 3) but they both follow the same principle of lots of strips of rivets. Again I'm a little unsure as to the optimum approach here, debating between etching a part to overlay the roof with the rivet ribs, or buying rivet strip and gluing that on 1 rib at a time. If it is possible to buy a plastic strip with rivets on top that would be ideal, as the chopper will make short work of cutting the hundreds of identical lengths, I worry that a full etch would just be a bit too fragile making it a real pain to fit.......

It aught to be the amount the dammed thing cost! (big Antex job, says its rated at 55W on the control box) I wonder if maybe its a problem with the tip