Torper

I've got a Zimo sound decoder which has 11 pins but I have nothing into which to pin it. On the other hand I have a kit built loco that would very much like a sound decoder but would normally require hard wiring. Is there any means by which I can convert the Zimo decoder from pins to wires and thus install it in my kit loco? I'm sure there must be but I don't know what to look for.

That R1 is very nice - what transfers did you use for the lining? I was rummaging through an old cupboard a few days ago and discovered a green R1 in original condition. It couldn't have been run for about 50 years, but after some cleaning of brushes and connection and some suitable oiling it ran very well, albeit with rather a pronounced whine, but I reckon I'd be whining too if I'd been rudely disturbed after 50 years of inactivity. As a P4 modeller of Scottish prototypes I've no idea what to do with it now and I'm not even sure if the original thick Dublo wheels would go through modern 00 pointwork.

Here's my rake of HD super-detail coaches, with additional super detail of handrails, door handles and door hinges. The originals were in BR maroon and while I was loath to change the excellent HD livery the tinplate had gone rusty in places, so a repaint was required, albeit in crimson and cream. (Nothing like the cawera to show where a further vtouch-up is required!) I think I might give a similar supr-super detailing to a couple of HD sleeping cars that I have and which could come in handy on the layout (one of these days I might think about some scenery!) And another one:

Or spray some plain water. Check both what colour it comes out and if it is spraying correctly.

As I only use enamels I don't get the problems that acrylics seem to bring to airbrushes. With enamels a good spray through with white spirit after painting is usully adequate, especially if you're just changing colours mid session, but I do usually do a partial strip down of the brush before putting it away - it doesn't take long and it ensures I start with a clean airbrush next session. Like ColinK I also give the airbrush a go in the ultrsonic bath every now and again.

I loved the old HD "super detailed" tinplate coaches and, for that matter, still do. When they were produced they were just so much better than anything else at that time; sure, they were a bit short, but the livery was excellent, they really looked as though they were made of metal (many RTR coaches still look a bit as though they're made of plastic) and they had flush windows that remain unmatched in the world of 4mm RTR. The interiors were pretty good too. In fact, I liked tham so much that I recenyy super-super detailed three of them which had gone a bit rusty in places - drilled holes for handrails and door handles, stripped the old paint off in the ultrasonic bath, rubbed down the rust, applied primer, then crimson and cream livery, lining and new handrails and door handles. And they look very good - possibly the only rake of HD super detail coaches running in P4! As to length, run them together and you won't notice. A bit like 00 track - model it well and you won't really notice that it's underscale.

If you've got an ultrasonic bath big enough to take a coach, it should also serve as an effective painstripper on both metals and plastic. Pop the coach in the bath, add sufficient water, then add some concentrated ultrasonic cleaning fluid (mine was Allendale ultrasonic general purpose cleaning solution) at a ratio of about 1:10 (fluid:water) and a temperature of not less than 40 degrees, Switch on and leave for about 45 minutes by which time the water vwill probably be considerably hotter. Most paint will be off by then - scrub what is loose with an old toothbrush or similar and if necessary give it another 15 minutes in the bath. Exactly the same principle applies with smaller unltrasonic baths and smaller items.

The world seems to be galloping away from me. At my advanced age I've stopped trying to catch it. In fact, I don't really want to as even when I understand the changes I invariably don't like the direction in which they're leading us. In any event, nothing I can do about it (the general increased helplessness of the individual is one of the changes I'm talking about).

"Get off of" Common, even on the BBC. And at weddings etc: "Be upstanding". For goodness sake, where did that one come from.

The government tells lies about Smart meters. The electricity companies tell lies about smart meters. If they are really beneficial they wouldn't have to tell lies. As it is, the fact that they have had to resort to telling lies has merely served to put me off them.

Apoologies, DR, I was confused by the fact that both you and the OP displayed your work on a timber background. Like you I have some very old Humbrol paints (some in the "tartan" tinlets) and they're still perfectly fine to use.

Another vote for Halfords rattle can primer. Always prime if possible. Unlike Brossard. I much prefer enamels to acrylics (and I see that the OP has resorted to enamels, albeit 50 year old ones for his coach). **Correction - that was DayReturn, not the OP**. Acrylics are fine for small jobs - figures, coach and weathered wagon interiors, station furniture, and so on, but if a larger area is to be painted, than it's enamels every time. Acrylics just dry too quickly and are unforgiving of mistakes, and they tend to clog up the airbrush nozzle and, if brush painting, will almost inevitably leave brush marks and an even greater mess when you try to brush them out. You don't get these problems with good old enamels. (I should add that it's a similar story in DIY - just try bush painting a door with a water-based gloss paint). As for your coach interior, unless you're going to install lighting you'll see very little of it once you put the roof on. If you want covers for your seats and partitions, try http://www.kitmaster.org.uk/pecocoachint.htm - you can print them out.

As the article states, it isn't a "legal" obligation, but it may be a practical one. There is certainly misinformation about it. Even Octupus, one of the more highly rated companies, seems a bit misleading. They say: "Ofgem - the non-governmental regulatory body for energy supply - has specific rules around meter replacement. Their ‘New and Replacement Obligation’ (NRO) requires energy suppliers to take all reasonable steps to install smart meters for all new connections and replacement meters at domestic and non-domestic premises" But when you check the link they give you to that NRO you find a document that is specifically limited to non-domestic users. As an Octupus customer I'll try to point that out to them. Perhaps more acurately they point out that "Traditional meters are also no longer readily available, making them increasingly difficult to get hold of". Meanwhile, I've been in my present house for about 26 years and during that time we've had electricity from the Hydro (now Scottish and Southern), Bulb, and Octupus. Until three or four years ago a meter reader came round regularly to check our reading, but since then I've merely been submitting readings online. Although our Ferranti spinning-disc meter was manufactured in 1986, and is therefore now 37 years old, it has never so far as I'm aware been checked and none of these companies have pointed out that it is obsolete and should be changed (though they have of course invited me as a matter of course to change to a smart meter, all of which invitations I have declined). I suppose I do wonder from time to time if my aged meter is still providing an accurate reading but as our usage seems pretty constant I don't think it can be far out, if at all. Asked "Why would I want a smart meter?" Octupus say : "Across the UK, smart meters are helping create a greener energy system. By allowing us to have better insight into supply and demand, we can make better use of renewable energy when it’s available at a local level". I'm unconvinced that smart meters per se help create a greener electricity system, and I'm suspicious of the bit about having a better insight into supply and demand and making better use of energy at a local level. If you care to read the Smart Meter Specification, you'll find that all smart electricity meters can ration your supply (Load Limiting) and cut you off (Load Shedding). I don't think that my present meter can do either of these things.

Trying to get back on topic, red and black from the decoder are conncted to the track feed, i.e. the pickups from the wheels. Orange and grey from the decoder are connected to the motor, which will presumably be in the loco. With my kit-built tender locos I often dispense with pickups on the loco wheels, which can be complicated, and have them only on the tender wheels. In such a case, only two wires (orange and grey) have to pass from the tender to the loco.

I bought my first PC in 1993 from Locland Computers, Glasgow. It was a 486-255X VESA with 8MB DRAM, 170 MB HDD and an SVGA screen, and it was ready loaded with DOS 6.0, Windows 3.1, and Lotus Smartsuite. It was pretty high-end for personal computers at the time, no wonder perhaps with DRAM going at about £100 a MB. The PC cost £1291 inc. VAT and software an extra £235, giving a grand total of £1526, which is equivalent to £3977 today. Obviously I was feeling flush back then! I liked tweaking DOS as, done correctly, it could bring about performance improvements. Done incorrectly, on the other hand, it, er, didn't......... For some strange reason I still have both DOS and Windows 3.1 on floppy disks.

There are several semi-scientific videos and articles which state that non-polar cleaners are more effective than polar ones. In this context, "polar" refers to a substance's molecular polarity. Kerosene, WD40 Contact Cleaner and mineral spirits are cited as effective non-polar ones, while IPA is clearly polar. This doesn't mean that polar cleaners won't clean your track - of course many of them will. The difference as I understand it is that if you use non-polar cleaners your track will stay clean for longer. If you can open it, this article explains a lot - https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/mrhpub.com/2019-05-may/online/index.html?page=9 . I say "if you can open it" because I could only do so using Tor browser and I suspect it may be closed to UK users. It's an article by Joe Fugate in the May 2019 Model Railway Hobbyist and he says that a large San Diego model railway club used to run trains on their extensive layout between 8 to 12 hours a day and they were using IPA to clean the track and wheels. Much to their dismay they found that the harder they cleaned things the quicker black gunk would build up again and after some experimentation they found that cleaning track with mineral spirits (white spirit) kept it clean for longer. Analysis found that the black gunk was largely metal oxides formed by microarcing between the wheels and the rail. After some research and discussion with a chemical expert Fugate found that non-polar solvents worked best to both clean the electrical contacts and inhibit microarcing and that solvents to avoid included IPA, MEK, acetone, and laquer thinner which, while they might well do a good job of initial cleaning, actually encourage the formation of new oxides and therefore gunk on the metal surfaces in electrical contact. Non-polar solvents, on the other hand, inhibit it. Graphite, incidentally, is also non-polar, but only if applied very thinly. Anyway, you pay your money, you take your choice.

I note that whatever he might say about WD40 Contact Ckeaner, the chap in the video cleans his own track with "mineral spirit", which I believe is more commonly known in the UK as white spirit. It is of course cheap and plentiful. Otherwise, I seem to recall a chart suggesting that the best of all track cleaners is kerosene so next time I have the central heating oil tank filled I'll see if I can get a bottleful. I believe that WD40 is the name of the company which is presumably why they have to use it for their contact cleaner and other products. DT

Sorry, Jol, but that's something of a myth. The great advantage in 00 for most people is that you can nowadays buy very good RTR 00 models that will run well as soon as you put them on the track. OK, some give problems but these are resolved by returning the model to the retailer and getting a replacement. Building an etched brass loco kit is, as you say, not dissimilar in any scale but in P4 you also have to worry about compensation or springing, and quite often wheel clearance, not to mention quartering, something that can be avoided in 00 or EM by the use of Markits wheels. Insofar as track is concerned, there is a wide range of 00 plain track and turnouts available from a variety of manufacturers, again of a high standard. You don't have to make it in 00 or EM. Happily the Scalefour Society has at last arranged for Wayne Kinney to provide a reasonably priced turnout kit in P4, but if you want to make your own track - and nothing looks better than real wood sleepers - it'll be expensive (I once worked out that a yard of track using laser cut ply sleepers, nickel silver rail and Exactoscale chairs came to something the region of £18) and beware the built-in cant in Exactoscale chairs - I've had to rebuild much of my pointwork because, even although I used the society gauges and even though there is no cant on prototype pointwork, the cant, not initially obvious, increasingly led to gauge narrowing and derailments..

Do you have to set them up? I've usually adjusted CV29 to the simplest setting possible (I think it would be 2 if it wasn't for the long loco numbers that push it up a bit) and my locos seem to run fine being driven manually. I suspect that one would probably have to do rather more with sound decoders.

As you have finescale aspirations it's a pity that you've decided to stick with code 100 track. I know that you've got a fair bit of it, but Peco's code 75 00 bullhead is of finescale standard, except of course for the small matter of 2.33mm! Having said that, I've seen 00 layouts built with Peco code 75 bullhead that from most angles are virtually indistinguishable from EM and P4. And I'd echo Ben Alder's recommendation for the British Finescale range of pointwork. If you then want to go to on to P4, fine, but don't believe anyone who tells you that it's easy - it isn't! (Don't Ask Me How I Know). I wouldn't consider 00-SF as I just don't see the point of it, particuarly as today's 00 pointwork from the likes of Peco and British Finescale is so good. If you do fancy trying P4, than abandon any steam locos, at least initially, and try converting a diesel using a Gibson conversion kit and following instructions such as http://www.norgrove.me.uk/classes24-25-44.htm . Although I find it difficult to use the words "easy" and "P4" in the same sentence, this is an exception - converting an 00 diesel loco to P4 can be quite easy! And British Finescale is now producing very reasonably priced pointwork in P4 (building your own pointwork in P4 can be fraught with hazards, again, DAMHIK). Brass kits - well, I like building brass kits but there again my soldering skills are quite good and you need to be able to solder to build a brass kit. And a brass loco kit is likely to be expensive, especially when you add in the motor, gearbox, wheels, DCC chip, andf anything else that isn't specifically included with the kit. On the other hand, again speaking from my own experience, it'll probably take you ages to build it, and then a further length of time to tweak it so as to get it running properly (and I suspect that there are quite a lot of brass kits that have never got near a layout because they've never run properly). So on the basis of time spent enjoying your hobby it's quite good value! As for new loco wheels for 00, Markits would seem to me to be the preferable choice if only because they are self quartering. DT

Well, this does take me back - it's from Odyssey and Oracle, a classic but perhaps under-rated album from those halcyon days in the 60s. Every track is a gem but this is perhaps my favourite, a blast of psyche-pop. It's the Zombies.

Loe Reed - Intro/Sweet Jane recorded live at the NY Academy of music in 1973 and is the first track on Lou's Rock 'n' Roll Animal album. The track features some absolutely stunning work from Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, joint lead guitarists. Prakash John's bass guitar is pretty good too.

As my grandson recently signed for one of our local "junior" clubs, I have begun attending a number of junior matches and have very much enjoyed them. For those outwith Scotland who may not be acquainted with the term "junior football", it has nothing to do with age or experience - the word "junior" is used merely to distinguish it from "senior" football. Governed by the Scottish Junior Football Association, It is in fact the sixth tier of Scottish football and its better clubs, particularly those in the West of Scotland Football league, can certainly rival those in the lower senior leagues in terms of both performance and crowds. Darvel, who just recently humbled League 1 Montrose and Premier Division Aberdeen in the cup is a "junior" side. Basically in Scotland we have the seniors, the juniors and the amateurs, each with their own governing body. I don't think that the misleading term "non-league" is used nearly as much up here as it is in England. Anyway, the team my grandson has signed for plays in the Midland League and I think it's fair to say that currently it's not one of the top junior sides in the country. It has a neat wee ground where a mug of bovril (with or without pepper) is £1, a steak pie £1.50, and as a pensioner it costs me £3 to get in, so it's not an expensive way of spending an afternoon. Style of play, as is traditional with the juniors, can best be described as robust, as is the language used extensively by both players and spectators, and you can be absolutely certain that each and every player on the pitch is giving his all. And come this Saturday I shall be there, spending a very pleasant afternoon sipping my mug of bovril, hoping my grandson is given a few minutes gametime (as the youngest and newest member of the team he spends most of his time warming the subs bench) and rejoicing in the fact that I shall be well removed from the shenanigans going on down in London.

Katzenjammer were four girls who formed a Norwegian English-language band with a German name - literal translation Caterwauling. They broke up in 2016. They made three very feel-good albums of fun, funky and quirky but invariably excellent music. Note the giant three-string balalaika which appears to be used as a bass.

I'm a bit surprised that those who book in advance are penalised financially for doing so.