sjp23480

Paid a visit today, plenty of free parking on the road down to the seafront towards the Royal Military Canal and the Hythe Imperial hotel.

All pre-loved, mostly RTR stock.  Has a much better stock than advertised on their website.  Mainly 00, 009, some N and some tinplate items in larger scales.   A lot of boxed steuff was on display, but they have trays of unboxed items that might yield some interesting items.

The OO prices were competitive and broadly comparable to ebay - £95 for a Hornby Q1, Mainline/Airfix/Dapol wagons from £7 a piece, lots of coaches too but I didn't clock the prices.

Worth a visit, although I only came away with 1/4 of Pear Drops!

Steve

1 hour ago, relaxinghobby said:

My point is you will be looking at the trains once you have taken your attention away from the roofs where our attention is focused whilst making them and they are put out on the back of the layout at the edge of our attention.

@relaxinghobby this is an interesting comment.  Allan Downes spent a lot of time on the roofs on his buildings - his view was that, given the birds eye view perspective we have on our models, that the roof was the most important part of the model. 

If I recall correctly, Allan used to lay individual tiles, later did he used strips of tiles (per Scalescenes) but he then scored in between the tiles on each strip.  

Steve

@Peter Kazmierczak

I applied mine per the Scalescenes recommendation.  But, I did mount them on light card to give the slates more depth.   

Scoring the sheets if they are on light card might help give a bit more relief?  Good luck

Steve 

Is the same outfit that they previously in the covered market in Hythe?  Do they have pre-loved stock?

29 minutes ago, teeinox said:

And I don’t have any valuations because none of my stuff is worth very much.

@teeinox singular items are not worth much, but in aggregate the value can quickly creep up. 

I don't think I have a large collection, but was very surprised when I totted it all up!  I will certainly be adjusting my insurance on renewal next month.

@Coldgunner I use Excel and I keep it really simple - see below.

I have four worksheets: steam; diesel; coaching and parcels stock; goods and engineering stock - adjusting the headings on each sheet accordingly

I use the notes field to capture features like Weathered, renumbered, etc...

I base my values on (realistic) ebay prices - as most of my stock is no longer available new, it has to be an approximate replacement value for insurance purposes.

Steve

On 22/07/2022 at 15:53, 30368 said:

Bunsen with replacement dome and chimney

Richard,

I have had Bunsen on the workbench for some time, yours looks great for the changes. 

Can I ask what paint you used on the dome to match the Hornby green?

Thanks

Steve

47 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Good morning Iain,

 

Please, please keep on showing us examples of your lovely work on here. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

I am going to add another "please" - very interested to see more.  

Please also consider setting up your own thread, Wright Writes is so popular it is difficult to find specific stuff, even with the search functionality.

Thanks

Steve

On 05/11/2022 at 10:42, Iain.d said:

I did have problems with lining it. When I built it, I had soldered door stops on the centre black line of the lining below the windows and couldn’t get the lining pen to go neatly above or below the door stops. I stripped it, reprimed it and repainted it and had a second go; but that wasn’t any better. So I stripped it again, but before painting it again

@Iain.d those coaches look great, you could give the former coachman a run for his money!  

Do you have your own thread on your coach building?  I would love to see more on your techniques, especially the painting and lining - given all the practice on the D1720A!

Thanks

Steve

12 minutes ago, k22009 said:

of course this all reduces any clearances with wheels later. 

Should be okay if you are building in 00 gauge, I would assume the kit was designed with EM or P4 in mind

Its interesting to see just how substantial the slide bars are, esp when compared to RTR and some other kit manufacturers - where just a sliver of brass/nickel silver suffices.

Great Work Dave - coming along very nicely indeed.

59 minutes ago, hayfield said:

I decided to look into  how they are arriving at what I am beginning to believe are inflated numbers.

@hayfield

I agree, we are with Eon Next and I am over £700 in credit at this time, yes my October costs will be higher due to the tariff but I hope the solar will offset that a bit.  But, any attempt to get the DD reduced has proven futile - all sorts of ways to make a one off payment or increase your DD but zero interest in offering any kind of reduction. 

I'd like to move to Octopus as they seem to be a fairer provider, but they are not taking new customers at the moment.  :-(

Steve

4 hours ago, Fenman said:

What’s the collective wisdom? Should I go for that, or is that OTT?

With the help of a surveyor, it should be possible to model different scenarios based on your investment and current consumption to calculate your break even point.   

As has already been mentioned in this thread, to maximise your return on investment you need to minimise reliance on the grid. 

The rate for exporting power to the grid is so poor at the moment (unless you are with Octopus) any return will take significantly longer.

I guess is also depends on what you can afford and how the return compares to your other investments.

Steve

Hi John,

Even in the "sunny" south east my system is limping along at 42w right now.  It has managed 116kwh in October, vs 236kwh in September.  It only went live at the end of August, so history is limited.  Looks like it might get to 170kwh for the month if we are lucky. 

As the sun gets lower our panels, which are ESE aligned no longer register the sort of gain we were getting in the September mornings, by 3pm it is generating minimal power.   We are shaded by trees on the other side of the house - lovely for privacy, not so good for solar panels.

Now, where did I see that article about wind turbines?

Steve

You see, I knew RMWebbers would have the answers - apologies for missing the earlier thread!  

Thank you all!
Steve

Saw this in my news feed today from the Daily Mirror: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/long-abandoned-steam-train-found-28259466?fbclid=IwAR0vcXzq6Sea-WG7Hz4CsAjmMDVzWqMiUPhPyW_qJXbQHpJFY5TD_sFr_uU

Not sure what to make of it, doesn't look like a British loco to me, not that I am an expert.  

Anyone got any theories?

Steve

15 hours ago, k22009 said:

Over the last few years i've opened the green box containing the beautiful etches and castings for the Finney A1/A3 so many times, i've poured over the parts, digested the instructions and diagrams so many times but always put everything back neatly and closed the lid, thinking another day maybe.

Dave,

Like you , I had one of these kits in my stash for many years, like you I opened the box many times, admired the quality of the components, studied the diagrams and instructions and closed the lid.  Then one time I opened the box, got the camera out and photographed the etches, considering how I might tackle the kit I decided to sell it to someone that could make a decent job of it.

Good luck - I shall watch with envy!

Steve

Model Railroader posted the following Iain's passing: https://www.trains.com/mrr/news-reviews/news/in-memoriam-iain-rice/

I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I am more than familiar with much of his inspirational writing - which got me into building loco kits, having lured me into the false sense of security that anyone could get Walschaerts valve gear to work in 4mm scale!  

Steve

3 minutes ago, dj_crisp said:

I use Xuron cutters which are really good.

 Very sharp scissors are also useful, I also use an old sharpened chisel resting the plates on a hard, smooth (metal) surface

1 hour ago, Moxy said:

 

 

Yes it is.  TT:120 is 1/10" to 1' (or 1" to 10' if you prefer).  If Hornby have put that in the leaflet then someone hasn't proof read it properly.

@Moxy, Well I cut and pasted the italic text from their brochure.

All quite exciting, but did anyone spot this statement in the brochure:

"Introducing Hornby TT:120, a Table Top model railway format that uses an internationally recognised scale of 1:120 or in simple terms, 1” to 1’ and is a perfect scale for those of all ages who maybe limited for space"

Correctme if I am wrong, but 1" to 1' is 1:12? 

Isn't TT:120 - 1" to 10'?

Sorry to be pedantic, but little things do seem to bother me!

Also noted the statement on the last page of the brochure says:

"New releases

This catalogue shows items planned for introduction in 2022. Delivery periods may be subject to variation. The illustrations of such items show Hornby prototype or photo enhanced models which may not conform exactly to production versions."

Steve

Angle poise lamp and 4x ready readers for me, I order them on line and they are reasonably cheap and decent quality. 

I have tried to cheap ones from B&M but I found the lenses distort things, so I don't bother. 

I think Boots (Opticians) do quite a good range if you want to try them out.  Not sure of the cost, but the last pair I bought were about £12 per pair.

I have one of the wearable magnifiers, but I find them awkward and uncomfortable.

Steve

You can often find a bargain lurking on the BVM site.  

DCKits also have a few Bachmann, Hornby, Heljan and Dapol bargains:

Bachmann: Deltics - £100, Freightliner 08 - £99.50

Hornby Brit (Owen Glendower) - £140, Drummond 700 - £75, LMS 8F - £90, J15 - £60, D16 - £75

Dapol: Bubble car - £85

Heljan: Cl33 - £90, Cl128 - £65

There is more, but these looked like highlights to me.

Good luck: https://www.dckits-devideos.co.uk/index.php?route=common/home

Steve

For those of you not tempted by the Heljan CLass 45, Bure Valley Models have a Bachmann blue class 45 for £93.50 - be quick though, only one available: http://www.burevalleymodels.com/p/7533/32-680---Class-45-BR-Blue-45-036

Good luck,

Steve

Looking closely at my imports, I noticed that at 3am every day my imports shoot up to 2kwh.

I was trying to figure out what might be drawing the power but noticed that the battery charge also goes up by a corresponding amount. 

I am planning to call the provider, but if I could stop this happening it could reduce my imports by 75%.

Steve