Buckjumper

I'm intrigued now, having seen your work a basket case seems most unlikely! What on earth happened?

There's a very long answer, and I may do a blog entry about it at some point rather than unravel it all here - but the kit (for a Holcroft saddle tank) was so irredeemably appalling that, without exaggeration, everything that could be wrong, was wrong, but instead of sweeping the lot into the bin at the start I stupidly persevered with it. After much frustration I  conceded defeat (the only time I have) and eventually did tip the lot - bar the smokebox door casting - into the bin and started again from scratch. That's not the end of the story, but is enough for now!

Classic case of my looking but not seeing. Of course my Get out of Gaol Free card is that I've not built any GW locos with cabs... well, one, but that turned out to be a basket case.

Looking lovely Dave. I have to admit it's made me a bit fidgety as it's one of those locos which doesn't fit in with my plans at all but is very desirable, especially as Finney kits go together so nicely...

Your build has revealed something I didn't know before - that the cab side sheets extended forward of the weatherboard.

The great thing about split axles is once they're done there's never any need to tweak or fiddle with them - if electrical pickup becomes erratic you know it can only be down to dirty wheels.

The easiest thing is to ask Brian at ABC to build the gearboxes with insulated bearings which he does for no extra charge

I really like the fading you've achieved on the mink.

This elusive red is something I've been thinking about for some time as I have a number of wagons to be painted, but I keep going back to Sidney Stone's contemporary articles on wagon and carriage construction (he worked for the GER, LSWR, Met. RC&W Co., Ashbury RC&I Co and eventually was Asst. Loco Works Manager for the GCR).  In his writings he describes the properties of the various contemporary pigments, how they were collected, ground, mixed, etc, and he also comments on their various lightfast properties. I quote some pertinent passages below:

Red lead (also known as minum)  was composed of two oxides of lead, roughly 65% protoxide and 35% binoxide....it...mixes well with oil and has good covering power, dries quickly and is permanent (ie, is lightfast) except in the presence of sulphur or sulphide.

That last bit is an important point. Interestingly, he goes on to say that:
 

...when mixed with white lead it becomes very fugitive, the only pigments it can be safely mixed with , in regards to colour, are the ochres, earths and blacks in general.

 

Used alone it is very durable.

With regard to other reds available for industrial use he notes that:

Reds and red-browns, prepared from antimony sulphide are fine powders requiring no grinding, and mixing readily with oil. The reds have great covering powers, and if unadulterated will not change in strong light or impure air. Many reds are made from ferric oxide and from waste liquors and bye [sic] products obtained in copper refining, etc. All oxide reds are durable and have good covering power.

Carmine is the most brilliant red pigment, it is obtained from the dried bodies of females of the Coccus Cacti, an insect which is native to Central America. it is too expensive for ordinary use, and is not durable, but sometimes used for internal decorations [in carriages].

Vermilion, known in its natural state as Cinnabar is a sulphide of mercury. The finest is the Chinese, but the Dutch has a good name and that prepared with sulphide of potassium excels for beauty of colour. If genuine, vermilion is very durable, but is sometimes adulterated with red lea, brick dust, oxide of iron, etc, and when so adulterated , it does not stand the weather.

Pause for thought I think...

Looking superb Dave; the Dean goods were lovely machines.

I'm intrigued that you've gone 3/4 of the way towards split axle pickup by using the excellent Slater's insulated hornguides, but then finished off with plungers. I've been using the same lathe-free method Steph Dale describes here for years with much success. In fact on tender locos with inside frames (or an inside sub-frame) I now keep the engine itself electrically dead and split axle pickup from the tender only. Another slight difference is that although I've never had the Araldite on the hornguides fail, I still  take the belt and braces approach by putting through a 14BA CSH bolt through on the centre line of the ride height.

You're too modest.  Yes, yours and John Dornom's are different styles and scales, but then Constable and Sisely's output were as chalk and cheese, nevertheless equally great to my eye.

This really is looking excellent. I know what both you and Pugs mean about photos; taking the lead from artists who do it with mirrors, I tend to take photos as I go and flip them on screen. It's amazing what suddenly jumps out at you as being not quite right, or even downright wrong. I foresee the end result becoming as inspiring as this...simply stunning.

Graham Beare has written several pieces for the Basilica Fields journal, four of which (so far!) deal with the GWR Gun Street sidings off the Metropolitan line at Artillery Lane and (the then) current prototypical practice - you might find some of the discussion interesting. They're spread over these two pages, and as is the way of Wordpress blogs you work backwards starting with the bottom entry on page 2 and working towards the top entry on page 1.

http://basilicafields.wordpress.com/category/permanent-way/

http://basilicafields.wordpress.com/category/permanent-way/page/2/

Regarding rust erupting from paint; it's easier in the larger scales to replicate it, but can look overdone in 4mm. I was able to do this in 1/32, but have to really reign it in, even in 7mm or it looks wrong. In 4mm I think you'll have to be very careful and use sleight of hand to maybe give the impression it's happening rather than the full-on peeling.

English idioms must cause no end of amusement and bemusement to anyone who learns it as a second language.  And anyway, how did we get from 'some HR fish wagons might be nice' to 'you promised to build...'? 

Thanks Pete & Mikkel.  Yep, that HR fish wagon turned out rather well and it's one of my favourite wagon commissions to date. Turns out the Highland regularly transported fish and lobster to Billingsgate Market, so maybe I could justify a handful.

I'll upload some more over the next day or so, but I hope that doesn't make me a fairweather friend...

Thanks Dave.  I use Tamiya tape for all my masking boundaries, and always remove the tape shortly after painting before the enamel dries. The tape has the perfect tackiness and is easy to contour, but peels away easily.  Once you've bought the dispensers the refills are as cheap as chips from places like ebay.

I've been looking forward to seeing where you were taking this ever since you first proposed it.  I never knew Farthing was so big off stage - all these years I imagined it to be nice peaceful little hamlet (did you see what I did there?) but instead it's a walloping great market town saturated with steel rail.

And what a photo you've posted there with the Sou'Western sheeted open to the right and that lovely Sou'Eastern open to the left, that well-stacked pile of coal and the Pooley weighbridge. What on earth is that sheeted thing behind the loading gauge - it looks like a house made of boxes or baskets!

I love it how everything just 'comes together' with a coat of primer. 

Once again your lateral thinking puts my dullard old brain to shame. Faced with the same task my thoughts would naturally turn to getting the majority of this etched for soldered construction. But no! Here you rummage through a cornucopia of beads, dismember a couple of paintbrushes and effortlessly knock out booms, tapered jibs and counterjibs in plastikard and plastic rod with seeming abandon. And what a result! And doesn't it look right at home in front of the scene at PDN?

Wow, stunning! That's got to be some of the best architectural modelling I've seen on RMweb.

I like the b/w photos very much - there's a mid-late Barlow period MRJ atmosphere to them.

A nice selection of GW carriage prints here - interesting to see the shape and sizes change through various periods.

You were re-living the childhood anguish when you took this photo weren't you?

Perhaps I should insist on a daily cake special on running days...

The sound is uber-tinny through the mic on JB's iphone, but I have to admit I'm not entirely convinced yet either, though some of the chaps are utterly sold on it.  What it's going to be like with twenty or so locos sizzling away and the constant barking of the Westinghouse pumps remains to be seen heard.

And no, I'm not the gingerbread snaffler, though as the second from last to leave the Christmas party I did get some extra helpings of home-made pork pie :-)

Yes, this coach came with a profiled hard wood roof which is designed to slot between the ends - prototypically incorrect  as it should overhang. I annealed and shaped then soldered 1.5mm brass L-angle onto the ends and made good with filler.

If you're going to say 'rooves' (which was probably considered archaic when Brunel was building his bridges) then you're going to have to say 'break vans' for consistency! 

I wouldn't agree that brass is the panacea for roofs; I happily use aluminium, plastic and wood as well as brass (and sometimes a mixture!) - each has its own merits, and each has its drawbacks.  Although, as you say, 0.5mm is, strictly speaking, a little thick for what (IIRC) were 7/8" boards, it's really not noticeable on the model. 

However, if it's something your eye gets drawn to, then a couple of strokes along a big file to thin the edges before you form the curve in water would be an effective ruse.

Anyone aged 40 upwards will recognize the symptoms

Not so! Those coaches curve inwards around the waist...

You missed one

Erik Olsen's P45 models are amazing, and I'd have been putting many of his techniques into practice here if BF wasn't such a big project. I've been visiting his website on and off for about seven or eight years, but I'm not sure if he's been able to carry on after the stroke he suffered several years ago, and he's not updated for quite a while now.

Thus ends a terrible day with a laugh! :-) Adrian got the translation spot on - in fact, suspiciously so! Danish connections?

 

Haletudse means tadpole. Bloater doesn't translate, I think :-)

 

http://www.omniglot..../hovercraft.htm

I'd hoped that would amuse

No known Viking ancestry, though one of my sisters-in-law has relatives there. Finding two words for hovercraft, each requiring a different first person possessive pronoun, was enough to take the shine off a Friday evening (and you probably find that very funny!).

Nice van too!