PhilH

They should be charged with contributing in no small way to global warming. So much hot air over such trivial matters. It’s one thing to have made a good living chasing a bag of wind around but to then to make a living churning out drivel about is, to me anyway, beyond absurd. There seems to be more and more of them every season now too, perhaps ‘diversity’ now demands this, but to my mind collectively they just churn out bolleaux. I’ve got eyes and can make my own mind up thanks.

I’ve incorporated bin day into my exercise routine…they seem to leave the empty bins in the most unlikely of places, seemingly as far away from where you leave them as possible. Still, gets the step count up I suppose.

After reading up on heating the printing space/ resin I’ve decided to go with a temp controlled fermentation belt, usually used in homemade beer making etc. Apparently you wind it round the resin vat and it keeps the resin at workable temps, being as both the machines have metal vats I’m hoping it will work well. We will see if it’s as good as people say or just another rabbit hole to pour cash down.

Hope this little detail can be included!

I do get that, and have experienced that scenario on the footplate of 34046 on Sapperton Bank through black stuff that, well, I don’t think it was coal, and the same scenario on Hosking’s A4’s last run into King’s Cross.., and I get that it was perhaps different back in the day when if things did go belly up you could just whistle up another engine. We had to stop for a blow up which caused chaos but to me that was part of the boiler management, ie not causing a worse problem by just carrying on and perhaps dropping said plug. I suppose what I am really trying to say is you don’t run on a wing and a prayer as far as water level is concerned, just hoping that it will be alright…you have to do something about it. And that is what I call boiler management.

But if you are managing the boiler properly you don’t let the water get near the bottom of the glass….

Interesting…I too have experienced failures on my Mono x during the cold weather, not so much on my Mars 2 pro. I wonder if it is that being bigger it’s a colder space, I don’t know. Which wattage pads do you use, seems to be a lot of different ones on Amazon,, better still can you post a link to yours please?

Knowing the road was/is paramount on a steam engine for exactly that in addition to the signal, speed restriction etc.knowledge which every driver has.When I was out on the mainline with LSL a gradient profile for the fireman’s assistance was often provided in addition to the driver or traction inspectors route knowledge. For interest I attach the gradient profile for the MHR. Apologies for it being upside down but my iPad seems to upload photos that way. If anyone can alter it I’d appreciate it, or indeed let me know how I can fix this problem

Tbh it’s all about boiler management. Not quite 1 in 30 but for instance, several heritage railways run over relatively steep gradients, 1 in 49 on the NYMR, and 3 1/2 miles of 1 in 60 on the MHR spring to mind….undoubtedly there are others. They don’t have the luxury of turning engines to suit. Back in the day on the ‘real’ railway crews had to work the engines how they were presented, couldn’t always run them the ‘right’ way round.. Keep the water in sight in the glass, know that when working chimney first with the regulator open you get an artificially high water level, the opposite when bunker/ tender first, the crew will be used to working the line and will manage the water level accordingly

Perhaps it depends where you live. I was born and bred in Bishopstoke, just across the fields from Eastleigh and within earshot of Bulleid pacifics whistling up through the station. I spent most of my boyhood waking hours on Campbell Road bridge trainspotting along with seemingly hordes of others. Such an interesting place, never really knew what was going to turn up. Western thingies from various places, midland namers on the Fawley oil trains, all sorts. Then my voice broke and other interests took over, so I suppose that’s when it become boring compared to other things…. Fast forward 60+ years and Eastleigh is still an (relatively) interesting place. Yes, emus etc. (no, not the birds) rule the day but there is usually enough of a variety of other bits and bobs to warrant a few hours on the platform. And…there is a Wetherspoons over the road which always has an interesting selection of ales and ciders plus jolly good brunches. And it’s all within a pensioner’s bus pass free ride of home. So as I say, I think depending on where you live modern railways can be boring, perhaps there is enough in other places to be not so much.

Others will hopefully give you their opinions but this is mine. I have both types of printer but for detail work such as you suggest in my opinion resin is the best option. There is a big but though…resin printing is not, again in my opinion, plug and play. It can be messy, frustrating when, for instance, you run a print for a couple hours only to find it hasn’t adhered to the build plate. You only find this out when it starts to emerge from the resin vat on a big build. You also need, if you are not using water based resin, ipa and somewhere to clean the print post printing. You will need nitrile gloves, safety glasses and a mask to stop breathing in the fumes. If it’s not a sunny day where you can put it outside to cure then you will need a source of uv light to cur e the print. You can buy wash and cure stations, indeed I have just bought one but they obviously add to the budget. I got one after a couple of uber messy cleanups which involved spillages. Not pleasant. The upside to all this doom and gloom is that when all goes well the detail that can be achieved on a resin print, especially if you can afford an 8k printer, can be stunning. I have a couple of 4ks and am satisfied with them.

works well…two medium size spuds, 5min, turn 5 mins on high in microwave then cremate for short time high temp in AF. This works in my ancient microwave but others might need to experiment with times. One thing I would say is that when I first got the af I was a little bit in awe of it, sticking religiously to given times /temps etc. in printed or internet recipes. However in no time at all it became intuitive and common sense based, and even our taste based so that now we just sort of know what times and temps things need…same as ‘ordinary’ cooking I guess. I did treat myself to a cheap probe type meat thermometer just to make sure internal temp was high enough, but that became redundant in a surprisingly short time as I got used to the thing. It is a little bit of a learning curve but I’m still alive so must be doing it right…..

Just a quick note Tony…..there are literally millions of files for 3d printers which can be downloaded for home printing for most things you can think of. Some are free, others aren’t but the point is you don’t necessarily have to learn CAD….having said that at 73 and a bit I am having a go at learning Tinkercad and am up to what I would call basic plus level. I find it quite intuitive, there are literally hundreds of tutorials on the internet and, the two biggies, it’s free and, for me anyway, fun to learn. I have three printers now, a filament type and two resin jobbies and find the whole process really interesting.

I wouldn’t necessarily agree with most of this post…I’ve had one for three months now and it’s been a revelation, so much so that I don’t use my oven any more….because that’s all an air fryer is, a fan oven on a small scale so to call it a fryer is a bit of a misnomer. Basically the fan blows air over the heating element onto the food, because it is a smaller space it cooks more quickly. You don’t have to waste energy preheating it either. Another benefit is that you use much less oil to cook with, a quick spritz from a pump dispenser is all that’s needed so, in fact, can be much healthier than other forms of cooking. We do roasts in ours, chips, all meats, bacon, sausages etc.,pizza, bake cakes-pretty much everything you would do in a conventional oven. We’ve even baked bread in it. There are some things that don’t do so well in it, but these are few and far between and well documented. Ours is a 5.7 litre basket model, plenty big enough for two. Daughter and son have dual basket models which they find adequate for four people. I certainly don’t have a top of the range model, mine is an Instant Vortex priced at the time for £89. It has 5 different modes of cooking along with time and temp. As I say, it has been a revelation in our house and undoubtedly has saved money in cooking costs due to no preheat and shorter cooking times. In fact I would say it’s up there as one of the most useful tools I’ve bought.

Another (lonely) thought occurred to me….there doesn’t seem to be any sector of British life or economy that isn’t forecasting doom and gloom at best, Armageddon at worst. To listen to the BBC, for instance, we are, as Jonesy says, ‘all doomed I tell yer, all doomed’. Perhaps we need to hold fire until things get on a more even keel, hopefully, then take a look. As reorte said, hopefully it’s just a patch, a bad one yes, but a patch all the same

…..which is exactly why the high streets in most towns are so uninteresting, full of the main players who sell you what they want to sell you not what you want. The future certainly looks bland….

I too am a Brit enthusiast and have 70051 Firth of Forth in my collection. This could be considered a strange choice for me being a Scottish allocated loco I believe, but my justification is a couple of photos of it on Eastleigh 71A shed having worked in on a troop train to Southampton docks. I also spent 5 years out on the mainline with Hosking’s locos and enjoyed numerous trips out with 70000. Very hard riding loco and quite dirty to work due to various cyclones generated by cab/ tender design, trying to pull coal forward when on the run was a particularly unpleasant experience, no matter how much the coal was slaked it was always just whirlpools of coal dust in your face. Also they were prone to slipping at speed, a terrifying sensation when experienced for the first time. I was convinced we were going to come off the rails…but we didn’t and I lived to tell the tale. Nothing subtle about them, just brutes of an engine.

Again, thanks for the replies. I think (hope) it might just be a case of refining technique. Even with the annoyances I do find it a satisfying thing to do, the fact that nothing has fallen apart yet or melted (give it time Phil) even more so.

Thanks for the replies…iron is only 60watt, maybe that’s part of it. Solder is Carrs 70, as I say I use Phosphoric acid diluted to ~9% which as I understand it is about the same as the (I think) recommended Carrs Yellow label. The solder is not cored.

Now well into my eight decade on this planet I decided to have a go at a whitemetal kit I’ve had hanging around for donkey’s years (Slaters 7mmTerrier). I started it many moons ago trying to glue it together but gave it up as a bad job. Having recently acquired a cheap soldering station I decided to give it another go, this time using 70deg solder. Me being me jumped straight in at the deep end…I’m reasonably satisfied with the results so far, it seems to be hanging together and I haven’t reduced it to a shapeless blob of whitemetal….yet. My annoyances with it are twofold. One, I can’t seem to get solder to adhere to the iron tip to then transfer to the job, so have to put solder shavings onto the job I’ve tinned the tip, it’s basically a new one so no damage but so far no go re carrying solder to the job, I’m running the iron at around 170 deg which, unless I’ve got things badly wrong seems to be a reasonable temp. Anyway it seems to be melting the solder and not the whitemetal so that is a win at least. Two…I can’t seem to make a uniformly neat fillet. It seems like it’s going to make a nice one then it doesn’t. The job is clean , I’m using around 9% Phosphoric Acid as flux so would assume that’s not the problem.Is it tip temp, too hot, too cold? As always any replies/ideas much appreciated.

This thread could run for ever, displacing ‘Early Risers’ as the longest running. ’I like this’, ‘I don’t like this’, ‘It’s for me’, ‘It’s not for me’, etc. Ad infinitum…..

Experience has taught me if it’s cheap it’s invariably nasty. I have found to my cost that trying to get cr*p tools to do a decent job is the epitome of thankless tasks. All the old adages apply, eg buy cheap buy (at least) twice etc., they are around for a reason. You would, in my opinion, be far better served to buy better quality s/h tools, especially if they are for more than once in a blue moon, accuracy not important sort of task.

I really don’t get this. Surely opinion has to be based on something tangible, something more than, and I quote you, ‘I don’t like change’. That’s what facts are for aren’t they, to give a basis for an opinion. Otherwise all we would have are prejudices. Anyway this would appear to be descending into the kind of pointless discussion I alluded to earlier, unfortunately my contribution has abetted that, so I will refrain from commenting further. Back to the fascinating world of meters….

That, to me, is the nub of threads like these. It seems opinions are rife, facts are few, both pro and con the subject matter. Perhaps we need a sub forum labelled ‘Marmite’ where we can post threads about things we either like or don’t like often just based on feelings rather than facts. . Some might say these threads are pointless as there will be no clear winners amongst the protagonists, as in the quoted sentence comments will depend on what bothers or doesn’t bother the poster.

Can I borrow your crystal ball as I would like this week’s lottery numbers please? The key part of the post you quoted is ‘when the market gets back to normal’. I would say if, but if/when it does normalise competition will resume and companies will have to charge competitive rates to attract customers irrespective of ‘trying to push people to smart meters’ or not.