PhilH

Morning all bit of a wild night here weatherwise, but nothing compared to the conditions in the North of England. Watching a bit of it on the news my thoughts are with anyone affected by this weather. We are so lucky here on the south coast, due to the area's topography the worst of any weather is spent by the time it reaches here.

A quick update on this project, which has not been one of my happiest. It has fought me all the way, the latest being that the Mashima motor seems to have died. I'm going to do what I usually do, which is exactly what I promised not to do, that is to leave it for a bit and do something else. I have to do this before the hammer comes out. It's a shame because I can see the potential in it. As the photo shows the rods are finished, the slide bars / motion plate assembly is straightened out and the broken bits resoldered.The rolling chassis runs quite sweetly with no tight spots, and the pickups and wiring have been fitted. Once the motor has been sorted/ replaced I will probably strip down the body to bare metal. Quite a few bits have to be fitted, and some missing bits fabricated.I have already removed the buffers as the previous owner replaced the supplied cast buffers with spring ones, however the backs of these foul the steps which need to be removed and some metal removed from the back of the castings as they are not flush with the running plate at the moment. I will get there in the end, but I think it would have been easier to build the kit from new.

Morning all, quite a bright start to the day. So much I want to do, but once again I have to sell myself to the highest (only) bidder, Southern Water. I'm up the Test Valley today, some quite nice spots to visit so if the weather is reasonable it's not a bad day, plus the best bit - mostly there's no phone coverage so no one can get hold of me. Reassembled the Barclay chassis last night with pick ups etc., only to find that the motor has died. Think I might give up on this project for a bit as I am seriously fed up with it now and it might just get hurled out of the window at some stage. Whatever you're doing have a good day, especially the casualties.

Morning all, bright and sunny here, bit of a change from yesterday. I did enjoy yesterday though, didn't go out of the front door, just munched my way through a large stock of food, guzzled some beer, did a small bit of modelling and watched a large amount of sport on the big telly. It felt really cosy listening to the wind and rain outside. Usually I have to be out in that if I'm at work, so it made a nice change. Going to try and get a motorised chassis for the 7mm Barclay completed today - that's the plan anyway although I am easily distracted.

Morning all. Day off today, I was going to have a long overdue shed day at the MHR, but looking at the weather I think I'll leave it - they won't miss me. Might well crack on with the O gauge Barclay, the rods are finished, just need to fit motor and pickups now. I do like days like this, it might be peeing down out there but I don't have to go out of the door - as I've said before when you have a job as I do where you are outside all of the time and basically just driving round the countryside, pleasant as that may be it's always nice to have a day where you can just stay in and play with toys. Lots of food in stock, a bottle of red and the guitar and big telly for later, not too bad!

Good stuff - what lathe have you got? I've got a Colchester which is a little on the large side for what you do! I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to chuck your lathe tools away - if they are HSS it might be just a case of grinding different angles on them. The top rake etc. used on brass is totally different to that used on steel, for instance.Usually you have a different set of tools for ferrous and non ferrous metals (sorry if you know all of this already.) Also have you thought about a rotary table for the mill? Much more versatile and you can do most dividing jobs adequately well on them.

One of those days today - tried to so some modelling, b*llsed up everything I did. Now wondering if in fact I'm cut out for it, so disappointing especially after the mojo uplift from yesterday at Wycrail and Gordon's with the boys. Oh well, I'm sure that a nice roast and the bottle of Chilean red which I've started will put me in a better frame of mind.

Back on line now, thankfully the guy managed to save the stuff on my hard drive. I WILL BACK STUFF UP IN FUTURE. Cost me ??60 but some of the photos are irreplaceable - lesson learnt I think. Looking forward to a day out with the mob tomorrow, should be fun.

It's only a little Valvestate 40w, but boy can you make a noise with it! I got this, a Squier Strat, channel switch, Zoom effects pedal (that is fun) and all leads for under ??120 on good old ebay. Well pleased!

Morning all. I'm now on call so am just having a cappucino and some Weetabix before I do the trawl round Hampshire. It's supposed to be emergency call out but so many bits of kit have busted and now need manual daily operation that it's just another day at work really. Same again tomorrow - by the time I've finished just doing these both days, without any other breakdowns I'll have driven nearly 400 miles. Deep joy. By the way Dave, I said I'll be driving my Focus like a DB9. Be very afraid..... The Marshall amp and effects pedal have arrived. It's a good job my neighbour is deaf. Last night I was mostly Eric Clapton. Well - not quite, but I was making a hell of a racket. Just a thought for Robert - I lost most of my 50s in the sort of mental torment you're in, and for much the same reason. Honestly it's not worth it. Just try and accentuate anything positive in your life - you just can't worry about things that aren't in your control. I wish I learnt that years ago.

That is realy, really good. I have a somewhat lesser 7mm Q1 kit to build, it won't turn out anywhere as near as good as yours, but your build has certainly been inspirational to me.

Morning all. Woke up this morning so I suppose that's a good start to the day. Just today and tomorrow left until a week on call rears it's ugly head. Yippee! can't wait, all of those 2 am calls. I think I'm getting too old for all of this working nonsense.

Morning all. Bit grey here, that includes my hair. Long, long dreary day yesterday at an SW H&S conference where the speakers seemed to be vying with each other to be the most boring. Good grub though, it was at a posh hotel, I thought we didn't have any money... I shall be joining the rabble going to High Wycombe if I can find my passport - I know it's north of Winchester, will we need an interpreter?

Morning all Gloomy morning. H&S conference today - me! They've picked the wrong bloke here, I have as much interest in this subject as I have in Pre Raphaelite viola strings, and that ain't a lot. I wonder what the keynote speech will be? (see what I did there?)

I manage to straighten out the slide bar / motion plate etch and the whitemetal piston rods, I drilled the holes in the crossheads for the 12BA bolts and was hoping to get the chassis / wheels/ motion assembled. On close inspection of the chassis though it was obvious that the paintwork was flaking away, it has been applied without any sort of primer, so I decided to disassemble the chassis and strip the paint. I'm glad I did as it became also obvious that the paint was literally holding some of the bits together, not least the wheel bearings which fell out in the Nitromoors! I shudder to think what I'll find if I give the body the same treatment, but I think that that is the route I shall be following. So basically I think that far from having a part built kit that I can spend a few hours on to have a running loco I shall be starting it almost from scratch. Never mind you live and learn. One thing I will say - I was staggered to find that this kit costs ??200, to be fair that's complete with everything (I think), it still seems an awful lot of money for what's in the box. I'm enjoying writing this blog, it certainly seems to be having the desired effect of keeping me interested in finishing something.Also despite me saying that it was basically just for me, I am grateful to those who do bother to look and especially to those who have left comments.

That's cracking Dave - look forward to seeing it on Wednesday at the next meeting of the 'Itchen Dogs' (see what I did there?). You don't hang about do you - can you lend me a bit of your mojo please?

Thanks both for the interest. I've been following the great debate, I know that once I get past the Barclay I'll have to look at springing or compensating the next 7mm models that are in the pipeline. I suppose the only consolation is that although there are difficulties of working in 7mm as described previously I know that I have the materials and tools to remake if I cock things up. I think I will be looking for the simplest method there is.

I finally completed the coupling and connecting rods for the 7mm Barclay tank which I am attempting to complete. The history of this loco was that it was purchased on this forum as part of a job lot which comprised of the Barclay, some Peco track, a Marcway point, two Slaters wagons and a Connoisseur NE 4 wheel brake (all 7mm). The kits have all been started, but I think that the person in question (no longer on this forum I believe) perhaps decided that it was all a bit much for him and gave up on the project. Anyway I decided that as there was not a complete set of rod etches included that I would make some myself. I will have to do some for a part built Q1 which another member of the forum has kindly given me, so I thought that being used to making these things for 5" locos I'd give it a go. Oh boy. It's been a trying exercise to say the least, in particular as the machinery I have is geared up for much bigger things.A good example are the brass bearings which are 2.5mm dia over the body - trying to make these in my Colchester produced a lot of swarf and bad language as they pinged all over the workshop. Similarly trying to drill 0.7mm holes for the cotter pin representations nearly led me to abandon the whole project, drills breaking left right and centre in my large drilling machine and remaining stuck in the work - hence one of the rods has no cotter pin stubs.The wheels run freely without binding when the rods are fitted so at least I got the hole spacing right. They didn't turn out as well as I hoped they would, but never mind. The next job will be to try and sort out the slide bar / motion plate etches and the whitemetal crosshead / piston rod, which are both twisted and distorted, this will give me a complete running chassis to which I will then fit the motor and hope for the best. I'm undecided whether to leave the chassis as built, which is rigid, or give it a bit of vertical movement by elongating the bearings slightly and springing it by having some wire bearing on the axle. Hopefully a couple of photos

It is for the Oxfam catalogue underpant section unfortunately. They seem to like off white Y fronts.

Morning all, proper ER today - sort of. I've already got the washing in and filled the slow cooker up with all sorts of veggies and beef. That's slowly doing it's stuff and if it tastes as good as it smells it should be good. I actually did some modelling yesterday and made progress with the coupling/conn rods for the o gauge Barclay. With regard to the central heating things above, unless you're changing over to a combi boiler from a hot water tank system, and your rads/pipes aren't leaking, I don't quite understand why a plumber would say that the whole lot needs replacing. If you are simply replacing the boiler with a newer like for like, why would the rest of it need replacing?

Any locomotive with a 4-6-2 wheel arrangement will be more prone to slipping than a loco without a trailing truck due to weight transferance when starting / working hard. On a Pacific this means that more weight is transferred onto the trailing truck thus reducing the adhesive weight on the driving wheels - obviously on locos without a trailing truck the weight stays on the drivers. Much the same on your car - when you accelerate hard the bonnet lifts and it 'sits down' at the back.

Not a lot done this week as my first grandchild, Joshua Harding, made his way into this uncertain world. He's a little belter, much Thomas stuff will be bought soon. Now the excitement has died down, the connecting rods will be milled, the coupling rods are done. I will be posting pictures (when able) of the scale of the problem and the completed rods. The scale of the problem has grown after Winchester Railway Modellers' clear out, I have acquired the basis of my proposed O gauge plank, this being some track, 4 Peco points, a transformer, controller and some structures. The layout will be designed round these, so should be a fairly painfree process.

There's got to be a cure for this.

You lot are just making pigs of yourselves.

Thank you - unfortunately I've felt like a Grandad for quite a while now.... Here he is - the baby with no name. edit - that didn't work then, will upload again when images are working.