Rob Pulham

An interesting discussion, I never use anything but "acrylic" water based varnish (usually Ronseal) and I don't recall ever having a problem with Fox or any other transfers crinkling after application of varnish. That said I do air brush it, it's not applied from a rattle can.

A bit more tinkering with the crew has the driver sporting a red kerchief and the fireman with a shovel full of coal. What a job I had trying to get the coal to stay on the shovel with my ham fists.

JM Could be John Maidment John had a range of kits marketed as Just Magic. I thought that he only did 7mm but he may have done 4mm items too. The range went into oblivion as when he passed away, he asked for all the tooling to be destroyed.

You can use Pressfix as Methfix when they are a bit jaded albeit instead of Meths these days I just tend to use MicroSet instead. it seems to do the same job and cuts out a process. It's also worth mentioning that if you get you Meths/water mix too strong, it will eat away at acrylic paint.

Yes, that's the stuff, I read about it on one of the forums and decided to give it a try anything has to be better than trying to stop cyno fumes getting where you don't want them.

Hi Chaz, It is but it's supposedly got something in to make it stick to different surfaces better. I have also been using MIG Ammo glue which is designed for sticking etches together but also looks like it's PVA based. I have stuck the plates and the back head into the J6 with the latter. No signs of movement while I have been handing it during the rest of construction painting and weathering.

Hi Chaz, Stick them in with some Glue N Glaze* from Deluxe Materials. It dries clear so any slight overspill is virtually invisible inside the cab. * no affiliation with 'DM' just a satisfied use of Glue N Glaze.

I hadn't had chance to reply to the discussion on your thread, but I have successfully used it in the past to prevent soldering tings up where I didn't want it.

Hi Chaz, No I didn't remove the blackening, I have read and found by experience that metal black for what ever reason (probably that it etches into the metal) actually acts as quite a good primer.

In between cutting down the weeds on the railway embankment, I indulged in a little figure painting. Not something I do very often so I am quite pleased with how the loco crew turned out The fireman's shovel is still work in progress Unfortunately this one looks like they are taking a leak...

Hi Ray, I have the 2-10-0 version of the Roxey kit but I haven't built it yet so I can't comment specifically. I know that Tony Geary has built the 2-8-0 version which you will find on his Derby Line thread. Starting Here Sadly all the images are gone but they will probably be there on this thread on the Guild forum.

The wind dropped enough for a couple of short bursts of painting outside. This enabled me to get the chassis primed and then top coated. I also did all the other little bits that I missed when doing the body and tender, fall plate, doors etc. Before risking gumming up the motion I asked Warren Haywood and Tony Geary how they painted inside motion. Tony hand paints his and Warren sprays it. Warren did suggest that since the brief for this is weathered black rather than red to metal black it. Thinking this a good idea I had a go. I gave the chassis a liberal dose of acetone to hopefully remove all the oil then a liberal dose of Birchwood Casey Brass black. It kind of worked, the motion itself looked fine but the insides of the frames and motion plates etc. were quite patchy. In the end I bit the bullet and lightly sprayed it with black etch primer. Thankfully it all still moves as it should but I did mask it before putting the final coat of the rest of the frames.

Hi Chaz, If you want to polish but not remove quite as much of the blackening from rods or wheel faces, you can do a nice job with a dry cotton bud or piece of kitchen towel. Dry they are ever so slightly abrasive without being harsh

It depends on what you use as your drawing tool. It is possible to break a square in Inkscape but it's a convoluted process where you have to change the object to a path. Frustratingly sometimes you have to go through the procedure several times before the line actually changes colour

Contrary to my last post I decided to see if I could make the motor mount removable. It proved not too difficult to add a screw and retaining nut to the adjacent frame spacer. The motor mount also made a convenient place to mount a piece of Vero board which means that I can now remove both the motor and mount together without having to unsolder any wires which I count as an unexpected win. The hole in the tender plate which supports the bottom end of the pivot pin was much bigger than the screw itself (8BA) and after fiddling around for about 10 minutes trying to get the screw to engage in the nut I decided to turn a small bush to centre it. I am getting dangerously near to painting the chassis.

It's also worth investing in some cheapo self locking tweezers from pound shops. I bend them into all sorts of shapes to get them to hold things. At £1/1.50 for four you don’t need to worry too much about spoiling them.

Hi Chaz, My thoughts exactly, and you have preempted my next post. I have made it so that it screws on and is removable. I also fastened my wiring harness (a piece of vero board) to it too so all the electrics are removable without having to use the soldering iron. Photos to follow.

Creating a layout or diorama based on a real place or event with members of the Luton O Gauge Group The Luton O Gauge Group have a wealth of experience to share about designing layouts based on real locations. Examples include: Central Works is based on the Longbridge Car Plant and can be seen at Guildex 2022. Harpenden East is based on the real place that existed between Leighton Buzzard and Welwyn garden City until the Beeching cuts in the mid 60s. It is, in its entirety, 54 feet in O gauge. The Great Train Robbery diorama was created, not to glamorise the event but to depict the specific railway location and what happened. Members of the group will discuss considerations made when choosing a real location. What research has to be done and how you get started. In the case of The Great Train Robbery, there were ethical dilemmas to consider and they thought long and hard about what to include in this diorama. They will also discuss how you might have to choose part of a site and, how authentic you may or may not get. The event takes place on Friday 26th August@ 20:00 BST The event is FREE to members or £2:00 for non-members. You must register for this event as places are limited.

Not too much done on the J6 this week but it's almost there now. I had a bit of a fright when I fitted the motor and I couldn't get the body on but thankfully I had just put it in the wrong way round. What it did need is a motor mount/steady to stop it moving backwards and forwards inside the body. I cut a small piece of nickel sheet as a sliding fit between the frames and then cut out the mounting hole. I worked out where I needed to fold it and then decided to give the bending shear on the MiniFormit a try. I am pleased o say it bend it perfectly. Not being used to using it, to make bends. I didn't follow the bend through to a right angle. instead I finished it off in my hold and fold. I just need to solder it in now.

I have really struggled for motivation this week so haven’t achieved as much as I might have liked. I decided that the etched return cranks were a little under nourished and 2D so I added a bit of detail. First a turned a spigot on an offcut of rod and soldered the rear etch to it and drilled out the four bolt holes using 90 degrees spacing on my Proxxon mini pillar drill using the dividing head. Next, I soldered them to a piece of scrap etch from the kit drilled through the holes to transfer them to the other layer and cut around them with a piercing saw. I forgot to take photos of that bit. Then I made up eight (actually nine) studs from rod and microbore tube filed to a hex head and cut to length. And finally I assembled all the parts. Magnified as they are they look a little rough around the edges but it’s not visible at normal viewing distances.

Over on Western Thunder there was some discussion on the merits or not of Slaters Plunger pickups from a gent who had used them for the first time I mentioned that I was about to wire up the tender for the J6 with Slaters Plunger pickups and I offered to take photos as I went along. I thought they may be of use to someone else who may be contemplating using them but hasn't seen them before First I guesstimated the lengths of wire needed to reach from the plunger to the connections on a piece of Vero Board. These I soldered to the tags provided with the plungers Connection between the tender and loco is to be by a mini plug sold for PC's and bought via eBay some time ago. One thing that makes life a little easier when dealing with the 12BA nuts on Slaters Plungers is a pair of flat 12BA spanners available from Eileen's Emporium Here it is all wires connected to the plungers and ready to solder to the Vero Board Finally all wired up. - The observant amongst you will note that the size of the Vero board has changed in the last photo. I made a right pigs ear of soldering the first piece managing to bridge the gaps between the strips with solder so I did it again. Thankfully I hadn't got all the wires on before I cocked it up.

I got to fitting the rest of the 3D printed brake shoes to the J6 brake hangers today and then refitted them onto the pull rods. I don't think I have shown the loco sat on the body since it's pretty much complete. Just a few final bits like wiring it up and testing it before painting the chassis and weathering the whole thing I also fitted the back head a couple of weeks ago but didn't take any photos The rear view shows that making up the brake cylinders was worth it as they are quite visible when the loco is separated from it's tender.

Me neither, and that's embarrassingly from someone who has several sets of Slater plastic brake shoes in unmade kits and some 3D printed examples in a couple of others....

I wasn't really happy with how far away from the wheels the brake shoes needed to be to ensure that they didn't short. I rew up some brake shoes in Fusion and a friend kindly printed them off for me. Today I had the chance to test fit one of them. After checking that I hadn't messed up and that the etched hanger would go between the flanges. I bit the bullet, unsoldered the etched overlay and cut of the brake shoe from the hanger. The next question was how to attach the printed brake shoes to the hangers. I hoped to have the shoes free to move and after considering and discounting various options which involved superglue I settled on a dressmakers pin and short length of microbore tube soldered to the pin and then filed down.

Ahh, got you. No need to say anymore...