Beardybloke

The loss of man-points are worth keeping the missus happy The K3 looks very good, even though ER isn't quite my bag (though I sometimes find myself tempted ) and looking forward to seeing the Single finished! Hope you're fully recovered from the pig-flu soon...

While I'm at my girlfriend's and haven't got access to my library, a brief clue will have to do for now, sorry! It is (I believe) an old LNWR line in an area of industry that probably wouldn't be the first that you'd think of... If you still can't get it tomorrow, I'll try and zoom in on the area a little more, without giving it away...

Looks better to me, Phil! How about taking the siding behind the coaling stage to the turntable as well, then you have a separate route into and out of the coaling/watering area. You could always have the new turntable road with an ashpit on it as the 'receiving' road, and locos will go from the ashpit, to be turned, coaled and watered, then finally on shed. Somebody else will have far better ideas than me, but that's just something to think on. Looking forward to seeing it progress

Here we are: apologies for the wait! The railway is the black dotted line running along the bottom of the valley, and there's a junction near enough in the centre...

Just NW of Usk - birthplace of Alfred Russel Wallace, who independently developed a theory of natural selection, which prompted Charles Darwin to publish his own. I'm at work at the minute, so will have to wait until tonight to post a new square, I'm afraid... Edit: here's the expanded view:

A brief entry... There hasn't been a great deal of progress with Blanche for nearly a month now - the bosses have been laminated onto the rods, and the eccentrics soldered on to the axles, but that's about it - I spent far too long getting my boots looking like black glass for Remembrance Sunday... worth it though! I'm oop north this weekend, so no physical work, but some planning has been going on - dusty areas of my brain, related to layout planning, have been blown clear of cobwebs, and the hum of electricity and whirr of cogs can be heard as life slowly returns to the mothballed machinery. Hafod Las is to have a rebuild, despite never being finished! Think of it as one of those Victorian locomotive blunders, where the offending article was covered in a tarpaulin, placed at the back of the works, and never spoken of again. The current thread is here, in the 2010 Challenge forum, but I'll either merge it into this blog or create a separate one as I come to make progress. One consideration though, is to ensure that Blanche can run on it without the unsightly holes in her frames being necessary for the pony truck. Of course, this may require a 2 mile radius (I wonder what that is, scaled to 4mm/ft?) but it's worth a try. Plus, I intend to have some better trackwork, and take better care of it during construction - the operation of some is a little iffy already. I may also seek a more reliable way of point control than badly-bodged brass wire... Anyway, enough rambling. The proposed plan is shown below, and for anyone interested, the original layout thread (on RMweb3) can be found here. Comments, advice, abuse and postal orders are welcomed.

Rich - I think it's something to do with the forum software: W&S threads don't show up on new content as far as I know... though I'll leave the rights and wrongs of that to another thread I think that they count as 'watched topics' if you click the bit in your profile that says 'watch all topics I reply to' though?

Yes, yes you do! I've got some more FR ones... just need to find them though! (Edit... and thanks! )

Well, the second installment of the Dinorwic photos have finally been shifted onto the new RMweb... Linky There are still a few other photos on the original RMweb3 thread (linked in the first post on the photo thread), but here's a sample of my poor photography of a good subject from the transferred images

As far as I can tell Keith, you're right. Over to you!

You may have seen a ghost then! As far as I'm aware, Linda's still in bits in the works could be wrong though!

Cheers Stephen, I'll give it a go!

Tom - I doubt I'll have it finished for ExpoNG! In a running condition, possibly... My camera's a fairly basic compact - a Kodak C813. I haven't had an SLR for years - the last one was an Olympus OM-10! Shake's always been a bit of a problem with me, I don't seem to have the steadiest of hands - rather odd when you consider my choice of hobby! I've been considering one of these these for a while as it'd probably do reasonably for out walking as well. The camera doesn't have a means of manually setting the ISO rating or shutter speed, though it does have a number of different modes. In a pinch, would selecting what would be a fast shutter speed (i.e. a mode such as 'sport') be of any help, assuming that I can get enough light to bear on the subject? Thanks for the help, chaps

I've just copied some photos I took last summer of Dinorwic Quarry from RMweb 3 to the NG Prototype section - http://www.rmweb.co....-quarry-photos/ As most of my photos are stuck on a half-dead hard drive, these are pretty poor quality (the maximum that the old forum would allow) even accounting for my poor photography skills. If I ever recover the originals, I'll replace them with some better ones! I will add a 'taster' here though:

Nice idea Rich - I never thought of that one You want a clue for this one?

Nice photos Tom! I like the idea of a general NG blog too - I've just made use of the shiny new 'favourites' link on the right I'm also quite tempted by the idea of the streamliner as a visiting loco for Hafod Las...

A nice summary, Simon - always enjoyed reading your Copley Hill thread on the old RMweb - looking forward to seeing some new updates on here!

Original entry: 09 October 2009 The two cylinders are both soldered up along with their cosmetic covers - photos will follow as soon as it's light! Managed to splash some solder on my face too whilst removing some of the excess that I'd managed to build up through trying to correct errors with an iron that I'm starting to suspect needs a new tip... The gearbox is also about 1/3 complete, having been folded and soldered, and had the motor mounting bracket expanded to allow the motor to be screwed in to it. I also managed to cock up the gearbox by bending the mounting piece the wrong way... I blame the fact that there were half-etch lines on both sides! (Obviously, I don't blame the fact that I wasn't paying attention) This is now corrected, but it was touch-and-go that metal fatigue would cause it to fall off. The plan is to have the gearbox finished tomorrow, and a complete rolling chassis by the end of the weekend... it may be wishful thinking, especially as I'm half planning on attending the Bedford Beer Festival tomorrow Original entry:10 October 2009 Well, that was quicker than I expected! With a minimum of fuss (especially for me) and almost no panic moments, I have a free-running 2-4-0 chassis (as opposed to the 2-2-0 of this morning ). I'm vey surprised that nothing siezed up when I was using superglue to secure the layshaft and final drive gear, as I'm pretty sure that's what killed Taliesin's power bogie... I obviously live and learn! Last night, the motor mounting plate was soldered up, as can be seen in this photo of one of my trademark bodged jigs: after this, the primary drive shaft was fitted, secured and trimmed - after spending about 5 minutes trying to fit a 1.5mm bearing onto a 2mm dia. shaft . The idler shaft and gear were loosely fitted, and I went to the pub satisfied. Post-bacon and egg banjo this morning, I trimmed the idler shaft, and went about fitting the rear axle, which was somewhat more involved - needing to be passed through the main chassis bearing, wheel, gearbox, gear, gearbox, wheel and chassis in turn... and all in a space of 12mm or so! It must have succeeded, as the chassis now looks like this: Apologies for the fairly poor photos - I always seem to have to sharpen up bits in Irfanview as the focal depth on my camera is pretty poor. Any recommendations on how to get around this would be greatly appreciated!

As would I - Colin always seems willing to help out with any inane queries that I may have too... there aren't many who'd put up with that!

Hmmm... over 24 hours, but can't tell if it's because it's really difficult or because nobody's around yet. Ask me if you want a clue!

Good luck Artizen, looking forward to seeing some photos of the boards What are you planning on building? (Era, location etc.)

Hmm... can't seem to figure out how to upload an image to an edited post. New post then! Highley: New one: Mozz - I got a fair few on the original, went away for a few weeks and couldn't stand the thought of looking through another 20 pages to see if anything had been used before

Cracked it... just north of Highley on the SVR. Give me a mo and I'll put up the square...

Evening all! Having acquired the link for the new forum and discovered that I'm one of the infamous 15%, I decided that I'd make a fresh start rather than copy across all of my old workbench! If anyone actually cares, the originals are linked in my signature. My current project is a Backwoods Blanche, in 009, being made as a 2-4-0 STT with tender cab and piston valve cylinders - as she is now, in fact. My previous attempt at a Backwoods kit went a bit awry when Taliesin's power bogie didn't want to play ball, so I decided to make a start on something with a fixed wheelbase instead, and come back to the gear train at a later point. As I'm currently trying to get a couple of cylinder wrappers soldered up, I'm going to make this a brief post, and leave a teaser of the state of affairs so far (which I don't think that I've put up on the original forum yet, so think of this as a sneak preview ) Blanche is currently running as a 2-2-0...