Trevor H

Hi Brian, Do you know if this is a modification or did they all carry it, as I was looking at a picture of D9514 and although nowhere near as clear as your excellent shot, it seems to not have the second pipe. Trevor.

Ian, Have a look at my earlier post #298 Came across the same problem and while I had it all stripped down noticed counter gear was rubbing, rectification made a huge improvement, trouble is it's not easy to get to. I also think a good running in could rectify or at least improve. Trevor

If you decide to make a day out of it sometime, perhaps we could catch up and have a beer. Will have to have another chat with Bryn, can certainly never have enough wagons, I think if I had a layout full of wagons and a shunter, I'd still be as happy as a "Pig in S**t" 2mm Trev

No probs Adam. Whilst I have the loco apart I found the counter gear had the usual sideplay and could rub against the side of the chassis which could cause it to stick. This could only happen in one direction as the endfloat would cause the gear to go push against one side of the chassis, whilst in the opposite direction the gear will naturally go to the otherside. I have fitted a small shim either side and whilst still having a bit of sideplay has rectified the problem. This could well be the reason for locos sticking in one direction, will report if I manage to get it all back together Although the loco may have a few teething problems, I must admit a lot of work has gone into it, just like the real thing I guess Trevor.

Hi Pix, I'll probably go for just moving the wheels out for the time been and see how it performs, I suppose that is one of the advantages of EM. I really didn't need this distraction at the moment, I should be modelling 2mm but mine is all in bits at the moment, I'll probably fit a Mashimi while it's all apart. Also looking at the possibility of moving the buffer beams back or moving the noses forward slightly. Have you any thoughts on the hornblock and spring detail, certainly enough room for something with a bit more depth. Trevor

Hi Adam, I'm probably been stupid but I'm confused I've also just realised why the recess is there, it's to clear the diagonal on the cab front. The pic of the one without the recess wasn't a good example as the weathering doesnt make it to clear. Trevor. ps. Adam, If your'e talking about the diagonal, I now realise what your saying

A mod I have noticed is the square recess on the long bonnet side door of the model. This seems to vary between the class and I cannot tell weather it is a mod or if others had a cover fitted, but if they did it would of have to of been well fitted, It could also be possible door changes. Locos I have so far noted carrying the recess at some time in their life are D9502/10/14/24/25/26/29/34/35/36/40/43/51 Some noted without recess are D9500/09/12/14/24/27/33 There seems to be no particular order to this, I first thought it was a mod carried out as all the pics of the class I have found, in industrial use carried the recess. Whereas less seem to have the recess in BR service, although I have a pic of D9533 brand new in Swindon Works with the recess, also D9514 was withdrawn from BR without recess but later did have it.

I think I'll be looking at fitting a Mashimi myself when I EM mine, I havn't had chance to eyeball the actual motor and it's size, but looking at the parts diagram it looks to be a similar design to the Clayton and the Mashimi's I have fitted to them improved the slow running impeccabaly. Also model may have a few inaccuracy's, but hey nothing that can't be improved and will be nice to do some good old modelling on the loco and not just be another RTR out of the box Trevor

Glad to been of help, must admit if mine hadn't been fitted I probably wouldn't of found them Just posted an order for a set of you 95'er transfers so I can get on with my chosen prototype, along with several 2mm sets Trevor

Looking at my model, this looks to be part #49 which is already fitted to mine. Trevor

Don't know if this is of help but I wrote up a list for D95xx's, on the Farish class 14 thread back in November. Reminds me I must get around to finishing a similair list for them in industrial use http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=9923 Trevor

Thanks lads, Glad the write up was all worth it, when reading it back for the first time I thought i'd gone OTT, but if it helps others take the plunge then it was worth the extra work. I certainly cannot complain about the kit, it must be a good kit because I didn't burn my fingers once and I certainly will be ordering some more to add to the collection. Is it just me or is this 2mm stuff addictive Trevor.

Over the last few days I have been building some etched brass 21t hopper wagons using the "Fence Houses" kit, which is basicaly an etch that folds up into a very nice model of the prototype. With the etch you receive a descriptive history about the prototype, an exploded diagram of how the kit goes together, along with another five pages on how to build the kit of which are very well explained, I followed the instrutions to the tee and didn't find any problems with the build. Only additional parts required are 3 hole wagon wheels & bearings, springs and axleboxes and a set of buffers all available from the 2mm Association and then some paint and transfers to complete the model. Tools needed are a craft knife for detaching the parts from the etch, pin vice and drill bits, a couple of needle files, some 145 detailing solder and flux and a soldering iron, I went for a Antex 18w which was more than efficent for the job. I also used a Hold n Fold to make all the bends, although not essential it does make life easier. The following is a breakdown of the build for anyone interested along with some photos, which I apollogise for their quality. The etch showing all the components to build a 21t hopper diag. 1/146 Building the body The body basicaly consists of two parts the hopper body itself and the internal hopper chute. The body sides need to be folded to shape, the bends been at roughly about 45 degree, whilst the internal hopper chute is at about 90 degree. We now can solder the body up, this is done best by placing upside down on a flat surface and once all is square join the end to the side, the body end fits inside the body side, you can also solder the four angled corners checking all is square, but not the very bottom parts of the chutes for now, this will be done when fitting the internal part of the hopper chute. I found it best if you went around tacking it a bit at a time and checking all was in the right place, then when satisfied all was square and flat you can solder all the joints up. I then fitted the internal part of the chute and adjusted so all was a snug fit and no gaps with the hopper body and the doors were in their closed posistion, once happy all was soldered in place. The next job was to fit the side stanchions, this is a double thickness etch which is tinned on the inside, folded over then sweated together, the tabs are left on between the two halves to hold all in place whilst sweating the two parts together. These are then tinned on the back and with the hopper body upside down and sat flush on a flat surface, with the stanchions held in the right place they are sweated onto the hopper sides, again I found it easier to do a bit at a time starting with the top rail checking all was in it's correct posistion as i went along. Their is some overhang at each end of the top rail, do not remove this until after the end stanchions have been fitted. We now do the same with the end stanchions making sure the slots in the lower legs are on the outside when the two halves are joined together, this slot will help locate the end suports when fitted later in the build. These end stanchions need the two lower legs folded on their etch line to follow the angle of the hopper, to do this i found it easiest to sweat the two halves of the toprail first so all was flush then to bend the two lower legs to the correct angle, once happy with the angle I then sweated the lower halves ot the legs together. Once happy all was a snug fit and with the hopper body upside down on a flat surface I soldered the end stanchions to the body starting at the top rail first and making sure the two slots for the end suports were on the outside. Once fitted the excess top rail from the side stanchions can be gently filed flush with the end top rail, would sugest when doing any filing that you give the body a quick rinse under the tap to remove any flux residue first, otherwise your needle file will be clogged up in no time. The next job is to fit the gussets, this is done in the same way as the stanchions by tining the inside of the two halves then then folding and sweating together, their are also two modified gussets on the etch with the 45 degree angle for those who need to fit them on the centre stanchion as was to be found on the prototype in a later period. Once the gussets have been doubled up it is worth cleaning the edges up with a file so they are a good fit, the bottoms of the gussets need to be flush with the bottom of the gap between the two chutes, this is worth a few dry runs to get it right before soldering in place. Once fitted you can gently run a file over the bottom of the gussets if required to get them all level and also file the excess from the bottom of the stanchion, this will all determine the height of the wagon when fitted to the chassis later in the build. Finally you need to sweat the basher plates on to the sides of the hopper body, this will dependent on your chosen prototype as not all were fitted with them. At this stage the body can have a good clean and be put aside whilst we now turn to the chassis. Building the chassis The next job is to build the chassis, at this stage it is worth running a 0.3mm drill through all the etched holes to check clearances, whilst you may also need to open the holes for your wheel bearings, check with a dry run. After removing the main chassis from the etch you need to bend the half etched part of the the two internal cross members down to about 45 degree, these will eventualy join to the hopper ends. You also need to bend the two sides with W irons down at 90 degree, followed by the buffer beam and then solder wheel bearings in place. Fit wheels and check all is square on a flat surface and if happy solder in corners between buffer beam and sides and then check all is still square with all four wheels touching the floor. Next job is to bend the brake unit at 90 degree and fit this to the chassis, this can only go one way round due to the slot and tab method so it should be impossible to get it backwards. It is a good idea to have wheels in place when fitting to brake unit to chassis and to thread a piece of 0.3mm brass rod through the vee hangers and brake unit with plenty of spare either side to fit the brake levers later in the build, when all is in posistion lightly tack the brake unit to the chassis and check you have equal clearances between wheels and brake blocks, otherwise adjust to suit and when happy solder unit in place. The brake lever cam found on the one side of the chassis needs to be bent to shape which is aided by the two half etched lines and the footstep need to be folded up. Next job is to fit the inner chassis channels, these have a small cut out to fit over the brake unit and slot and tabs at the ends, these need to be soldered 90 degree to the chassis floor. Next job is to make up the solebars, these are double thickness and are made up in the same priciple as the side stanchions you made earlier for the hopper body. The etched tail is for the brake lever guide and needs to be cut at the right place from the main etch, this is important and is clearly explained in the instructions. These can now be fitted to the chassis, to save less chance of damage I have bent up the brake lever guide and fitted it through the hole in the solebar, but havn't soldered it in place yet as i need to fit the brake lever in place, their is also a small strap at the bottom of the lever guide which is bent to the right angle and fitted to the bottom of the W iron. At this stage I would fit chosen axleboxes and springs, but I dont have these at the moment, then bend and fit the two brake levers, so I will omit these for now and fit later. Also the door operating levers will need to be fitted, I opted for the ones without the half etched lines which should be substansialy stronger. You can also fit the coupling hook and backplate and your chosen buffers at this time if you wish or you could leave till later in the build. Fitting the hopper body to the chassis Now we're getting near to the final assembly, firstly if you havn't done so check your chassis is still all square, then with a few dry runs test fit the hopper body to the chassis, If it sits too high (there should be no sign of the central cut out above the chassis), this could be down too three things, a) the half etched part of the inner cross member is stopping the hopper from going down, b) the gussets sit too low and this can be rectified by gently filing the bottom of the gussets until corrected, or what I kept finding was c) the bottom of the legs on the two end stanchions was siting on the inner cross member, again a gentle filing off the bottom of the end stanchions soon rectified this. Once happy with the fit turn hopper body upside down and fit chassis, I tack soldered where the half etched cross member meets the underside of the hopper body, then checking all was square between chassis and body at sides and ends and that all four wheels were touching, I then just soldered at the point where I had tack soldered earlier, when the end supports are fitted later this will be more than enough to hold the two parts together Next job was to fit the end suports, I tinned the edges and fitted in the slots in the chassis floor and the slots in the end stanchions mentioned earlier, I found it best to fit one at a time then checking the chassis was still square and all the wheels were touching the floor, then if there was a problem it would probably be the down to the support I had just fitted. Once all fitted it was time to fit the etched handrails which are bent to shape as per my photo and fitted in their appropriate holes, do not bend the end of the longest part of the handrail as this needs to be threaded through the two holes on the end supports first and one of the longer brackets fitted before bending to shape, once happy all is square and straight the handrail can be soldered and the excess cut from inside the hopper body. Finally if not fitted earlier you need to fit buffers and coupling hooks, then a final clean up before painting and weathering. Well that was my insight to building the "Fencehouses" 21t hopper, which followed the instuctions as laid out. All the three kits I purchased have now been built, the first one took a couple of evenings which is the norm when building a different kit, but by the time I got to the third one I had put it together in one evening and if you follow the instructions you cant go wrong. The kit went together and all the parts fitted as they were meant too, which is more than can be said for many kits I have built over the past in larger scales! and I will certainly be purchasing a few more to add to my collection. Wow!! sorry for going on, this write up took a lot longer than expected, infact longer than it took to do the third kit. Trevor

Very efocative Andy and nice to see you now have a signature loco for Keyhaven. Always enjoy looking at this layout!

Thanks Bryn, I know someone who will find that very useful , nice breakdown. It probably says in the instructions, but is their a set distance on how far the coupling should stick out from the wagon, I see on yours the the buffing plate is a slightly proud of the buffers. I suppose it also depends on how tight a radius you have on the layout, on how close a coupling you can get away with. Cheers Trevor.

Hi, I must say I suprised myself how easy it was, after only working in larger scales before, mainly C&L or copperclad, I thought the 2mm would beat me, just because of it's sheer size, but must admit I found it a real pleasure to work with. The rail slid onto the wooden sleepering with ease, without the aid of the jig to make the flexitrack, I think if building concrete track the jig would probably be required due to the size of the chairs. I found the points were no more difficult than making a C&L point in EM and actualy with using the 2mm association crossing jigs It was probably easier Trevor

Just to update the progress on the layout. All the pointwork is now in, just needing the odd cosmetic chair and sliding chairs to be fitted, which I'll leave for a few days until it's all settled down, the mainline and crossover is also completed and has worked well with it's sweeping curve. I stiil need to lay the plain track for the five sidings but I want to work out the building sizes first so I can work around them. And for those not familiar with 2mm, a few tools available from the 2mm Association to make the job a lot easier: Various track gauges Jig for making Vee's available in various angles Crossing Jig for holding parts together whilst soldering the crossing together And finally although I used individual sleepers you can make your points directly on to these milled sleeper tunouts which are available for various points. Some links from the 2mm Association on assembling Easitrak http://www.2mm.org.u...trac/index.html http://www.2mm.org.u...ction_Guide.pdf http://www.2mm.org.u.../TOU/index.html Saturday 2/01/10 Meanwhile for a change from tracklaying and to give me chance to decide on the exact posistioning of building, It gave me the chance to start fitting the Tortoise point motors. These are fitted in my normal way and not too disimilar on how Bryn has done his, although his are a lot posher with his been adjustable . http://www.rmweb.co....__fromsearch__1 Previously I fixed nickel silver wire to the point blades, which drop through the baseboard and connect to the point motors. In larger scales it is easy to solder these to the sides of the blades, but in 2mm their Is'nt as you havn't as much area to solder too, I opted for 0.5mm rod and with a bit of tidying up their is enough clearance for the wheel flanges. The next job was to fit the Tortoise adaptor plates, these are a really simple/clever idea available from Exactoscale and are only about a fiver for a pack of five, they have got me out of a few tricky corners in the past when the Tortoise wouldn't fit into the available space and again have proved their worth today. The Tortoises and adaptor plates were from an old 7mm layout I once had, so a saving was made on outlaying for new ones, problem was I'd opened the holes to fit a larger gauge piano wire, so when fitting the original piano wire it was too sloppy and just didn't work, so I opted for something in between. First job was too fit two pieces of 1/16" brass tube in the slider bar these would go up through the base board and sit about 1mm below trackbase, then the 0.5mm rod fitted to the point blades would fit inside the tube. With the brass rod'd ID been about 0.9mm, this gave it a bit of play which was good as I wanted to have a bit of sideplay and not put all the pressure on the 0.5mm rod which would be the most fragile point of the operation. Before fitting the Tortoise motors I always elongate the the screw mounting slots, this allows the Tortoise too have about 2mm of sideplay adjustment, which is helpful in getting the points blades in a central posistion, I have also made the hole in the slider bar a bit oversize to give me a touch more play, although this would probably not be needed if using the original piano wire as it is quite flexible. Another problem I had was the lack of space available to fit the Tortoises, due to the baseboards been at different levels. Thankfully before starting baseboard construction I glued the Templot trackplan down, this gave me the chance to workout where the point motors could be fitted and where the baseboard bearers could go. But even then I knew a couple would not fit in the normal way and instead of been able to fit the Tortoises to the side of the point with the slider, they would have to be fitted directly over the point itself. I got around this by shortening the slider bar so it operates inside the base, this also required lengthening the slot in the adaptor base, an easy modification. And finally a shot of the baseboard with the trail of Tortoises fitted. Just got to remember when I get to the ballasting stage to remove them all, otherwise the PVA will get into every moving part. Trevor.

When I first posted the link, I too did a bit of research against the info i had and come to the outcome that it was more likely to be D6. It wouldn't be D1 as that had green grilles the same as the body colour, where as D6 had them in light grey as the pic. D8 also had light coloured grilles but in photo I have showing only part side on, it still has it's stripe and you cannot see the front end, sometime in 1971 presuming the dates are correct. 7 had lost it's D's before this date, so can't imagine it receiving new ones at a later date, whilst another shot dated 1972 shows it too still be GSY Looking at the pics Dave has shown, you cannot really tell by the nameplates as they were both about the same amount of letters, but the loco still has its D's and data panel fitted in the normal position, so i would say it was D6, but would love to be proved wrong! Shame it wasn't showing the otherside of the loco because D6 had had its D removed on No.2 end Trevor

I'd guestimate D3884

I'm sure it does! It's these little things (dont think i can spell annomolly) that make livery variations so Interesting, we just need someone to find a piccy now Trevor.

Hi Chard, Only just come over. Thanks for the links, as mentioned Railbrit always seems a bit awkard to follow. Love the shot of 5511 on the Waverley, would love to find some pics of it on the West Highland though. My Particular favourite is this shot, which is 5335 still with it's white embelishments and class 27 engineroom door fitted. http://www.railbrit....e2.php?id=26157 Trevor.

No probs Pete, It is a bit strange running a normal thread and a blog alongside each other, but it does give the chance for people to Interact in the layout thread, whilst the blog can be broken down to showing just the progess, for those who don't want to scroll through lots of pages, I do say Andy Y has got this right. Looking at peoples work on their layouts I'm very much looking forward to Expo, some excellent work indeed Cheers Trevor.

Thanks for that Bryn, Stafford it is then, much more enjoyable than Warley

Thankyou all for your comments. I've gone the Easitrac route as can be seen on the second page, I must say it was a real joy to work with. I really want to see Stephen Harris's layout, It was at Trainwest a few years back but I couldn't get their as it clashed with something else, I hear it maybe at Warley next year (2010) so may have to make a special trip too see it then. Cheers Trevor.

Hi Pete, There is a trackplan and description of the layout on the first page, but basically it is end to end with a 4' x18" scenic area. The layout is based in South Wales around 1969/70 so quite a bit of coal traffic, my loco roster is a cl08, Hymek, 4x cl37's, Warship and a cl47, so a bit of variety. I also have a layout thread article, which is quite active http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/6363-2mm-layout-based-in-south-wales/ Cheers Trevor