SRman

The practice may have been frowned upon but is a boon to modellers who can't readily change the stencils or tail lamps!

A interesting project that has come out surprisingly well, considering the unpromising looking body you started with. That really is crying out for some finer wheels to be fitted. Could I also suggest (with no criticism intended) that you could improve it further by extending the straight line along the bottoms of the side tanks. Overall though I admire your skill in getting it to look like the USA tank and your imagination in even seeing it in the initial model in the first place. I'm sure I have one of those sitting in a scrap box somewhere that I haven't known what to do with.

The resistance of the motor is a bit different but with DCC you can tweak a heap of settings to get it to closely match the performance of the other brands. Try it with your existing one first.

After three days of ice packs on my face and pain killers I have had to have a root canal job on a tooth. Now that I'm recovering and feeling human again, I have pushed the G16 project a little further. I have put a temporary wheelset on the bogie and given the body a preliminary coat of black. On reading the potted history of the class in the instructions, I have realised that I need to remove the capuchon from the chimney - a few strokes of a file will fix this. I am almost ready to fit some of the small parts like the steps at the front of the footplate and te cab roof ventilator. Also before the final coats of paint go on, I need to add the wires/pipes that go diagonally from the fronts of the tanks to a position just behind those bulges over the cylinders, and add some lamp irons. The sprung LSWR buffers I have for it will go on after spray painting has been completed. At this point it seems to be moving freely so I can consider putting the motor and intermediate gear back in.

Just a thought Peter: if you can get old of a ViTrains class 47 chassis it will fit under the Lima body with very little modification. It will mainly be the cab interior that needs modding to clear the light units. The down side of this idea is that adapting the ViTrains for Kadee couplings will not be as straightforward.

It is actually a resin body for an original Merchant Navy from Golden Arrow Productions (GAP). It is mounted on a Hornby rebuilt MN chassis although I have yet to modify the valve gear properly. At the moment the body is simply tacked together to show what it will look like. Chris Meachen (of GAP) offers versions of the MN to represent most of the major variants, with two different cabs and different front end arrangements. I won this one on eBay from Chris's shop; it was offered as a second series version with 5100 gall tender body but as I had more 6000 gall tenders 'spare' I asked Chris to substitute the tender body, which he very willingly did for me. I have no connection with GAP or eBay but am a satisfied customer of both!. I currently have two other GAP products in build: a Maunsell diesel-electric shunter from the BR 15201 - 3 series (nearly finished) and an ex-LSWR G16 4-8-0 tank which is proceeding nicely. The MN will follow on from these on the workbench.

Yes, some of the earlier photo links were lost when RMweb was upgraded. I restored some but haven't got to all of them yet. Sorry about that. Thanks for the kind comment.

Hi Peter. Yes, Graham's pages are very useful indeed. Perth has had a real heatwave. Thankfully, so far, we have been spared the worst over here, although Friday is predicted to reach 39. I hope you survive it ... there must be an end in sight.

And now with the cylinders and valve gear in place.

I primed the G16 body shortly after taking those previous photos. This showed up a few imperfections so I have cleaned those up. Next stage is to spray another coat of primer. I also got brave and tackled the preliminary work on the Hornby chassis mods. I removed the works and cut the wring (it will be a complete rewire job anyway!). Swapped the crankpins between the third (geared) and second axles as per the GAP instructions then chopped off the rear 6mm from the chassis. The resin piece at the rear is a good push fit but needs to be glued on properly. Tip: Where possible, I put the screws back into their respective holes after removing components as this allows me to keep better track of which screw goes where.

Hi Mark. That looks very good. I had intended asking SWMBO for one of the 'C class locos for Christmas but Bachmann's delivery times said January so I didn't ask - I had two on pre-order from Hattons. Anyway, the SECR one turned up in November and the BR black one before Christmas so I could have asked after all! Anyway, I got a nice bottle of Jack Daniels with two fancy glasses so I'm happy ... in more ways than one! I hope you and your family had a nice Christmas and have a Happy New Year. We will be at Brian F's for New Year, together with DougN and family and John and Mary from Brunel Models. Probably get to play with Exeter Central for a bit (I haven't operated that for some time but one doesn't forget!) then we'll watch the fireworks from all around the bay. There have been a few nice LNER models released recently. DougN had some of the Hornby Gresley teak suburbans the other day (very nice too) and the Thompsons are to follow. As you say, the B17s are out and the A4 variations are hitting the shelves. Any plans to get a P2 when they are available?? I'll look forward to seeing you in the New Year. As always. you are more than welcome to call in here if you are in Melbourne. I will have to try to get out your way (I wasn't all that well last time you had an open day). Regards, Jeff.

I have cleared all te stock and track off of the hinged storage/fiddle yard board to allow me to extend the Underground's siding with another yard of track. This was glued directly to the baseboard and the buffer stop was heavily glued down to prevent any accidental overruns on what is a hidden section. I'll worry about train detection later! While I have this cleared I want to mark out and cut out the point motor holes before glueing some cork to the whole area. For the holes I will be trying out a new technque (for me!) using a hole saw ... as soon as I can locate where I have hidden my hole saw set! This, I hope, will be a lot less traumatic than drilling four corner holes and joining them up with the jigsaw. Also visible here are my latest ideas on orientation and positioning of buildings in the village area. This is still by no means the final situation.

That photo might just give me the excuse to save some money and build my Roxey 2NOL as an unpowered 'dummy' unit to use in multiple with the Hornby BIL when it comes (soon, I hope! Rubs hands together in anticipation!)

Yet another project started (while several others continue, unfinished!). I decided to make a start on my Golden Arrow Productions ex-LSWR G16 4-8-0T heavy shunter. I have cleaned up the resin body a bit and filled a couple of holes, drilled out the chimney, smokebox door and handrail holes, and glued in the smokebox 'dart' and the main handrails. The kit is designed to fit a modified Hornby Stanier 8F 2-8-0 chassis. This entails sawing off a bit from the back and mounting a resin block, adding a front extension, and shifting the valve gear and cylinders forward a bit (the valve gear operates off the second axle on the G16 but the third axle on the Stanier original). Of course there are many other details that will need to be added as I go. I have some LSWR sprung buffers to hand, a suitable whistle, and things like lamp irons will have to be fabricated and added. At least the livery will be simple - all over unlined black!

Now now Peter! You now the rules about posting pics of the real thing and pretending they're your models! That top pic of 37 428 looks particularly convincing. Very nice.

Try using a different browser. I got the problem with Internet Explorer so tried Google Chrome. Effectively, the alternative browser should not 'inherit' any history or cookies so shouldn't have the problem.

It's a double BIL for less than a double bill! Sorry!

Thanks for the Christmas wishes, Jeff. I would like to wish everyone all the very best for Christmas too. Things are now starting to cool down a little so hopefully both Rick (gwiwer) and Peter will be back to normal operations soon ... if Rick survives the black tie wedding! Regards to All. Jeff.

[whisper mode]You just talked me out of saving you from "Doing the right thing", Colin!!!! The HALs are both superb, BTW.

I doubt Pete will spend too much time on Llanbourne today; 39 degrees C predicted for today!

Finish the HAL first Colin!

Are you sure that was a BIL? It doesn't look right for a BIL but does look more like an ex-SUB motor to me. Happy to be proved wrong, though! EDIT: Ooops! Crossed Southernman's post! Beaten to the draw!

Roxey also have some etched headcode stencils (letters or numbers are available in separate packs). They are nicely etched but I did find them somewhat oversized when fitting to my Ayjay 'Tin' HAL. I'm not sure whether the etches are oversized or the Ayjay apertures are undersized.

If (we are speculating a bit here) the 2BIL mech is better it will no doubt soon become available from the spares purveyors such as Peter's Spares or East Kent Models (no connection to either). Hopefully it will be, as br-nse-fan suggests, a straight clip-in swap.

I have a Kirk 2BIL in the drawer, unbuilt! The Hornby unit should have sufficient power to haul an unmotored Kirk unit as well and if they are in different liveries the detail differences between them should be less obvious.