Ressaldar

Mike, the real 'give-away' for me is that dreadful drawhook (which looks like no drawhook on any mainline locomotive that I have ever seen) that appears on all the models from the San Cheng Crafts factory.  Randolph Chang did know about them, because it had been pointed out to him many times, but he said that his casters had 'helpfully' cast tens of thousands of them when they had a brief slack period.  Ho-hum.   David

Hi David,

yes. I agree, but it is not quite as obvious as the crankpins.

regards

Mike

While relaxing with a glass of amber nectar from North of the Border last Saturday evening after the journey back from Doncaster, I was browsing eBay and was more than pleasantly surprised when I saw a photo of Terrier finished in exactly the same way as I had done over ten years ago on a SanCheng model - plain black livery with sunshine lettering and heavily weathered as 32644. I had to look very hard to convince myself that it was not the same model and checked with photos that I had taken prior to selling it. The only noticeable difference was the crankpins not being the SanCheng type. 

I bought it and it was delivered on Tuesday in time for me to give it a good run at the Club in the evening. A sound decoder was ordered from Digitrains on Wednesday which was delivered on Thursday morning, fitted after lunch followed by a good run in the evening.

I had emailed the seller on Wednesday morning to let him know that it had arrived safely and explained the coincidence with the SanCheng model. In his reply he explained that when he bought the Dapol model he wanted to do 32644 and the only colour photos that he could find were of my model on RMweb, it is nice to know that pictures that you post are looked at and worthy of being used for reference purposes.

 

SanCheng 2008

 

Dapol 2018

regards

Mike

Are these 1964 photos any help for detail/atmosphere?

 

sca015.jpg

 

sca016.jpg

 

Cheers

 

Dave

Hi Dave,

Many thanks for posting the phots, they are a great source of detail, I will certainly be referring to them when I come to the detailing stage.

I notice that you are from Brockley - I lived in Shardiloes Road as a nipper in the 50s, no doubt a few changes have taken place over the intervening years!

Regards

Mike

Mike

 

Back in Kent, just to say thanks for the warm welcome at the Wirral O Gauge open day today

 

Good to see the track, New Brighton is certainly coming on - very impressive!

 

Thanks again

Simon

 

Hi Simon,

 

yes, it was great to meet up again and glad that you enjoyed what you saw, we are certainly proud of what has been achieved so far.

 

The day did not end so well for me, my Lionheart Mogul started causing shorting when traversing the pointwork of New Brighton, for no apparent reason. All other locos ran through the same points with no bother at all. I tried the Mogul without tender and seemed fine as did the tender by itself, but when connected by the umbilical cord, shorting started again. I then ran the engine by itself again and it just packed up. So I have some deep investigation to do tomorrow, once I have masked off the buffer beams of the 4MT tank and wafted the satin black around for a few minutes.

 

regards

 

Mike

Any clues from those pics as to whether Hattons' release dates for the Sentinel (Sep/Oct) and 45xx (Jul/Aug) are on track? 

no idea on the Sentinel, the Prairie is not likely to appear before next Spring as I understand it. The 122 could be late Autumn this year followed quickly by the 121.

regards

Mike

I collected this example of a Diag 1/552 Inspection Saloon as running in the mid 1980s from Easybuild at Doncaster yesterday

the transfers are by Precision Decals (John Peck)

the only available means of propulsion at present, but Rule 1 applies until I can obtain a 47 or 31 in Blue!

regards

Mike

Any sign of the Lionheart pre-production BR Mk 1's please.

here are a few pictures taken with my Nokia 3 yesterday

hope that this helps.

regards

Mike

Careful though as that's an LMS version. BR design ones had two end windows, the LMS design had three.

 

 

 

 

Jason

Hi Jason,

That Inspection Saloon is from BR Diag 1/550, (numbered DB999501 - 5) which was based on the LMS Diag D2046. The main difference was that in the small saloon, the left hand side window and door configuration was altered from window/door/window to window/window/door, to be a mirror image of the right hand side. Another difference was that the centre window in the ends was retained but was a fixed light as opposed to the LMS drop light.

Regards

Mike

just to round things off, here are a couple of shots (taken on the phone) of the coaling stage in place on the layout



that is a GWR 7 plank wagon in front of the Pecket. The turntable will eventually be sited where the Sidelines box is currently located

 

The lower track is the second line off of the turntable, with the right hand branch off the point going to the Engineer's siding and just off picture is another point where the right hand branch goes off to the shed. A great deal still to do!

regards

Mike

Post #11 edited to include the paragraph (immediately above the photos) that 'went AWOL' during the cut & paste routine.

regards

Mike

Hi Steve,

many thanks for your comment, much appreciated.

regards

Mike

New

I bought a packet of Woodland Scenic's 'Burnt Grass' flock whilst shopping yesterday with a view to using to represent clumps of moss on the roof areas. I had plenty of time before the Aviva rugby final kick off at Twickenham, so I set to - diluted down Glue 'n Glaze, a flat 8mm wide artists brush, the flock in an old 'take away' carton for easy access and a 25mm wide x 75mm strip of brass shim to dispense the flock and the nodel sitting on three thicknesses of tissue paper large enough to give me a 100mm margin all round to catch the overspill. The glue was dabbed on the roof in a freestyle manner such that there would be small clumps of moss all over the area, The flock was sprinkled on and the whole roof was covered so enabling the glue to creep through by capillary action, and the glue could dry while I enjoyed the rugby and dinner.

I returned to the model after about four hours, ample time for the glue to go off, especially in the summer heat that we have been enjoying. I lifted the model to the front of the tissue paper and carefully tipped it up to allow the excess flock to collect on the paper below. So far so good. The tissue paper was carefully rolled into a ball and placed in the waste paper basket and I then saw the 'damage' that I had done - the so called moss clumps would have been more in scale in G3 - I had put too much glue down and the capilliary action had spread in all directions and I was faced with a roof covered in green measles!

My remedial plan was to rub off all of the clumps, care had to be taken as the roof material is a thin corrugated cardboard and the last thing I wanted to do was to have to replace the whole thing! Fortunately, the Mk 1 thumbnail proved to be the tool of the moment and after much thumb rubbing followed by brushing with a very stiff flat artists brush, I was happy with the result. A couple of coats of a very thinned down 'Frame dirt' wash followed and this is the result:

 

 

 

 

whilst studying various GWR coal stage photos on Flickr, I noticed that on some tanks there were numerous signs of rust, this gave me the answer to the problem of the airbrush splatter that had occurred on the final pass with the 'Roof Dirt', so a very careful application of Railmatch acrylic 'Light Rust' was carried out and hopefully another problem solved.

All that remains now is the staircase which will be attached when the model is placed on the layout - which may be some time in the future as I want to get on with a couple of Inspection Saloons - what else!, that have been shelf queens for far too long .

regards

Mike

The airbrush was out this morning for the base coat - Roof Dirt

 

the detailing will be started on Sunday.

regards

Mike

Hi Simon,

appreciate your suggestion and will give it some thought - it could be the start of a whole new era to install lighting on the layout!

regards

Mike

The model is now fully assembled with the exception of the guttering to the rear canopy and the chute canopy, the positioning of the stairs and lastly, the central column in the main aperture at the back that held the tank up! and painting is underway,

 

 just needing some significant weathering. The semi-engineering blue brick has come out very blue - don't know why as it looks correct 'in the flesh'. A mixture of enamels and acrylics have been used, as well as good old Halford's red oxide primer for the main brick colour. The roof colour is Railmatch acrylic 'Worn tarmac' which seems to be just right for the pre-weathering stage. The tank is JLTRT Coach Cream, which again looks much brighter than it is.

The tank is still 'fitted' over the main walls, which in turn are 'fitted' to the base plate.

More to come soon.

regards

Mike

If you enlarge the view in the second picture in post #7 it shows that there is a mortar bed half way down the upper element which means that there are two course there - flush faced. To achieve the corbelling, the bricks must be laid as ‘headers’ otherwise there would be nothing bearing down on the course below and brought forward from the course below by less than half the length of the brick otherwise there would be no strength in the bond. This also means that the bricks laid behind the upper courses would also be headers to achieve the overall strength of the bond.

Regards

Mike

Hi Simon,

glad you like it. Went together much much better than the Timber Tracks kit. A great way to welcome back the mojo!

regards

Mike

A very long time since my last meaningful post - please put it down to frustration at not having the mojo to do any modelling during a very tiresome winter!

Anyway, today the sun is shining again - 5th day of cloudless skies here on the Wirral Peninsula, the weeding is done and to get me back into a modelling mindset I have started the Intentio coaling stage based on the Slough prototype. I drew up a set of plans for this over ten years ago and when I read that Phil was going to produce a kit, I had to have one for 'Hadlow Road' (those of you with long memories will recall that I built the Timber Tracks 'typical Churchward' GWR kit a couple of years ago, well that is now residing on the Club's Moss End MPD layout) so my order was placed and I duly received the goodies in the post.

The kit comes with a set of exploded diagrams rather than a set of instructions and the only thing to sort out is sequence of construction - it is very easy to build yourself into a blind alley if you do not have as near a full dry run first and that should solve any sequencing problems.

I decided to put one of the inner ends on to the suspended floor, followed by the other end and then use the baseplate for support while the glue (I have used Deluxe @Glue 'n Glaze} went off, followed by the back wall and then the front. This module was put to one side and the water tank constructed on its own base, which when dry was test fitted on top of the main structure and all lined up without any problems. The whole model was laid aside over lunch and then the side and front wall detailing was added, once the roof had been removed to make handling easier. The outstanding part of this kit (and others in the range I believe) is that the splayed bricks really are splayed and that just finishes the brickwork off a treat.

 

I will be priming the model 'as is' and paint the window frames, doors etc before fixing them in position. The tank top, stairs etc will be added once the model is painted.

All in all, a very pleasing days work, no tools were used at all, which in itself must be something of a record and a testament to Phil's work on the design and production of the kit. No connection with Intentio, just a very satisfied customer.

regards

Mike

A new form of traction was trialed today on the Withercombe branch, after spending the morning wiring it, this Westdale Class 121 DMU is now controlled by Bluetooth & is driven using my mobile phone   [/size]

 

20180506_173315.jpg[/size]

That is one hell of a picture Phil, certainly gets the juices going and gets the mojo back on track, many thanks for posting.

Hope to see you at Doncaster.

Regards

Mike

Just need to release the Loadhaul one too

Probably the easiest -Departmental' to do as the Guards area was not touched, only a few windows 'blocked off'. The 121 to Sandite/Route Learner' conversions are a bit more involved,although with an underfloor motor/gearbox arrangement (instead of the Bachmann vertical motor in the Guards compartment making things difficult) the Guards area replaced by seating will be a lot easier, leaving only the.louvre panels in lieu of some windows to contend with. All in all though interesting times ahead.

regards

Mike 

I ordered a bottle last Thursday and it arrived this morning - many thanks Simon.

regards

Mike

Hi Robin,

unfortunately, Heljan have only used two coloured wires, so you just have to disconnect them from the PCB - which becomes redundant, and using a 9v battery test each pair to see what lights up and attach a label for your reference. From memory, the 'common +' wire is black, so that becomes the blue wire in the photos above = pin 15.

Pin 7 white wire, is the rear light

Pin 8 yellow wire, is the front light

Pins 9 & 10 mauve wires, are for the speaker

Pin 13 green wire, is the internal light

Pin 14 mauve wire, is the cab light

Pin 15 blue wire, is the common return

Pin 17 orange wire, is the + terminal on the motor

Pin 18 grey wire, is the - terminal on the motor

Pin 20 red wire, is the + terminal from the track

Pin 21 black wire, is the - terminal from the track

There is no need to use the supplied switch as the on/off function is controlled by the decoder.

You will have to lengthen some already fitted wires as the adaptor board is 'single ended'

I hope that this is of help, come back if you have any further queries.

regards

Mike

There is a posting on the Gauge 0 Guild forum that JLTRT will not be attending Kettering on 3rd March, their stand will instead be occupied by Intentio Laser cut buildings.

regards

Mike

The running session last night was very successful and the model was well received by the other members, the main comment being - bring on the DMUs

W55991 leaving the Intentio service shed on the Wirral O Gauge Group's 'under construction' layout Moss End MPD

Here as promised, a couple of shots of the adaptor board with the wires attached

and one with the Zimo MX644D in place

The leaflet that came with the adaptor board was in German and there seems to be a slight conflict between the annotated diagram and the chart that follows the diagram. I will contact SWD to discuss and report back

regards

Mike

Gosh, I did not know there were solder pads for 150 lengths of wire on the adapter plate.

Hi TTG,

don't get too excited - I soldered the wires onto the pads to make the connections to the existing wires less of a fiddle. I will take some photos tomorrow.

regards

Mike