Daddyman

I haven't built any build bogie locos for some years, Chas, but, yes, they'd have to be - wait for it - sprung, which would probably involve dropping the wheels out. With your proven ingenuity, you should be able to rig up a bolt-on keeper plate for the bottom of the bogie, to which the springs (guitar wire rather than NS wire?) are soldered; then, to get the wheels out, you just unscrew the keeper plate. Here's what the Comet bogies look like. I don't have a photo of a made-up one with the keeper wires in place. - maybe someone else has? I won't say which kit manufacturer's bogie I bought this to replace as I'll get into trouble 😉 P.S have you thinned the w/m bogie frames to within an inch of their lives? All stick-on bogie frames are too wide, but that can be mitigated with some work with a file.

Hello. Looking for some advice. I've just sold an item on ebay - the second one in a week. The first one went for £95, out of which ebay chomped about a tenner, and then when I went to post it I was told that in order to have the parcel insured over £20 I'd need to pay £9.50 postage. Given the state of the mail (around here at least, where I'm currently seeing a postman every ten days and both the poor old postman and post office have actually told me not to post anything second class), I thought it was best to go for the insured version, which meant my take-home from the sale was £75-ish. I've just sold something else and would rather not have the RM taking such a big bite out of my winnings. Any ideas? I've never tried non-RM postal services - are they worth a go? Is there a better RM service? - I note a lot of talk of £3.29 on this page.

In haste as I have to go to shirk, but can't you open the axle holes downwards fully so that they are slots and retain the wheels with wire retained at the centre boss on its underside - à la Comet loco bogies?

Is it the one who ruins every thread on RMWeb, Mick? 😉 I see he's responded to one of my posts in this thread, but I've had him on ignore for years - highly recommended! On other matters, I take people's point that I've been too quick to write PDK off, and should have approached him before doing so. Seems he's trying to do the right thing by customers.

So the OP was right - I've only muddied the waters, sorry!

Mick's said he's OK with this discussion so I'll answer these points without fear of hijack. Checking emails, I bought the kit in 2017 and started it this year. You're right that the first port of call should perhaps be the kit producer, but I've had no luck doing this in the past. The usual answers are "can't do anything, sorry", "no one else has said anything", "it's always sold well". Or the good old "I can't check every kit"! Sorry? You literally individually wrap each etch sheet for each kit in tissue paper and place each one individually in a box, and you can't inspect the etches? Given this inevitable close contact with the etches during the wrapping process, I could only draw one conclusions, and there seemed little point in contacting the kit producer, especially since, as said, some time had lapsed.

Only guessing here, but could it be that the letter after gas is a "D" for date or due, and that the nearer lettering then reads EHD for "electric heating date/due"?

By the same token, it would have been nice if you'd inspected the kit before sending it out - especially since, as the second sentence of your post implies, you knew about the problem. My reason for not contacting you was that I started the kit quite some time after buying it. Even now, you only say the kit has a new chassis and cab interior, which hardly addresses the misalignment problem.

If I remember correctly, the concrete plant was beyond the end of the Light Railway proper, whose terminus was at Lofthouse, so the loco perhaps can't be counted as having worked on an LR.

Now sold.

A trick picked up from Ian Rathbone is to use Copydex as masking fluid. Much easier to use than Maskol and lasts much longer.

On the last PDK kit I bought, a D49, the two slides of the etch weren't aligned properly, so each component has a layered effect with a cusp running round the upper part of every edge on one side, and the lower part of every edge on the other side. If you file the cusps off, as I started to do, you lose critical dimensions and characteristic shapes. It's fit only for the bin. So that's yet another LNER kit-maker on the "never again" list...

For sale here is a Hatton's class 66 in EWS livery. A start has been made on renumbering the loco, so it's ideal for someone who wants to continue that work and fancies one of these at a bargain price. The number and EWS logo has been removed on one side, and gloss varnish applied in preparation for numbers. Alternatively, it could form the basis of a full repaint. As is normal with these models, one or two parts have come adrift, and the grab handles below the cab doors have been removed with a view to replacing them with finer wire. Price is £75 plus £5 contribution to postage.

For sale here is a Hatton's Barclay "Katie" which has seen little use other than testing. It comes with the detail bag and in all original box and packaging. Price is £80 + £5 postage contribution.

For sale here is a Hornby Peckett with some RT models detailing parts. The flimsy Hornby safety valves have been replaced with metal ones from RT Models, and included in the box are a replacement lost wax brass whistle and dome in case the buyer wishes to fit them. Original box, instructions and packaging. £75 + £5 contribution to postage. Offers considered.

For sale here a reworked Hornby Class 60 as Transrail 60034. It was done for my own fleet so to a high standard and the Hornby one is still a good model. Features include: Subtle, prototypical pattern weathering Authentic markings for Transrail livery Details such as pale blue compressor, 40B shedplates, nameplate on one side only Pipes at one end, tension lock at other £100 + £5 contribution to postage. Replacement box.

Another point to bear in mind is that the photo of 37111 has captured the side that's in the shade. Maybe look at photos of locos in the wild, with the sun on them? Meskell book 2 has some very accurate portraits of banger blue with the WH sun on it.

I think "faded" colours out of the tin always look wrong, and Railmatch's are worse than most. What happened to rail blue on the WHL in the early 80s is that it darkened rather than faded - probably absence of sun and, if I recall, no washing plant at ED; clapped-out East Anglian rejects wouldn't have helped cleanliness either. I'd be using standard rail blue, and then apply a dark airbrushed filter coat aka exhaust filth on the top half and frame dirt on the lower. Leave fading for 08s.

Good find! They're the wrong size, though. But the torpedo vents are the best I've seen.

Ah, you too. With me it was "No, I have to move that vee hanger half a mill along the solebar; I can't live with it."

I understand what you mean about the corner and the double beading, Chas. Note that the sides do and don't bow out from the ends - the top part of the sides is actually flat, but is set at an angle from the vertical; the lower part of the sides then bends in to get back to where they started from. I'm sure you've realised all this. Re the frame to the etch, I think it might it might prevent you rolling the sides properly as it's thicker than they are - you could, though, leave the top one without that happening. If you're worried about the fragility of the sides after rolling, yes, that's legitimate, but you can just solder strips of scrap across the apertures to remain there through the building process until the sides are secured by the floor - as people often do on cab apertures on steam locos (and you yourself have possibly done?).

A nice neat build, and a useful record for others - in a way that the instructions should have been.

Nice Christmas carol, Chas! I can see why you work in music. I did the tumblehome on mine without much trouble, and even though mine is brass, it's 15 thou and very hard, so won't be much less trouble than your NS. The apertures don't make much difference. I would just say get it done with as few passes as possible of whatever you're using to roll it with, as it's only going to get harder from being worked. I think I used a 24mm brass tube on a mouse mat (with, appropriately, Beckett's "try again, fail again, fail better" line on it), but it doesn't have to be that exact diameter as you can roll it back if you over-roll. I did get parts of the side (the last few cm at each end) with a sharper bend than the centre, but that can all be evened out by rolling over the outside (which you may have to do anyway as the curve is so shallow), or even with finger pressure; what matters is that it's smooth, and the bend is straight along the whole length. What will help, and a trick I'd forgotten at the time, is to have a piece of card (the backing from a backed envelope, say) under the centre section of the sides - say 60% of it; this will stop the ends of the sides rolling sharper than the middle.

Yes, but what metal will do for professional builders and what it will do for mortals are two different things. It's like the metal doesn't dare misbehave for them. This is one of Mike's kits. You can see, I think, the replacement brass roof, curving down to meet the windows. As the kit was designed, the sharp curves when cab front and rear meets roof were part of the 15 thou cab front and rear; the roof was a separate part, possibly half-etched with rivets. "Take care not to buckle the windows when forming the curve" the instructions said - yeah, right. There were even etched guide lines for bending and I still couldn't get it to budge - the half mill or so full thickness above the windows before the guide lines started just buckled every time. So I made all three curves in 10 thou brass and added Railtec rivets over the roof once the primer was on. The light and shadow here shows how deep and crisp and even I got the bend; I had no chance of getting that building the kit as intended: Your reading of the reason for half-etched NS being so hard makes sense to me, but I have no knowledge of such things.

I wouldn't believe much of that: the N/S pug tank above was annealed and worked OK and is to a standard that, I suspect, most people would be happy with (I wasn't), judging by the pugs I see. And most of Mike Edge's kits these days seem to be in N/S, and he says that they can be annealed - it doesn't work for me, and as said I just replace the parts in brass. Maybe I don't get it hot enough - or too hot. But if you can get Mike's technique to work for you, you might have some success; I know he does speak about re-annealing if necessary during the bending process. Couldn't you try on a strip from the edge of the etches? It's true that it might not give you much of an indication of how the half-etched cab fronts would behave. It's always been the half-etch stuff that's caused me problems - does the etching process harden it somehow?