blueeighties

Feel free to message me with your bent bargains.

Well. In between the big change and selling mountains of stock, I have also still been trying to get some work done! Always a pleasure to have these, and work with on the bench, the Sutton class 24. Out of the box, all I have done is weather it.

4 ton. Going to struggle to fit that in me Hillman Imp.

I do wonder whether the original 56013 tooling ended up in a skip.

I have to say, sales during lockdown, and even more so, the last 2 months, have been at a record high. Thanks to everyone who has made a purchase of some description

We kick of this month with yet another Heljan 0 gauge class 25! I'm sure these things are multiplying during the night Usual recipe, ploughs, weathering, and Legoman sound.

Back to the future?!

Batch of Heljan 0 gauge class 50s on the bench today.

Hiya, I use 7/0.2 for the motors and pickups, standard 00 gauge DCC wire for the lighting, think its 0.25mm.

£53 for a MK1 coach. Good grief.

Never come across those as an aftermarket part. Scratchbuild?

New Heljan 0 gauge class 37s. Yummy

I love IKEA

Back to it.

Morning Gordon. It's Gaugemaster you need for Heljan spares. Unfortuntely they are your only option.

If I'm honest, that was my experience long before lockdown and it's associated complications.

Jigsaw time!

Well, it's been 2 very long, hard weeks of graft, and the heat has certainly not helped the last couple of days. Finishing off today, and ready for business again on Monday morning, with a nice new refurbished workshop. Just need a holiday to recover now

Lee's Locos announcement. Morning guys, I hope everyone is well. Most of you know me now, I have been trading for 7 years now, and work volume continues to grow at a vertical rate every year. When I first started out, I concentrated on N and OO gauge work, never had an 0 gauge loco on the workbench. About a year in, and it became very clear that due to the volume of 00 gauge work, I could no longer justify or manage n gauge. Fast forward another 6 years to the present day, and I now find myself in the same situation. During the last 3 years, the growth of 0 gauge work has quite frankly been scary, and will continue to do so for a good number of years due to the many upcoming new diesel releases. These new releases now come into the workshop in batches of 5, 10, sometimes much larger. I am one pair of hands, and simply cannot sustain the current volumes. So, I'm afraid I am taking the decision to drop 00 gauge repaint work. I will still offer 00 gauge sound fitting and weathering, but only if I feel it can be accomodated into the existing workload. I'm sorry if this is a pain to my previous and existing 00 gauge customers, but you all know how long turnaround times are now, I really don't want them extending any further. Thanks, Lee@Lee's Locos.

Cheers. Mrs Lee's Locos choice

Today's makeshift office

Hard to believe my teeny weeny business is 7 years young this year. The workshop has seen a few chops, changes and alterations, but the time has finally come for a major refurb. Workbench height has always been a major issue for me, so the decision was made to install electric supports that allow the benches to be set at any height. A bigger extractor is on the cards for the huge influx of 0 gauge work now handled.

The box marked TEA contained an 0 gauge class 56

So yesterday, I had a number of deliveries and collections to make. Might as well do it in style :-) Was nice to catch up with Simon George Matt Swancott, Chris Warner and John Arnold

Kitbuilt. Once the preserve of the 0 gauge world. It's a shame that there still seems to be the mentality in certain quarters, that if it's not hand carved and welded together from a sheet of brass, then it's got to be crap as it can't be a proper model. Quite franky, I say . This is the 21st century, things have changed. Life is easier with good quality RTR as a starting point. Quite honestly, if it didn't exist, I couldn't run a business. These days, constructing a kit, fettling it, painting, weathering, and then trying to fit electrical lighting and sound systems into something that was designed in a different age and not even in the designers consciousness makes the labour rate and cost of such builds unfeasable. This is proved commercially when you look at how many large kit manufacturers and service businesses still exist. Anyways, sorry for the ramble. Just made me think whilst I have been working on todays featured item. Not a kit as such, half way house actually, a Bachmann Brassworks 0 gauge class 101 DMU. Nice basic models, but just that, basic. Not a lot of detailing, no provision for fitting sound or lighting systems. This has taken an awful lot of work for such a basic 2 car model! Another thing I have discovered about this trade during the last 7 years, is the sheer diversity of folk that work within it. We all have different personalities, each to their own, some folk are capable of forming great business relationships and helping each other out, some just seem to have rather large chips on their shoulders and have too many issues to see things from a business perspective. I have never fully understood that trait, if I'm honest, grow up, shape up, stop having childish rants and let others get on with moving their business forward. It's not my fault you can't achieve what I have worked my off to do. Anyways, one such canny chap is Mr Danny Little. Danny seems to love the jobs I hate, so he did the following on this, and also the next 101 in line to be done. Cab front destination panels opened up to a better size, new surrounds made, cab driving interiors built and painted, lighting units built. Bufferbeam detail added, interior seating and passengers added. My work consisted of repainting the nose ends, Adding sound, wiring all of the internal lighting up, inter carriage electrical connections, weathering, and flush glazing the marker panels. Whilst still quite basic by current standards, I think you will agree this is now a perfectly acceptable and decent looking class 101! There are still a couple of things to do....the destination blinds were 4mm, all I had in stock, I'll replace these with correct 7mm ones when they arrive from my transfer supplier. This is getting delivered to Simon George at the weekend, so I wanted something complete. The front marker light lenses whilst seen as white on the picture, are being built up with layers of 'glue n glaze', so look a bit odd. Nearly there, and they will be finished white, as per the prototype. I could have done all of the above myself, but with a current 12 month waiting list, someone offering help and skill has helped me no end, and ensured the customer didn't have to wait as long. Thanks Danny, much appreciated mate