Hal Nail

Is it a mk2 fk?

you've just lost your audience.

I dont know in these days of outsourced production, if the manufacturers are equally at the mercy of the factory? They can specify the quality of the zinc but can they tell what has actually been used?

Lets not forget it isnt done deliberately. Like most discussions, this boils down to the almost universally overlooked problem that money doesnt grow on trees. If manufacturers were forced to fix everything we expect from 10 year old mazac rot to missing handrails and slightly wrong shape tooling, they would go bust.

yep, super ta.

Thanks! The only slight dilemma is whether to seal the powders which would lose the contrast in finish so I think for my purposes I'll just avoid touching the tops.

I got the impression at the time that people just didnt like the propulsion starting in the tender (particulary back in the days when things accelerated with a lurch). So the brake tender analogy completely misses the point. Bit of a wider point but in my long career at one company there were two ways of structuring my department and we had to put up with each new boss announcing a brilliant new way of doing things and switching back to the other one. When they asked my opinion i would say it was a waste of time, they would say i needed embrace change and I would retort, give me your bonus and i'll embrace anyone you like*. I think this phenomenon is colloquially known as progress. *this riposte actually happened in my head 3 hours later obviously.

The key is they work. I'm not sure if just putting these new ones through a buffer beam slot with little sideways play would?

I see Ellis Clark are bringing out some drop head couplings but I'm not sure how easy it would be to make them work on something the length of Mk1? I guess you could mount them on the close coupling cam (if thats the right word) that Dapol already supply although its a bit low and the existing ones work anyway. Would potentially be good for the end of rakes though.

I'm fairly sure I've seen white as well but frame dirt is probably a safe bet... Incidentally if you wanted to renumber any of these, Dapol's do come off easily with a bit of IPA and a cocktail stick.

Not half as much as its owner!

An attempt at old wood. The conflat was dapols lurid sand colour and the bolsters a much deeper brown but I started with a base of Humbrol 32 dark grey and then variations with gunmetal, frame dirt and hint of lighter grey. i alway use mr kipling pie tins as a pallett (they come in packs of 6 with a protective filling during tansport) so I mix randomly as I go. I tried a black wash but it didnt work at all and just left watermark stains everywhere which I reworked (the advantage of enamels) so need to go and read up on washes. And with some powders

I know its true and its difficult if not impossible to be definitive about precise shades - early BR crimson for example. But if someone asks what colour something was painted they probably want to know from someome who has knowledge of that, not be told it doesnt really matter becuase you cant tell. Anyway unneccessary rant on my part. People are very helpful on here and its a great resource.

Might be worth asking Steve at @railtec-models if they do this in 4mm https://www.railtec-models.com/showitem.php?id=1502

i think the jury is out on whether many actually made it to BR but they would have been in standard unfitted grey. minerva make one in BR livery as a guide: https://www.minervamodelrailways.co.uk/product/br-standard/

Its a big topic - can you be a bit more specific? BR had its own styles which were applied to coaching and wagon stock inherited. They usually retained their number but with a W before and after in the case of coaches. Loads of info here: http://www.gwr.org.uk/liveries.html http://igg.org.uk/rail/6-livy/br/9-br-4864.htm A quick search in google will allow you to look up the exact stock. Similarly Googling "4mm transfers + the item" will throw up the usual suspects: Fox, Railtec and others.

My 08 keeps derailing. Any ideas? Bloody mobile phone refused to take a photo until I was nearly past. A few hours later it had been rerailed. Eastleigh 15 June.

Why is it whenever someone asks a question about what shade something was painted, we always get the same stuff trotted out about weathering, colour perception and the degrading of film over time? Just so i'm clear, if I want to represent a rail blue loco, is it best to use dulux moody blue, bathroom eggshell range, because that accurately reflects the impact of light refraction and my ageing eyes on a rainy day through a moving train window? Or can i get away with rail blue?!

Where is the sun coming through it :) Sorted!

Essential to sustained success yes, but I'm not sure manufacturers actually look at it like that. They have a certain amount of development capital and make what will give them the best return. Hence we have had HST power cars and not enough coaches. The early things will sell anyway as it's novel - so pretty much a shot to nothing for Heljan. It will take a long time for there to be anything like a full range of stuff even if they hit it hard tho and i think people will end up just drifting back to what they had before. We will see.

Given the interest this seems to have generated, I think the 31 will sell and Heljan will make money. If i were them i wouldnt actually be rushing to do complementary stuff but another teaser in a different area (eg a steam loco) which will attract a similar level of early excitement. I wouldnt be the slightest bit surprised if at that point, people mostly go back to their existing OO or N stuff, the new 31 sits on a shelf and it all fizzles out.

Perhaps someone could start a general discussion here which, as well as the merits of the new scale, could go off on a tangent to cover GWR green, why people who can spot the differences in things are an affront to the unobservant, opening cab doors and tension lock couplings in 7mm. I was tempted to start one myself just so I could ignore it from the outset.

I mentioned a while back that Rails had 7mm bogie bolster Es on e bay at more than they are new in their sale. Inevitably what looks like one of the latter has now popped up on eBay and with several days to go is rapidly approaching what you could buy them for new. I think this reinforces the suggestion someone made recently that a lot of people only shop on eBay and simply cant be bothered to check prices elsewhere. Which suggest that perhaps the eBay madness is us not joining in this apparently lucrative selling!

You could just bid at the last second, so the time spent chasing it is a second! Flippancy aside i tend to buy it now as well.