2mmMark

I've got a couple of sprues of those figures. They good enough to pass muster even nowadays plus they have the advantage of being a variety of body shapes and sizes. It's quite possible they were moulded in house. In style, they're more like the Airfix 4mm scale figures from the same era as they have the traditional massive circular paving slab moulded to their feet. That might be why more people travelled by train in those days. Driving a car with that attached to your feet would be.... ambitious!

Following on from the previous entry, I made a mount for the 6mm by 15mm motor using various bits of brass tube. A length of ¼" bore tube was sliced lengthways and closed up slightly so as to grip the motor body. Then two layers of brass cut from successive size tubes were soldered on to match the curve of the original motor top frame. Finally the top of the motor mounting tube was tapped 14BA for a fixing screw. There were enough layers of brass to provide a usable thread without the screw biting into the body of the motor. The worm was pushed onto the 0.8mm to 1.5mm converter shaft and the shaft fixed to the motor using thread-locking liquid, as recommended by Sven at Tramfabriek. A piece of cigarette paper was used to provide clearance and stop the liquid seeping in the motor bearing. The motor frame was assembled ready for refitting to the chassis. A quick test run show that everything ran smoothly. Unfortunately, when the motor frame was refitted to the chassis, I found the chassis ran superbly in one direction but was very rough in the other. I had several tries to fix this, moving the worm slightly in either direction, tweaking the mesh slightly and so on. Frustratingly nothing I tried worked. I then replaced the worm with a longer one and removed the white front bearing. I don't quite know why but this solved the problem and a sweet running chassis was the result. I made up some phosphor-bronze contact strips to connect the motor and frames, then tested the chassis on a rolling road which showed that it all worked OK. Losing the front bearing doesn't seem to have caused any problems. These coreless motors from Tramfabriek have a lot of potential for us in 2mm scale. The 6mm size may be a little small for a mainline loco but in this case the Jinty will spend its life shuttling up and down 30" of track with a few coal hoppers, so it won't be over-exerting itself. The small size of the motor makes for a compact mechanism which will be helpful to those who use the Devil's Control Circuitry and need somewhere to keep their chips warm. The question remains as to whether the whole conversion was easier than building a chassis from scratch. With what I've ended up with, I'd say probably not. Looking back, I think I started this conversion sometime in 2004. It is a classic example of the railway modeller delusion, that a "simple & quick" conversion will save time...! Mark

So here's the final result of my stripping (!). Powerstrip softened the paint enough to be removed by gentle scraping. I have a feeling it might have been some form of epoxy based paint as these can be tough to remove. Anyway, it's done now so I can start improving the body, stating with those dragster-wheel splashers!

Nitromors is no longer the old formulation and it's a lot weaker. The stuff I've got - Powerstrip - is identical to the old Nitromors. I've now got the casting pretty clear of paint and as Andy says, it's really rather good. Mark

Anyone know what Farish at Poole used to paint their die-cast locos? I'm trying to strip a Jinty body back to bare metal. Even full strength dichloromethane "professional use only" paint stripper is taking ages to soften and loosen the paint. Mark

Sitting in a little plastic gloat box, I've had a Jinty conversion under way for far too long. It's for the final Poole-era Jinty and predates the current model by a long way. For all its faults, it's still a reasonable model. Could do with a better dome and chimney but that's sorted with a couple of Nick Tilston's (N-Brass) excellent lost wax castings. In a further attempt to make it even more of a Trigger's Broom, I've just got hold of a Tramfabriek 6mm coreless motor and the appropriate 0.8mm to 1.5mm shaft adapter. The plan is to replace the Farish armature with the 6mm motor, using the motor frame to support the motor. A trial fit shows it's quite feasible The next step will be to make a holder for the motor which will be fixed to the motor frame rather than the chassis, so if necessary, it can be dismantled. I know people simply glue motors in place with perfectly good results but during this particular conversion process, the chassis block becomes significantly weaker in certain places, making any removal and replacement of the motor a risky business. Here's a comparison of the armature and replacement motor Mark

Sounds like he'd be perfectly at home in my workshop.

Are there any neodymium magnets available for motors which need to be remagnetized? That would be the best long term solution. I need to find some for my Lone Star motors.

Puzzled. if you don't wish to sound insulting why say something that could come across like that? Like you I am a smart meter sceptic. I don't know why you regard an industry bias towards smart meters getting the best deals as cloud cuckoo land. It's being openly mentioned and discussed right now as a way to "encourage" take up. I'm out.

Here's an interesting one. Apparently we can't have a smart meter because the gas & electricity meters are too far apart. The maximum distance is 32 feet, so I'm told. The two meters are located at opposite corners of the house, just about as far apart as it's possible to get them. They did used to be close but about 20 years ago, British Gas decided the supply pipe and meter needed renewing and refused to locate the replacement meter where the old one was. Wasn't an issue at the time as it gave us some space in a cupboard. I'm not overly sad about this but it will become annoying if the best deals become only available to smart meter users. Perhaps in due course the technology will improve and solve this problem.

Inane at potty 007! I found these on Twitter and they are brilliant! The full set is here:

Laurie was definitely old school electronics. 405 lines and all that!

My late uncle was a TV technician for ILEA so he'd have had a scope but perhaps a bit bigger than I'd have room for!

Looking for opinions, views and maybe personal experience of the small hobby scopes, like the JYETech DSO-SHELL DSO150 and similar. I'm interested to see the various waveforms that different controllers generate, more out of curiosity that anything else. Mark

Spirit-based paints and primers are still easily available.

I'm inclined towards neutral colours. I've used a satin mid-grey on British Oak. Although, An Clár has a gloss white facia and that seems to work well.

The late Bob Barlow was involved in a family furniture business for a few years and was of the opinion that certain brands of high quality chipboard were more than suitable for baseboards. These tended to be of quite a densely packed nature. I can remember using various chipboards in the 1970s & 80s which were of this type. Modern chipboards are not a patch on the older stuff. They are far too open and weak.

An O gauge challenge could be quite interesting and is certainly doable within the scope of the programme given the availability of set-track and RTR items. Might be a bit beyond the budget though and could soak up all the available RTR items on the market.

Someday, your prints will come.

Apparently, it's worth persevering with them.

Steady on matey, my comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek. That's why I chucked in the "I'm all right Jack" reference.

I take my hat off to Team Grantham for still tackling their plan and giving it their best shot. Their engineering skills and obvious ambition made them my favourite team. It may well have been impossible in the time allowed but if we worried about what's possible, where would that leave the cucumber trombone?

I noticed that too. Obviously the programme was edited with the ad breaks placed in. Either the scheduling was very tight or C5 failed to sell the advertising space. The Hornby ad in the other breaks is rather good.

There are quite a few small N/OO9 chassis coming out of Japan these days. Plaza Japan on eBay is one place to look. There's also N-Drive Productions https://www.n-driveproductions.com/rangeandprices.htm

I suspect I'm not alone in thinking that all four teams should have stood their ground on this rule change and refused to start building until the missing time was reinstated. No layouts = no final. Maybe it was done to create more pressure, more jeopardy and some "good" TV moments. Well, a massed walk-out of the participants at a crucial stage would have made for especially good TV. "Surprise surprise, we're on strike, film that, yer b--------!" The Great Made In Dagenham Model Railway Challenge.