2mmMark

3 hours ago, 03060 said:

 

My Diesel list also has :

 

BR 03 D2049 (1974-78 + 1985)

BR 08 08870 'Millhouses'   (1992)

Class 11 12099   (1981-83)

Class 11 12122   (1981-85)

 

Hunslet 0-6-0 DH 1/13 (W/No.7410)    (1992-93)

Fowler  0-4-0 DM 'George Barber' (JF 4200038)   (1972-74)

Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 DM W/No.387   (1974-78 + 1981)

Hunslet 4w DM (W/No.5307)   (1970)

 

Mainline diesels visiting Flockton sidings include 56090 and 58040 (both 1993.)

 

My sources for these being :

Flickr - British Oak folder.

IRS IRR 187 and 194.

IRS 8A Ind Loco of Yorks.

Industrial Locos and Railways of Yorks (G. Edgar)

 

I'll try and post my steam list later if it is of interest and Mark doesn't mind.

 

Regards,

Ian.

 
Please do.  I'm always interested to see more information. Many have an interest in this particular location. 

Mark

It's always good to see more photos.  I was aware that Peppers had a Peckett as I've got copies of the relevant IRR issues.   The Peckett's tenure coincides with the previous wooden staithe, which used end-door wagons.

In one of the Facebook photos, you can see the debris from the demolition of the old staithe, something I've attempted to reproduce.

As far as I'm aware, the Austerity didn't work at British Oak.

Mark

Tony & I have had an exchange of emails about the lathe as I was very tempted but I already have a pair of Centrix lathes formerly owned by Geoff Jones and Denys Brownlee.  A case of want not need!

However I would recommend the lathe to anyone considering it.  It's a very well set-up machine with a whole host of useful accessories.

Mark

20 minutes ago, Bradford boy 56F said:

I also was going to go from London kings X to York on the E.C.M.L. return Hauled by A1 loco tornado 60163 last year in November  with steam dreams but it was failed before the tour commenced with wheel tyre flats and so a diesel was substituted once again I refused to turn up for the tour but on that occasion all passengers on the tour were offered a £45 discount on any future steam dreams tours.

That seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.  Couldn't you have gone on the tour and made your own steam train noises?

It's a good idea to introduce some insulating medium such as superglue into the gap between stub axles.  Stewart Hine's Standard Stock tube train on Copenhagen Fields once had a "failure to proceed" due to a combination of the HF lighting and a slightly too small gap between stub axles creating a spark gap, heating then melting the plastic muff.  The failure had us puzzled for a while until we figured out what had happened.  Very handily, Peter Clark was running the machine shop demo stand so making a replacement muff was reasonably easy. 

Alternatively, a small disc of paper or card made with a leather punch would suffice as an insulator.  As a pious avoider of the Devil's Control Circuitry, I don't know a similar occurence would happen with that particular witchcraft the higher track voltage.

Mark


 

The dimensions I use for DGs are:

Bottom of buffing plate to rail - 4.5mm
Mounting platform of coupler to rail - 5.5mm

That seems to cope with most situations. 

Mark

34 minutes ago, JZ said:

Make sure you have plenty of water.

Went to Malta in 1988 when they were experiencing a heatwave. We had ten days of 40°C +. Had similar temperatures in Bali and Kalymnos.

Was that August 1988?  We were also in Malta then and it was possible the worst holiday we ever had.  We got switched hotels from St. Pauls to Sliema which was hugely overcrowded.  Shame as we'd had a couple of very good holidays there previously.  Made up our minds never to go back.

Something to consider in the next couple of day is how hot is your computer running.  A couple of days ago, I cleaned the accumulated dust & fluff out of my main desktop pc, including the fins of the cpu cooler.  A surprising amount accumulates in there.

There's a useful Windows utility you can download called "Speedfan" which gives you temperature readouts of your system,  cpu, hard disks and the ambient temperature inside the unit.  Here's a screen grab of the laptop I'm using to type this now.


It might be wise to shut down your PC during the hottest part of the day or alternatively, put it in the breeze from an external fan. 

Beware USB fans.  It's easy to overload your USB system inadvertantly.  Homebase have some nice small desktop USB fans.  I've got one but I run it from a spare USB mains charger. It's dead handy on the workbench, just enough cooling breeze but not enough to blow your parts about (ooer Matron!)

Another thing to do is to have a look at the back of your fridge or freezer.  The cooling coils would most likely benefit from being cleaned.  I found this out the hard way on Friday!

Mark



 

2mm finescale modellers are often accused of being watchmakers so I found this programme on Radio 4 this morning made for interesting listening. 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019457

The descriptions of the various machine tools made me quite envious!

The broadcast programme is only 15 minutes but the podcast is 24, containing a lot more on the subject.

Mark

On 09/07/2022 at 12:36, chrisveitch said:

...hopefully I'll still be active on the FR for your 2028 trip then!

 

It was surprising how many people I talked to at Derby had an interest in the FR, I didn't expect that from a standard gauge modelling group. 

Summer of 1972 for a few weeks, I was a Deviationist.  Shovelling rock into Hudson skips is a great way to get fit.

Best ever railway memory was the trip by gravity in a Hudson bogie wagon from Ddualt to Minffordd early on a sunny August morning, in order to get the train home.  Almost as good was sitting at the rear of the 101 DMU (front was already taken) watching the Cambrian line unfold behind us.  At that time, it had barely changed from steam days.

On 07/07/2022 at 22:39, Sam Kennion said:

You might be better off repainting a body from BR Lines and pestering Steve to finally provide his etched chassis and upgrades. 🤔😎

I shall most likely be doing that as I have a part dismantled Class 14 in NCB blue livery.  Even discounted, the price for a Farish Class 14 is getting a bit silly.  The NGS Hunslet is a better model all round.

A revamped 08 is on the cards, having acquired a BR Blue body of the recent Farish one from the Bring 'n' Buy stand for £5.
 

On 08/07/2022 at 19:43, Jim T said:

This end on shot’s from Sunday pm at Derby…

Thanks for the photo. I'm wondering if a black fabric curtain cut into strips might be a neat viewblocker of the sector plate.  If the material was thin and lightweight, the stock might be able to push it aside. Probably needs to be a non-glossy material.

Mark

5 hours ago, Pandora said:

Here is a Blue Peter episode describing "Copenhagen Fields".

Hats off to Blue Peter for their  due respect and regard for the model.

 

 

We had to ask for the studio lights to be turned off as the layout was slowing being cooked by them!  The layout has been on BP three times if I remember correctly.

Baking soda makes an excellent filler when mixed with cyanoacrylate adhesive. Non-food grade soda is available cheaply as a cleaning product. 

Mark

On 03/07/2022 at 23:03, Richard Hall said:

In the end I decided (before reading helpful comments above) that since the muffs resisted filing very well they would be unlikely to wear in service.  I shaved a bit off the centre muff to give a touch of sideplay, and after that it was all plain sailing apart from a couple of minor issues.  I tried soldering the crankpins into the wheels but a couple came loose so I fixed them with cyano instead.  And having managed to solder the crankpin washers on (using a bit of fag paper behind them) I decided to nudge a couple of them a bit closer to the rods and inevitably soldered the whole lot together. Luckily I'd been sparing enough with the solder that I was able to salvage the situation.  Thinking about it, the slight binding might be a very thin layer of solder on the affected crankpins.

 

 

 

The Delrin muffs will last the life of the loco and beyond!

I now use solder balls for a lot of my soldering, it's a good way of delivering a controlled amount of solder which is very handy in places where you want the bare minimum, e.g. crankpins

Aluminium kitchen foil is an alternative to cigarette paper.  It won't absorb any soldering flux, which is what can carry solder to unwanted locations.

Something I do with layered etched coupling rods is burnish the crankpin holes with the shaft of a drill (the unfluted part). This acts as a parallel reamer and smooths the bearing surface.

Mark

2 hours ago, queensquare said:

 

These are getting worse, where’s Mark Fielder when you need him 🤔😁

Been out with a couple of mates of mine,  Curt & Rod.  

If anyone is at loose end on Sunday 3rd July, may I recommend The Brooklands Motorcycle Show?

https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/whats-on/motorcycle-day

There's a lot of interesting stuff lined up, we have some rare TT, race & record breaking bikes from the 1920s/30s/40s/50s on show, some rarely seen in public.  BSA, Francis Barnett, Harley, Hollis Motorcycles, Indian, Royal Enfield, Triumph and Wardill will be on show - BSA with their new Gold Star, Royal Enfield with the recreation of the first motorcycle built by the company in 1901.  The ABC/Bradshaw story will feature in a display, a marque not often featured.

Allen Millyard is riding his Kawasaki Super Six to the event and alongside Allen will be Henry Cole & Guy Willison with their "Junk & Disorderly" autojumble.  Silverstone Auctions & Bonhams are going to be there, also bringing some rare & unusual machines.

For the first time Project Pit Stop, a new men’s health initiative supported by The Distinguished Gentleman's Ride (DGR) and Movember UK, will be with us.
Weather permitting, there'll be the opportunity to ride up Test Hill on your own machine and there will be demonstation runs of various bikes in the morning and afternoon.

And of course, a huge part of the event is the bikes people ride in on,  ancient & modern, large & small.

Pre-booking is strongly recommended to make entry smoother on the day.

5 hours ago, tapdieuk said:

I am trying to get DG's to uncouple with 8mm neodymium magnets, on a moverable arm under the track. 

I am with in 4mm of the underside of the track and still reliable success.

How does others do? 

The sliding magnet system as described in the April 2007 2mm Magazine worked perfectly all weekend on British Oak.

I use 6mm dia by 6mm long cylindrical magnets through 4mm of baseboard/trackbed + 1.8mm of track.  Neodymium magnets don't lose any noticeable amount of magnetism.

Mark

14 minutes ago, Chris Higgs said:

 

Thanks Mark. I would have thought end-on is an ideal shot of British Oak, as it was of Llangarish. Too few layouts provide the opportunity to view straight down the tracks.

 

If there is one thing I would say it is that you should invest some time in building some 21T hoppers from Bob Jones or Stephan Harris kits. Or just half-inch some off Fencehouses. They would look great on the layout.

 

Chris

 

That's a very good suggestion.  The photos and video I have show a variety of hoppers in use.  I only need four, so they can be a "maximum effort, no detail spared" production.

 

aaannd.... breathe!

So the rush to make British Oak presentable is over and judging by the reaction at Expo, worthwhile. Interesting to talk to people who've made use of the original Beginners Guide to get started. The book definitely served its purpose.

The layout performed very well but then it shouldn't be too hard to get such a small amount of track and three locos to behave properly. The Jinty and the Austerity lived up to my hopes with their replacement Tramfabriek motors, the Jinty in particular being a smooth steady slow runner.  The extra weight in all the locos obviously helped. The 08 always has been a good slow runner with its 80:1 geared chassis, unfortunately let down by the original Poole Farish body with all its faults. However, I acquired a Bachmann Farish 08 body from the Bring & Buy for a fiver.  A chassis transplant ought to be possible.

Sadly, the paint job on the Jinty needs redoing.  The orange is way too bright and the Vallejo paint I used was very difficult to brush on evenly.  By contrast, the Vallejo grey/black went on quite satisfactorily. In any case, the chassis needs finishing (brake gear & crankpin washers) and painting.

Talking of painting, the static grass needs a blow over with some matt varnish to kill the shine.  This will need some careful thought to ensure the right stuff is used so as not to clog up the fibres.  Aerosol matt varnishes are available but I think it needs a more delicate approach using an airbrush. The prime contender for the varnish is Micro-Sol Flat, which can be let down with water for easy spraying.

The magnetic unloading of the NCB hoppers as described in an earlier post actually gave the layout some purpose making the operation more interesting.

I still await the release of the Farish Class 14 in British Oak livery which is now said to be available sometime this year. Mind you, the price has crept up to £130ish discounted.  Having seen the N Gauge Society Hunslet in the flesh, one of those is very tempting as it's £50 cheaper.  I believe a simple 2mm finescale conversion is being planned for these locos.

Here's the only shot I took of the layout over the whole weekend

Chris Higgs took a couple of photos which I've taken the liberty of cross posting here:

I'm always fascinated by how others see my layouts, with camera angles I haven't tried.  Thanks Chris!

On 19/06/2022 at 21:20, Chris Higgs said:

Some layouts were easier to photo than others. Mark Fielder even had a video of the real British Oak, complete with its yellow liveried Jinty.

 

Nice photos, Chris, thanks!   The orange on the Jinty is far too intense, it looks like a 1970s Laverda Jota.

It does need a repaint, I used Vallejo acrylics and the orange just didn't go on very well.  The black/grey I used on the rest of the loco went on very nicely.

Mark

Made it to Derby!

16 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Well, since the "Central Hall authorities" included Don Boreham, Secretary of the MRC, I wouldn't have been surprised.

"We asked for permission to drill some holes and Don said "bore 'em"..."

28 minutes ago, bécasse said:

My recollection is that the layout ran throughout two MRC Central Hall shows, although it was a long time ago I stewarded at a nearby stand at both. It is perhaps worth remembering that these shows weren't for wimps, attendance was between forty and fifty thousand over a period of 52½ hours (in five days), plus an additional 90 minutes on the Wednesday for members' evening, and the MRC had scrapped the concept of "demonstration periods" for layouts by then so they were expected to operate continuously throughout the opening times. Rydesvale certainly did despite the considerable strain placed on the minute models - and their operators.

Looking back through my archive of 2mm magazines, the Rydes Vale was definitely at the 1961, 1962, 1963 & 1965 Central Hall shows.  This is confirmed by some notes that Bert sent me when I was editing the 2mm Magazine, where he mentions using the same screw holes in the parquet flooring at each exhibition. I wonder if the Central Hall authorities were aware of that?

The last show was after the death of HH ("Pop") Groves early in 1965. That must have been hard work for Bert as his father worked almost full time maintaining the locos. There's a photo taken at one of the earlier shows (1961?) with Bert operating the layout and Pop with his back to the camera, sitting at a workbench.  Bert told me that the dust & fluff collected by the locos was considerable. Of course, there was no restriction on smoking inside, either.  The exhibition report in one of the 2mm magazines tells of 12 hour days from Tuesday to Saturday of Easter week.

My recollection of Central Hall in the 1960s & early 1970s was of a pretty crowded hall and a wait to see the layouts. In the final years before it moved to Wembley, I used to go after work in the evenings, riding my BSA Lightning 650 into town from where I worked at Heathrow. It was easy to park right outside the Hall after 6pm.  The show was much quieter in the evenings, I found.  Not something I'd do today but the journey times were much shorter then. Less traffic and no speed cameras...  😉

Central Hall had many shortcomings as an exhibition venue but definitely had a certain sense of occasion about the MRC shows. The MRJ show of 1990 recaptured a lot of that but at the cost of horrendous queues and overcrowding.

Mark

Going through a box of bits & pieces (which I'm bringing to Derby) I was given by Simon's uncle, I came across this.  Anyone who's ever built a 2mm scale signal will appreciate what's involved!

I think the Avonside 0-4-0 featured in an early Association publicity leaflet, unpainted but looking equally exquisite.