mike morley

Lobby? Shower? Bedroom? No mention of "Railway room" or "Workshop". Surely some mistake?

No actual plans but a bit of preliminary waffle came up when I clicked the link (Out of pure nosiness, you understand!) The bit that did catch my eye was the comment about the roof needing new Welsh slates of a colour to be agreed with the local authority. Eh?! Solicitors must make millions out of stipulations like that!

Couldn't agree more.

A well-known Phoenix phenomenon. I've had Cambrian Carriage green that was actually brown, Midland freight light grey that was probably Midland "Smudge" dark grey, GWR freight grey that was one step short of black and have heard of BR carriage maroon that could pass for CIE carriage orange!

In isolated, rural areas you still occasionally see windows with perforated zinc "panes", as mentioned by Jock - usually in houses that have now been abandoned. In my maternal grandmothers kitchen was a wooden cabinet affair, a precursor to modern kitchen units, the upper sections of which had doors also fitted with perforated zinc panels. Most "living museums" have at least one house with one of similar nature in the kitchen. The majority were painted cream but you occasionally see on in a pale green, very similar to LSWR loco livery. My grandmothers dated from the 1920's, but from what I've seen and read about them I think that was the end of their reign.

The walk-in cupboard under the stairs where the food was kept in the house I grew up in in Middlesex was called the larder. I'd suggest it was a regional thing, if it wasn't for the fact that most people would regard Berkshire and Middlesex as both being in the Home Counties!

I wonder if the little room on the left is a larder: DSCF9012.JPG With that butter churn in there I'd say that was the dairy. Question; At what point does a larder become a pantry?

There's a knack to everything and we've all got materials/techniques/tools we get on well with and others we don't. I, for instance, have always got on very well with rub-downs in general and Powsides in particular, but have just spent the last hour reminding myself that I do not get on at all well with HMRS Pressfix and detest their Methfix (Or, in my hands, Meth-fails-to-fix). Could it simply be that Powsides don't suit you?

I spend a while using a few small pieces of Tamiya masking take to hold the transfer in position. It will bulge up over things like strapping, door hinges etc. but if you've got the ends and edges set up right all will be well. I then take a cocktail stick and work my way very, very slowly along the transfer, one letter at a time, giving every letter twice as long as I think it really needs just to be on the safe side before moving onto the next letter. While I'm doing that I also have the thumb of the hand that isnt wielding the cocktail stick, holding down the transfer alongside the bit I'm actually working on. This is what overcomes the potential problem with the bulges up over strapping, hinges etc. Make sure the cocktail stick goes into every nook and cranny - not just where the lettering crosses the edges of the strapping and so on but also around any bolt heads and along the grooves between the planks.

I missed this one when Jonathan first posted it. The tie-bars between the W irons caught my eye. A variation I haven't seen before. Guess what the next kit I build is going to have!

Going back a subject or two, I've just attempted to spray Hammerite's Special Metals Primer and failed abysmally. It might be possible using the kind of kit a car body repair shop would have, but quite definitely not using a modellers airbrush. The stuff is so thick and gloopy my airbrush couldn't manage it even though I had the pressure cranked up to 60psi (I normally have it set around the 25psi mark). I'd be interested to know why Hammerite discourage thinning, because even with my usual 50/50 mix this would still be a bit on the thick side.

In the upper reaches of the Dyfi valley. The embankment beyond the wagon once carried the Mawddwy Railway that ran from the Cambrian's Cemmes Road station to Dinas Mawddwy. Mallwyd "station" (in reality the tiniest of halts) was about 200 yards to the left. The picture was taken on a dismal day in 2008 when I was on what was intended to be a moderate circular walk of about 7 miles from Dinas Mawddwy to Aberangell, then up into the hills via the trackbed of the former Hendre-Ddu Tramway and the paths of the Dyfi forest to the Minllyn quarry before descending to Dinas Mawddwy. Unfortunately the rain got heavier and heavier and my OS map began to disintegrate, reducing it to last-resort, emergency use only. Then, in the depths of the forest, I was misled by a bit of poor waymarking that turned the moderate 7-miler into a severe 10-miler for which I was ill-equipped, particularly bearing in mind the by-then extremely poor and still deteriorating conditions. The worst bit was a one-and-a-half mile traverse of the steeper-than-forty-five-degree sides of the glaciated valley of Nant Maesglase. I was enveloped in heavy cloud and torrential rain and wearing a pair of Dr Martens with well-worn soles - not that a pair of DM's would have been any good for those circumstances even if the soles had been in perfect condition! The experience did have a happy ending, however, as my route returned me to Dinas Mawddwy less than 100 yards from the village's lovely pub - although what the landlady made of the bedraggled, wild-eyed "thing" that staggered through her door and slumped across the bar I wouldn't like to guess!

Other side of the same coin; Hammerite's instructions say their Special Metals Primer can be sprayed, but I'd have thought it was too thick for airbrushing without the thinning they discourage.

It'll be interesting to see if, having been told yet again, they finally appear on their website!

Marc Spot the contradiction . . .

Hammerite do a Special Metals primer. Zinc isn't amongst the metals listed but it does say its intended for "all non-ferrous metals" so must be worth a try. It comes in sensibly small, 250ml tins from most DIY shops and is a rather fetching shade of mauve! I've only used it once on brass (another metal that is notoriously reluctant to take paint) and noticed a definite improvement. Straight out of the tin its a bit thick but the instructions warn you not to dilute it.

The transfers came from Dragon Models, who don't do them anymore.

Go on. You know you want to!

Don't worry about the slightly different wheelbase. My Peter K kit was not 100% accurate and the Cleminson set-up aligned perfectly!