57xx

I would extend that replacement plank all the way across the wagon. The way the wagon is constructed, that is one long plank, unlike the lower 5 at door level. The fading looks good!

When you go for a very light colour, it does look a bit odd at first, but don't forget that once you add a weather wash, you can get the warmth back in at that point. Some dirty black with a bit of chocolate in there picks out the planking nicely (where the kit allows...) and tones down the lightness.

Thanks Paul, appreciate your comment. On this last batch I tried using enamels for the woodwork. Previously I've been using acrylics but am still not happy with using them, drying too quick to work with, even with retarder. Compared with the original colours I started using, I've dropped the browns and settled on beige and greys. In order to get that aged silvery look, I started off with white primer and then used Humbrol 83 Ochre, 64 light grey, Revell 76 light grey and even played with a bit of metallic gunmetal. Next time I'll be trying some Revell 99 aluminium* in the mix too. Having said that, looking at the 7 planker again, it seems there might be a smidge of Humbrol 62 leather in there. *Purchased for an experiment in painting van roofs, more to come on that another time.

Further to Guy's description, here it is in pictures. http://www.penrhos.me.uk/LewisClassification.htm

I picked my current car with Powershift to make the daily commute more comfortable. Too many youthful years on the bike in all weathers and inadequate cold protection has left my knees a bit screwed and my left one can suffer when a lot of clutch work is required. However, I do agree that gear changing is part of driving, so I made sure I got the paddle change as well. Now I have a nice compromise and can crawl along in traffic without giving my knee gip or do simple things like dropping a cog coming into a corner to keep that driving experience alive (along with the 182hp Ecoboost ). As above, for me, it's not about having to think about changing gear, it's personal comfort. When I used to get stuck in bank holiday traffic in my van, I sometimes couldn't walk properly for quite sometime afterwards until my left knee recovered from all the work on the clutch pedal.

I tried a Becks Blue once. That was enough to convince not to bother to pretend to have a "beer" if I was driving. It's simpler just to have cola, OJ, lemonade etc.

Midland Wagons has an example being used as a crane runner with number DM17634, but no E on they side. This appears to have been dropped compared with earlier Midland "E D" and LMS "E" liveries. This one also appears to be painted black.

According to the legend that is Mr Essery, examples of these survived into the 1960's. As John say, bare wood appears to be the order of the day livery-wise.The 1953 example in the Essery Midland Wagons book shows the lettering applied directly onto the wood, not even on a black panel. "8T M17540" on the left lower plank, "4-15" for the tare on the right lower plank.

They are churning out all sorts of rubbish, there are some horrific videos on Youtube dissecting some of the items. My dad bought a load of LED spotlight bulbs from eBay. When one failed he asked me to swap it out - the thing fell apart in my hand as I tried to remove it from the fitting and bare wires were exposed. Thankfully I'd checked to make sure the light switch was definitely in the off position beforehand!

It certainly doesn't look like you've overdone anything to me. It looks great, Ian.

I wouldn't use the Hattons 14xx as your yardstick as the wheels are 1mm oversize.

There are many ways to skin a cat. The cranked couplers do work, you just have to stop and assess each wagon you build and do a bit of lateral thinking. I first came across the PA34 mount when building a Parkside kit, then found they were available separately and bought a big stock of them for my kit pile. When I built my first Slaters kit with the wooden underframe represented on the floor, my thought process was that as the fake beams were in the way of mounting the PA34, the beams had to go. You can't see them when the wagon is the right way up anyhow. So off they came and the mounting block as then attached directly to the floor, allowing the cranked coupler to be at the right height. By doing it this way, I only have to remember one part number and keep one type of coupler in stock for all my wagons. Going back to assessing each kit individually, sometimes you may need a thin packing piece underneath the block, even on a flat floor. A quick check though my built kits seem to show all my Cambrian kits with the block directly fitted to the floor, some Ratio kits without packing, some with packing, Coopercraft kits that need a LOT of packing and an older Parkside LNER van with half height underframe timbers where I forgot to remove the beams and have then cut the legs off the PA34 and fitted the resulting flat side on top of the beams. The pics below show a Parkside underframe on the right where I cut out the beams and affixed the PA34 directly to the floor, giving perfect lineup of the cranked coupler with Hornby's recent GWR brake van.

Just make thing simpler, change the thread title to "Warning - don't buy cheap electrical tat from China off eBay". They dump so much non-conforming rubbish on the market, you are playing Russian roulette with your life at times. I've seen way too many outright dangerous products with mains voltages present where they shouldn't be to bother be a cheapskate.

I'll be watching this with interest. I have a 6'x1'8" board that I have been toying with the idea of making into an depot layout and using my Timber Tracks 2 road engine shed on it.

As I understand it, they were engine sheds built using money from the Development (Loan Guarantees and Grants) Act of 1929. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1929/dec/24/great-western-railway-government#S5CV0233P0_19291224_CWA_33 There seems to be many uses of loans for railway improvements in this list.

Here's a couple more wagons fresh out of the paint shop. The D1671 7 plank coal wagon is a Parkside kit of the standard RCH 1923 design. I was all set to carve the wooden stanchions off the end and replace with some plasticard to represent the steel stanchions of the LMS variant but pleasantly surprised to find the kit had 2 alternate ends, one wooden and one steel. Grab handles were fitted to the end door as per the LMS variant of these wagons. Bob Essery's "LMS Wagons" book shows these were originally turned out without the diagonal white stripe to denote the door end, so rather than making a pigs ear of painting the stripe, I opted for the original livery without them. The D1832A van is straightforward build of the Cambrian kit.

What size is your layout? Looking about 8' x '2? Have you got a track plan designed yet?

Still within his maximum bid placed 6 days ago too.

So not only is it just a single flywheel, it also looks significantly smaller.

I'd say badly done, because he's seen some "rust" weathering tutorial and gone overboard with it, without paying attention to prototype.

But entirely predictable given his previous bid history.

Ok, done. Now up to £255. Your turn.

That's because the original CADs were for 00.

I reckon you could safely put a bid of £250+ in right now and be immediately out-bid by p***6.

The owners of F1 might have changed, but the laws of aerodynamics haven't. The team's aero guys and anyone with a technical interest in the sport have known how the car's aero works and hence why it is difficult to follow and overtake. Info like this and this has been freely available for ages, long before this "amazing discovery" by the FIA.