57xx

I would say there's no such singular thing as "ultrasonic fluid" per se, seeing as you can use pretty much anything you like in there. Plain water, water with detergent, grease removing solution, rust remover, carb cleaner, flux cleaner etc etc. To say it is nasty stuff is a misleading generalisation.

There's is still several on ebay. Definitely worth getting if you want to expand knowledge on these locos, I am having a great time delving in to my copy.

An attempt at "weathered black" maybe? It needs a matt finish to look right I think.

That's a damn shame the error will be there in perpetuity. I was hoping they were plug in to the chassis so you could do corrected buffers and also do laminated spring buffer versions of the underframe too. Oh well, that's me out on both of them. 🙁

Will you be taking the opportunity to fix the buffer head size on these ones?

There's also the superfluous holes in the front of the cab.

Just change the content in the first post at the next announcement, then all the moaning has already been done in the following posts.

Yes, it's all above board, I just didn't remember I'd ordered it and it's in between states on their system so not showing up at the moment.

This dilemma seems to have resolved itself... An email came in this morning saying Rails had shipped my shirt button Mogul. Only I didn't remember ordering it at any time! I check on my account and it wasn't listed in the orders, so I gave them a call - Apparently I placed the order last May 2023. 🙈

I was thinking similarly when I read the improvements had changed the gearing to 30:1. 45:1 randomly sprang in to mind as being better, it multiplies the motor torque more too giving better haulage,

Yes it did, I saw it on there the other day when looking for other parts.

I never said it was perfect but for it's age it passes muster once detailed.

I'm doing a training course for work this week. In America. West coast America. The only thing is I'm still in the UK! 😀 This means my "working day" is starting at 3:30pm and finishing at 11:30pm. This does mean I have my morning and half an afternoon free to do other things. So apart from household and garden chores, I have also made some more progress on the Fruit D. The brake levers and vac cylinder would now operate all four brake blocks. Scrap etch, Mainly Trains brake detailing pack and a couple of brass lace pins came into play here. I've also since taking the pic, drilled the back of the brake blocks with a 0.5mm dimple in case any evidence later comes up of cross shafts bracing the brake blocks. I'm thinking with the time I have today, I am going to get on with doing some drawing for a much delayed project. 🙂

I would have one. My DJM atrocity is consigned to gather dust as it runs like a complete bag of sh*t. Any time I see one, my eyes are drawn to the bloopers on it. With the great power of hindsight, I wish I had returned mine as not of merchantable quality and stuck with my Airfix one with Mainly Trains detail pack. At the time I thought it would be a very long time before anyone decided to produce another version, so hung on to it for some unfathomable reason.

After posting, my thoughts did turn to the fact it would probably be easier to start from scratch and do it properly from the ground up.

See Dapol...

And fix the dome so its not a seamless join onto the boiler cladding. Its not supposed to be one amorphous blob.

Waist level?

As is polishing the chimney cop and safety valve cover. Unless they were trying to dazzle the boche snipers.

I know I want a 43/53xx but still not sure which one. Livery-wise I was thinking Shirtbutton as my 63xx is Great Western, but with all these options of steampipes (or not in the case of potential liveries) and chimney types, I need to get my head down with some research.

That's convenient for them, gives them an illegal little side earner.

£80 is an absolute bloody bargain for the Dapol Manor. It is a very good model IMO, and stands up very well to "the other version" which had, IMO, rather a bit too much fawning over. Not that the other one was bad, it was also very good with it's own foibles, but some people overdo the partisanship thing.

That one went quick, luckily there are actually plenty of other copies on there (although 1 more less now).

Yes, no, maybe? It was a good shout. Clasp brake wagons effectively have this with the yokes, it got me thinking that a long wheelbase vac braked wagon Brown Vehicle (passenger stock) might need something like that.

I've had a look at as many underframe pics as I can and can't see any signs of a cross shaft between the brake shoes, but I've not seen anything clear and definitive. For now I will leave them, but I have found a nice bit of scrap etch for the link between the main cross shafts and in my box of Mainly Trains etches there's a sheet of brakes spares that has some small levers that can be adapted to attached the link rod to the cross shafts.