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Inspired by recent visits to some excellent layouts: (Shropshire and Herefordshire is full of brilliant modellers, take a look at Heyside for instance), I'll show how things are progressing for me. The Ford Bo-Bo is this far, with detailing to come. The reason there's been a bit of a slow-down is that I'm scratch-building a 00 gauge Tilbury Tank for my next book. (So no doubt there will be a r-t-r model announced as I'm typing this...) And finally, a link to a video of my Dr Who train running in the book shop window; very popular with railway modellers' wives I'm told... www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRmcEiOkEBc Cheers Simon

Cheers Ken, Simon

Hi Ken, lovely work as usual. Could you possibly post a photo of how the bogie went together and is fitted to the frames? Cheers Simon

Hi, distractions again. I'll get back to the Ford a.s.a.p. For now though; taking inspiration form Ozzy O's lovely little Ivor models and Eric Bransden's delightful "Emett's Effie" (see Gauge O Guild Gazette Summer 2005), I've built something in a similar vein. My local independent bookshop (yes there are some still) has kindly and enthusiastically offered to host a launch party for my book and asked for a window display. It's a longish thin space about 2 foot wide and I initially thought I'd put in a 3mm oval with some Triang TT stock which is pretty but small. Then at the recent Guildex I came across the Agenoria stand, which has a tiny oval of O gauge track with a diminutive 7mm industrial 0-4-0 loco running faultlessly around it. And I realised that I was being blinkered by thoughts of practicable radius curves for O gauge. But solve a few coupling and overhang issues and a 7mm oval was a viable and far better visual solution. I built the baseboard from some sundeala notice boards salvaged from school, (hence the hessian) and tested it with my Armstrong-Whitworth 0-4-0 which coped admirably with the 1ft radius curved Peco track. I tarted the board up a bit with lurid green teddy-bear fur carefully manicured and hoovered, to prevent snagging, and then got on with the rolling stock. Inspiration struck when I thought of using a 5 inch Dr Who figure to provide some sort of scale. Why not continue with the theme. So out came an old Dalek Bubble Bath bottle (I'm sure you've all got one somewhere) and after much cutting and sticking this was the result. Yes folks, that's First Doctor, William Hartnell at the controls. The mechanism had to be very reliable as the train trundles around a very confined space for an 8 hour day (or it's supposed to...); I built it as a short wheelbase 0-4-0, beam compensated with phospher bronze strip pick-ups bearing on the top of the wheels. The motor is a large Mashima with a massive fly-wheel driving through a double reduction gear-box from ABC. The coaching stock is TARDIS shaped from blue mounting card. And here's the finished display. The most interesting lesson about the whole thing is how much I've enjoyed modelling without any sort of constraints. We do seem to get a little hide-bound and this sort of project really lets your imagination flow and has allowed me to try out all sorts of techniques and materials that I might not have necessarily got around to. I can thoroughly recommend it! If any local-ish RMWEB members would like to pop round for a glass and nibbles you would be very welcome. It's this Thursday, 2nd October, 6pm at the Castle Book Shop, Ludlow. Please PM me to let me know if you'd like to come. Cheers Simon (me on the left, Stanton (proud book shop owner) in the middle and Julia (admiring by-stander) on the right)

Oh, that's interesting, the site censors the word "". I didn't think that it was that rude. I'll be more careful in future.

Thanks for everyone's interest and comments. I am actually intending to produce a kit of the Ford and will be casting those fiddly bits but for now it gets faster and easier the more I make, it's the initial thinking and faffing about that takes most of the time. And I found the missing sixth spring. I very much enjoy scratch-building, particularly for the problem solving process and the satisfaction of making stuff, that to the best of my ability, represents the real thing. So, more bits of axle-boxes. I wanted to use 16BA nuts for the hangers and am hanging round the door mat for a marvellous bag of 100 of the little ###### from Eileens. So while I'm waiting I thought I'd have a go myself. You can produce quite nice hexagonal shapes by holding a bit of tube in the chuck of a hand drill and filing flats. The chuck is divided into three parts so you can rotate it quite precisely six times to get that authentic honeycomb look. I used slices of it to represent the bolts. Then I tackled the modification of the cast axle-boxes and discovered, excitingly, that you really can use the resistance iron to solder white metal to brass and nickel, (that and Carrs special low-melt solder, brilliant stuff). Thanks EKR. And carefully balanced for that nearly finished look...

Moved on to the bogies for a change. I've discovered that left-over Great Western Dean Single tender springs and axle-boxes can be modified to a spot on fit for the Ford, (thankyou, thankyou Scorpio kits, for all those little extra details). Who'd have guessed it? Great Western standardization reaches those parts other railways never did... Of course, there are only six of each moulding (five springs unless I can find the one I've lost) so I've got to make some. First; umpteen small rectangles of 10 thou brass. More practice with the infernal resistance iron. Thick enough for three, needing some attention from the piercing saw. Sliced and soldered. Ta-da! (That took me the best part of five hours...) But I like it. Two more to go.

Thanks Rich, the pliers may explain a few things. Luckily my fingers are less of a heat sink but they don't stay in place long. Further very pleasing progress with the roof. There are two handrails(?) or stiffening ribs on the clerestory, made of L section strip supported by small rectangular blocks. I soldered these up using square section brass wire. I love square section brass wire, it's incredibly useful. Once trimmed and cleaned up they were soldered on to the roof using the resistance iron to hold everything down. Then there was the exhaust pipe to the tin bath, a truly remarkable piece of piping with a vague resemblance to that duck-shaped comet that is currently being chased by a NASA probe. I soldered it up from two 7mm axle bushes, a set of nested brass tubes (I love nested tubes...) and a single smaller diameter down-pipe. Everything was gunked up with 224 gap filling solder. I don't use it very often. It tends to puddle more than fill gaps, which I suspect is my usual problem with iron temperature. I did notch it up to 415 degrees, racy eh? After that, a great deal of filing, sanding, cleaning and polishing. And everything on.

I have read with interest a number of threads whose authors take great pains to keep soldered joints free of excess solder by soldering from the inside of the joint. And extremely effective it is too. Normally I'm more of a "spread and scrape" solderer, or occasionally "slop and scrap". All of which generally takes far more time than preparing the model for an inside joint. It can be very therapeutic though, cleaning all that pesky solder off. This time I thought I'd have a go and cut some wide slots at either end of the main roof to allow me to solder the clerestory on from the inside. Which didn't take long and was very pleasing and very effective. I didn't get solder over all of those rivets and spent virtually no time at all on cleaning up. Hmmm.

Interesting, isn't it, how some days you can't solder (or whatever; mow the grass, fly a kite, load the dish-washer...) very well, and then the next day it's easy. I think my problems with soldering may be to do with using an appropriate temperature. The roof of the Ford is a massive heat sink and I generally keep my iron on one setting, 395 degrees, which seems quite high to me. But another 10 degrees does make quite a difference. I don't know what temperatures other people use, and I don't know if 405 degrees will effect the iron at all? I'm also a bit weedy with the resistance iron, I'll crank that up a bit too. Anyway, back to the clerestory roof supports, which include a set of 12 tiny triangular plates. I thought they'd be a real trial but ended up a dream. I cut them with the piercing saw as they were too fiddly to break in the bending bars. Then soldered them on, all in the right place first time. And that is a first. Very satisfying. Marvellous hobby.

Back to the Ford Diesel. There are a series of roof brackets along the clerestory sides.I soldered them up from small pieces of square rod with slices of L-shaped angle attached with 0.7mm rod inserted. Madness. The resistance iron helped. A bit. There are some rather decoratively rivetted ends to the clerestory which were much easier to make and certainly less keen to go "ping"!

Hi, I received the same email some while back after an enquiry. When I asked whether the archive might be up for sale there was no further reply. It is a pity as I really like their drawings, they have a certain whiff of nostalgia about them and I always try to use them if I can.

Look what Pete Harvey of PH Designs has etched up for me! A absolutely beautiful set of Ford logos in stainless steel that will decorate the sides of the loco. A bit of a spur for me to get on with it then...

The main roof of the Ford has a quite hefty clerestory (I only recently discovered I had been pronouncing this wrongly as "clerr-ress-tory", which explains some of the amusement of model shop staff whenever I tried to buy a Triang Hornby Great Western coach...) I had been regretting using such thick brass for the main roof as it made soldering things a bit of a trial but it proved nice and rigid when I cut slits in it to locate the clerestory ends. Swings and roundabouts eh. After making sure they were properly centred and located I soldered on L section brass strips to represent the lower sides and strengthen everything. Then using a card template to determine the size of the (much thinner brass) roof I peppered it with various sized rivets in my favourite rivet machine. The card template was re-used to protect the rivets as I rolled the main shallow curve. And then the smaller side curves were bent up, very carefully, in the bending bars using a 1.5 ish mm diameter rod held in place with double-sided tape. And, hurrah, it fits! Just takes a deep breath really, some careful measuring and a bit of luck.

Thanks very much EKR for your kind words, I'm very pleased that you're enjoying it and particularly chuffed with your last sentence! Cheers Simon

Thank you everyone very much indeed for your kind words and interest. So after rather a long pause, it's back to the Ford Diesel in 7mm. There is some fantastic detail on the roof including this exhaust cowling that looks rather like an upturned tin bath. Photo thanks to David L O Smith I soldered mine up from sheet brass. The identical top and bottom where held apart using spacers narrower than the wrapper by twice the width of the metal. The bolts hold everything in place for soldering and the holes will be later hidden by the curious deflectors on the top. Lots of filing and smoothing with oil stones, wet and dry and the gariflex block produced the final, shiny, result.

Hi, I've been a bit busy recently although work on the Ford Diesel is just starting up again. One of my projects has been to write a beginner's guide to scratch-building which has just been published by Crowood Press. At heart it is a simple step-by-step guide to building a locomotive in 00 gauge – as much a light-hearted self-help guide as a technical manual. Its aim is to inspire people to take the plunge and build their own model locomotives. See the Crowood Press website: http://www.crowood.com/details.asp?isbn=9781847977687&t=Scratch-Building-Model-Railway-Locomotives

Thanks Kev, you're a star. I owe you a pint sometime. Cheers Simon

Back from the beautiful Mull Peninsula where I was distracted by the discovery of a long defunct 2'3" gauge railway, (the Campbeltown Light); as you are. Meanwhile here's an informative You-tube clip of the Ford Diesel starting up. youtube.com/watch?v=UUbt-j3K8IQ (If anyone could put an actual link on for me I'd be most grateful.) There's also another entertaining video of the loco getting a bit stuck on a slight incline whilst shunting, so I'm less worried about the pulling power of my model now... Cheers Simon

Some hefty metal wrangling today. I'll choose something a bit thinner next time. I measured up a rectangle of thickish brass using a piece of card rolled along the cab side roof edge to make a template to give the correct dimensions. The central shallow curve was formed in the rollers, And the sharper side curves bent up in the trusty bending bars with a piece of rod as a template, stuck in the correct position with double sided sticky tape. There is a bit of a gap here, un-recorded, as it's tricky to hold the camera as well as a great big hammer, files, pliers and swear box. Then...ta-da! A bit more finishing off and it'll be held on with a couple of long bolts through the body, although it clips very pleasingly into the rebates behind the side rainstrips/gutters.

Ha! Progress! Rather tired of the fine craft of fettling bogies I've rashly gone for the big impressive soldering job of tacking the body to the floor. Very exciting. I'm sure I'll regret it at some point but it's so satisfying. I've taken it gently and carefully, keeping everything square and level. I had to whack the soldering iron up to 405' as there's an awful lot of brass going on in there. And there she is, wobbling gently along on her bogies. Sigh, playing trains on the floor, that's what it's all about.

Thanks Pete, and everyone else for their likes and comments. I hadn't given any thought to the position of the driven axle; do you think it is preferable to have it near the centre of the loco? When I took the floor off I notice that I'd temporarily fitted it in that position. I've also got some chunks of folded lead sheet stuck in various places, one of which has fallen out... Cheers Simon

After a great deal of faffing about I've managed to build the non-powered bogie with CSBs. And all is working. Sometimes I feel that scratch-building is the art of moving forward by a series of corrected mistakes. The CSBs I'm more familiar with are those that work within the frames of 4mm steam locos. These ones run between the outside of the wheels which are mounted within an outside frame, there isn't much room! I also got the wheel base wrong and had to correct it. In fact my scratch-building super-power seems to be the ability to get everything almost exactly, but not quite, wrong. Still you learn by your mistakes, except those of course which include alcohol... Anyway...

I've fallen in love with Continuous Springy Beams (CSB's). They are nice and easy to make with a few basic components like hand-rail knobs and springy wire, they keep the wheels in place and allow them to be easily removed and they're springy! Fantastic. For a sensible and learned discussion of them visit the CLAG website. There can be a lot of maths involved if you like maths and you can simply side-step the clever bits if you want. I decided to use them on the unpowered bogie of the Ford and dithered for a while by thinking of using some nice hornblocks filched from a Slaters coach bogie kit. Then I decided to have a go at soldering up some of my own, which is why things can get a bit slow round here... I cut some strip overlength and soldered one side on, drilling the bearing holes as I went. I made a small bracket at the top of the bearing drilled for the sprigy beam And then soldered the other side of the horn-block on, bent up the beam bracket, added the bearing, gave everything a brisk wire brushing and a bit of a polish and it fits. Hurrah. Three more to go.

I've made the outer cosmetic frames from some nice thick brass sheet. I've embossed some larger rivets and will leave the, even larger, bolts 'til later. The outer frames have been arranged to bolt to the inners at the front and back so that it's possible to lift the inner assembly out to get at the motor and wheels. The un-driven axle is compensated with a small beam through the spacers and it's actually sprung as well with phospher-bronze wire soldered to the bearings. It keeps the bearings in place and I like a bit more control of the rocking axle. The motor/gearbox fits nicely into the space and the drive is very quiet. I'll add lots of folded lead and see how much traction I can get.