great-northern-2009

good guess! afraid not though, check the latest update, i think it pretty much gives the game away

im sure you can guess now! progress has been pretty sharpish, i reckon i'll have this finished in a couple of days time, provided i dont run out of supplies! if you cant quite figure it out, this is what im going for... using the Bachmann class 20 as a base made sense really, it has the same wheelbase both on bogies and overall, and although not a convincing class 20 the chassis runs superb! more updates later, now the tricky bit...bogie sides

time spent on this site has been rare of late, with time being spent on 1:1 projects and whatnot, ive completely neglected the railways however! ive been struck with a case of 'man flu' and sent home from work for the next 2 weeks, so i broke out the toolbox and started chopping stuff up for a planned locomotive ive wanted to model for aaaaages! im not going to say what it is, or is going to be just yet, but your welcome to guess i have a more 'get stuck in...oh i should take photos' after im halfway through, my documenting skills lack somewhat, so i shall TRY and update on progress as it goes these are the ( cut down ) parts i started with class 58 centre, Bachmann 20 chassis 58 cut down, grilles removed from 20 sides sliced off the class 20 bogies updates later, but for now its now back to the modelling board!

i spent a good £60 on a spray booth quality mask and never regretted it, cant even smell the paint. would that count as cheating or 'what the doctor doesnt know wont hurt him' or you for that matter!

..and its built. spent yesterday evening on 2 kits for a diesel/fuel depot i probably wont ever get round to modelling a Dapol Tank wagon, and the Knightwing diesel shunter the Dapol kit, being the old airfix model, required a bit of tidying up, nothing major like just some sanding and filing to get the tank halves together proper, yet was finished within 20 mins, added 3 link couplings, then thanks to the brilliantly easy paint scheme 2 minutes to paint and half an hour to dry! thankfully while it dries i had chance to build the shunter, using a Tenshodo WB35 motor bogie to motorize, the kit went together as per the manufacturers instructions with no problems of clearance or fitting of parts, all in all quite a succesful evenin modelling

theres something not quite right about any of the Hornby black 5 models, i cant put my finger on it but they just dont capture the look of a real 5. im hoping Bachmann have a crack at it at some point as the damage here highlights a difference in quality...i fitted a seuthe smoke generator to my Bachmann jubilee and forgot to a) fill it with smoke oil B) forgot it was running round my layout while i went and ate tea etc, came back to it an hour and a half later and the smokebox was only slightly warm around the chimney. good job repairing the damage though by the way hows the stirling single coming on?

has anyone found a more effective method to clean wheels other than picking the darn thing up, breaking loads of the tiny details off you spend ages adding, only to spend another half hour with 1000grit sandpaper and a 9v battery there must be a better way?

you can buy super-glue activator in an aerosol can, i use it to glue all my white metal parts together dries in 5 seconds, just make sure you dont have any superglue on your fingers otherwise...ouch.

ahh yes ive seen your layout before, very intrested in the mix of narrow gauge and standard gauge, was thinking along the same lines myself...great minds must think alike haha!

i find it quite hard to keep up with myself, i'll post an idea or a plan on here, then completely neglect to update because im so engrossed in buidling whatever it is im building. so this time im going to try be a bit less distractable and actually keep a regular record of my latest frankenstein. i started building a small layout, made a baseboard on the budget of £0.00... skips really are your best friend, you can find quite lengthy offcuts or boards that have served their purpose to the builder, simply ask whoevers around "mind if i take some wood out of this skip"...free baseboard problem was, i started small. laid some track, ran some trains and thought this should be bigger so i rummaged around some more to get free materials, built a baseboard, laid some track, ran some trains and thought this could be bigger see a pattern emerging? i need a plan i havent done anything modern image, but ive found myself strangely drawn in its direction. its been done before i know, but im going motive power depot. with a lean towards the repair facilities, all based loosely around Neville Hill, Leeds. keep it local. typically the most used rolling stock around me and the one i most want a model of doesnt exist, so im looking for a suitable base to create this... http://www.freefoto.com/images/23/24/23_24_18---Arriva-Trains-Northern-Class-333-005-Metro-Train-at-Ilkley-station_web.jpg?&amp%3Bk=Arriva+Trains+Northern+Class+333+005+Metro+Train+at+Ilkley+station any ideas??

after my last layout, a planned GWR branchline was completely ruined by a leaky garage roof, and when i say ruined that could be counted as an understatement, a torrential downpour, me not investigating for a couple of days then going to 'play trains' to find using MDF as a baseboard was a bad idea, track really does corrode, and gaugemaster controls go bang when they get wet. as a result i packed up all the surviving parts into a box and forgot about railways for a time. its like anything, once the bug bites... so i made a baseboard, nothing too big just something for the kitchen table, 150 x 50. thats the easy part... my problem is, i like railways, any size, any scale if its on rails im interested. unlike most who have a preffered period to model or a preffered scale my stock ranges from N, through 009 00 0 and SM32. so now im struggling to think of what scale, time period and indeed the point of the railway. so do i lay some track so i can at least run some loco's and do a bit of shunting? or do i wait till i have a plan... i always preffered to make up things as i go...