JaymzHatstand

I managed to use the two small holes in the main body frame, which line up perfectly with the holes on the motor mount to fit some 10BA nuts and bolts (the nuts soldered onto the motor mount) and cut the frames to allow the driveshafts in and out. Thanks to everyone for your help and ideas, having someone elses view of a problem is often the best plan! Cheers J

...but not a lot! I've been catching up on jobs that I've been meaning to do for quite some time, and they are as follows... 1) drill a hole for the point motor at the end of the station run-round loop 2) continue fitting of insulated rail joiners - this has disrupted a bit of trackwork, so some re-ballasting is required! 3) permenantly fit the baseboard to the frame- this may sound silly, but when it was origionally built it was as a shelf and so had to be separate from the framework. 4) begin redesign of fiddle yard - I'm going for a traverser as some of my stock objects to crossovers formed with minimum radius pionts! So now, to get me back to an operating position I have the following to do... 1) fit and wire in point motor 2) tidy up ballast 3) build new fiddle yard section Some of which may take a bit of time, but I dare say that noce I get started, it'll hopefully spin along quite quickly (famous last words!) I have also begun planning the next section, to fit between the station and fiddle yard, which will utilise the Gould's Warehouse building from this month's Model Rail magazine standing next to a disused siding, possibly with an old waggon or two outside. I don't have any photos of my progress, as it's not particularly exciting, but bleow is a shot of the layout so I can explain things a bit better! The point motor has been added to the point in front of the loco, and the scenic area to the right will now be blended in/redone as it doesn't need to be removable any more. Hopefully there'll be more progress soon! J

When I took the plunge into 009, I sold off my meagre N gauge collection to fund rolling stock purchases, obviously I'm not sayin you should do it, but it is always a possibility. As for buildings, a lot of either OO or HO kits would be adaptable, or serve as a starting point for a kit-bash. As it's narrow gauge, unless you are modelling a specific locale, you can get away with a lot (as long as it's not going to stand out like a sore thumb without justification!) Looking forward to seeing progress on here, and the 009 Society is also a good place to look, and aren't afraid of Hoe as it goes hand in hand with 009, and will always welcome new members! Good luck J

That really is some impressive building, especially considering the sped at which it has come together! It seems like only yesterday that the first steps were being blogged on here! It really is very nice indeed, top work sir! J

That is very smart indeed! The sort of workmanship that looks like an RTR product can only be commended! What a fine addition to your fleet J

Well that seems like it could well be the best idea! I sense a trip to Eileen's on the horizon! That's some good brain work there Dutch! I'm considering Tal for my next project, but that'l have to wait until funds allow! Cheers J

Rich, I had thought about cutting the spars, I'm just not 100% sure that it'll hold it's shape once that's done, I know it should and probably will, but this is the first loco I've built so I'm on the steep learning curve! Dave, the fitting of the motor into the body is the sixth stage of the construction, purely I think because of the way, and where it is mounted. But I will be giing them a ring over the weekend if I haven't got it sussed by then! Dutch, the two boilers are screw mounted to the running plate like in the Tal kit, however, once the second cab frontplate is fitted, the motor won't go in as the driveshafts get in the way. The Tal kit doesn't have this problem as the bunker assembly is designed to be removable for such purposes. Eldavo, I've been using solder paint thus far, but I have heard of this mystic non-corrosive flux (in fact I think i's that my dad uses on his O brass!) I tried to get some at last years Wall.E show, but was unsucessful. In fact one trader told me that there was no such thing as flux by it's very nature HAS to be corrosive. Knowing that rather a few people use it made me think that this particular big name trader was not quite as clued up as they may have thought! The motor is also mounted to the body because of the nature of the locomotive design. It is centrally mounted and drives the power bogies via shafts, just like a diesel as there certainly isn't enough space to mount a separate motor on each bogie in this scale! AER, the firebox is designed to be removable for motor maintainance, however, the motor itself won't come out due to the cab ends. Cheers for all your advice J

They seem to go alright, I've only had a brief test though so far. The chains hang beneath so they don't interfere with the small buffer in the middle of the cross beam. J

I've been tinkering with the body of my Double Fairlie (Backwoods 009 kit) and have come up against a bit of a problem regarding the motor and it's mounting. Fitting it is no problem, but it can only be done once the motor mount assembly is fitted to the body, and needs to be done before the cab and second pair of tanks are fitted. The problem this poses is thus; once the motor is fitted I will be unable to wash the flux off and subsequent building stages, of which there are many as this would involve getting some form of cleaning fluid into the motor and I'm not sure this would do it much good! Does anyone else have any advice as to how I can get around this problem? I can't fit the motor to the mount separately and then fit it to the body later as it goes in from underneath, and the spars which form part of the strenghtening for the frames preclude this. Here are some photos which I hope will help describe this further. The motor in place temporarily. The firebox etchings and details will fit over this to form the cab interior. Looking between the tanks to the mounting screws, these need to be accessible to fit tho motor, so the rest of the bodywork cannot be built before this is done The mount before the motor goes in The spars which preclude the motor being fitted from below The motor mount Any advice or help will be gratefully recieved Cheers J

I got the Kerr bit right at least! To be fair, I realised my error about ten minutes after I wrote it, but for some reason didn't correct myself! J

It's really taking shape, and a good looking shape at that! Is that a Kerr-Stuart I see sitting in it's bare metal? That trackwork is rather smart too (if smart is the right word for anything near a battlefield!) I'm looking forward to seeing it in reality. Was the disc I sent any use? J

This really is an impressive bit of scratch building sir! It's also pretty high up on the 'noelty music player' charts too! I know you can get telephones shaped like locos, but an mp3 player, great idea! Those bogies really are a fantastic bit of modelling, certinly something to aspire to! J

That is a very nice bit of layout building there! The close ups of the street and engine shed look really good. Looking forward to seeing more of this J

The slate train looks rather nice, I've made a start on one myself (with only 5 Parkside wagons so far) but mine will run as a fixed rake (chained together) with a coupling on either end as the Windle coupings I'm using would space the waggons too far apart. I'd considered using S&Ws, but after trying them in OO in the past, and loosing interest in building them rather quickly, decided not to bother! Out of interest, what size are you using, and how do you fit them to the coach bogies? J

Last night at work, while my mind was wandering (as it often does) and I decided to have a bit more of a planning and experimenting session. Further to the gradient tests I counducted, oh months ago, I decided to see what I can fit onto the board sizes I intend to use. The photo (which has been cleaned up in Paint Shop Pro) might be a little confusing, so I shall explain... The station feeds onto the bottom of the photo, and the main line progresses over the set of points and continues in the long arc (15inch radius) until it straightens out and crosses the river (represshented by the dased lines) on an as yet undesigned bridge, possibly a girder one. The line that branches off the main line, begins to descend (at the marked gradient post) and curves round on a 9 inch radius curve until it passes under the main line and ont a warf next to the river. The set of points at the bottom of the gradient will have a small cassette so a train can use it as a headshunt before running onto the viewing side of the layout again. Hopefully that has explained what can be seen above, how long it'll be befor I start building it, I don't know, but now I know it'll fit, I can start actually planning the boards! If anyone has any advice, questions, or anything else they'd like to pass on, I'd be most interested and grateful to hear (or rather read) your thoughts Thanks J

They are indded, but due to the small size, they are quite fiddly, and I would certainly advise reaming out the axleboxes a little to ensure smooth and free running (there isn't space for bearings in the tiny 'w' irons). The parkside range of 009 kits are very nice and quite simple to build and are very well detailed. Brass, resin and whitemetal kits are available from other sources too. R-t-r is not as common as standard gauge (although there is a fair amount of continental outline stock available), but if you don't mind kit/scratch building, it can be a very rewarding exercise! Narrow gauge is certainly interesting (in my opinion at least) and unless you model an actual prototype, you have a lot more creative freedom than 'grown up' railways! Cheers J

Having built a set of five Parkside two-ton Festiniog slate waggons, I set about working out how to join them together. I intend to run them in a semi fixed rake, so in a block that can be shunted as one, but can be altered lengthwise in the fiddle yard. Either end will have a standard Bemo-style coupling, the operating end will be a Paul Windle (when I can find them!) and the other end is simply the moulded one from the kit. For the rest of the couplings, I have fitted the 'buffing/coupling' part from the kit, and attatched a piece of chain to one end of each waggon. The undersides have had a .5mm hole drilled and a hook of handrail wire glued in. The chain simply (!) hooks onto this hook, with the waggon upside down, and when turned over, looks to all intents and purposes that the waggons are coupled together like the real thing. It seems like a good idea at the moment! J

That looks like a rather entertaining layout! And not just for the gilrs to play with! Plenty of scope for operation in a small space, fantastic! J

Cheers Paul, it's amazing how good the simplest things can look! J

Now that the warm weather is approaching, apparently, the modelling 'season' should be coming to an end. Hmmm, not likely! I've been tinkering with details for Scrayingham, my 009 layout, and decied it was about time to weather the buildings a bit. First up is the water tower. This is the standard Wills SS34 Stone Based Water Tower kit, built by Bexx, my better half! It has stood, unpainted for around a ear now, so I thought 'why not?'. With my layou being set just North of York, it needs mor of a North Eastern atmosphere, so investigations into colour schemes were launched. The water tower at Goathland was the inspiration, so I needed the nice reddy brown colour that the tank and woodwork are painted. The only reference I could find on't interweb was for Tamiya XF-64 Red Brown, this however was a ong way from the desired colour. Thanks to Paul Gallon (Wordesll forever) I was directed towards Humbrol 70 - Matt Brick Red, which with a dash of Humbrol 19 - Gloss Bright Red, gave a most pleasing hue. The metal wrok and doors were duly painted, the hose given a coat of Xtracolour Tyre Black (to give it a rubbery hose-like appearance) and the stonework given a wash of Citdel Miniatures Badab Black, with a touch of Orc Flesh Wash under the pipe outlet to represent moss growing in a damp area. A quick paint job really, but one, I think, which has done wonders for the structure Before After Now I just need to paint the roof, possibly a dark woddy colour, but I haven't quite decided. Any suggestions gratefully considered! Cheers J

'Chalk another on up for Britain' - If only news reports were still like this! J

That's looking rather tidy, in a filthy sort of way! J

I wouldn't take it as a criticism of your modelling abilities that people aren't leaving comments. Speaking form my personal usage of the forum, it tend to have a browse of the blog topics that catch my eye and only really leave a comment if I have a question or something constructive to offer, if I were to compliment on every blog I were to read, I'd spend all my time doing it, and quickly run out of ways to do so! Maybe if there was some sort of 'like' button (a la Facebook) there'd be more appreciation demonstrated throughout the various blogs. Don't give up, nice as it is to gain the approval of others, satisfying yourself with your efforts is the best bit about this hobby. All the best J

Finally, I've done a bit! To be fair I have been moving house recently, so apparently, modelling has to take a back seat! I have been building stock, and doing little sundry bits, but nothing really worth reporting for a while, until today! I've finally started to replace the point in the run-round loop which feeds the second shed road/coal siding which got damaged when fitting the point motor ages ago! It managed to get through the exhibition last year (by not using it!), but I've finally got around to ordering a new one. So this morning, in the hope that the posty would bring me a present, I began a P-way occupation of the passing loop. Fishplates were cut, and the track lifted (without too much damage) and the ballast cleared in preparation for the new one to arrive. With the loop out of commission, passenger services have had to be reduced to the push-pull set only (as can be seen in the bottom photo). So that's the progress so far, the flapping letterbox while I was track lifting (and sop excitedly ran downstairs to meet) produced only a bill, though fortunately not for me! So track laying will have to wait. Followed by re-ballasting, then testing of course! I'll keep you updated! J

There's a thread of mine on the old forum, here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=42149 There's hopefully all the information you need in there, including what to use as the green for Blanche. I might have a bit more information knocking about somewhere too. Hope this helps J