richbrummitt

As someone who worked in the street lighting manufacturing industry until a few years ago I would disagree with SOX being modern, however it would fit in with what many of us would consider 'modern image'. The road we live in has recently had the Low pressure sodium lighting replaced by PLL compact fluorescents. I had a look through your photos on the link and the subject matter are a little bit frankenstein in appearance.

Cheers for the link Tom. It took me an hour and a half to read through the 20 pages, time that I was going to spend drilling headstocks and fitting couplings to Mathieson wagons. Very informative and some hugely inspirational pictures.

After taking 4 years to add buffing gear and detail the headstock I presume...

Can whatever is in the cab be moved so that it is behind the doors rather than in plain view. It is the only thing that is really offputting.

I'm only used to the kind of herring in the ice counter at Tescos, but as an assembled model it looks tidy.

I agree, you should carry on. It looks so much better.

It's pretty full all through the chassis as much as possible. See the picture below from my blog last year. A shorter motor could help too. The Faulhaber one I used is longer than Nigel Lawton's MidiMotor and is possibly longer than the can motor depicted on Chris' builds.

I can second the comment about weight. I used squashed up lead flashing absolutely everywhere possible in front of the rear coupled axle to readdress the balance when I had the opportunity to build a test etch of this chassis last year. I like the integration of the worm gear mounting into the chassis compared with the prototype though. This will make it much easier to build successfully imo.

The scorpion diagram I latched on to had a 12' wheelbase. There isn't a lot else to them though because they are basically a floor with protrusions extending over the buffers and some rails to fit beams to for securing the load in the direction of travel. From the not great (from a point of view of fathoming underframe details) photographs I have in reference books the diagrams you list appear to have variations of brake hanger, linkage, and cylinder placements so might not be so easy as a 'one size fits all'.

I would have had the hangers as part of the etch and remove the ones on the conversion kit. They are attached to the rear and under the solebar on the prototype, and not the front. On p22? That's not the same as the under frame that I had in my mind. If it something that you would like to do then I am happy to let you. It is no where near the top of my list of stuff I'd like. Incidentally I requested self contained buffers. Perhaps wider appeal but essentially the same problem.

That's a decent shout and I've wanted something similar previously and have subsequently forgotten about it. I built a Mica from the NGS kit and being 1:148 it is bigger than I wanted it to be. The chassis is something like 3 part chassis kits with various bits of bent and flattened wire plus a turned brass vacuum cylinder. The lettering was a trial too and whilst it looks decent enough (see cruel enlargement here) it hardly runs at all. This is mostly due to fitting 7mm wheels in a chassis and 8 shoe brake parts that are meant to use 6mm diameter items. Should it have outside clasp brakes? There are various detail differences between the early stock of this type that had 3'6" wheels. The best information and pictures I have is for the one under an X4. One way to progress this very quickly would be to have a 10' w/b carcass with 8 shoe brakes plus linkages, and levers to which would need to have added the steel underframe conversion kit, RCH axle boxes, and 5' springs with link hangers from the 2mm SA to complete the outside appearance. Is that any good? I also want some 6'4" coach bogie stretchers so I have to draw those. Maybe there is not much spare space after all. I'm still looking/thinking. Maybe a scorpion or something would be interesting. I don't want to hold things up too long because this computer design thing is taking over all my hobby time, and is something that I do for a day job too.

Actually scratch the horse box for an idea I remembered that they have louvres atop their sides. Something else smaller. Hmm.

Whilst drawing the end doors for the O6 I'm coming to the conclusion that it won't fit well in the existing fret layout because of all the extra strap detail parts that need including so this might form a separate fret for amending the O5 kit, but that leaves me with space to fill and so am thinking about knocking up a drawing for a horse box or similar smaller vehicle. I sold all my Ultima coach kits (which were mostly the pre-printed sides type) a while back as a job lot but I kept a Siphon G, and two Monsters (maybe one is a Giant). I have got as far as folding up the body on the Siphon G and that is it. I can't speak for the present supplier because I have had these for a while and they were all bought as un-built second hand. They have an acceptable level of detail regarding the truss rods and include castings for the battery boxes, cylinders and dynamo as appropriate. The bogies lack some relief but I will use 2mm SA ones anyway so that isn't a concern. The only thing I don't really like about them is that they are not available in nickel silver.

First of all I must apologise for the lack of pictures tonight. I have finished updating the etch artwork that was the subject of the last post. This has taken a little longer than I thought due to having issues with swelling of my right eye for no particular reason not helped by a misdiagnosis the first time I visited the doctors. After several days off due to pain and problematic vision I got about sorting out the issues identified in the test builds. I included a chassis with a sliding centre axle on the fret, rather than having to use a cleminson chassis, although it will still be possible to take this route if desired. I also thought again about other diagrams and it is apparent from any photograph of a milk train from the early 20th century that to be representative it should probably have vehicles of differing heights, widths, lengths and include several vans for the various cuts. I have already covered diagrams O2, O1, O3, and O4. O2 has a different end profile but these are all 6'8" body height. Diagram O5 is similar to O4, but with 7'6" body height to allow an extra layer of crates for fish to be loaded. This would provide for different height vehicles, so I have drawn this and will be adding it to the sheet. With an alternate set of ends I could provide for the O6, which is an O5 with end doors, like a Siphon H. I'll have to see what can be sensibly catered for in the space of the fret. It might be sensible to consider these as two separate items. I hope to be sending the revised sheet off for etching early next week and further hope that everything is right. I was also considering drawing a Siphon C (diagrams O8, and O9), but there is already a kit for this in the Scale Link or Shire Scenes range. I have seen a picture of the etch and whilst not perfect I think it should be possible to produce a decent model from it. The inside planking for the end doors is not on the fret, but it could be cut from planked plastic sheet, or scribed separately and inserted inside the end framing. It would seem a bit silly to duplicate effort, and in addition I don't fancy my chances of getting the louvres right first time. I believe that all the longer siphons are available from Ultima Models so that allows for plenty of choice for vehicle length within a train.

I thought so. It didn't look in the picture like there were any special arrangements. Thank you for confirming. I'm working on the basis of 0.5mm or so each way will be enough for 2FS standards with a 19' wheelbase on sensible (not 9") curves.

I'm interested to see how the articulation works, and down to 9" radius. I'm guessing that it has much to do with the amount of play that N standards allow.

I'd be tempted to rotate the platform road such that none of it is not parallel to the baseboard edge. This would also have the benefit of smoothing out the line and producing more flowing track. Perhaps the centre of rotation could be the end of the platform road and the right hand three quarters of the middle board stays as it is. Everything should still fit in as it is now.

I've wondered whether I should have a larger layout now I have a bigger car. Can you also fit a workbench in the back along with the layout, bed and kitchenette? You could live in it then and not pay rent or mortgage

Was this on Jerry's layout last weekend, or was it someone elses?

The only things to cross of my list of amendments now are the roof profile and to sort out an alternative chassis arrangement to the cleminson one. It should still be possible to make the kit using one of these if desired, however the wheelbase is very short and should lend itself to a 4 wheeled chassis with a centre axle that can slide sideways a small amount in each direction (a little over 0.5mm should be sufficient for a 2' radius). Progress has slowed to a stop due to an infection, which is preventing me from doing anything that requires concentrated vision for more than a short period. I would have thought that for Calne you would be looking for a yard full of the slightly larger, lesser wheeled, Siphon Cs. I had thought about doing the O5, O6, and O8 or O9 diagrams next to allow a milk train with the characteristic height and width difference between vehicles.

Thanks for checking Andy, and to you also Chris for all your help. I'm going to await solder cream.

So I guess usually less than 1 second. I'm always getting sizzle and smoke! I've got my brother to pick up some 179 solder cream for me from Antics (it was highest on the google search results), because he works at the Coventry branch. I should see him in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I might make myself an odd shaped bit and play with some multi-core on right angle joins, rather than laminated, to try and observe what is happening better.