richbrummitt

I have one of your toads built with 0.3mm n/s wire stirrups for the thin footboards put together with this paste and they ultimately won't stay together when handled, but they could just be too fragile. I also built a pair of MR coke hoppers with it and they've gone a bit grey and crusty around some of the joints since they've been sat (maybe 4 years or more?) I daren't attack them to see if they will actually stay together. I really want to get to a solution so I can build the rest of these MR kits and to make it easy to finish GWR/RCH style axleboxes, as there is nothing to locate the final layers. As an indication and example how long are you typically on the pedal to form a laminated joint in one place between 2 pieces of .010" n/s.

Thanks Chris. I tried no flux first because I was certain that solder paste is solder 'bits' suspended in some kind of carrier that contained flux. I have Eileen's own 188°C solder paste. The other solder I have tried is generic 60/40 with rosin core, which I use for almost everything usually. I had success with the RSU Andy had with him at Railex in putting together some coach bogies, but that had already been set up. I usually work hot and fast with a normal iron too (to avoid singed flesh). May be I need to turn the thing up further and spend less time on the pedal. Do you have a measurement or value for the setting that you use on your RSU? I have a high and low current setting on the input side to choose from (this was part of the original electrical set up) and then I have 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 4.5 voltage outputs. I haven't measured the current because I don't have the equipment to measure AC current this high at home but there is a good chance that there is some kit at work that would do it because we have projection welding equipment.

You are right 25" came first followed by 16", however there was not space in-between the framing on these vehicles for 25" letters. Slinn (GWR Siphons, HMRS) claims that they were painted as big as could be fitted. I'm sure I recall this backed up in another source (possibly Great Western Way). Looking at pictures they can't have been a huge amount bigger than 16". Maybe 18"-20".

You learn so much the first time you do something. As frustrating as it feels to consign sweat to the bin with tears starting again can sometimes be the best way forwards. Best wishes for v.2.0

Yeah it's one of them. I did think about a chassis with just a small amount of centre wheel movement, which is how I made my n gauge 6 wheeled stock back in the day, but this provides what I believe is a fully compensated and articulated track following ability. The axle boxes are white metal ones (with the springs cut off). You would struggle to use etched ones because here they have to move independently from the springs.

Thanks. This is the good side. There is a really ugly part of the lower plank where the bend lines went badly wrong on the other side. The in fills were added to allow the 16" lettering style to be applied. Before that they had 6" G.W.R on the upper planks. I've been thinking on how to include these without compromising what is there for anyone who wants them without. This isn't an omission or a mistake and they could be added reasonably easily by the builder. You are right that the three arc roof is not three arc-ed enough. It should be flatter in the middle and more curved at the sides. I made my best guess at this and it looked okay on the CAD screen, or so I thought, but it doesn't look right. If you look again at the photographs of real ones you will also notice that the chunk of wood for the lamp iron to fix to on the end is on the wrong side. I have no idea how I got this wrong, but checking your own work is a minefield. If I can get it right then I should. If it was little things I would leave them. Designing parts and assemblies as a day job I am used to changing and tweaking to make the first one into a good final product. I know they lasted into BR as ENPARTS vans so I don't see how they can't be justified. Everyone drinks milk, no? Apart from having a soft spot for brown vehicles I read that Tiddington had a large volume of milk traffic and photographs seem to show a large number of churns adorning the station, backing this statement up. The framing is full thickness with locations for the strapping (I still have to check these for fit) that fold over the full thickness horizontal planked layer. Afterwards the tags are removed at the top. The sides fold up from the floor and the ends work a similar way, fitting inside the sides. (edited for typo. early wagon lettering was 6in tall.)

The gingerbread man caught me in one. I've been working on some etch artwork for 6 wheeled siphons on and off since 2005. I got them pretty much finished for hatching and sending to be etched in 2007 and then didn't get around to it (like most other things in the hobby room...). Finally I pulled my finger out, bit the bullet, got around to it, or whatever and sent off the PPD (usual disclaimer, no connection &c.) for them to be turned into something that might just make up into a model. Working as a design engineer I'm used to the idea that most of the time things don't work out on the first shot. Even if you've got it right in theory there will be something that means it is better a different way when you have the parts off the tool. I was beside myself with excitement when they turned up because they looked the part, everything looked as it should and being the first time I'd tried to do this I was very pleased with what I believed could be a good result. So far so good. I spent much of the day forcing this into shape rather than building it. It's a bit rough and ready and not all the detail parts are. You will see witnesses for where the strapping is to fit and the lamp irons are still on the fret. There will also be two things that should be obviously wrong when you compare this to photographs of a siphon to diagram to O4. I made a mistake and a guess that doesn't look right. There are also a host of other things that need to be changed to make this into a kit that is build-able without using a pin hammer to make some of the fold lines, cutting parts up because they cannot be formed correctly or binning whole parts where something else works better assembled another way in addition to various fettling operations to make the additional clearance that needs to (and can) be made where parts fit together. These latter things I will only learn from experience of designing my own kits and something I expected. I am not too disheartened. I have covered all the 6 wheeled low roof siphons diagrams O1-O4 with two frets, except for the rebuild of 1777 with louvred sides. When I can I will try the other fret, which can create O1 thru O3 depending on the choice of end framing, because the underframes are slightly different and having made a list of things to sort out I want to do another one to try out the changes by modifying the fret and seeing that the issues are addressed. Don't hold your breath. The timescales have been pretty protracted thus far and although I don't anticipate spending another four years doing nothing with this I can't promise anything firm yet.

Thank you all for your input thus far. Main entry has been updated with additional information for those helpful people to peruse. Hopefully the answer is there somewhere...

Thanks You win one point* All will be revealed. The test build of one of the frets reveals quite a number of areas to fix before I could even consider them suitable for general consumption. I can get them together but there are a couple of very obvious thing wrong with them so I will have to go back and do them properly. *points are not redeemable for anything, but maybe you feel better about yourself just for a short moment.

It seems strange. I thought that I had pretty good results when I tried your (dad's) RSU at Railex. What voltage is it set to out of interest? I don't know if that will be any help, but maybe, just maybe?

Pretty please...

I've only tried nickel silver so far and have cleaned the material with a scratch brush. For a return plate I've got a terminal ring screwed to a 4mm thick gauge plate with a 5mm bolt. I thought that could be a problem so tried the trick with cooking foil as a thin metal layer that's not so good at heat conduction on top of something insulating (an offcut of hardboard in my case). I can burn the parts and the tinfoil. I could try some brass, but nickel silver is favoured in 2mm by most kits (including my own that I just got back from the etchers). I prefer soldering n/s with a normal iron.

No pictures today because I don't know where I last left the cable and they aren't very interesting anyway, just a pile of mangled nickel silver underframe parts that were looking lost on my bench. Those that read the 2mm VAG might have noticed that I decided to concoct my own RSU from a leftover car battery charger. I rewound the secondary coils to give three outputs similar to the commercial units (Don't ask me for any more details because I'm not electrically qualified and the moderators will likely remove such things to protect everyone legally in case you get hurt.) and adapted a spare soldering iron for the hand piece. A few connectors and a foot pedal have been added and tonight waiting on the doormat was the last piece of the puzzle - carbon rod. Total spend so far is around £50. Potential saving is therefore around £100. Having turned it on and played around with the settings I've managed to not solder anything satisfactorily. I can peel the parts away from each other afterwards. I've cleaned with a scratch brush, used flux, not used flux, used real solder as well as paste. It's not that I'm short of power either because The tip will easily get red hot on the high settings and I've fused parts together such that some of an overlay was left behind on the other part, but I am always able to peel them away. I tried my usual temperature controlled iron as well and suffered the same outcome. Often the material is deforming before the joint gives way, but I have been unable to make a soldered joint that could not be separated by my own hands yet this evening. Should I be dissatisfied The good news is that it should work and I haven't killed or maimed myself. The bad news is that I appear to have become totally inept when it comes to soldering and this is a massive pain because I also received a delivery from PPD today and feel unable to make a start if I can't solder properly. I may well have to look for a volunteer to do a test build. (Pre-requisites will be experience building small scale etched kits, preferably with an interest in GWR or NPCS.) Whilst waiting for my ability to rejoin me I will have to return to some Mathieson models wagons that I have been working on. Please help... Updated 23/07/11: I've tried some brass cleaned up with a nail file type abrasive stick until extra shiny. Solder appears to flow quite nicely. Force a knife through the joint with not too much effort and this is what it looks like. Both parts nicely tinned but not shiny unless you re-flow the solder. I used cored solder not paste because I thought this could be one of my problems. Everything is plenty hot when you grab a hold of it afterwards. I have a bunch of nickel silver parts in the bin in a similar condition. I even tried buffing the tinned parts adding flux and going for it again. Same result. Still scratching head. I have however managed to solder up a kit today, but didn't use this contraption.

I'll believe you about there being 68, it seemed like more! I suspect that the real thing had wheelslip if not driven carefully with a load on like that.

I'm sure I know who you mean and would be surprised to find out that it wasn't his prize winning class 48 that was wrongly identified.

I've only built the Macaw B from Stephen Harris but it is very well thought out. I've got loads of stuff that needs painting and am so easily distracted by another project.

So, tell us, how did you make the handrails with their one piece appearance? I've only made the early style vans so far and they have the handrails in 4 separate pieces. I was thinking of doing them in two pieces and hiding the joint at the handrail knob. (That is when I get around to building the rest!)

I think that Pete was advocating the use of artists card or mounting board. The latter is quite substantial, but certainly flexible (within reason). I think it's around £3 a sheet in our local craft/art shop so a minimal investment if you find out it doesn't work. Definitely seeing some good progress on here. Keep it up.

I don't recall who told me, but heard from someone who I would consider to be well informed that on the LNER shunters would be on a pay system where they were paid for what got moved so they would not be hanging about.

@ All: Thanks for the positive comments. @ Donw: This wagon doesn't have any couplings yet, although there are hooks as part of the original mouldings. I've to decide whether to try and cross drill them or cut them off and replace with etched ones. @ Kylestrom: The shackles are from an N Brass Locos fret of container securing chains. @ devondynosoar118: I have a couple of sheets of this thin wood that my late father in law gave me a few years ago. It's about 0.5mm thick. I would expect that you would find similar in a model shop catering for aeroplane modellers. @ Andy: I won't dislike you. Cutting the parts out was trivial in comparison to fixing them. I made a jig so that I could accurately and consistently cut the width I needed to have. I could cut several hundred pieces of wood 40mm long and 1mm wide in an hour with the jig. The parts on the link look nice and don't appear to have the burnt edge that I've encountered on every laser cut part I've seen. The photos are quite small though so it may just be that they are not visible. I may well do some sheeted timber loads in open wagons in the future. There'll be far fewer pieces in them though and I'll probably do them the same way.

It's been six months again. Much to deal with in the real world has meant not much time for modelling, coupled with the fact that this project has really done my swede in. This weekend my mojo must have connected with my body because I've finished off adding the 400+ individually cut 1mm wide timbers to create the load. I shall not be doing a load like this again for a little while. The time investment to add each piece individually cannot be underestimated! This Macaw B is of Graham Farish origin. The model matches pretty well to dia J21 and the picture on the front of Russel Freight Wagons and Loads... is the inspiration that resulted in my loss of sanity. It has been re-bogied on 2mmSA items. The body had the livery removed with a fibreglass pencil and re-applied by hand to backdate it and better match in with my other stock. The securing rings in the positions that have been utilised were pared back with a knife and new loops added so that they looked right. The hooks and screw links are from an N Brass Locos fret and the chain is Fleetline fine chain. I gave up with the N Brass Loco screw link coupling kits. These are for someone who has more screws loose than me! The one piece examples look absolutely fine once painted in my opinion. I was having such a good day that I started to make a photo plank. At the moment it is some wood with sleepers (as will be evident from the photo), but in addition to providing a length of track for photographs to post here it will also serve as a display piece for when I find myself on demos at exhibitions and to test out track painting and scenic techniques for the layout.

I think I'd still add the diagonal bracing. It will reduce any possibility of warp.

I know that one. Fortunately the subscription costs nothing! I'll reply to your pm separately.

I grew up on TTTE, Jimbo and the Jet Set &c. in the 80s and just stumbled upon this blog today. I was dissapointed to not see Thomas and friends (I should have grown up by now?) on the layout in earlier posts, but then I am rewarded for my perseverance with. I presumed it would be OO, as there is so very little for you in N out of the box. I think I have one of everything motive power and rolling stock wise that Tomix make and they occasionally make a Sunday afternoon appearance on other peoples layouts, but there are only really four trains. The coaches are intended for Henry. If you'd have thought more quickly you might have explained that James could not manage his train today because he is not very well, so Henry has to pull it instead. I love the effort you are putting in. I have an extract from the Japanese catalogue from a few years back that shows a Gordon model as coming soon, but various suppliers and importers tell me that it has never become available. If you are interested there is an etched kit in 2mm for a tram like the one Toby is based on.

You're most welcome. I may call that one in soon. I'll let you know if I need it (Don't worry it'll only be ability time and feedback that is required).