dj_crisp

Hi Jack Excellent work with the Brassmasters etch! It'll be interesting to see how the loco performs with the smaller motor which I suspect will be fine. Always thought some of motors fitted nowadays are a little ott. But I prefer them that way over being under powered! A great idea as space is rather tight! I've fitted an express models light kit and found that a challenge to fit it all in. Cheers Will

I think the cause is that the lubricant has dried up. I'll open up the Grid tomorrow and look again. I think photos will help. Cheers Jules Hi Jules Some photos which hopefully help explain cleaning the gearbox mechs - I've already cleaned the one in the photo and can't demonstrate the amount of grease Hornby uses Slide a small screw driver from underneath to release the gear housing - it's a satisfying click. Repeat on other side. Then lift out the gear from the flywheel. When I've got both ends off I then check the motor is ok by applying a small amount of power and hopefully the motor rotates! Probably not a recommended method!! Also its interesting to listen as to how noisy the motor is so I can compare to when I put it all back together. So far all mine have been near silent. Inspect, clean & lubricate and hopefully all is ok. Putting back together isn't any harder. There is a lip of the flywheel rod to line up - easy on the end shown as you can get at it easily but the fan end is a little more trickier to line up - i rotate the motor manually so i know where to slot the rod in. I put the bearings back on the worm, then slot it into the flywheel rod, then drop it onto the gearbox. I find tweezers are the easiest way to put the square bearings in place. Finally attach the gearbox cover which must click on both sides. It also acts to keep the bogie in place! The other end is a little trickier as the fan mechanism needs taking off. I don't use this so simply snip the elastic band that is attached and ditch the mech but you may want to be more careful here than me. Also I find i need to lever off the cab wall to give me a bit of space especially when putting it back together. It's a very similar procedure for a 60 too. I'm also finding the bogie gears are full of grease too and benefit from cleaning - it'll be interesting to see how bad the Romanian 56 is when I convert it to EM, but at least that one is running smoothly now. Hope this helps Will P.S. I'm experimenting with body height which is why the body locating struts have been filed down on the chassis in the photo. I think the 56 body rides a little high on mine (about 1-2mm) which is probably made worse by the light connectors lifting the front of the cab.

Looks great in the mag

Hi Jules You never know with non-runners as to what you're going to get and I've had a couple of efforts that have needed spares to get working.... broken bogie clips being the hardest thing to fix. Ive now had two Hornby 56s and a 60 that have had this issue where when power is applied the motor humms but nothing happens. Other than not moving the locos have all been mint so my guess is they've never been run and the grease has solidified that prevents the motor turning. A simple clean is all that's needed. To do this on the 56s is quite easy... if you want I can take a few photos as it's probably easier to demonstrate rather than describe! Its worth having a look to try and locate what's causing a grinding noise. Could be lubrication issues or something has worn. One of my Vitrains 37s was terrible... really noisy and this turned out to be a broken gear cog which needed replacing. Thankfully that was when spares were available and it's the only issue I've had with Vitrains mechs so far. Cheers Will

Thanks! I think your approach sounds better than mine. I'm going to stick with using a decoder for the last two that I have and then probably not use them again unless there is space behind where the lamp is. Will try and position mk2s at the end of my rakes now

Flickr is just a great source of info https://flic.kr/p/Dk9NFb There is definitely something odd about the buffer beam area on the Hornby model. One to ponder over the weekend

Hi Wayne Not really - I have a plank with some dodgy track to test out my builds and ideas but thats not worth sharing. I have some plans for a layout in the future but unfortunately I'm rather time poor at the moment due to work commitments so have prioritised stock builds. As I work away from home a fair bit about half of the work on each build in this thread has been done in hotels! (It's a bit easier carrying a loco body or coach in a suitcase Saying that I've just had a browse of your layout threads and they're excellent and rather inspirational... I'm getting very tempted to see if I can do landscaping or building buildings! cheers Will

Thanks Jack - usefull info! I'm very suspicious of some of the chassis blocks in these diesels... didn't have this problem with good old Lima OO is all good in my book and if you're happy there is no need to change. My dip into EM all came about as I wanted to standardise the wheel profiles across all my stock as I felt this would help running. It was very noticeable on my first OO layout that certain stock just fell off the rails and changing the wheels did help things. Mind you this was in the 90s and modern stuff is so much better these days. Anyway I decided to replace the wheels on pretty much all stock to keep things consistent, and while at it thought I'd have a go at widening the wheels. Decided at the start I wouldn't be able to cope with P4!

It's all about Grids at the moment.... I've had an enjoyable time messing about with them and fitting the final body work details. Fitting Shawplan's excellent roof, cantrail and body side grilles to 56049 & 56101 was very therapeutic, I say therapeutic as I have to do it slowly and not rush fitting them in order to get them to look ok, Doing two loco's actually helps as between fitting it allows the grilles to harden by moving onto the next loco. I find it's important not to try and stick them down all in one go.. get an edge fixed with superglue... leave it to dry... attach a bit more... then finish up. In fact the offcuts of the grille etches are excellent tool to slip a bit of glue under the etches The grilles were pre-sprayed before being fitted but need a bit of touching up which i'll do soon. I've also sprayed and started weathering the roof using railmatch paint and their railfreight grey blends in ok - it's a little darker than Hornbys, but that helps as i've used it to also weather bits here and there and do a bit of shading on the roof. I always seem to have near disasters on my work bench. The latest was getting super glue on the body side where I'd feathered in a previous scrape (the loco was bought cheaply second hand in a sorry state).... managed to get away with it and i've ended up with some nice body side scrapes which actually look quite good. Not a recommended method! I'm also trialling a bit of a dustpan brush as the aerials... if they survive the work bench they should survive layout use! Door hand rails are 0.45mm wire painted white. 56049 having a trial fit; At first glance i thought the front was riding high - I'm sure there are better Grid experts out there who know but I'll do a bit of research to check its ok. This loco has been a bit of pain to get running well as it felt the need to derail on a straight piece of track.A classic problem of wheel rock on the centre axle and getting a file out resolved this. It now runs smoothly but will benefit from a period on the rolling road. I've always fancied doing a Romanian Grid but never seen one in my price range. Anyway by luck one appeared for a reasonable price on Hattons as a non-runner so i took a plunge and went for it. On arrival it certainly was a non-runner... but power was getting to motor but with nothing else happening. Stripping it down I found the culprit; I reckon Hornby must have used some kind of glue as a lubricant...! The bearings on the gears had completely seized up. Cleaning them and re lubricating them has solved this problem and I now have a sweetly running Romanian Grid to hack about Funny thing is exactly the same has happened on the chassis for 56101 which I was about to convert to EM. One to sort out on a rainy day. Lots more to do and I'll need to get the airbrush out for a bit more weathering and eventually varnishing so hopefully it stays warm over the next few weeks. Happy Modelling All!! Will

Always good to see a new class 50! Agree with TomE on his observations that the nose etc appear a little flat and the front windows are a bit square and aren't sloping enough. It almost looks like they've used a Hornby 50 to copy. But tbh I'd rather see one in the flesh before concluding. As for getting the right shade of NSE blue.... near impossible as it seems to be a colour that looks drastically different under different light conditions, camera exposures and not helped by weathering so badly!!

The best transfers (by a long way) for numbering that I've used are by https://drdtransfers.com Have a word with Alex and see what he can do for you. Being a rub down transfer you don't get any film and they're so quick and easy to apply. He can do white or black numerals....For numbering I no longer go anywhere else. Cheers Will

The 1980's china clay photos are stunning. Inspirational!

I'm looking forward to reading about Kinmundy - an excellent layout cheers Will

Interesting thoughts on jobs. I found myself stuck in roles I didn't really enjoy with little prospects of progression but 3 and a bit years ago packed it all in.... forgot the career and now do contract work. Enjoying myself and love the feeling of being able to walk away from where I am. Kind of focuses you on now rather than the future which has really helped my mindset. like the idea of retiring early though

I watch listings for a few reasons.... one is to see if an item sells but also if it gets reduced. Good luck

Sadly I've been far too busy to be able to fit in some decent modelling.... but I've managed to tick over a few projects. I've been trying to get a decent rear tail lamp for my MK1 TSO project. The aim was to have an appearance of it being hooked on the lamp bracket with no obvious wiring or illumination from light guides. Many attempts were epic fails but eventually I stumbled upon a DCC concepts flashing tail light; Looks rather nice. The "fun" bit is installing the thing. I started off using the gubbings the light came with (which is quite alot) but ultimately this failed as I couldn't get a stable flash rate. I guess it needs a capacitor or something but as this is a TSO there is very little space for one, Even with all wheel pickup on the coach I couldn't improve it. So I've dumped the lot and just used the lamp which is hooked up to a resistor and a decoder that I've programmed to flash. This works very nicely. Why can't DCC concepts do this?? BTW I'll be happy if they supply the lamps on their own for less money!! If you're reading this Alex (of DRD transfers) please look away as Helvellyn has been turned out in that popular Transrail livery.... Transfers are rub on Replica Railways and I these are excellent - sadly I think they've stopped making them and I think I may have bought the last of their stock. I hope they carry on. Helvellyn has had a second coat of flint grey, which has been darkened in order to match my other 60's rather than the prototype. TBH I do have a few photos found on Flickr where it looks a little darker so maybe Hornby are right ? Lol. I think it should be a it lighter but with the "correct" colour it looks a little odd with the lower rail grey being a little on the green side. I really didn't want to respray the whole thing... as there would be two others that would look odd next to it. Although I'll admit i didn't go as dark a grey as Hornby though Some detail painting to do and i need to spray the grilles but this one is looking better. Phew! And back to Grids... This project had stalled as I didn't like the body side cross members (no idea what they're supposed to be called!) and couldn't face re-doing them in plastikard. Hornby's efforts are too even for a 56! Anyway speaking to Brian @ Shawplan he suggested using his early etch for class 56s which I've bulked out using plastikard; In truth these are scale size so are too wide and Hornbys efforts are too short... and Brian's superb extreme etchings grille is sized to match Hornby. Compromises everywhere! So in truth I've lined up the new etch to the middle cross member and snipped a bit off each end. I also had to open out the side a little too. A trial fit; All in it didn't take me long to sort out both and the effect is more pleasing than Hornby's efforts which I probably wouldn't have improved on. Couldn't resist spraying and fitting; A terrible set of photos but at least it feels like small progress despite not having much time to devote to modelling which I hope is not troubling you! cheers Will

I thought 50027 was an attempt of the original light blue. I didn't like it as supplied but with some coats of matt varnish it looks ok. The front warning panel yellow is a must respray though. My 50002 didn't last long with me as I thought it looked too dark... that one's been stripped and will be 149 one day There are definitely loads of different shades of blue used and they all weathered diffrently to make it interesting!

I'm not entirely sure if it was repainted using the darker revised blue following fading of the original livery... or was originally painted with the darker blue then faded. Either way I've seen plenty of photos in the darker blue and I think your model looks quite smart

I quite like the shade of blue on both... Hornby's better efforts imo. 50026 https://flic.kr/p/e7H6Hn 50033 https://flic.kr/p/a8zW9x I think the earlier lighter blue faded quite quickly so a number of locos were repainted in the darker blue

A very productive day indeed! Your 68 looks spot on and them bright red wagons are fantastic. Good luck at RR! Cheers Will

has to be a bit of a joke. And the horrible working louvres don't seem to be seem to be fitted very well either

Hi Andy Sounds like you've got a great selection on testers on this thread... happy to be involved if needed. Main thing for me will be not losing old postings. Rmweb archive has lots of good stuff that didn't make it to this site. I think from an earlier post you've got this covered. I've never got on with the search facility on rmweb and just use Google site search so hopefully it's a bit better in the new version. Cheers Will

37114 is a beaut. I know what you're saying about the bubble... I have a 122 with similar issues and think I'll have to get the file out on the roof.

Floor looks spot on A few faint yellow lines will bring it to life. Great stuff

Great stuff! Looking forward to your next update Cheers Will