lapford34102

Steve, the 3 way was scary but there's a good post I bookmarked that gave a few tips on what the best order to do things might be. Helped a lot. The 08, now with a thinned wash of MiG dark wash to accentuate the panels etc plus a bit of exhaust staining with powders. The wash wasn't used straight out the bottle but thinned down a bit, that's waffle for try a bit and see how it goes, and applied with a OO brush. Like all weathering it's as much art as a science though methods are shamelessly nicked out of the aircraft/afv weathering playbook. There's now a bewildering range of weathering aids and book aimed at that market such as here https://www.migjimenez.com/en/8-weathering-products and that's just one manufacturer. Thanks for looking Stu

This may well help https://www.flickr.com/photos/59835095@N02/albums/72157627773064944 The Farish one was a WR (ex ER) loco. Stu

With the numbers coming down I really do hope that the Trace part of Test and Trace are doing a good job. Hopefully the numbers will come down to sub 1000 cases/ sub 100 deaths a day at some point and that's when they do need to be on top of things. Then if anything comes out the left field we stand a fighting chance of keeping any potential surgein cases limited. i note the much vaunted smartphone app doesn't appear to have made much difference, so much for scanning QR codes. Stu.

Hi, A couple of things. Firstly a 3 way in copperclad. During the last lockdown I did a single slip simply to see if I could and thought then that I’d have a go at a 3way. The advantage of doing it like this is there is no pressure. If it all horribly wrong then no-one else would be the wiser. Use Templot for the template. Really excellent programme except I can’t seem to get my head around it. Can do points on their own but start to put a few into a plan!! It’s certainly me, not the programme and yes, I have tried the tutorials. Perhaps I need to do it on two screens or perhaps at some future show there’ll be a demo somewhere. One of Bachmann’s first run 08’s has been languishing in bits in an ice cream tub at the back of one of the storage boxes so dug it out, checked it was working and pondered what to do with it. I’ve got 3 Hornby ones in green and early blue thought I’d have a go at a weathered faded TOPS one. For what little it’s worth this is my take on doing faded Rail Blue. Airbrush the shell using your preferred Rail Blue as if you were doing an ex-works one, when done tip any unused back in the pot and put a small measure of a light neutral colour such white or pale grey in with whats left, add a measure of thinners to get it back to sprayable consistency. You should be looking a a very pale version of blue. Spray to taste but with an 08 there are plenty of panels which you can lighten carefully from the middle out. Here’s a couple of pics to give you an idea of the result. Decalling up and a bit more weathering next. I’ll pop a couple of pics up when this is done. Thanks for lookinjg Stu

Can't copy the link but sort of associated with the above just search ACCESS Consortium. "Regulators Assemble" Stu

Strange, our media says that about here too! Both are probably right. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220325571 Stu

Just to put a bit of context to those daily figures:- US 0.52% population vaccinated. UK 0.74% population vaccinated. Stu

Might be worth a look https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235042646-br52-steam-loco/&tab=comments#comment-3120732 Stu

This might be of use to someone https://hobb-e-mail.com/Hornby-r3830-early-br-thompson-class-a22-60501-cock-o-the-north---new---post-paid-44040-p.asp £161.50 Stu

Hi, Whilst waiting for a couple of orders to get sorted got round to yet another project that's been sitting around. A bit of an impulse buy as I rather like them so picked up a Hornby Q1 secondhand at a local show some time ago Whilst it was largely complete with all the bits it had probably had a hard life. The plating was worn off on some of the driving wheels and the quartering was slightly off when checked. With a bit of tweaking it ran well and looks to be an accurate and well detailed model and it did make an appearance on Drewry but in time got rather sidelined. A couple of years ago I thought it might be useful to EM it for Sheepcroft and got hold og a Gibson conversion at Warley. Having converted a couple of 08's and an 03 figured it would also be a fairly straightforward inroduction to converting steam. And so it proved to be though not without the odd glitch. There's no specific conversion guide for the Q1 on either the Gibson or EM Soc's websites but there are a few similar 0-6-0's that give a few pointers but it is fairly straighforward. As I don't have a jig quartering the wheelsets was aided by using a length of wire through the lightening holes in the BFB wheels and with the wheels slightly countersunk and axles chamfered squeezed gently in a vice to get them started having added the Hornby brass axle bushes and via a bit of guesswork some 1mm bushes to limit the sideplay. Once gauged correctly realised the axles were slightly overlength for EM so a deal of careful filing called for, should have checked length beforehand but you live and learn!. The holes in the Hornby conrods are way oversized for the Gibson crankpins and I founnd I had no Gibson bushes left but did find a length of suitable brass tube. So six short lengths were razorsawed off, soldered in place and then filed down to size. Testing the chassis were remarkably well all things considered. Converting the tender was also straightforward though the Gibson wheels needed the slight boss they have filed right back so they don't foul the sideframes. Fortunately both loco and tender pickups require little or no tweaking, the loco ones being separate from the two keeper platesare easy to tweak out a bit. However the brake blocks on both loco and tender do need some serious chamfering back to avoid fouling so it was a case of chamfer and try but got there in the end. Crankpins trimmed and motion painted and blended in and there we have it. I've got another conversion set for a Drummond 700 having again picked one up as an impulse buy, this time a the Hornby factory sale. Thanks for looking Stu

It's been in the "public domain" for at least a couple decades, just google it. We're now going over old ground as this was all discussed a few pages back but reading the article, which has at least one error, woinder "why now?" Stu

The Japanese IIRC have a saying "Fix the problem not the blame" Stu

Think it's more likely that the virus emerged when different animal species that would have not normally met in the wild being brought together in another totally un-natural environment; i.e. the market. Stu

The main flu variant for the 19/20 season was an H3 variant that could give rise to moderate/severe symptoms though if I've read the stuff correctly the vaccine was pretty effective. I too have heard tales of people suffering something over Xmas 19 and early 20 that could in hindsight have been covid. The problem is without a test to confirm we'll never know, it's simply speculation. It really bothered me early on in the pandemic that they used the phrase "flu like sysmptoms" as I personally thought it sent a mixed message. The casual term "flu" now seems to cover a very wide of conditions though anyone who has had influenza knows it's no joke. Also will we get a flu jab for 21/22 with the demand for Covid vaccines taking production capacity. Stu

If that IS what she said and not taken out of context then I'm speechless! Stu

Lower no. of deaths than last Tuesday - BBC Stu

Had this rather Monty Pythonesque thought. Very early last year did the sages and politicians get together and agree a vaccine was going to be essential. Did they hand then job over to some experienced bod(s) somewhere and told them to get on with it. Remembering the global shortage of Athletes Foot Powder of 1983 did they get straight on their laptops and find Vaccines'R'Us, click Covid-19;expected Dec 20, quantity required 60 million, use theTreasury's Paypal account to pay for it and signed up for the weekly newsletter, then on to JabsDirect and did the same and so on. From the Beeb see there's another new plant in Scotland for the Valneva jab, given this one, the AZ plant plus another in Stockton, can't recall whose that is, we'll have 3 at least. Has someone been really thinking ahead here? Stu

Guys, do you think we can take the heat (and anything blatantly partisan politically) out of this. As someone - apologies for not going back through to find you -said this was largely a useful and informative thread, let's keepit that way please. Sir Tom Moore is in hospital with Covid now - enough said. Stu

I think I might be doing them a disservice, perhaps they could do with a little more publicity now. Some light bedtime reading for anyone interested, the stats sheet alone is worth a look stats - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/956602/regional_contact_tracing_w34.csv/preview https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/956634/Test_and_Trace_Week34.pdf Stu

Test and Trace - still the elephant in the room ?? Stu

Something for the future - museum next door. https://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet/news/warehouse-to-be-transformed-into-railway-museum-241605/ Stu

See Quebec is going down the bigger gap between jabs route. https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/inspq-says-giving-one-covid-19-vaccine-dose-to-as-many-as-possible-is-better-strategy Re AZ and the EU, do wonder if a lot of the noise is for internal consumption given the stuttering start to the vaccine rollout. Remeber we were in the EU up until the new year and we used an EU emergency use authorisation to get ourjabs going. Any one of the member states could have done the same. Probably a lot more politics involved and likely a lot more UK+AZ to EU talk going on under the radar. Incidentally the EU's drug regulation authority was London based till last year when a new one was set up somewhere over there. Stu

https://www.nr23.net/govt/spray_dorset.htm I was under this one! Stu

I really hope he's got this wrong. There are plenty of other things that need opening before pubs. Stu

Brian, thanks for that. Only 40 then, wonder why the decided to a RTR one of such a small group? Dug out the 4 PW wagons, Parkside Grampus and 3 Chivers, assorted Tunney/Ling. Chivers are excellent kits and a joy to put together. Got rid off all my duff weathering and repainted black and was looking at what decals I had. Knew there was a old Modelmaster Grampus sheet which was ok for the Grampus obviously and thought I could use that to cobble together the other three. However this was a very old M/Master sheet when they went through a phase of reversing the printing with the carrier film on top of the image rather than the conventional image-on-carrier. Think the idea was you put the transfer on, let it dry throughly then could remove the carrier. When I tried to use them they simply all parted company in the water. Then realised the carrier was peeling away in places on the sheet. Just visible wrapped round the tweezers here. Might be able to peel it all off and revarnish. Otherwise get replacements. Separate sheets for all the wagons are available but as I've only one of each seems rather uneconomic to spend a quite a few quid when I'm only going to need one of each. Needs investigating so to one side for the moment. Cheers Stu