Corbs

So great to meet you Ian! Was great to go to the event, despite a couple of technical hiccups (I think the techie in the booth must have been sweating) I hope everyone had a nice time and Chris was pleased with the result.

That's interesting as when I used a Castle wheelset to fix my county (broken gear), it wouldn't work until I swapped the wheels on the axle, which I put down to the wheel diameters being different.

That's great! I have one of those from my first ever trainset but I think nostalgia prevents me from chopping it around

These are absolutely wonderful. The two blue ones put me in mind of term used by car enthusiasts - 'restomod' - restored and modified at the same time.

But we would have missed the Austin 7 converted with a Ljungström turbine!

No it doesn't fit. The Castle/County motor mount is too narrow even for the slimline CD motor. I was looking for other motors of similar dimensions for a while and couldn't find anything.

I think it would be best to send it back, mate. Sorry I know it's a pain but it is the best way to ensure it gets fixed.

I'd love an RTR 44xx. A Lima 4575 was the second loco I ever got, and the small wheeled, 'hunkered down' look of its grandfather has always appealed.

You might need to try a retailer as I think it's soled out on the Rapido site

I've ordered mine in BR black (easier to repaint). All locos will be this kind of price soon, prices are going up across the board as costs rise.

Livery samples (pics from FB)

I had a similar conundrum trying to find a suitable donor - I didn't find any RTR tender locos in the end that were small enough. The Lambton 0-6-0s had nominal outside wheel diameters of between 4ft 2.5in and 4ft 7in (ish, depending on tyre depth) and coupled wheelbases between 13ft 6in and 16ft. I think I found the J15 was the closest with 4ft 11in wheels and 16ft 1in wheelbase. My 'Lambtonesque' 0-6-0 is oversized really. The tender from the Standard is also very large but in styling it is quite similar to some of the Philadelphia works-built tenders. These may have been new bodies on old chassis. Lambton 26 had this along with the enclosed cab - note the tender chassis is quite old in design. No.9 had a similar one. Both had tender cabs as they spent half their lives in reverse. I've not had a great deal of experience with whitemetal (only a couple of kits) but I much prefer plastic to work with. My clumsy hands kept bending the whitemetal and I could never get the bits properly straight again or to fit together well :( Trying to solder it made me feel like I was going mad as either I'd accidentally melt it, or when trying to join one piece, another would come unstuck. That said, maybe there are bits you can salvage like the chimney, dome, safety valves, splashers, buffers etc even if you didn't use the body?

109.5mm over buffers 97.5mm over headstocks 44mm (approx) wheelbase 48mm from railhead to chimney top

I know that feeling!

Hello Lofty, How did you get on with these? A lot of you will have already seen this but thought it relevant to the thread - I recently bodged together an approximation of a Saint from a Castle, a 28xx and a Hall. A lot of imperfections but hope to make another soon.

Vectis Models do a 3D printed adapter to put NEM couplings on the Pug, hope that is useful!

I think it's been banned from being imported, I tried to buy some from the USA but they had to cancel the sale as they wouldn't be able to post it :( I've switched to Tamiya matt clear which isn't as good but have to make do.

The brown should be the same as used on the Chatham open wagons 😀 the red oxide is a new colour though.

A few months back Hardys Hobbies announced they would stop printing new body kits and the only ones left would be remaining stock, I guess that may have run out now.

Hoping to get some fall plates in metal but felt a bit impatient, so used some scrap plastic from a piece of packaging to make one. Raided Pat's stash of figures and found a painted crew who help to make the cab feel less bare. Hopefully there is just the tender coupling, cab glazing and elecrickery to go now. I have placed an order with Micron for a couple of receivers as this will be going RC. There are only 6 pickups, they are all pretty knackered and I can't be bothered to faff around with them, so going to see how big a battery I can get into the tender.

Which livery did you order Robin?

Just got my 2, very excited. I am really pleased that the factory were able to reproduce things like the Lifted/Painted dates, and the way that the oiling date panel is a separately defined colour. Planning to give them a coat of matt lacquer to tone down the shininess a bit, hopefully the weather tomorrow is suitable!

I don't like it. I love it.

I'm really pleased with how they are looking and am so excited about them being out in the world, a lot of time went into them!

Found the box with the coupling rods, PLUS they had the crankpin screws with them, yaaaay. For some reason one of the wheels was missing the threaded crankpin insert so I nicked one out of a spare wheelset. Not an exact fit but held the soldering iron against it to melt it into the slot, seemed to work. I pinched an idea from someone on twitter doing a Saint to make something resembling a vacuum pump. Cut some brass tube in half and glued to the running board, then painted black. Link to Twitter build: Coupling hook and vac pipe added to the front end, more odds and ends from the bits box.