chaz

Thanks, Peter. I did worry for a while about the joins in the cab-sides half way down the "window" openings, which I had great difficulty in hiding. Then I noticed in some pictures of J50's that the join on the real thing, which was in the same place, was often very obvious, a prototypical imperfection...... Chaz

Hmmm. Now you're asking Don. Well, as I recall the only soldering I had ever done was masses of electrical and electronic work. So yes "a real baptism of fire". I have never had much patience. I just bought the kit at the Home of O Gauge shop, read a few MRJ articles and then started making mistakes, lots of them...... The worst "mistake" I made was to build the frames with rigid axles. The loco ran well enough but was very sensitive to dirt on the wheels. Eventually (after a year or two) I bit the bullet, dismantled the frames and put in sprung hornblocks. Now, when it stalls, the wheel treads will be really dirty. A couple of snaps of this first try.... Must have taken these snaps just after I built it as it still has 3 link couplings. I am still quite proud of this first effort in etched brass - but I will say again much of my success can be attributed to the excellent Connoisseur kit. All the parts fitted as they should, I didn't have to modify or replace anything and the instructions were helpful. Incidentally, the loco is a J50/3, built by the LNER in 1930. Unlike my other J50 (68891 - see above) it did not have vacuum brakes. I chose 68973 as it was one of the locos that I saw in my youth - it was shedded for a time at Hornsey. Chaz

I was lucky Pat. Foolishly ignoring all advice to start with a wagon, my first etched brass kit was a Connoisseur J50 0-6-0T. I reasoned that if I couldn't build a loco then 7mm wasn't for me. The second loco kit I bought was the Walsworth Models J52 saddle tank. Luck? Well, if I had taken on the saddle tank first, as a complete beginner, it would probably have defeated me. Chaz

David, thanks for the comments. You say ....on the subject of errors... in my world if it looks like a brake van, it is a brake van. Life's too short and there seem to be numerous detail variations between individual examples anyway..... I have a great deal of sympathy with your view (indeed I intend to leave well alone with my LNER van), however with a modelling project like the kitbash (actually more of a kit-tickle!) it's attention to the fine details that makes the difference. I can best sum up my attitude as - If it's as easy to get it right as wrong then get it right. If you have to compromise then decide for yourself what is acceptable to you; critics can go away. (I cleaned that last bit up). If you find out later that you have made a mistake decide for yourself if you want to rectify it or not. Wrong number of spokes on a loco's wheels? Can you tell when they are revolving? Wrong shade of green? Are you basing your judgement on a colour photo, which was shot on film that (inevitably) had a colour bias, or on the memory of someone who last saw the prototype forty years ago? No valve gear between the frames? Well that boiler isn't nearly full of boiling water either... The ultimate critic stopper is - "Oh, you're right of course. How did you do the one you made?" Ho hum......now it's back to the cobbles for me.......ZZZZZzzzzz Chaz

As I was making a comparison between the etched brass kit and Slater's plastic one it only seems fair to show a snap of my build of the latter.... The photo was taken before the van got weathered but otherwise it looks good. There is one error in the Slater's kit - any brake van buffs spot it? Chaz

I agree with what you say Pat, particularly the bit about it being tremendously satisfying. However there is one warning worth giving. There are a few bad etched brass kits around. Either they don't fit, or are difficult to build because the design is faulty (and often bad kits have worse instructions). I have struggled to finish a few dodgy ones and it was tremendously satisfying to eventually complete them. How is a beginner to know which ones to avoid? I would suggest before buying post a request on the forum - "Anybody built a....". If the purchase is at a show I would also ask the vendor how easy it is to build. The answer may be revealing. If you ask Jim McGowan (Connoisseur Models) how easy a kit of his is to build you will get an honest answer. He will tell you about any tricky bits and offer advice when you need it. A beginner could do a lot worse than start with one of his kits. Chaz

Just found this snap of the two brake vans that were both built from Connoisseur brass kits.... The van on the right was built as per the instructions - the one on the left was modified to portray the earlier LNER van. Both of the prototype vans would have been built at Faverdale (Darlington) so the progression would have been easy. The LNER van may well hold the record for the number of handrails - any advance on 30? Since I built it I have been made aware that I made a couple of errors with the LNER van (some people just have to spoil things!) but you will have to be a real LNER wagon buff to spot 'em. Me, I'm happy with the van as it is - I really don't want to spoil the paint correcting it. Chaz

Yes, but the Furness Valley Railroad is on hold until the new year, when I hope the bulk of the work on Dock Green will be done. WTS Chaz

Difficult to say this without sounding like a teacher (Cos' I am a retired teacher) but the important word in the above is "enthusiastic" - that will carry you a long way. If I am a skilled modeller I have to say that what skills I have are largely self-taught. I started out not being able to do much - I used to invent what I thought of as work-arounds, to make up for my lack of skill. After a while it dawned on me that what I had done was acquire the necessary skills, or at least my version of them. So get soldering, make your mistakes. Read the mags, talk to demonstrators at shows. Find ways to make your soldered joints without singeing too many fingers. Go on, have a go! Chaz

why do you not have a go at building your own (points)? Time, Martyn. And also I don't want to. I am building all the track on my ON30 American NG layout, using timber ties and spikes for the plain track and jig-building turnouts with code 83 soldered to PCB ties. But Dock Green has taken about two years to build - I think building the points as well would have added considerably to that. There are other modelling jobs I would rather do. Chaz

Thought you might like this picture, David.... It's a Connoisseur kit for a BR standard brake van - but modified to make an ex-LNER Green Arrow van. You might be able to spot some of the differences. Most of this was assembled with a 25 watt iron, Carr's green label flux and 145 degree solder. The white metal duckets were soldered with a temperature controlled iron set to 165 degrees and some 70 degree solder. I did straighten that wonky lamp iron before I painted the van! For me there's no contest - a good etched brass kit is much nicer to work with than a plastic one.... Chaz

I'm thinking on similar lines Martyn, except that I would hope to leave the tie-bar intact and just infill plastic to repair whatever is left of the sleepers. I'm tempted to have a go - one of the points on Dock Green is a bit "iffy" - if I attack that one first then if I wreck it I will be replacing a dodgy one anyway. Chaz

Thanks for the comments David. I have built the Slater's plastic kit for the BR standard brake van as well as Jim McGowan's etched brass one. If I needed another van there would be no contest - the brass kit wins hands down - much easier to assemble and more robust when finished. Soldering is easy once you have "the knack" and I would certainly advise anyone who thinks they can't to have a go. Probably the best way to start is to sit down with someone who has the skills and build something like a simple wagon kit with their help. Etched brass is much more forgiving than plastic - If you go wrong you just unsolder, clean up and try again. Everytime I see the Peco points in a photograph I wince (looking at the actual layout I find the boxes less obvious). I wonder if anything can be done with them in situ. With the points glued down and ballasted it might be possible to cut the box away and make good the remains of the sleepers. Anyone tried this?

Well, the setts are not finished yet but I thought I would post some more technique pics. When adding DAS in thumb-friendly dollops you may see this effect.... A stubborn gap shows between two adjacent dollops. It doesn't seem to matter how much you smooth the top surface the gap may well keep showing as a thin line. If you leave it untreated when the DAS dries you are likely to see a crack develop. The clay contains fibres which do stop cracks forming but they don't cross this gap. So to lock the two sides together take your wooden modelling tool and criss-cross the line. Now when you smooth the top surface the line will have gone and when the DAS dries it will not crack. Last photo of my DAS application techniques shows how I get the top surface reasonably level. A steel rule is pressed into the DAS until it rests on the top of the rails on either side. High points will be obvious as grooves in the surface. Low points can be seen by sliding the rule sideways and watching for gaps. If I were not working between two lines of metals I would pin down two lengths of wood battens to get the same facility. You are probably not that excited by snaps of DAS (unless you are in the throes of a DAS job yourself!) so here's a more exciting picture.... The BR standard brake van was built from the excellent Connoisseur etched brass kit. It includes a fair amount of white-metal (the duckets, "concrete" platform weights, axleguards etc) so doesn't need any additional weighting. I soldered the kit together, the only glue being used to attach the glazing for the windows. The only deviation from the kit I made was to discard the white-metal label clips (which I thought oversize) and cut some little brass rectangles. This picture shows how discrete the Dingham auto-couplers are. What a pity Peco redesigned their 7mm points with that huge plastic box over the tie-bar! I wish I had cut this away before the the track was laid. And the red-brick section of the retaining wall? It's waiting for the last bridge which one of the Dock Green team is making (he has already made a similar bridge in 4mm). Now I really must get back to scribing up setts (yawn).... Chaz

No amazing progress this week I'm afraid. Nothing new either. Just acres and acres of stone setts (a load of old cobbles!). Wish I could say that the work was inspiring, but it's turned into one of those long, plod through it, jobs. Next post will probably be when the setts are finished and painted. I just hope it looks good enough to justify the time I'm spending on it....

No might be about it SS! And yes I am drinking a lot of tea whilst doing this work. I also have music playing more or less constantly - yesterday it was Mahler's symphonies. #3, #4, & #5 were a welcome distraction - today I have enjoyed the last six Mozart symphonies - magic stuff. I did find a better and faster method of cutting the sett pattern - I still mark out with a scriber but then switch to a needle file to make the cuts. I use the type of needle file that has a curved face on both sides, making sure that the one chosen still has a pointed end. Because this has cutting teeth right down the taper, unlike the scriber (which is smooth sided and only cuts at the point) it makes the work go much faster. It also seems less likely to cause a sett to break out, as less pressure is needed. This second photo shows progress made today. Sorry that it's quite hard to see what I've done, it's tricky to photograph the white DAS surface. The paint will reveal the pattern nicely. One of tomorrow's tasks must be to add the next few areas of DAS, including the the one between the rails (in the four-foot!). Chaz

Thought I would just post a few photos showing my method of scratching in the setts.... (sorry about the strange variations in colour balance - my camera doesn't cope very well with the energy-saving bulb in the spotlight I've been using) First picture shows the repair over that brass screw.... I found that you can add more DAS directly to some that has already dried completely and it sticks very well with no tendency to come away. This patch is quite thin in places but I was able to cut the setts into it without any problems. The next picture shows an area marked out with a scriber. I am finding it best to tackle smallish areas at a time (how would you eat an elephant?). The last picture of this posting shows the same area worked on and largely finished and the next small area partly marked out. I found that if I wanted to avoid it looking like I had scratched a grid into the surface (which, of course, I have) I had to "draw" around each individual sett a couple of times with the scriber. This knocks off some of the corners making the effect look more convincing. Occasionally (especially if I press too hard with the scriber) the sett will come away, snapping off and leaving a gap. This has happened in the row next to the rail. I will pop a little extra DAS into the hole and scribe it up again. Tedious doesn't begin to describe this job...... Chaz

Ballasting, pah! Just doesn't compare. But thanks for the appreciative comment Pete.

Thanks to you both, Tim and John. I will try to finish the setts this coming week. This is certainly possible - if only I can keep at it. WTS. Chaz PS I have discovered that DAS has a tendency to crack upon drying - BUT only if it is not sufficiently compressed when applied. My usual technique of thumbing it down firmly on top of a patch of wet PVA seems to prevent any cracking but cracks have appeared at the edge of an applied section where I have stopped for the day. Presumably this is because I have not compressed the very edge sufficiently. Not a big problem - I remove any loose bits and fill the remaining cracks with the next lot to be applied.

A whole day's work and I have ended up with quite a few setts scribed up and a numb thumb..... ....although the area pictured is less than a tenth of the area to be dealt with. I could cut down the amount to be done by putting in another building....tempting. The brass screw is pulling down a warped corner where the underlying foam board has pulled away from the baseboard. It will be covered with a little more DAS. Chaz

Thanks Peter, I need all the encouragement I can get for this most tedious of jobs....

This job is going to take a while... I have started scribing up the DAS to produce the stone setts around the inset siding. I found a photo in an album of a goods yard with setts which showed shallow drain gutters set into the surface. Casting around for a tool that would allow me to scrape the gulleys I eventually opted to use a scalpel blade. Snapping off the end of an old blade with a pair of pliers produced a square ended scraper, with the taper of the blade allowing the width to be set. I chose not to try and form the gutter in one, it seems more controllable to opt for a narrower blade to work from both sides. In this picture you can see from the right... an area of setts scribed up with a drain gutter crossing it an area scribed up ready for the next batch of setts a gutter being finished off by scraping the bottom with the snapped-off scalpel blade the next section marked up with a pair of dividers, ready to have the courses scribed in I should say that I use a straight edge, sliding the back of the blade along it, when starting the cuts, otherwise fibres in the DAS can cause the blade to deviate from the line. If you decide to try this, snapping off a scalpel blade - DO PROTECT YOUR EYES. I found the very end of the blade snapped easily and cleanly BUT the steel is very hard and if the blade breaks up at the handle end bits could fly off in any direction. Doing the large area of setts I want is definitely one of those "do a bit now and then" jobs. Chaz

Steady on, Pete! Thanks for the comment, but I think I have a lot to do and much to improve to get it to the standard I hope for. Christmas is my self imposed deadline to finish Dock Green and I think it's possible (just). It would seem quite appropriate for me to take the layout to North London, after all that's where I set it. But it depends on us getting an invite.......Ally Pally would be nice. Chaz

Thanks for the comments Don. "just look at the quality of Norris's layout." or Martin Welch's Hursley! I am sure you are right about the focus on locomotives. Nothing wrong with that approach at all - whatever floats your boat - but the standard of my locos don't compare with the ones that Norris ran on his layout. I'm very much in tune with Jim McGowan's approach - good, basic layout locos. In my view it's more important to make steam locos look like what they were - dirty, than to worry too much about every last minute detail. Some of the locos I have seen in magazines and at shows just look too good. I know that cleaning standards used to be very high, with crews taking much time and trouble to keep their loco spotless, but even those machines would accumulate the effects of hard-work and weather. As for publishing pictures of Dock Green - I would not be averse to putting some in the Gazette in due course but... not yet - I would want to finish more of the layout before that happens... And I would prefer to use my own photographs. No disrespect to Stephen (Warspite), who took some fine photographs at the Wimborne show. I readily agreed to him posting them on this forum, indeed I encouraged him to post more. However I would hope that anybody who photographs (or videos) a layout at a show would seek the owner's consent before submitting them for publication (as he did). Chaz

Thank you David. I really enjoyed Wimborne - the first time that I had been able to see Dock Green fully assembled (albeit unfinished) - as I have said before it's just too big to assemble in the house. I am allowing myself a week off to do other stuff, but next week I will be getting on. I think the setts will be next - I want to deal with that big white blank in front of the goods canopy. I hope to quash the belief that you can't do as convincing layouts in 7mm as you can in 4mm... Chaz