CWJ

At long last I have some actual progress to report! My experiments with home brass etching have finally resulted in some usable parts: I'm hoping this one will make a big visual difference to the front ends of the tram (and indeed the rear ends, depending on where you're standing). The windscreen will be folded down the middle to fit tram's pointed nose, just as soon as I come up with a method! The outer frame has a half-etched line down the back to help with alignment, but other than that I'll just have to use my initiative. Photos of Balloons often show the cab window open so I've made it as a separate posable part. Needless to say, these window frames are very fragile so I'm handling them very carefully until they're securely attached to the tram! At the back of the cab I've made a representation of the bulkhead wall. I included more detail than necessary, and the imperfections don't really matter. Those holes in the lower panels will be filled in though - just part of my etching process that I haven't quite perfected yet. This piece provides a floor to cover a large former screw hole and fold-up partition screens with handrail brackets. You might just be able to make out the corresponding hole in the floor, so the handrail can run floor-to-ceiling like the real thing. On the upper deck, Corgi's moulded bannister is the wrong way round, so the little passengers wouldn't be able to get a seat upstairs! I've made a replacement with half-etched panel detail and holes for handrails. The bit that folds behind the seat isn't really necessary but it strengthens the partition and gives it somewhere to be glued onto. Again there's a hole which will be filled, and I've only noticed when looking at the photo that the left-hand side needs straightening out. I've etched doors so that I can set these slightly further back than the existing cast ones and replace the cast handrails with finer separate ones. I'm hoping these doors might look capable of actually opening, instead of looking like they're sealed together with thick glossy paint! The rim around the windows is also finer, to represent the simple rubber seal of the prototype. Yes, I know, there's another hole to fill! But that's a lot less work than building doors from scratch. All of the above are just plonked loosely in position to see if they fit. Next, on to something even more fiddly... Cheers, Will

Today I turned the voltage down to 3V as others have found a lower voltage is less likely to damage the toner, and I'm now more interested in quality rather than just grateful to be able to etch anything! Here's the first attempt fresh from the etching tank, before the toner was removed: Some of the holes haven't etched all the way through, but I stopped at this point because some of the half-etched areas have started to turn into holes (this unevenness could be something for me to investigate another day). After cleaning up and removing parts from the fret: Much better than before - the unetched areas are free of pitting, the edges are sharp and I'm very happy to use these on my tram project. The main issue is the holes in the double door (my fault for forgetting to protect a bit of damaged toner) and in those half-etched bulkhead panels. Nothing that can't be concealed with a bit of spare brass and filler/solder. Next came the smaller fret, with similar results. Here are some of its components (right) alongside my previous attempt (left): Clearly a big step forward. Even those tiny handrail brackets have worked out this time. And finally, here's the second larger fret, which I decided to clean up before removing the parts: These close-ups are very cruel, but my naked eye is pleasantly surpried at the quality of these frets, especially when you consider that I've deliberately been ambitious with some of my fine details to find out what's achievable. There are still three areas I'd like to improve on: The half-etched areas don't have a smooth surface - look at the double doors above for example - maybe it will be OK under a coat of paint, or maybe it'll need some filling and sanding. Some half-etched areas develop holes before all the areas which are supposed to be holes have etched through. Larger areas seem worst-affected. I've noticed that the top of each hole breaks through before the bottom, so maybe I need to rig up my wiring so each fret can be hung either way up alternately to even out this effect. The toner is either getting too hot or too squashed, as it has been spreading ever so slightly, just enough to close some of the tiniest gaps. All in all, I'm delighted with these results; far better than anything I thought I could make at home. If you're interested, you can find out what I do with these parts on my Blackpool tram thread. I'll be back here to report on etches I need to make for a dead exciting DMU project, and also to write up my experiences into a concise guide once I've solved the three problems noted above. Cheers, Will

Well I'm pleased to report good progress over the weekend. I have etched lots of parts and the quality is much better than the bogie frames on Friday. The secret is getting the toner to stick to the brass - if that works, the etching part is relatively easy. So, here's the set-up: Floral print on rolling pin optional. Chopping board doesn't need to be heart-shaped. Tea, coffee and sugar jars not remotely necessary (but may help with morale during breaks). I looked back at my notes of what had worked well and what hadn't, before coming up with this beast of a procedure: Run bare brass through laminator 4 times to pre-heat it; toner won't transfer from hot paper to cold metal. Run brass and toner mask through laminator 10 times; this won't be enough to make the toner stick unless it's a small piece of brass, but my toner prints are wider than the brass so it'll seal the paper together around the edge, preventing the brass from moving and making the next step easier. Pre-warm chopping board with the iron. Iron on 2-dots setting for 40 seconds on each side, rolling regularly (iron 10 sec, roll, rotate, repeat...) After doing this the paper is well and truly stuck to the brass: Apologies once again for the dinosaur graphics! As our pesky Jurassic friends have obscured my alignment crosshairs I cut to the centre of each one so I could align these corners. Now at first I was worried about the bubbles you can see in the middle of the paper, and attempted further ironing to try and make sure the toner had stuck, but then realised these are just the parts where there's no toner printed! They're windows etc, that's why the bubbles are square. After gently washing the paper away in warm water: Result! By far my best toner transfer yet. I can't say it's perfect because some of the very finest detail has been affected by the toner melting just slightly too much and filling some of the tiniest gaps. But this won't affect what I'm building and there's no sign of the missing spots which have affected all my previous attempts. I repeated this as I needed two of these frets, then decided to try something different for my final tram detailing etch: as the iron is needed to melt the toner, might it be possible to do without the laminator? Yup, this worked fine. There are a few missing specks but it's because this piece of brass is slightly kinked so the heat from the iron might not have conducted evenly across. Luckily, none of the important parts are affected. Time to do some etching...

This looks like flat-bottomed rail, but smaller in profile than for the standard gauge, possibly for a coal mine in the area.

There has also been speculation over the years about putting pantographs and transformers on Voyagers instead of (at least some of) the engines. Probably hasn't happened because of cost and complexity compared with buying new bi-modes. The TPE Mk5a is effectively a multiple unit with no traction, by which I mean it has a permanent configuration electronically and mechanically. You couldn't just add or remove coaches without undoing bolts and updating software. So similar in that respect to the 'unpowered Voyager' idea. Sadly the UK rail industry is no longer set up to reap the benefits of LHCS (e.g. ability to swap locos or match train length to demand) because very few locations have suitable infrastructure and (passenger TOC) staff working conditions have moved on from the days when drivers would clamber onto the track and hurl a dirty great shackle over a hook, for example. These things can all be overcome of course, but it's considerably easier to just use multiple units so LHCS tends to be a last resort. Might be good IMHO for some UK rail industry leaders to visit parts of Europe where push-pull trains are used more flexibly to very good effect. Cheers, Will PS. A slightly pedantic thought, just in case anyone else is geeky enough to care: the CAF Mk5 coaches are so named because they're the next generation from CAF's Mk4 coaches as used in Ireland. Presumably the proposed Virgin Mk5s would have been so named as the next generation from BR's Mk4 coaches as hauled by Class 91s on the ECML.

Funny you should mention that, I've just ordered something very similar!

Good idea, thank you, Mike. A PCB marker should be very resistant to chemicals so worth a try. I do want to keep trying to perfect the toner transfer technique until there are no more missing bits, but there will always need to be an electrical connection with the electro-etching method so that joint needs protection too. Cheers, Will

37075 is another. At least as preserved on the K&WVR - split boxes at the Oxenhope end and flush marker lights at the Keighley end. Cheers, Will

Without going into too much detail, the wheels and rails are effectively at the same voltage as the ground, the lake, and indeed the fish - so no aquatic life would be harmed. Now if one end of a fish were touching the contact wire, and the other end dipped in Lake Constance, there would be a high voltage across it, resulting in certain death for the fish and a nice lunch for someone. While I'm here, thanks very much to David for continuing sharing this huge photo collection. I particularly enjoy your clear, sharp colour photos of subjects which I've only previously seen in grainy black & white images. As someone not born until the 1980s this brings the steam and early diesesl/electric era alive for me. Cheers, Will

My brass-etching efforts are now good enough to produce the combined bogie frames/gearboxes, but not yet refined enough for detailing parts. The tinkering continues, but here's a preview of a bogie frame etch: And quickly folded into shape and with bearings loosely in position: This is a bit experimental but hopefully it will make more sense when I've added the transmission components and wheelsets. Even if it makes sense, that doesn't necessarily mean it will work of course! Cheers, Will

I'll finish for tonight with a couple of close-ups of the bogie frame which I quickly folded into shape (it isn't soldered yet so not perfectly square) and with bearings in place. These are for 2mm diameter axles, and the whole thing is just over an inch in length: Really nice to finally have something in my hand that will actually go into a model! Cheers, Will PS. I also took a time-lapse video of the brass etching, which is quite satisfying to watch. It's over 300MB so I'm not sure how to share it without having a YouTube account, but if anyone has any ideas let me know.

So here's my best example yet of toner transfer, done from label backing paper using the laminator alternating with the rolling pin: A few specks, but otherwise a pretty successful start. I soldered on a piece of chunky wire to carry the current to the workpiece, this time a bit longer so the brass could hang below the scum that accumulates on the surface: You can also see where I've touched in the specks with a permanent marker, including those solder joints actually, as this process isn't fussy about what it etches. Into the tank it goes, at 5V again using the same saltwater as my last attempt (450g salt in 2l water): Very soon the marker pen ink started to fade away, so I'll have to try something else next time, maybe a paint pen. After 25 minutes the solder joints broke so I re-soldered the wire and also touched up the marker pen. Five minutes later, the first holes started to appear through the brass. After exactly 60 minutes I concluded that the areas which were supposed to be etched through but not, were equal to the areas which were not supposed to be etched but were... if you know what I mean! In other words, the average amount of etching was correct: Looks like an etched fret, doesn't it? 👍 After being cleaned up with 600-grit wet and dry (I really need to find a chemical way of doing this, as fine parts get damaged by sanding) we have a finished fret! Now don't get me wrong, this is a bit rough and ready, but for a home-made effort with no specialist expertise or equipment I'm really chuffed with it. The surface finish is poor, clearly the water is getting through, or under, the toner (or maybe just the marker pen?), which would be no good for fine detailed parts that need to look neat and smooth. Some of the half-etched holes have gone all the way through and there are some unwanted bits of brass bridging what are supposed to be gaps. This doesn't matter as it's a bogie frame / gearbox that will be hidden by cosmetic sideframes, all that matters is that the axle holes are in good alignment. On the positive side, the outlines are clean and sharp, and I have made something so fiddly that I could never be bothered to even attempt it with hand tools, even if I had the skill! Maybe if I can perfect the toner transfer stage using magazine paper and the iron so the toner sticks really well, I might be able to get a smoother surface finish and then we'll be in business.

I bring good news and bad news this evening. The good news is that I have made my first decent and usable etched fret - I'll come back to that shortly. The bad news is that I had a really frustrating evening of trying to perfect the toner transfer technique yesterday, with only once decent result and many failures. I won't bore you with the whole process (if you want to see photos of poor results, just scroll up!), but basically a procedure which produced good results on one piece of brass failed to create anything vaguely useable with a second sheet, even though the materials and process were exactly the same! So tried various combinations of laminator, iron, rolling pin but still didn't really get anywhere. Most of my efforts had good bits and bad bits, suggesting it is theoretically possible for the toner to transfer, just difficult to do it evenly. I was hoping to come up with a foolproof 'recipe' that didn't involve much skill, e.g. "clean the brass with X, run it through the laminator Y times, roll it Z times and Bob's your uncle"... but sadly it's looking like this technique just requires patience, practice and lots of failures before you get a decent outcome. Frustrating! From my experience so far, I think the solution is to get the brass hot first by running it through the laminator 4 times, then slot it between the etching mask with the folded edge going into the laminator first and no sticky tape securing the opposite edge. Run it through the laminator a few times, roll both sides, then repeat until you can see the paper lift away from the toner as you roll. Press down on the rolling pin with as much weight as you can. This worked for a small piece of brass (about 30 x 50mm / 1.25" x 2") but not on a slightly larger one (about 50 x 75mm / 2" x 3") despite me following EXACTLY the same procedure! (Did I mention how frustrating this all was?) I wondered if the bigger piece was enough to sink more heat energy from the laminator so it just didn't get hot enough. More tinkering needed. Anyway, although we're still in the 'bad news' section there was a glimmer of hope. I ran out of toner masks printed on label paper so I moved onto those I'd printed on glossy magazine pages. After a couple of false starts, I managed to get some results you may find entertaining. Here's what I was starting with - nice clean brass and printed toner pattern. Learning point: next time use a magazine with lots of plain white areas, as its very hard to see those alignment crosshairs through a page printed with bold graphics, even held up to a bright light. The following attempt was done with just the iron on a medium (two dots) setting, for 40 seconds on each side, lifting and rotating the iron every 10 seconds for even heat coverage: The toner sticks this type of paper to the brass rather than coming away, so you have to soak it in water and peel off the soggy paper. This leaves fibres from the paper in the toner, but they don't seem to be doing any harm. As you can see, the entire middle section hasn't worked at all, but around the edges the toner has stuck really well to the brass (I know this because it couldn't be scrubbed off with a pan scourer and had to be sanded), and the areas that have worked best have very sharp edges and none of the speckly gaps I've always had in the past. Hmm, maybe this has potential. If only I could fill in the middle... Some of you may be ahead of me, but now for the comedy moment. For the next attempt I did exactly the same but with some extra steps to get the brass hotter, i.e. pre-heating the bare metal in the laminator, running it through the laminator with the toner mask ten times to start the melting process and get everything hot, and pre-warming the wooden chopping board with the iron so that didn't cool the brass down either. Obviously the brass slipped to a jaunty angle, which was just down to clumsiness on my part, but what I found amusing was that this one is really good in the middle but defective around the edges! I could almost combine this with the previous one and get a perfect specimen! So all in all, a bit of a struggle but I can see the potential in the last two images. Now for the good news...

At this point I made a mental note to hang future etches lower in the water to avoid all the scum floating near the top. I don't know if it affects the etching but it makes it harder to see: Well I think this scene from a Frankenstein movie ticks all the boxes for participation in British Science Week after all. After about 40 minutes in this concentration of salt, I decided the fret was as good as it was ever going to be. Out it came, and after sanding off as much of the toner as I dared (the fret is fragile) I photographed it alongside the original artwork to show how it's supposed to look. Prepare to be unimpressed: Now I know it looks a mess, but this was done using a known-dodgy toner-transfer and it ended up pickling in the etching tank for about 5 hours while I kept tweaking things! I'm happy with that. If I try again with a good print, good toner transfer and give it a shorter dip in the concentrated solution I could be on my way to making usable parts. Maybe 3V to minimise toner damage, for about 60 minutes. I may need to modify the artwork too, for example those fine handwheels and destination window frames might need to be printed thicker to account for the undercut effect during etching. I'll finish for tonight with a photo of the 'parts' from this fret (shown alongside my tram's destination blind box for which I'm etching a new front). The big bit is an entrance vestibule with partition screens. The right-angle bends worked well, as did the half-etched panels, although the tiny folded handrail brackets don't have a clean hole for handrail wire as designed. There will now be a dramatic pause for a few days of family duties, after which I'll have another go. If/when I finally get the whole process to work satisfactorily, I'll write up a concise set of instructions so people don't have to read all this rubbish from cover to cover! In the meantime I'm enjoying learning and experimenting. Cheers, Will

I decided that having that steel Bulldog clip submerged in the saltwater for the first couple of hours may have caused the (already weak) solution to go brown and perhaps stop working. So I cleaned everything up, quickly replaced the permanent marker ink that had gone astray, and started again, but this time with 200g of salt in 2l of water, allowing more current to flow. I used 5 volts, not for any particular reason. When I first switched the power on there was a current surge of about 4 amps, but this quickly settled down to around 0.4A, similar to the first attempt. This time though, things seemed to happen faster. The water firstly turned a turquoise colour, then the familiar rusty brown - you can see a bit of both in the next photo. After an hour though, the brass frankly didn't look any different. With nothing to lose, I tried gradually cranking the voltage up to 12V. This isn't recommended because apparently a higher voltage can damage the etch resist (toner in my case), but I wanted to experiment. This resulted in the current going up to about 0.66A, but after 10 minutes there was still no sign of much etching happening. I cleaned up the brass and measured the etched areas with a digital caliper; the thinnest part I could measure was still 0.2mm, as opposed to 0.254mm when the brass was new. Hmm... what was I doing wrong? Well one thing which varies a lot in online advice is the concentration of the salt solution. Some people succeed with just a teaspoon of salt, others recommend using as much as you can dissolve in the water. As I was running out of time I decided to go mad and double my concentration, but thanks to a slip of the hand while pouring the salt, I ended up putting another 250g in, making a total of 450g of salt in 2 litres of water. I turned the voltage back down to 5V, to minimise toner damage and in anticipation of a heavy current being drawn. There was a clear difference this time. Around 2A of current was drawn and there were noticeably more bubbles from the metal grille. By now there were quite a lot of brown deposits floating around in the tank. After ten minutes I took the brass out to have a proper look: Well, now things are happening! The marker pen has been completely wiped out, but the toner is holding firm. And is it just me, or... ...yes! It's starting to etch through! And in the right places as well. Clearly this stronger salt solution was what I needed. Back in the tank for another 10 minutes, and I put a bright light behind the tank to help me see the etching progress.

Well, perhaps revelation is too strong a word. Basically I realised that even with some parts covered in tape, that big Bulldog clip still had about 4 times more surface area than the exposed brass. I took it off, cleaned the brass, and soldered on a piece of chunky wire instead. At this stage, as you can see, much of the permanent marker has been removed, exposing the gaps in the toner. Not to worry, this is just a trial, I'm not expecting the finished fret to be usable. I couldn't really tell if the exposed brass had been etched at all. Back into the soup it went: Without the Bulldog clip, quite a lot less current was flowing - around 0.1A - indicating that a lot of my hard-earned electricity had been wasted on attempting to etch it! After a total etching time of about 2 hours 15 mins, still not much was happening to the brass other than more removal of marker pen ink: I had deliberately been patient, but this was much slower than any other hobbyists had described, so I turned up the voltage to 6V. Strangely the current stayed about the same, which is odd. I'd expected it to double. From a few resistance measurements I worked out that the saltwater doesn't have a fixed resistance. It seems to change when current is flowing. After about half an hour I could see that still hardly any metal had been etched away: (and no, that's not just the same photo repeated! The toner has been attacked a bit more, Time for another 'revelation'.

My children have been coming home with all sorts of projects and homework for British Science Week, so it seems quite appropriate that today I've had my first go at electro-etching. Into the plastic tub in my previous post went 2 litres of cold tap water and 50g of table salt. I started with a weak solution on the grounds that it would be much easier to add more salt than to take some away. I chose the best of my toner-transfer efforts, with the speckles of failed toner touched in with a permanent marker. Rubbish In = Rubbish Out, as they say, so this isn't going to produce a particularly good etch, but it will help me learn about the process. I set the power supply to 3V and switched it on. The current (lower number on the LED display) was initially about 1 amp but it gradually settled down to around 0.5A. The brass sheet and the metal grille were about 65mm apart. Small bubbles started appearing on the metal grille , but not much else happened. No heat, no smell, and the water remained clear at first. The exposed brass immediately took on a matt finish, as would happen if dipped in acid, but otherwise didn't look any different. I soon realised that the large Bulldog clip was just as likely to get etched as the brass, so I dried it and covered the main surfaces in electrical insulation tape. I left it to simmer for just under 2 hours, occasionally checking the brass and turning it round to ensure both sides were equally exposed to the etching process. The water gradually turned pale brown... ...then a darker brown with rusty-coloured scum on the surface and black bits on the bottom. The electric current also gradually reduced to about 0.35A. Not much was happening to my brass at all, but then I had a revelation... To be continued.

Last week, while waiting for the opportunity to go the above printing, I dug out my old tub of ferric chloride and decided to see if it was still in usable condition. I had stored it in a plastic Tupperware tub, the type with a seal around the top and a lid that clamps down. Not unsurprisingly after 10 years in close proximity to acid, the seal was badly perished. I didn't take a photo but frankly this was just a tub of brown gunk so you're not missing much. The chemical itself had separated into a thin, dark brown liquid with a layer of rusty-coloured sludge at the bottom. Not being very knowledgeable about chemistry, I was worried that one of these two substances might contain the concentrated acid, so I mixed them together in the hope of balancing out any volatile characteristics. I now had a tub of gunk the consistency of double cream and the colour of, well let's call it peanut butter. Quite different from the clear yellowish fluid when I had first made it all those years ago. To find out if it was still usable, I dunked one of my test frets and carefully waved it back and forth to move the acid over the surface. Needless to say I was wearing latex gloves and eye protection. I wasn't trying to make any actual parts here, just see how effective the ferric chloride still was. So I didn't bother warming it up or using the fish-tank aerator (which I'd lost) to make bubbles. After dunking and wafting for a few minutes there didn't seem to be much happening, so I clipped the brass to the side of the tank and left it half-submerged while I got on with other work. After a couple of hours (checking occasionally) I gave up on the test. I cleaned the brass then removed the toner from about half of it. As you can see, it has been very lightly etched but I suspect if this is all that happens after two hours then no amount of heating or bubbles would etch all the way through as required. So I have put the ferric chloride away and will be trying out an alternative method... Earlier in this thread Robin2 kindly posted his experience with electro-etching. This can be summarised as: Submerge the brass in a solution of salt water or copper sulphate (available as a weedkiller). Submerge a metal sheet, mesh or grille opposite the workpiece and pass a DC electric current between the two. Some electro-chemical magic happens, causing the metals in the brass to transfer through the fluid and towards the other piece of metal. Just as with acid etching, a masked pattern (toner in my case) protects the parts which we don't want to be etched. Robin included some links in his posts and there are plenty more online articles (just Google 'electro etching') - please don't copy what I'm doing without reading up on the subject first. There are a few options, such as the choice and concentration of electrolyte, the shape of the other piece of metal and the electric voltage. As with every other stage of this project, some trial and error will be needed to find out what works for me. I'm starting with a safe / easy arrangement so things can be tweaked if needed: Salt solution as the electrolyte - it's cheap, readily available and safe to dispose of. Medium-strength electrolyte - the more concentrated the solution, the more current flows, so let's keep it controllable at first. Low voltage - the lower the voltage, the less current flows. The voltage is the easiest thing to adjust, so it could be turned up if nothing happens. My power supply has a maximum capacity of 5 amps; if more is needed then some people use car battery chargers, but I'm hoping that won't be necessary. If you don't have a suitable power supply, this can be done with ordinary batteries or a DC model railway controller, but I'd recommend measuring the resistance of the 'circuit' first to make sure you're not going to draw too much current and make your power source overheat. Speaking of which... DO NOT USE MAINS ELECTRICITY FOR ETCHING! Aside from the obvious safety risks, the supply for etching needs to be DC, and by all accounts no more than 12V is needed, preferably less. A grille as the other piece of metal in the tank - this was recommended by one of the online sources I found as distributing the electro-chemical effect more evenly than a metal plate. Strictly speaking this should be the same metal as the part to be etched, but I had a rusty old barbecue here so I chopped a section of grill out and cleaned it up. Here's my set-up, ready for a test etch maybe tomorrow if I get time. The positive lead goes to the workpiece and the negative to the grille. No saltwater in the tub yet. As you can see I'm thinking of starting off at just 3 volts. The lower display will show how much current is flowing, which will be useful. The bulldog clip is just an extension of the crocodile clip to hold the brass below the waterline. I'll need to sand some of the etch resist off the edge of the brass to make good contact. I'll also move the power supply a bit further away once there's water involved! Watch this space for more toner-transfer 'fun' and hopefully some actual etching! Cheers, Will

I managed to print off some more etching 'masks' today, so that I can finally attempt the toner transfer method using print-outs which are actually correct. This time I took more care to align the graphics so the lines where the sticky labels are punched don't affect the toner pattern. The light grey lines are where the edges of the labels are, so you can see how the bottom of this fret dodges the lower grey line. The upper gray line can't be avoided so I placed the frets such that the edge of the label runs through unimportant areas which can easily be touched up with a marker pen (or just ignored). I've also put alignment crosshairs at all four corners so the two halves can be cut out separately rather than folded down the middle. I found this helps keep things flatter so the paper doesn't want to peel away from the brass before it has let go of the toner. One crosshair of each fret has a circle around it just so I don't do anything silly like put one half of the mast upside down! In less stressful circumstances than my last printing session, I was able to run off several copies without fear of unwanted attention from inquisitive colleagues. I was better prepared this time; I had four sheets of label paper for two pages of prints, and I had already removed the labels at home and flattened the paper by pulling it carefully over a table edge, otherwise it has a tendency to curl once the labels are removed. One mustn't have been flat enough, as it got jammed in the printer, but the other three printed out quite well. Well, mostly... For some reason all three printouts had a band of damage right across the middle of the main frets. The bigger black areas could be touched up with a marker, but not the fine windscreen. Thankfully I had brought four more sheets of paper with me, but this time cut from pages of a glossy magazine my kids had finished with. A few toner-transfer bloggers swear by this as being just as good. I hope nobody was frightened by the scary dinosaur in the background, but the print came out really well. I'll maybe try and find lighter-coloured magazine pages next time, as it could be tricky lining up the crosshairs. The second one got jammed in the printer, at which point I remembered another piece of internet wisdom. By creating what someone online described as a 'sled' out of a sheet of plain paper, the flimsy magazine paper is guided through the printer more reliably. I folded about 10mm (1/2") of the plain paper over and positioned this along what I hoped would be the leading edge of the paper as it went through the printer. This worked brilliantly, wish I'd thought of it earlier. It means some parts of my alignment marks are printed on the 'sled' rather than the magazine paper, but that doesn't matter. So I now have a good batch of print-outs ready to transfer the toner onto my final frets for etching. Cheers, Will

Having done my ironing (20 seconds each side, for the record, pressing down very firmly), I thought the rolling pin could do no harm, so it had a little roll too. As I tentatively peeled off the paper, I was initially happy that so much of the toner had transferred, there were still some large patches missing in the middle, and the toner was badly smudged: I should explain that this was made using one of the misprints where the paper had got stuck in the printer, so the 'ghosting' effect has been correctly transferred from the paper to the brass. But the lack of sharpness were probably caused by too much heat and/or pressure. I also felt that shoving an iron and a rolling pin around on top of materials which were supposed to stay in precise alignment was a recipe for failure. So finally, I tried a much simpler technique from another blogger on the off-chance that it might work, and it did. The recipe for success looks like this: Rub down the brass with 600-grit wet-and-dry, used wet. Wipe with a baby wipe and dry with a clean rag. Fold the paper mask for alignment (ideally with the fold further from the brass next time). Run the bare brass through the laminator three times to warm it up. Add the paper mask and run through the laminator ten times, alternating sides. Allow to cool before gently peeling back the paper. Bearing in mind that I was using another misprint with lots of ghosting and a blotchy finish to the solid black bits, the toner transferred very well indeed: You'll have to take my word for it, but the toner on the brass looks exactly how the original print looked. Another clue is in how little toner remains on the paper. So although the above photo is a terrible example, I'm now happy that if I can copy a rubbish print, I can copy a good one. So there you have it. No irons, rolling pins, thermometers or ultra-violet lights needed, although I won't get too triumphant until I've actually etched something. I'm hoping to have access to a laser printer later this week, in which case I'll have another go at the parts I need this weekend. Cheers, Will

I've been doing a bit more experimenting today, which I think has resulted in a breakthrough... but I'll make you suffer some of my failures first before I reveal what the breakthrough is 🙂 Firstly I tried pre-heating the brass. After being put off using the over by the risk of airborne greasiness, and peering into the toaster before deciding that didn't seem safe, I simply ran the brass through the laminator a few times until it was nice and hot to the touch. In it goes... Next, I wanted to test out the theory that applying firm pressure would help the toner to transfer to the brass, having read that this could be just as important as the temperature. So I placed a spare print-out over the brass and ran it through the laminator three times (which had been my most successful method last week). I then rolled it slowly but very firmly with a rolling pin, online wisdom being that exerting lots of force on a small area does the trick. Well, the results were so poor it didn't even occur to me to take a photo. The toner only really transferred around the edges, possibly because the rolling pin made better contact there. I also felt that the paper was moving around slightly as I was rolling it, so this didn't seem like a good technique for accuracy. After pausing for lunch and contemplation, I attempted the combination of both heat and pressure which the blog in my last post recommended. So out came the iron, set to lowest temperature (one dot) and with the steam function turned off. I put the brass, with the printed masks, on a few sheets of paper to protect Mrs J's chopping board... ...and one more sheet of paper between the brass and the iron to avoid simply melting the toner into a messy splodge. This sheet also allowed me to slide the iron around for even heat distribution without imparting a sideways force on the printed mask. I pressed down as hard as I could, following online advice: Bet you can't guess what happened. Yup, it was rubbish! This time the toner barely transferred at all. Concluding this was because of insufficient heat, I cleaned up the brass and had another go, this time with the iron set to 'two dots' and no sheet of paper in between the iron and the workpiece. To be continued...

I stand corrected - thanks for the photos, Jim.

170s were rare at York until Northern started using them on the Harrogate line, but an occasional exception were the TPE units. 170301 arrives on 6th August 2010. Cheers, Will

Brand new 170416 stands outside Derby station shortly after emerging from the works in 2004. Transpennine Express 170306 emerges from the Grindleford end of Totley Tunnel with a Cleethorpes to Manchester Piccadilly service on 30th August 2009. The same unit earlier the same day, this time at the other end of Totley Tunnel approaching Dore station. I wish I had released the shutter just a second earlier for both of the above photos, then the cab fronts might not be blurred! 10th September 2004 and 170517 approaches Edale with a Liverpool to Norwich service. In the same location on the same day, 170515 travels in the opposite direction. Cheers, Will

Just a couple more: 67005 heads the Northern Belle out of York on 2nd July 2010... ...and 006 brings up the rear. It comes to something when a royal loco has a plastic sticker for a nameplate... am I just being old-fashioned? Cheers, Will