D869

Thanks Andy - Interesting to note what you say about reliability - I was going to use sleeved brass as had done previously..which seemed very reliable.

 

In terms of Brass strips I have sourced mine from Eileens - its available in 250/500mm lengths although I just sent mine back as I had ordered 0.3mm thickness (doh) but have now swapped them for 1mm...to help keep down costs

I do put a slight bend in the pin to give it some more 'grip', but still it's not 100% perfect. 500mm is getting closer to being useful but I bought mine in 6ft lengths. I wonder whether Eileen's can get them in longer lengths if you ask nicely.

Regards, Andy

You didn't say if the paint ever filled the morse code holes?

 

if not, why not press in some milliput from behind, wait until it goes hard, the RE-score the lines on top, to remove any poking right through?

Err... no I didn't. Sadly not. The moral seems to be that paint will fill things in when you don't want it to but not when you do.

Milliput might have been a better bet but at the moment there isn't anything I can immediately do about it without some repainting and it's not really annoying me it so I'm leaving it for another day. There's also the question of how the filled joins will look after weathering.

It's only really visible in the sort of stupidly close up photos that we all like to put on RMWeb. These days I often see problems from my photos that I don't notice in real life.

Regards, Andy

I presume 'The Ambassador' has ok'd the use of the anti dust cabinet?

 

Excellent Andy - Cracking paint job and its hard to believe this was just a WW etch a few weeks ago.

 

Am very interested in your cassettes too...shall be making reference to them very soon I think...

Thanks Pete. He maintains that with this anti dust cabinet I am really spoiling D604.

The cassettes originated many moons ago when Chris Pendleton had just published his design in MRJ and Copenhagen Fields and Denys Brownlee had started using 1/4 by 1/16 brass for 2mm fiddle yard tracks. I combined the two ideas. This design allows close to scale spacing for double track but the joints are a bit of a pain to make and don't always give 100% reliable electrical contact.

I'm also not too sure about the availability of suitable brass strip these days. I got mine from a local non ferrous metals company in nice long lengths but I have no idea where I would get hold of some now. I think it's important to get some strip with nice clean square edges - the stuff that is in the K+S stands in most shops these days appears to be guillotined which gives a rounded edge. When I built these modules the K+S stuff had cleaner edges... although the strips were too short to be suitable for whole train modules.

Regards, Andy

Nice wagons Rich.

I'm sure that organisations exist to help you with your addiction.

Regards, Andy

The cabs were indeed not steel so didn't rust but flaked instead. One end of one loco if I remember rightly ended up with a steel cab when it needed replacing. The nickel silver does at least make that bit easy as well as the window frames as they can be scored not painted silver.

 

I had the same experience with the cab roof etches being the wrong size and cut mine of scrap 5thou brass.

Thanks Alan - didn't realise that you were a 'fellow traveller' in building this kit. I agree - scraping some paint off (although fiddly) is a much better option than silver paint.

Excellent, we are at Railex next year with Tucking Mill. I get the feeling there might be one or two strangers arriving at Penzance during the last hour or so of the show!

I'll look forward to that - haven't seen Tucking Mill yet, other than on RMWeb. I'm sure it could use a diesel hydraulic or two.

Looking great. Couldn't make it to Leamington (wedding anniversary) but looking forward to seeing it again - when is it out next?

We're trying to keep things to (roughly) two shows per year so that our families also get to see us now and again. Our next booking is for Railex 2013 - 25/26 May.

Oh go on...so like the lame puns...sometimes I think mine up and then have to find some modelling activity to fit the blog title

The layout looks excellent Andy - love the third shot with the semaphore peg off.

Did you get a chance to get a good look at the Dapol Western and 22? They do look rather tasty indeed...

I was thinking of a D:ream song title, but thought it might look like a criticism of the show, which wasn't what I wanted to do.

We at least managed one whole day with one signal working, so we learned a bit. Perhaps surprisingly the route indicator worked perfectly. The signal arms had some minor issues with drift and stickiness which were (I think) caused by having their operating wires touching each other as they run up the post.

We really need to have a major re-think of the control system and power supplies for the signals though. At the moment we haven't even fully figured out what caused the power supply to die or the servo glitches.

The Dapol 22 looks pretty close to being ready. The only things I could see that need to be sorted are better clarity to the cab glazing (and presumably a cab interior) and blackening of the wheels. The Western was also there in unpainted form so that looks somewhat further away. Dave did tell me some dates, but I forgot them... in any case it was hardly a binding contract.

I also asked him about bogie design, wheels and gears. He told me that he will always use pinpoint bearings in future (except for the Western, obviously) and that gears are chosen to suit the loco, so they will keep on changing between locos... so not much hope for drop-in finescale wheels. One thought does occur to me... just how many different gears do you need to suit bogie diesels and electric locos?

Nice vans Pete. I especially like the SR van. I must have missed that one when it was available - an unusual failure for my gloat box purchasing department.

DGs after midnight? I wasn't aware that it was possible to fit DGs at other times of day.

Looks like it's already been done, and superbly well! Wonder if there are drawings out there....

There is a drawing in the Oakwood book on SR Passenger Vans. Darned strange looking things though.

Regards, Andy

Thanks Don and Jon.

I suspect that Diesels used pressed panels where the metal is stretched to a curved shape.

Probably true, but I've read that the cabs on the class 41s were originally done using alloy castings welded together. I'm not sure how far this construction extended. I've also read that some cast body parts were replaced with sheet fabrications when they realised that it was all getting too heavy.

With those skills you should be able to find a job as a shaper for surfboards in Hawaii...

Thanks Pete - one to ponder if I'm thinking of a new career move. I must admit that one had not occurred to me.

Another thought - a layout on a surfboard? ... maybe not.

...and then I will be breaking my own rules.

Isn't that what rules are for?

I tried running my finger over it but removing the greasy mark from the screen afterwards has proved a little difficult. I really need to get it off so that the model can be painted. Sorry about that.

 

I'm not really sure why I tried because I have no idea what shape this engine is meant to be, but so far it does look pretty, and the construction solid.

Thanks Rich. I remember a workplace joke (long long ago) in which someone tried to convince a not too computer savvy colleague of the need for 'electric tippex'. Maybe you need something along those lines?

I wasn't too sure of the shape myself, even after looking at photos because they all seemed to tell me something different. Fortunately it starts to make more sense when you try to form the curves in three dimensions. I pity anyone trying to do it on CAD though... I suspect they used good old fashioned lumps of clay to figure out the shape back in the 50s.

I must admit that I wasn't too keen on these locos before I started but they certainly have 'presence' and are rather growing on me, at least up to the point when some bright spark tacked headcode boxes to the fronts.

Nice selection of trains there Pete.

With so many to shuffle around I guess you will be thinking up an elegant way to store all of the loaded cassettes in your fiddle yard... with card mock ups and all?

Regards, Andy

Hi Pete

Good to see you're progressing. One suggestion to ease the use of your 4-CEP (or whatever decent length train) with a split cassette is to fit magnetic couplings between the coaches... by which I mean couplings made from rare earth magnets and small bits of steel. I have these on some of my coaches and they really make life easier when setting up and packing away as well as giving very close coupling... must get round to doing the rest.

If you don't need your coaches to go through crossovers then you could go for a really simple solution and put the magnets inside the gangways. I tried this and it's really easy to do... but it will make your coaches drag themselves off the track sideways if you show them a crossover. My couplings now are mounted on the Farish coupling housing which solves the crossover problem but is much more of a faff to do (but still worth it).

Regards, Andy

Love the intro where you talked yourself out and then back in on building one...did you check with Dapol first on this one?

Err... no. I guess it would be a Kernow special rather than a Dapol own brand job if the 4mm version is anything to go by, not that either company is likely to share their future plans with me.

I did notice that Dapol have announced the class 22 in 'N' though... which might have put me off building a blue one from the Worsley kit and could also be part of the reason why I wound up building D604. Wish they'd hurry up and get the Western onto the shelves.

Nice one Pete. Like the extra flappy bit for the bay line.

I'm wondering how you hold the non hinged side of the join closed and whether you will be adding anything to hold the flappy tracks in alignment while the layout is in use.

Regards, Andy

Like the web site Pete. We've been thinking about having a more 'static' presence for St Ruth too.

I guess that the ad on your old site was a manifestation of the 'no free lunch' syndrome. Web hosts cost money to run, so they need a business model that works otherwise they will go the same way as the late lamented fotopic site.

So what's in it for them?

Regards, Andy

Very nice - do like to see the Dawlish sea wall as evokes summer holiday memories from over 30 years ago.

Loved the sea wall but the nostalgia for me was the destination - we used to spend 2 weeks every summer staying with my gran in Dartmouth, starting when Kingswear was still a BR station. My uncle still lives there so we popped in on him yesterday.

PS - I see the 66 banking it has been edited out

Yes, the same edit seems to have happened to every video of the day on YouTube.

We were expecting to see an emergency diesel lurking around but never saw any sign of one. A couple of years back we watched the Torbay Express at Starcross and it was immediately followed by a class 67. Not sure what the deal is now. If there was one there then we would have expected to see it hanging around Goodrington at the very least. In the morning at Temple Meads we also saw Tangmere before its departure to Weymouth and that had 47 245 hovering behind it. Not sure if it followed all the way but it certainly left straight afterwards.

I don't think the prototype has done a good job of disguising that unsightly join in the backscene.

Interesting take on the Mark 1 roof ribs debate too.

Regards, Andy

It used to be a private siding, but shut in 1932 , now just a cripple siding. After looking at old prototype trackplans everything is possible - which is half the fun!

Sure but they had a bigger bag of tricks than we have... gravity, chains, ropes, tractors, horses.

Regards, Andy

Hi Chris,

I'm curious about the kick-back siding behind the signal box. It looks a bit tricky to shunt.

What's it used for?

Regards, Andy

Nice work Julia.

Reminds me of the article in Model Railway Constructor where they did the rodding in P4 for Bodmin General. I thought they were a bit mad at the time. Darned good series of articles though - taught me all about real (not Peco) point geometry, mechanical interlocking and so on.

Fancy another job when you've finished that little lot? Our trackbed looks a bit bare compared to yours.

Gosh an epic posting. Like the new control box thingy.

Beer and buying new trains are both essential parts of modelling but I'd recommend keeping them separate. Waiting to see what mix of liveries comes out of that Hatton's box when it's opened.

Fair enough! I've just been looking at this mid-1940s film and there is a seriously bouncy signal at about 10:40 and 11:15. It appears to bounce more when pulled off than when returned. Maybe the trick will be to have a variety of bounce patterns across your collection of signals?

Yes, definitely. I think it is highly likely that some signals were more prone to bouncing than others. I also think that some of my model signals will likely be less able to stand up to the repetitive strain of simulated bouncing than others. I foresee some of the more complex signals having the servo controller speed set quite low to keep the stresses to a minimum.

I was thinking about this a bit more after posting. For anything other than a static diorama the track is going to get some wear and tear so you probably need to think about it in terms of occasional 'maintenance' rather than finishing the job once and never touching it again. For non inset track it is quite common to need to go round with the paintbrush now and again after some over-enthusiastic track cleaning or (ahem) adjustments, so maybe your equivalent is superglue and matt paint.