D869

Hi Tim, Still keeping my eye out for promising material related to working 4mm scale horses. I don't think we're quite there yet. Regards, Andy

I hasten to add that the lumps out of my machine vice and drill holes in it happened before it came to me There's still time though...

Cheers Rich. I think the job was pretty firmly held TBH but the clearance between cutter and vice was close to nothing. The bigger issue with the Unimat is the weight of the headstock and motor and the lack of any kind of fine feed or dial on the 'Z' axis. It's just a matter of using your best guess for height and then clamping it up tight before starting the spindle. Even though I was being careful to avoid it, I managed to 'drop' the headstock a couple of times while setting up, fortunately without breaking anything. I have other options so I don't think I will be hurrying to use the Unimat as a mill again but the lever feed and slower spindle speed should make it quite useful as a small pillar drill - much better than using the MF70 for drilling anyway... and compared to using a lathe... well it's just the right way up. FWIW I always treat milling machines as if they are trying to damage me, themselves and/or the job and they usually have more tricks up their sleeve than you are expecting. True of all power tools but I find milling is particularly prone to unexpected happenings. Regards, Andy

I think you are getting mixed up with Kingswear, just along the coast on the river Dart. Here there was a lot of coal coming in by coaster and being sent by rail to Torquay gasworks. Coal comes in many varieties so I guess that 'Beer' had some sent by sea and some by rail, depending on the most suitable way to get it from the pit to Kingsbridge. 'Telegrams: Beer Merchant, Kingsbridge' may have caused some confusion. Regards, Andy

Thanks Tim - I'll keep those in reserve in case the current plan doesnt work out. I'm hoping that the steps will give enough guidance to a file so that the curve stays straight (if you see what I mean) but time will tell. I do intend to solder it to a bigger lump. Should really have done that before milling but resorted to some fairly iffy clamping arrangements instead and I seem to have got away with it. A round nosed milling cutter would be very handy but at the moment I don't have any of those - one of those things that I keep intending to buy but when actually putting together an order I seem to forget again. I do have a few burrs that I bought years ago to use in a mini drill but never found that combination to be much use. I've never thought of digging them out again and putting them in the mill so will give that a go. Regards, Andy

The main job since the previous posting has been the beading around the tank tops and cab opening. The cab side handrails are also done... as a kind of practice for rather more tricky boiler handrails. The handrails are 0.2mm Albion Alloys N/S rod. Ths 'knobs' are split pins made by filing down 8 thou P/B wire as recommended by Pete Wright's article in the April 1992 2mm Magazine. The cab door should have been simple but turned out to be a right faff - it needed some packing to provide clearance behind the handrails and getting all of this soldered into place inside the cab was not easy. I'm definitey at the stage now where it is easy to do things in the wrong order and snooker myself. The cab roof will be staying off for a bit longer. The beading was done with 5A fuse wire. It is overscale but I chickened out of trying 0.1mm wire. Maybe another time. I was also pondering leaving the beading off completely but that would have left the cab door handrails and tank front handrails with no means of support at the top. This proved not too impossible to attach neatly and without unsoldering anything else... although I'd hardly describe the job as easy either. Much scraping and sanding was involved. Here is a shot of a rather earlier stage... To give myself a break from handrails I've now decided to have a go at one bit that I've been puzzling over for ages - the reverse curvy (valve?) cover under the smokebox door. I've been struggling to come up with a way to make this. It needs to be soldered to the smokebox so I want it solid. So far I've milled some steps in a bit of brass, the plan being to do the curves with a needle file. We shall see! If anyone has any better ideas about how to make this then I'm all ears. The milling was done on the Unimat SL... mainly because I've recently made the milling column for it (this was missing when I bought it). I'm not sure it makes the ideal milling setup but should be very handy for drilling.

That seems rather extreme. I can confirm though that I have been to Hayle and checked out Philps' pasties. Very nice. I didn't leave straight away. I visited the archives and took plenty of photos of the remaining structures on North Quay (aka Hayle Wharf to train folks). I gather some prefer Hampson's pasties... controversial!

That is excellent, thanks for sharing. I have stacks of Hayle photos as part of the research for my layout but I've never seen this one before. Given the stance of the guard and driver I think this is a propelling move onto the wharf. The tank appears to be FWB3 - a demountable bromine tank belonging to F.W.Berk of St Albans. As far as I know, these worked to Watford Junction and were then transferred to a lorry for the remining journey to Berk's premises. There is a set of photos that were taken of 810 on the wharf trip. Several have appeared in Bradford Barton albums. This feels similar and *MAY* be another pic from that occasion but I can't say for sure. Regards, Andy

Catch points can be integral with the point at the throat of the yard. The centre road carriage sidings at Penzance pre-1938 had a point like this which threw stock off to both sides. Swanage also had one, but both blades threw stock off to the same side away from the running line. Here's a pic of the St Ruth version. I couldn't find a suitable Swanage photo without copyright complications. Regards, Andy

It's about time I said a bit more on this. The postponement of the DJ expo has rather taken the deadline away and I've been ticking off some jobs from my (lengthy) lathe tooling 'to do' list which is not really about my 2mm workbench. Before all of that happened I was getting on with the boiler fittings... The roof (10 thou brass, annealed before bending) is also balanced in place but as yet unfixed and lacking its ribs. The chimney is the N-Brass one, cleaned up in the lathe and drilled so that it looks more hollow. I didn't think the N-Brass dome was a good likeness. The real thing is quite tall and has a rather undernourished flare so I made a new one on the watchmakers lathe in the Nick Mitchell approved manner (well, more or less). The N-Brass safety valve casting comes up too tall as well as lacking the 'shroud', so I made a new one. The base was done in a similar fashion to the dome but this time I decided to make the MF70 cut the base profile... before doing the lathe work... at this point it was visiting the Unimat, probably for drilling the spigot hole The top was cut from brass strip on the MF70. It took a lot of cuts to do this and it needed a good deal of cleanup but it got the job done...

There has been a theory put forward on another list that the folks who have so far had 278 by mail from Cygnet are the folks who contributed articles. Not sure if this is right or wrong but the pattern does fit. Hopefully you will all get your copies soon. I'm trying to make mine last a while because there is no knowing when the next one will be along. Regards, Andy

My subscription copy arrived yesterday, fairly late on. Regards, Andy

Not so much 'Out and About' but since both #TwitterModelTrainShow and 'The Great Virtual Model Railway Show 2020' on Facebook are now almost over, here is a YouTube playlist of the four videos of my South Yard micro layout that I made for the two virtual exhibitions that were set up to lighten the mood during the current virus measures. I found both shows an interesting experience. Both attracted contributions from non-UK exhibitors and were able to showcase non-portable layouts like garden and loft layouts. I'm still struggling to find the show guide though.

I'm a little sketchy on this. I've posted videos on YouTube and Facebook in the past but not Twitter. As far as I can see the limit is just over 2 mins. Is that correct? And maybe there is an option to put the video on YouTube and then publish a link via Twitter... or maybe there used to be an option to do this but now it has changed... depends what you read. Has anybody actually done this and know what works and what doesn't? Cheers.

Took a couple of attempts to figure out what you said there. I was wondering what the Royal Horticultural Society had to do with Ian's trees.

... or... ask a family member to smack you in the face using a rucksack full of books. Seriously... I think this is a good idea but perhaps it should have an element of liveness rather than being pre-recorded? - give the layout operators a deadline to work to and some pressure to get the operation right... plus the ability for punters and exhibitors to interact. Just thinking aloud.

I picked up an ammeter from a trade stand at the Pontefract show. It has been repurposed to keep an eye on the current draw from my CNC steppers. Not quite so automotive... although the word 'Tractor' may be appropriate I gather. I'm still looking out for some less ugly screws.

Alternatively... you have a CNC milling machine, so you can tell it to cut the base of your boiler fitting...

On bigger machines they are called collet blocks. They come in square and hex flavours and are handy for holding otherwise round objects while one mills squares or hex shapes onto them. I haven't really looked very hard to see if one can be bought but I've put one for holding 6mm Lorch collets on my tooling 'to do' list. Trouble is that list is quite long. FWIW, I've recently done a dome using methods inspired by Nick's video. For the filing job I stuck it in my ER16 holder which is easily taken off the lathe. Regards, Andy

My graver (Vallorbe 3mm I think) and handle came from Eileen's. Buying a graver is the thin end of the wedge though - you also need to keep it sharp... for which you will need more things. Some useful links relating to graver work. The Bergeon tool is not cheap. I made my own inspired by one of the other links below. You can get cheapy ones on eBay but a little bird told me that theirs was not useable as bought and had to be modified. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCb_ZHGb9ws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK-5s5jAg0c&t=373s https://watchmaking.weebly.com/graver-honing-jig.html

I have an SL and I use it a lot... but almost always with my ER16 collet holder which is great for holding work concentrically and as others have said, has fewer projecting bits to catch a graver, needle file or your hand on. My holder is from Arc Euro but I needed to make a backplate for it and I used a bigger lathe to make that and did the final turning of the register on the Unimat to achieve accuracy. Another option are a ready made one from RCM Machines although this obviously won't be machined on your spindle... https://www.rcm-machines.com/en/chuck-er/collet-chuck-er16-with-m12-x-1-inside-thread/rcm12er16 Or someone has very cleverly made a holder on the Unimat itself and posted a set of photos with informative notes... https://www.flickr.com/photos/65657096@N00/albums/72157632104757918 I was going to make a tool rest for graver work but then I picked up a watchmaker's lathe so the graver work gets done there. The unimat group on groups.io is well worth joining - it has tons of useful stuff in the files section as well as the forum. Enjoy your SL ! Regards, Andy

One of those creme brulee kitchen blowtorches should be enough to unstick the layers if you want to have another go at it. Regards, Andy

Not sure if this is all 100% scientific but at least somewhat justifiable and it works for me... For a 6 coupled loco you can usually isolate things a bit more by flipping the rod lengthwise and then just fitting it to two axles instead of all three. If the rods bind with one wheel at top dead centre and the other with the crank horizontal then the problem is likely on the side with the horizontal crank - perhaps the rods are too short or long or one of the pins is not perpendicular. Take the TDC side rod off, set the other side to the position where it is binding and rotate each wheel in turn a few degrees in either direction to see if you can pinpoint where and why it is happening. If they bind with both sides at 45 degrees (ish) then it's more likely to be quartering. If you cant see which way it is 'out' then I can only suggest trial and error - but do keep note of what you tweaked and in which direction every time. I have used the quartering jig on several locos and usually end up making minor tweaks by hand afterwards. It does get you close and also has the advantage of pushing the wheels into the muffs squarely. Stick with it!

The local rag says it's postponed too (the road closure, that is). https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/erection-huge-bridge-over-a45-17875143

The word on one of our local forums is that the A45 closure won't happen this weekend. I cant find any official confirmation online but the advance warning signs on the A45 Styvechale BP garage roundabout were no longer on display this morning.