Darwinian

Have you tried “Dowel drill centre pins”? Cheap and easy to use for dowels in any position. My Dad had a dowelling clamp. That also helped keep the drill bit vertical as well as aligning the holes. Various designs are available. Looks like you’ve done a splendid job so far.

Having assembled the chassis I realise that the brake pull rods just stop behind the cab steps, waving around in mid air. I looked at my Finney bulldog and it has steam brake cylinders there but there were none in this kit. A quick check on Brassmasters web site shows the castings but doesn’t list them as for the Aberdare. I assume they should be on the loco so I’ll do a bit of checking and maybe cobble something together. I have also found that the motor support chassis spacer makes it very difficult to get the footplate on now that I have the boiler front attached to the footplate. Will have to take a few mm off the motor support.

The proper wheels are in along with the motor/gearbox. The chassis alone goes around 3rd radius and looks to have enough on the axles for the outside cranks. It pushes through my track work OK but once the body is on the pony truck derails on turnouts. Think it is catching on the back end of the vac pipe. Hard to see when right way up. Will have a thorough investigation tomorrow.Getting the motor/gearbox inside the boiler/firebox is very tight. I had to cut open the rear firebox bulkhead and cut off the motor shaft at the pickup end.

Another vote for the French monstrosity. They must have given the designer a bigger lump of clay than Collett got. Best... LMS coronation in red with go faster stripes.

I’ve often wondered if they ever got cleaned too. Cleaners would have had to climb up there to do them, which must have been time consuming.

Good to see such varied coaching stock including superb clerestory vehicles. If you want to save some effort remember from 1920s on clerestory glazing was often painted/plated over.

Yes, the kit is designed for classical beam compensation. See earlier in the thread.

Although I’ve not added to this thread I have done some work on Iard fer. It is all as per instructions except that I reduced the very high roller door opening by adding a lintel and additional window. Here is the current state.

More progress on the Aberdare as well as painting and installing the buffer stops. Checking the instructions for the loco I found a top /plan former for the firebox is included. Not mentioned in the instructions. Oh well I’ve managed without it. The saddle parts are done but not fitted. Today I spent an hour fitting the outside axle box retainers and the volume springs to the outside frames. All went surprisingly smoothly using 145 solder to tin the brass and then low melt to fix the white metal parts. Should be able to paint the chassis and get it working now.

So here it is. The numbers are not quite right but better than my hand painted efforts.

Went to a garden centre today as we needed fertiliser, seeds and stuff for our veg plot. Very odd having one way system and everyone social distancing but otherwise just like before. Somehow it felt stranger there than it does at the supermarket. Anyway not not much done on the Aberdare as I’ve been making buffer stops for the station yard. Courtesy of Lanarkshire Model Supplies.

Boiler barrel sections now done. A single tube of lead flashing is fitted into the coned section. I had to do this twice as I put too much lead in to start with and the motor wouldn’t fit. The smoke box section has a roll of lead that stops just short of the chimney position. Main components stood together.

Thanks Captain. Yes I’ve been compensating OO stock for years for improved pickup and tolerance of my dodgy OO-fs track building.

Back to the Aberdare. Electrical connection from loco to tender. My least favourite bit. Making the belpair firebox. The instructions say to space the front and back formers apart with studding. I don’t have any, nor any bolts long enough. Instead I made a U shaped spacer from sheet brass. The front was laminated together using high melt solder and cleaned up, especially the edges. Then the U attached. The wrapper carefully bent to shape around various diameter rods. Then soldered on with multi core solder that has a somewhat lower melting point. It took me four attempts and about 3 hours to get this. The plan is to fill the cavity with loose liquid lead and then solder the back on.

Just had a bright idea and trawled through my HMRS transfer stocks. The SR sheet has numerals of the right size and font. The NE sheet has the LOCO close enough too. Only enough for one go so I can’t afford to mess them up.

Peco, Severn models and Metcalfe all do versions of the GWR roundel cast end style seats. The Edwardian monogram ones are done by Scalelink (Smiths components). Hope tat helps. Oops, Peco might only be 7mm scale

Thanks Penrhos. I Wonder why the GWR saw fit to put oversize numbers just on these.

Probably an impossible question but.... Were the later series 40 ton Loco coal wagons in a standard lettering style in 1929-35? The few photos of the bogie coal wagons in the main reference works are all of earlier lots and have oversize numbers that I cannot find as transfers. Powsides do 54000 but no others.

Got sidetracked by some cattle wagons sitting in my display cabinet. These were painted as whitewashed inside which would be wrong for my 1929-33 period. Now partly repainted and fitted with Dingham’s. Two original Coopercraft and a scratchbuilt small van. Must be 1980s built.

As LEDs are DC is it not possible to smooth the supply to the LED lighting, thus eliminating the pulses which presumably originate from the AC conversion. Afraid my knowledge of electrics isn’t enough to suggest how.

Back onto the Aberdare for a few hours today. All as per instructions except for cutting the footplate around the rear drivers for OO clearance. Heres the footplate substructure done (lower) but not the overlay (upper).

Back from not going to Taunton yesterday afternoon for the SWAG members day. Now I have a chance to explain how that pipe works. I realised early on that I would have to have a baseboard join across the scenic section of Cwmhir station, including the platform and back retaining wall. How to hide it then. Now you see it. Now you don’t (hopefully). And on the retaining wall - the pipe. Still needs weathering though.

I guess it must be a personal thing then. In his book “Signalling Days” Harold Gasson gives a vivid description of trying to operate Milton box, on GWR mainline, whilst trying to light and hang the emergency paraffin lanterns after a lightning strike took out the electric lights. I did wonder about sighting tail lamps from an illuminated box.

Don't know if this is any help Johnster but I've used lighting tubes as used in the Pendon buildings book, which help to reduce the lighting level and can be adjusted by where the lamp/led is positioned in the tube. If you've not seen this it's basically just a squarish tube made of white (on the inside} card with openings cut to allow light out into the building. The closer the lamp is to an opening the brighter the light, but you get a fairly diffused light because most of the light reflects around the tube. Another advantage is that no light leaks out elsewhere so the tube can pass through unlit areas without problem. My ratio signal box has a card box built into the roof with holes in to allow light down in a couple of places as if from a pair of suspended lamps. It really is quite dim in there despite the fairly bright warm white LED used.

Patience not up to more Aberdare building so I have been doing scenic bits. First of all I worked on the station forecourt. This is just painted mount board with some talc and Carr’s ash ballast for texture. A bit of static grass finishes off. Also knocked up the mystery pipe that will hide the baseboard join running.up the retaining wall. Entirely fictional from memory so the engineering may be dodgy.