Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1

[F-UnitMad]

On 12/05/2022 at 23:11, Donw said:

 

And some in the black country called it a Brummie Screwdriver. It is a sad reflection of the times that such joshing would now be unacceptable.

 

Don

What's equally sad is that most young people in either Birmingham or the Black Country won't have a clue what is being referred to at all, or even use any tools of any sort, these days!! 

 

On 12/05/2022 at 17:47, Nearholmer said:

I was quite glad I was “only the boy” and could slink away while this was “discussed” between electricians and joiners.

A good point at which to post this gem, from the Wacky Signs Thread...

 

Trade wars in a nutshell.... 😆

[Nearholmer]

I’ll mention in fairness to the guy, not that he deserved any at the time, how skilled he was.

 

He’d learned his trade in some distant corner of the commonwealth, where tools were in very short supply, and he got by on one big saw, one big hammer, one chisel, a brace and a few bits, and a large cabinet screwdriver. He never used power tools. When he cut 4x2, he used to put one small mark at the length, then wedge one end of the timber against something, with the length over his shoulder, using his chin as a clamp. He’d then make the cut, and it was perfect, square in both directions, precisely to length.

[Ben B]

1 hour ago, F-UnitMad said:

What's equally sad is that most young people in either Birmingham or the Black Country won't have a clue what is being referred to at all, or even use any tools of any sort, these days!! 

 

I got something of a blank look off my boss the other week up here in Bradford when I referred to my hammer as a Brummie Screwdriver, a habit I learned off my old DT teacher when I was at school in Dudley in the 90's :)  Just to add a further note of bizarreness, I'm a clinical education tech, so I use my hammer to break turkey thigh-bones so surgeons can practise debriding wounds, which is no doubt a world away from what said teacher thought he was instilling skills-wise in those lessons in '98!

[Nearholmer]

Two hobbies in one picture.

 

The house is 78 Derngate, Northampton, W J Bassett-Lowke’s first matrimonial home.

 

[F-UnitMad]

Wot, no Blue Plaque??!!?? 🙄

[Nearholmer]

Given that it is a museum, it sort-of doesn’t need one.

 

https://www.78derngate.org.uk

[Simond]

Only Mackintosh house in England.  Never knew it was there, and I lived in Northampton some thirty years ago.

[uax6]

Owww, side-knob insulators on the front of it too, now they really are rare!

 

(The telephone line would be run vertically off the side-knobs, upto eaves level (at least) where the pair from the pole reached the building. I'd love to have on on my beam of insulators in the kitchen, but finding one is very difficult!)

 

Andy G

[Nearholmer]

I don’t think Mackintosh styled the insulators, although he may have done.

[Northroader]

But it’s a museum to some artytect, no 0 gauge tinplate on view!! What are they playing at??

[Nearholmer]

Ah, but there is 0 gauge tinplate on view inside, in the form of stock from the famous Paddington to Seagood layout, and they host BLS running days, where a layout gets set up, and the curator writes oodles of articles for the BLS journal, so I think justice is done, when you consider all the other things that WJB-L was into.

 

No. 78 is actually a very small house, and horribly claustrophobia-inducing due to the OTT decor, so they have knocked it together with no. 80, which is bigger, and are now adding an extra bit to that as well.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

So my next gripe, being a whinging old c***, why no piccies of the layout, instead of arty farty front doors?

[Nearholmer]

Some people!!

 

Here you are 

 

Click on it and it takes you to a few other photos. Careful though, ‘cos one shows that door.

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

Ooh, ta, some nice stuff in there.

[Welchester]

On 12/05/2022 at 23:07, andi4x4 said:

 

 

My Grandfather, (Brummie, Born and Bred) called it a "Tipton Spanner"

 

Andi

 

Not to be confused with 'Tipton Wedding Cake', which is a pork pie.

[2E Sub Shed]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

No. 78 is actually a very small house, and horribly claustrophobia-inducing due to the OTT decor, so they have knocked it together with no. 80, which is bigger, and are now adding an extra bit to that as well.

 

 

In 1926 B-L moved to a new build home in Northampton,  "New Ways"  the first "modernist" house in the UK,  where the main room was specified to the architect to be "large enough for dancing".

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Some people!!

 

Here you are 

 

Click on it and it takes you to a few other photos. Careful though, ‘cos one shows that door.

 

 

 

An now that’s rather nice, I wasn’t aware any of Paddington-Seagood still existed.

 

I also have a plea for help to ask of the the course scale modelers.
 

 

As Kevin knows I recently acquired this part built O gauge GNR 4-4-2, which I thought was made by C. Butcher & Co of Watford, but alas tis not. According to an inscription under the running plate, it was built by a man called “Arthur Ficke” in 1950. Has anybody heard of him? I was also told to ask @Mark Carne if he knows anything. It’s an early finescale model, using Bonds wheels it’s looks like.

 

 

 

 

Douglas

[Nearholmer]

57 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

An now that’s rather nice, I wasn’t aware any of Paddington-Seagood still existed.

That layout isn’t anything connected to P-S, it is one put together by BLS members for a weekend show at No.78/80. I can’t remember whether it did on that occasion, but on some the layout has straggled through several rooms.

 

The ex P-S stock is is a glass case display, but from what I recall (dimly) it is all standard products of the time, if in exceptionally good condition, which I have a feeling all of it might have been.

[J. S. Bach]

17 hours ago, uax6 said:

Owww, side-knob insulators on the front of it too, now they really are rare!

 

(The telephone line would be run vertically off the side-knobs, upto eaves level (at least) where the pair from the pole reached the building. I'd love to have on on my beam of insulators in the kitchen, but finding one is very difficult!)

 

Andy G

My kitchen windowsill; all Brookfields, known in the hobby as CD-145s :

 

Front porch railing:

 

Back porch railing on a frosty morn:

 

and "inside" my carport (note that the herbicide will be applied a little later this year):

 

Random photo, the glass suspensions are "HECHO EN MEXICO":

Edited May 18, 2022 by J. S. Bach

[J. S. Bach]

23 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Two hobbies in one picture.

 

The house is 78 Derngate, Northampton, W J Bassett-Lowke’s first matrimonial home.

 

Why the radiation symbols on the door?

[J. S. Bach]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 ...snip... Click on it and it takes you to a few other photos. Careful though, ‘cos one shows that door.

One of the other photos shows the Dinky Supertoys "Mighty Antar" tank transporter; I and another friend each got one of them many, many years ago (without the tank) to use as an off-rail trolley transport. He set his up with rails and had a Birney* mounted on it. I never got that far and only put a Dinky D-8 Cat (Or maybe it was a Blaw-Knox) bulldozer on it. I still have the Antar:

 

 

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birney

[Johnson044]

On 17/05/2022 at 17:10, Nearholmer said:

Two hobbies in one picture.

 

The house is 78 Derngate, Northampton, W J Bassett-Lowke’s first matrimonial home.

 

I'm amazed there is no blue plaque here. 

 

I then thought I'd look at 112 High Holborn and... NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

[Nearholmer]

It’s not good is it?

 

I used to walk past that scene of desecration regularly, because my office was only about a couple of hundred metres further along, and had to avert my eyes.

[F-UnitMad]

Ok, I'll ask the Dumb Question. Which model shop used to be at 112 High Holborn? 

I know it certainly wasn't Victors.

[Edwardian]

2 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

Ok, I'll ask the Dumb Question. Which model shop used to be at 112 High Holborn? 

I know it certainly wasn't Victors.

 

Beatties