Scalefour Forum

Has anybody a list of their kits from the previous incarnation of the business? They're asking for votes for reintroductions, but I don't know what moulds they have.

If any kit does not include any type of suspension and if I subsequently decide that I do want suspension is it possible to retro fit? Please excuse me if this is a silly question. If you might want later to fit springs between bogie and body, you need enough vertical space for a little movement. S...

My take is that the real thing had springs between the axleboxes and the bogie frame, and between the bogie frames and the body. If you cannot, or do not want to see the difference, then why bother? Personally, I find the difference worth the extra work. Some real things do not have the springs bet...

A while ago you asked about print special wheel-centres. It's certainly possible and might also be feasible if the right material can be selected. First off, I suspect that the resins commonly used in desktop printers that have become popular are not quite what is needed. My experience of these part...

IMG_8252.JPG The brake-3rd now has a roof, by a different method to what I'd originally planned. The roof is made from the wooden section in the kit, heavily sanded down to fit the etched profile and to accommodate gutter strips, the latter from 0.020" x 0.060" styrene strip. The wooden p...

Just found this thread. I have been using the Lifecolour rail weathering set for ages all across Cadhay and it's all been fine, thinned either with water or acrylic thinner. Horror of horrors I actually let some dry completely in my (best!!) airbrush at one point. Thinking back someone had rung the...

Acrylic varnish over enamel has worked for me in the past, so I don't see why acrylic paint over enamel should go wrong, especially water-thinned acrylics. I suspect that acrylic washes and dry-brushing work less well on glossy surfaces, independent of the paint chemistry. I know that water-based ac...

...all further measurements should be taken from the model as built (not from your original drawings, which from this point should be treated simply as a guide to what you intended). .. As in the finest traditions of British Victorian engineering! :D Viz, Stratford works "Bench" drawings:...

Andrew, what you have described is the Mk1 system. The gear sold by Exactoscale today is the Mk 2 system and the spring carriers are different. Personally, I much preferred the Mk 1 system. It's easier for a barbarian like myself to put together and I've always found that the cradle stops did a good...

That is interesting, Tim. Two things struck me, apart from the weird, mask-like faces (an effect of the colourisation, presumably): all the women wearing shawls and very few of the men smoking. If that has been, say, 1930s footage I think there would have been cigarettes all over. And we need more p...

David T.'s traverser has two great virtues that reduce the need for precision parts. First, any tendency for the table to crab is taken out by the operator's eyes and wrists (highly refined: 100,000's of generations of development!), not by the mechanism. Second, the fine alignment of table with exi...

As the lines are inside a panel can’t you use a wash and the capillary effect to get the result you want easily? I understand the use of a wash to fill the panel (I've seen the YouTube video), but how does that help with the line inside the panel? Didn't Jim Whittaker use lots of very thin coats of...

I don't see why anybody would need to mechanise a fiddle-yard traverser. Why not just slide it by hand? Further, and picking up Dave B.'s point, why not make it as a multi-road cassette? This would have have slightly better ergonomics than separate, train-sized cassettes that have to be lifted over ...

jim s-w wrote:As the lines are inside a panel can’t you use a wash and the capillary effect to get the result you want easily?

I understand the use of a wash to fill the panel (I've seen the YouTube video), but how does that help with the line inside the panel?

Dimensions would help. Assuming that the posts are about 12" high, I think they could be printed in Shapeways FUD and the brackets could be represented. FUD can be printed with "walls" down to 0.6mm if they are attached at one end and down to 0.3mm if they are attached on two or more ...

Guy, Where is the five way stub point please? Gordon A https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/10584 is where I found it. That article says: "I came across this post because I was researching the location of an unusual five-way stub switch, reputedly in New Zealand and associated with the Rim...

Would it help to copy a Peco turnout, scaling up the lengths by 18.83/16.5? Peco stuff has a good record for getting models round curves and is systematically shorter than scale turnouts with the same crossing-angle. Do you actually need conventional switches? If the turnout is not seen, would a stu...

Julian Roberts wrote: I couldn't find a figure for the Khz at which it works...nor for the £17 model I mentioned earlier - but maybe that's my ineptitude with online research...

The £17 one says it runs at 40 kHz, which is encouraging.

For grit-blasting, why not buy a cheap (£12) Chinese airbrush with a 0.5mm nozzle or larger nozzle and save the risk to the decent brush?

It seems to me that grit-blasting does roughly the same as burnishing with a fibre brush. Can anybody confirm empirically that it give a better key for paint?

Planning ahead for the glazing: I need to build "stretchers" to carry the glazing and the droplight frames. The idea is to have the fixed lights hard against the brass side while the droplights are visibly spaced back. Wainwright coaches had their glass near enough in the plane of the oute...

I've been trying to work out the variations in this stock, with a view to printing some of the missing parts. It's complicated, of course. The first of the coaches arrived in 1894. These had 16' wheelbase whereas the kits have 15'6", so the 1894 batch can be ignored. There were more batches in ...

Roof decision time. The birdcage roof is easy, being a single arc with an etched piece supplied in the kit. I soldered it on, being very careful not to leave gobs of solder where they could obstruct the glazing. There's little space around the etched glazing bars to secure plastic glazing and any in...

I think the critical thing is not how the work is held on top, but how it's supported underneath. In the absence of a proper anvil, it needs something flat and firm but slightly resilient, so that the nascent rivet can push into it. If the backing material distorts other than directly under the rive...

Paul: yes, Alistair's design is indeed well engineered. Two-layer ends should really be standard for etched coaches where the ends are panelled, as they are otherwise too thin for safety. I've only once had the chance to build a kit with two-layer ends and it was so much better than the norm. Back w...

William, thanks for the extra information. I'll think about the buffer guides. The coupling itself seems clear enough. In other news, the brake-3rd has acquired end steps. These, and their handrails, need to go in before the birdcage is built as they are hard to reach otherwise. Thankfully, there ar...