Scalefour Forum

For years I've used Wizard Models glazing and found it pretty well perfect. You can score, snap and file it pretty much like plasticard and it doesn't scratch or craze at the sight of a bladed article. I've just finished a set of glazing for a SEF flatiron, and while it wasn't exactly fun nor did I ...

If you don't fancy the home-printed waterslide transfers (some brands of paper are awkward to use with inkjets, apparently), you could print onto self-adhesive labels and then varnish them. For the sort of precision you need for boiler bands, I would consider going to a proper print shop and ask th...

Lovely mode, and the paint finish is particularly convincing with its metalllic sheen. How did you achieve this?

Tony

About 10 years ago I purchased this image from Getty Images (not cheap!). I was wondering if any of you SR folk might know what coaches we are looking at? I dare not speculate as I remember once asking on SemG about some birdcage coaches in a 1920's photo that turned out to be Pullman stock in a pu...

If they are not commercially viable, perhaps they could be offered to the Society so they can be made available as free downloads.

Tony

Inspiring pictures, and I don't think I could have brought myself to paint the minfit underframe. I really like the weather sheet on the 0-6-0 how have you made it behave properly when it goes round corners?

Tony

The 4D model shop carries a good range of extruded plastic shapes, including one that serves as very decent 4mm guttering - and is easy to work.

https://modelshop.co.uk/Shop/Strip-Shap ... ?orderby=1

Tony

This maybe an obvious suggestion, but do you know anyone with a functioning DCC layout, or someone from your local Area Group who might know someone? Posting the loco to them would at least eliminate or confirm the duff controller possibility. I would offer, but I'm still at the novice stage myself ...

Lovely photos, and I will cherish the idea of the royal family travelling through the midlands by railbus. I can still remember the fairground-ride trackholding when trsvelling on them on the Barking to Tottenham line. More generally, the illusion of the nasty wet night is beautifully sustained. Tony

I reckon that the whole covid thing will be over by the end of May. If shows are cancelled into the autumn it will be because of 'civil unrest' caused by the government playing safe and not lifting the lockdown. Of course, we all have a choice of whether we listen to people who look at the real dat...

My experience is that the RSU is an absolute godsend for the hamfisted modeller, Its one of those equaliser tools that enables you to work far above your innate skill and dexterity level. The two professional modellers I know manage perfectly (literally) well without one but for me it makes Bradwell...

As you would expect from English Heritage. it's a very nicely printed book, and I've enjoyed thumbing through it.

Tony

Good luck, Derek, during the national hiatus, and thanks very much for the speed with which you are turning round orders. My recent one came almost be return of post, double welcome since i was right out of .4mm drill bits.

Tony

That was the gist of my question. They look well made and ok, but I don't have a layout to allow me to put an Accurascale-coupled wagon at the front of a long, grumpy goods train and see what happens.

Tony

I've bought some Accurascale instanter and screw couplings - sadly almost the only items on their website which are in period for me. They look really fine, but in my glass-half-empty moments I have been wondering if the shank and the couplings themselves are robust enough to hold up to heavy use in...

I've used Railmatch paints for many years, mainly as the basis for working wagons. Their black, rust and filth colours can be very effective. Recently is seems to me that they have become more glutinous, even when using a new pot for the first time. They're still usable (though I've not tried thinni...

What is really needed is a chemist who knows how to make a black paint! When I worked in a factory, in another life, we dyed man made materials black but, there is always a but, there was no such thing as a black dye. We had to mix different colours to make black and one of the main ones was red. N...

Google image comes up short when you are looking for hard-worked BR locos, but I have two colour albums - BR steam in colour and British Railways seam in colour which include many engines that show a red-brown tinge. In his book Martyn Welch recommends including Humbrol 62 (a matte, fairly pale brow...

In many colour photos of working BR steam locomotives, there is a distinct reddish tinge to the black shades. While working out a paint mix to replicate this I found myself wondering whether the photographs were recording the result of 1950s paint technology degrading from the heat of the metal, or ...

It's not an essential tool by any means, but is a very useful "equaliser" tool, much like a resistance soldering unit. It does nothing that an experienced and skilled modeller can't knock out easily with a vice and a couple of straight edges, but for the less adept it means we can produce ...

I bought one from small shop some years ago and it both saves a lot of time and gives excellent results with etched kits. But I'm not sure I would be prepared to spend the money that is being asked for them now.

Tony

Tony

Sometimes whole minutes fly by without my dropping something tiny and important, but a partial solution is the old jewellers/goldsmiths trick of wearing an apron with the bottom fixed to the underside of the workbench. I learned this from Prem Holdaway and it has saved me hours of fruitless searchin...

Or even the generic Enamel Thinners that comes in an aluminium tin with a conical top - looks like something from the Wizard of Oz but is a lot cheaper than Humbrol. If you're lucky enough to live near a modelling or craft shop.

Tony

Springing: The limit of my abilities was to get the wheels going round reasonable freely. Ted just took them off to his workbench and in what seemed like seconds everything was perfect. I think chassis just see him coming and mutter to themselves that its time to sit up and face front.

Tony

I built a couple of them not long after they came on the market. They went together reasonably well, but I found two areas of difficulty. The first and more painful was that I found there was a huge gap at top corners of the plough blades were supposed to meet the front of the cab. I tried all sorts...