Scalefour Forum

A few years ago I bought some replacement side cutters from a jewellery supplier. The quality was surprisingly poor and in the end I thought I would probably have been better off buying from Lidl. I've not come across Lindstromm cutters before but the best I have had were bought from MicroMark in th...

Some beautifully workaday wagons. One point I would like to add is that the inside of 16 tonners seems to have been much more orange than they are usually portrayed. A good source for this is the scene in The Ladykillers film. When the corpse of one of the (spoiler alert) would-be killers is consign...

Tamiya acrylic primer is ok too. More expensive but I've heard it said that it covers more thinly.

Tony

The new Scalefour News has a tantalising article by Noel Anderson describing a Windows goods traffic management system he has written for his own layout. It dwarfs my own efforts to model a realistic traffic flow and I would be very interested in playing around with it. So this post is an enquiry to...

There is a very useful bending template attached to one of the plastic bolster kits, which gives a creditable and above all uniform shape. They are good for a surprisingly large number of loops considering they are softish polystyrene. I'm sorry that I can't remember the kit concerned, but I am pret...

Irrelevant rubbish: One of the funniest moments of my childhood was seeing one of my uncles falling through a flimsy outhouse floor into a disused (but still very cessy) cess pit. The memory of the look on his face still brings joy to my heart - and it is one of his most-told stories. Not hurt, no n...

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 ...