Scalefour Forum

I've been working on framing in the retaining walls. I'm just about done with the wood cutting and things are fitting pretty well. It will be a while before I actually glue things in place though. It will be far easier and will produce better results to build each wall on it's own and then add it to...

Thanks, that looks promising.

In my never ending to-do pile I have a Southern Queen Mary brake van. It's the Bachmann model and I converted it to EM by replacing the bogies with a pair from No Nonsense Kits. They are cast whitemetal sides with an etched rigid frame. I'm like to upgrade these to sprung or compensated (sprung pref...

Just a quick post to show that I have progressed to having a backscene for the layout. It's 15" high and greatly helps to enclose the layout. While cutting plywood we cut a few more bits to help frame in the scenery, retaining walls, buildings, and so forth. http://i558.photobucket.com/albums/s...

Well it's been a while.I think there are two main reasons why I haven't been particularly motivated to work on this recently: 1) There are an awful lot of setts to press 2) I have no idea how to start on the buildings and I need the retaining walls in place before I can put setts up against them. Th...

Shortly after I made the new tank sides I made a pair of valances. These have remained stuck together until last night when they were parted and attached to the footplate. I have reached the conclusion that in order to actually get anything done on my layout I need to be able to "play trains&qu...

Armchair Modeller wrote:

RobM wrote:Would I build another?......Maybe, now knowing the pitfalls......
Rob

How many locos does a brickworks need?

It's a bit like Jaguars, if you have three it's usually possible to keep one going. While I suspect that Rob's models run excellently, the prototypes may not have been quite as reliable.

iak wrote:Excellent stuff Gareth.
I assume the Shock Open is a Newitt underframe as well?

Yes it is. They are wonderful underframes. If this were my primary era and I had a large layout I might feel differently, but as things are I really like them.

I have built the body of the van. It is tight around the stanchions on the ends and they need a bit of thinning. I've posed it with my other two BR wagons, the 1/208 already in this thread and a shock wagon. http://i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss28/doctordalek2/EA80B5D9-52EB-4532-884D-DF9D152C5535_zp...

... The energy required to interfere with a modern LCD or LED screen must be massive though. Yes, but only if computer and monitor are both working correctly in the first place. If the shielding in the monitor cable is poor, or if one or other device is producing almost-out-of-spec voltages onto th...

Gareth, if you want to try the Masokits ones I think I may have some left that I haven't assembled. They look good and go together well (recalling always that they are Masokits products), the reason I decided not to use them is my eyesight just isn't up to using 3 links in an operating session. I'd...

I am in need of a few screw couplings and I'm wondering what is available. I have seen the ExactoScale ones and the Smiths ones and I feel that I have heard of others. What is everyone's recommendation? I don't think they need to be working, but scale rather than over-scale would be nice.

I haven't managed to get a great deal done this week. Nonetheless, progress on the Palvan chassis has continued. It's all gone together quite well aside from not having one of the needed sizes of wire (0.6mm) or the appropriate axlebox/spring combination. I hadn't expected J-hangers somehow. Mostly ...

What is the chassis for? Maybe there is a more modern chassis for it somewhere? I can understand wanting to use what you have, but a well thought out kit would be preferable to a badly thought out kit. If they already designed the compensation to not work who knows what else they got wrong. I'm not ...

9:30 on Sunday night after three glasses of wine and when in a bad mood usually is a bad time to start a new project. Nevertheless I have started another BR van, this one is a Panval that Neville (Highpeak) picked up for me at Scaleforum. I started with the chassis, Rumney Models B.01 with clasp bra...

Julian Roberts wrote:Does anyone know why is it not possible to make an attachment to a reply on this thread?

It might be because it's a Guest Book thread.

I've been working on another Mousa kit, this time a GNR 4 plank open. It arrived unexpectedly a few weeks ago and I started work almost immediately. Everything went together without a hitch. I now have it painted and have started the lettering. I didn't see any GNR wagon transfers available and ther...

It is also easy to forget that we went through a phase with fully fitted freights whereby the brake van was abandoned and the guard travelled in the rear cab. Presumably on a double headed consist he would travel in the rear loco to keep a watchful eye on the trailing load. I cannot quote dates but...

Following the struggle with the mechanism, I have now fitted better pickups. These are the coil style made from 0.25mm phosphor bronze rubbing against the flange. They were quite straight forward once I got the hang of it and I think I'll use them in future as well. https://i.imgur.com/srDQRua.jpg

I'm pleased to report that the flexible gearbox was the source of the problem. With the gearbox carefully reassembled, the axle reassembled, and everything reinstalled performance was much improved. There was still a bit of cogging at very slow speeds however. It then occurred to me that I have hear...

Thanks, I've done something similar but less well executed on a compensated chassis before and it works well. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on a sprung chassis as it effectively locks the driven axle in place. The brass wire torque strap I have fitted here works well under normal circumstances, but...

Gareth, Vid 3 shows a small hesitation at one point so I don't think the gearbox is entirely fault free. Jol I agree that the gearbox is not innocent. Having come to that conclusion I just took it apart and found a problem. I'm sure there's a better way to describe this, but lacking the correct ter...

And video!

Thank you all for you help. I checked all the crankpin bushes and they appear to be concentric, at least to the eye. Four of the crankpins were crooked, one in two directions. These have now been straightened. I stuck twp paint tins on the chassis with some blutack to give it a little more weight an...

I picked this back up a couple of days ago. With the motor removed I worked on the chassis and found a couple of spots that were binding. The connecting rod bush on the rear axle needs to be a long bush rather than a standard one as the rod is quite thick. I also slightly enlarged the holes in the f...