Scratch Building

[DaveHarris]

As a new member and a returning modeller after some thirty years, I am looking for information on scratch building locos. I seem to think there was a comment in a recent Scalefour news that someone had done a very good series on scratch building some time ago? I cannot find the comment now, and also wonder if it contained information as to which issues the series was spread over. Has anyone a good memory?

Dave H

[Paul Willis]

As a new member and a returning modeller after some thirty years, I am looking for information on scratch building locos. I seem to think there was a comment in a recent Scalefour news that someone had done a very good series on scratch building some time ago? I cannot find the comment now, and also wonder if it contained information as to which issues the series was spread over. Has anyone a good memory?

Sorry, what was that? I'm afraid that I don't have the memory to recall very much these days...

However courtesy of the hard work of Richard Hall, there is an online index to backnumbers of Scalefour News.

You can access it via the Scalefour News page in the Members' Area of the website. It's in the menu bar above the individual issues, all of which you can download and browse on your PC at your leisure.

Type "Scratch" into the search box and it will produce a number of issues that you can browse.

HTH
Flymo

[Philip Hall]

Apart from Scalefour News, I would think that, for a start, you could not do better than the late Guy Williams' Ian Allan book on 'Locomotive Construction in 4mm Scale' which was a compendium of his previous articles in Model Railway Constructor. Quite old now, but still very much valid. Followed by Guy's two books on loco construction for Wild Swan.

Philip

[allanferguson]

Welcome to the Society, and you'll find at least six different ways of doing things in here!
You may find helpful a series in this Forum by Allan Goodwillie (indeed this may be what is being referred to)
viewtopic.php?f=39&t=666

Allan F

[DaveHarris]

Gentlemen,

Thanks for your replies. The series which the link was given for is excellent and I think, when combined with Guy's books which I am sourcing , will help a great deal.

Many thanks for your replies.

Must run off the articles, get the books, find time to read and then go for a first attempt!

Many Thanks
Dave H

[Paul Willis]

Must run off the articles, get the books, find time to read and then go for a first attempt!

Many Thanks
Dave H

Well, above everything else, don't forget that you'll receive lots of useful and only occasionally contradictory advice by asking on here.

So don't be shy in asking what might seem like daft questions, we've all been there at some point, and some like me still are!

Cheers
Flymo

[Wizard of the Moor]

Allan Goodwillie will be demonstrating and lecturing about his scratchbuilding techniques at Scalefour North in April. An excellent opportunity to get some expert advice!

http://www.scalefour.org/shows/shows.html

[Terry Bendall]

And of course, once you have something finished Dave you could bring it along to one of the Society shows. If it is finished in time, and you want to, you could enter it in this year's Armchair Challange at Scaleforum but if not it can always go in the display case.

Good luck with the project.

Terry Bendall

[Hardwicke]

Good luck with the scratchbuilding. It is immensely satisfying. I've build a GCR sleeper wagon, a Hull & Barnsley 0-6-0, GCR 1 plank. a 12 ton coal wagon underframe and altered kits to represent versions that were not available. Virtually all my buildings are scratchbuilt. You never know what you can do until you try.

[DaveHarris]

Terry,
I doubt i will have anything ready for this year! My first project is a scratch built 7 plank wagon following the very good instructions in John Hayes excellent book on Coal Wagons. Then i will have an attempt at a pannier chassis!Thank you for your encouragement and i must congratulate Alan on his excellent 'article' and also those who contributed questions and observations on the way through the article which I found extremely informative. It has given me much encouragement.

[alandoyle]

The other advantage to posting daft questions is that the answers alert other daft newcomers to things they missed... things I missed. That's a great series and it looks like it might provide an appropriate jig to deal with my previous post about fitting wheels properly.

Thanks,

Alan