Reply to Phil :-)

It seems that I can't post an image in a reply on Blogspot, so I'll have to do it as a separate post...

Phil said "If the wagon floors are plastic, bend the wires in to a U shape and push them through with a soldering iron. When you take the heat away, they are perfectly fixed in place."

Well, that was what I used to do :-)

Then I became a little tired of waving a hot soldering iron around in the close vicinity of a detailed and finished plastic or whitemetal wagon, or the up-down-up of trying to fix the two staples at the correct height to make it all work consistently. 

So I sat down and had a bit of a think, and fired up CorelDraw.  The result is this little set of etches that fold up into a bracket that takes the appropriate sized wires at a standardised height and spacing:

The whole sub-assembly is built up off the wagon, soldered together well away from anything that can be damaged, and with ease of working.  Then it can be glued/melted/screwed onto the wagon floor:

Epoxy resin is my preferred method of fitting, as it fills the grooves that I drew into the bottom for grip, and goes through the holes to form little "mushrooms" that lock it in place.

Jigs for the loop and mount spacing are etched into the side of the fret (you can see them in the top picture) so that the  bending of them from straight wire is consistent.

I forgot to write myself a reminder to mix proper epoxy though!

Cheers
Flymo

Sigh...

I can be so stupid at times.  Particularly first thing in the morning before having sufficient coffee...

Important lesson #237.

When doing a batch build of Sprat & Winkle couplings to fasten to a set of five LNWR wagons, pay very careful attention to the tubes in your box of Araldite.

Because if you are careful, you won't accidentally mix the five-minute resin with the 24 hour *resin*.  If I'd managed to mix the wrong resin with the wrong hardener, it wouldn't be as bad as this.  I'm sure that something would have stuck.  As it was, having left them like this upside down all day to set...

...then it wouldn't be the case that when I picked the first one up and turned it the right way up, the coupling fell off in a sticky mess!

Oh well, back to the mixing spoon and the workbench.

Happy Christmas!
Flymo

Dileberate vandalism

That's what I felt like after adding an etched brass brake lever to this Ratio kit.

Not because it was difficult to make - in fact, nothing could have been simpler.  But the act of replacing the plastic version that had been provided in the kit, and had at some point lost the handle at the end showed me just how easy it was to do, and what an improvement in looks it gave.

That's why I'm musing whether a little "accident" shouldn't befall the currently intact one that is still on the other side of the wagon...

Probably not this time, but I do know that in all new builds of LNWR wagons, I'll be using these etched brass replacements.  It's a component from 51L, by the way, and well worth the pennies to keep a few in stock.  

Later tonight I may have chance to give it a little self-etch primer and later in the week a waft of colour and weathering...

Cheers
Flymo

Rivet or weld?

In real life I can just about manage to wield a (pop) riveter with dexterity, but the last time that I tried my hand at welding, the results looked just like something that had recently passed through one of the local pigeons.  It didn't do much for the door of my Mini either, which fell off shortly afterwards...

Back with modelling, I've been a little more successful in completing the test builds of the 5522 LMS coach bogies.

I initially made up the riveted version, using it as the test bed to write the instructions for the kit.

Satisfied with that, I have just finished building the welded variant, which can be made from the same kit.  The basic differences are to not add a few rivets here, and to put in some welded ribs there...

I'm very pleased with both of the bogies.  I now need to cast a much larger stock of the axleboxes and bolsters, and think about how best to pack them.

Many thanks to Keith Norgrove for also doing a test build based on my first draft of the instructions, and making many useful suggestions on how to improve them.  Any errors or ambiguities that remain are entirely down to me.

Now to think about a test build of an underframe for them to sit beneath...

Cheers
Flymo

A useful new gadget...

And a few words on a silence...

Over the last few months, it's not that I haven't been doing any modelling.  It's simply that it's not been very interesting to write about.  It's been things like repairing brakegear on wagons, finishing off some weathering, or fixing some couplings.  There's been very little that actually constitutes a "project" for me.

That said, looking back at it I've probably achieved more than I realise.  Talking with people whilst manning the Scalefour Society stand at Warley last weekend made me realise how much can be shown to help and encourage them.  Not least to the nine new Society members that we welcomed, all of whom were enthusiastic about finescale modelling and what they could do.

So I've resolved to find the time to talk a little more about the modelling that I am doing.  Of course, the other challenge is finding the time for the modelling itself!  However doing ten minutes of soldering at six in the morning before leaving for work is actually quite rewarding, as long as I've had half a mug of coffee first.

Whilst I was at Warley last weekend, I was able to wander around and see a little bit of the show itself.  There were some lovely layouts, and I'm sure that those are being described at length in other places.  However to me it is even more interesting to see what are the new products on the market.

One that I came across was a soft, heat-proof soldering mat.  The idea is that it is soft enough to take a pin, and therefore you can fix down whatever you are trying to solder to avoid having to chase it around whilst waving a small component and a hot soldering iron.  This came in very useful this morning when I tried soldering some strengthening ribs onto a 5522 coach bogie.  I had been doing the usual cursing of needing a third hand to hold everything together when I remembered the mat.  A few brass lace pins later and it looked like this:

Job done swiftly and easily.  An absolute revelation.

Sometimes you wonder whether a gadget is worth the money.  The best thing about this was that it cost me less than the price of a pint of beer.  It was £3.75 to be precise.

I don't know how long it will last before wear and tear takes its toll, but at that price I can see me stocking up with a couple more when I have the chance.  If you'd like to do the same, this is where it came from:

 
Back for more modelling soon...

Cheers
Flymo

What to choose?

Having seen that the Missenden Modelling Weekends have had a very nice write-up in a recent (current?) issue of the Railway Modeller, then realisation struck me over the weekend that I had better sort out a booking.

For me, a great deal of the attraction is being able to stay "on campus" and therefore to wield a soldering iron late at night or early in the morning.  The ability to retire to the bar, fetch a pint of real ale, and then carrying on modelling in convivial company [1] is a lovely part of the atmosphere.

So this morning, I found my Round Tuit and my credit card, and I made a booking for the Autumn Weekend which runs over the last weekend in October.  So that's me sorted for accommodation.  The challenge now is what to do...

Usually, as you may have seen from past postings, I join the 4mm locomotives group and spend the weekend happily soldering.  I've done a weekend in the past waving a brushful of turps around with Dirty Tim, and that was good fun.  But I fancy something different.

There is a course on CAD design for 3D printing, which is very tempting.  However as I am nicely getting to grips with 2D design for my own etches and 5522 instruction sheets, I'm not sure that I want to do this.  More to the point, spending all my working week in front of a computer means that I don't really want to spend a modelling weekend doing that as well!

I don't *do* electronics - that's not my idea of fun.  Again, I think that it's that IT/thinking type thing that doesn't seem to be relaxation.  Another alternative is going back for yet more 4mm loco building.  Perhaps making progress on my Buckjumper?  It has been sadly neglected since the Missenden Spring Course.

However I'm starting to be very tempted by Barry Norman's scenic sessions.  Now who do I know that can produce some baseboards for me???

Cheers
Flymo


[1] Usually with a man that has cooows on his layout ;-)

Going medieval...

...although not in a good way.

Before we went away for the weekend, I decided to glaze the windows of the Coffeepot.  Normally, when I am faced with windows in a locomotive cab, I leave them unglazed.  Yes, they can look empty, but from normal viewing distance that isn't really noticable, and I'd rather have that than do something cack-handed that looks obviously wrong.

However for this model I decided to try something different, so I remembered that a while ago I had invested in one of those pots of "glazing solutions".  You know, the ones that you spread around the windows using a cocktail stick and them leave to dry.

Well, I did that, popped the model safely under a dust cover, and left it to dry.  The finish had been quite lumpy immediately on application, and I had hoped that it would smooth down and settle into a glass-like finish.  Well, it had, but not quite as I expected:

 

The glazing had smoothed, and set, but it was left with many small bubbles in it.  In fact, it looked like the sort of handmade glass that is often found in historic buildings, with the slight imperfections from the blowing technique before industrial production began.

However I don't think that Stratford at the end of the 19th century would have been using glass such as this.  

Fortunately, with a gentle prod with the tweezers, I was able to extract all four solidly set discs from the apertures.  They came out with no damage to the paintwork, which was nice as well.

The dilemma for me now is whether I have another try, knowing what to look out for and possibly pricking the bubbles out with a scalpel blade.  The alternative (which I'm currently favouring) is to just leave it and not risk an accident with the paintwork.

I'm tending to favour the second option at the moment...

Cheers
Flymo