Nervewracking...

Is balancing an etched brass numberplate on a lump of blutack, poised on the end of a cocktail stick. And even more so when as the very last touch, you're putting them in place on a completed Coffee Pot!

See what you think. *I* reckon that they're on straight, and in the middle :-)

I hope to be taking this along to CHEAG tomorrow night to show how it runs...

 

 

All that it needs now is some final weathering and a couple of crew.

Cheers

Flymo

 

It's been a while...

Gosh, where did a quarter of the year go to?

Well, the start of a new job in January put paid to a substantial amount of free time, as have lots of other commitments.  All of that doesn't mean that modelling stopped entirely.  Just the writing up of it and sharing it with friends...

There has been progress on several fronts (even if not others.  Who mentioned Standard Gauge Workbench?) and there have been occasional photos along the way.  I intend to go back and reprise the key points of these in the next few days, but in the meantime here's a first try at a spot of video.

Over the May Bank Holiday weekend, I had every intent of producing a running Coffee Pot.  It's all very fiddly, as subsequent posts will show, but with coupling rods in place, and rolling road set up, on Saturday the locomotive moved under its own power:

I hope that gives you a small sense of the immense satisfaction that I felt.

Since then, it's progressed to having cylinders and connecting rods fitted and (touches large wooden object!) it still runs :-)

Until next time!
Flymo

It's just like Christmas...

When Harry the Postman knocks on the front door and hands you a package with this return label on it:

It contained a lovely shiny sheet of brass, the very first one that I've designed myself.

Now to do some modelling and see if it works

Cheers
Flymo

The Stort Valley Railway

Well, it's the start of a new year and all that, and it's time for New Year Resolutions.

Topmost amongst my modelling resolutions must be to finish more projects that are currently littering up my desk as Work In Progress. I've made a good start on that, and hope to have more out of the way in the next couple of weeks.

So with all that done, I'll move on to my entrant for the Scalefour Society's Standard Gauge Workbench...


Link to Standard Gauge Workbench

In our current house, I don't have the space indoors for a reasonably sized layout. Ulpha Light is erected in the garage, pending restoration, so that space is taken as well. So an SGW layout that I can take out, work on, and then pack away seems the perfect idea. Ultimately though, what I'd like to produce is a series of "episodes" that describe the countryside through a series of scenes. And being in my local area, and of GER interest, I'll be producing some lesser known elements of the London to Cambridge mainline, the branches and sidings off it.

The concept will be a series of linked scenes. If you've been fortunate enough to view the "Nettlebridge Valley Railway" at an exhibition, you may have an idea of what I mean. Regrettably there are very few photos of this on the web.

So the scenes that are hazy plans in my mind include:

- the terminus of the Sawbridgeworth Town branch, after it ran just over a mile after leaving the Cambridge mainline.

- the little-documented siding and canal wharf that existed until the 1960s at Parndon Mill, south of Harlow.

And finally, and the entry to the SGW, is Crouch's Brewery, which was established in the small hamlet of Churchgate Street, where it successfully produced a range of ales until a mysterious fire caused it to close shortly after the end of the First World War.

A track plan has been chosen (read "cribbed from somewhere else"...) and the Templot has been beaten into submission.

I've promised the show organiser that I will be showing something related to the SGW at Scalefour North in April, so I'd better stop typing and crack on with those unfinished projects if I'm ever going to meet that deadline!

Cheers
Flymo

Breathe in...

But carefully...

And preferably using one of these.  In response to the question from John Lewis over in a different place about the location of my spray booth, about twenty minutes ago it was here:

Sat in the middle of my desk, which is located at 90 degrees from where my modelling bureau is.  It's very convenient for the "overspill" of kits that is inevitable when something is being built. 

And (hijacking John McAleely's discussion elsewhere) it is also the depository for all of the tools that I'm using when I decide to do some soldering.  They are swept, en masse, from the left surface to the right surface to prevent them being splattered with liquid flux fumes.  Since doing this, even if it is imperfect, the incidence of rusting has significantly reduced.

The particular subject of the spraying is the inevitable Coffeepot, receiving a coat of varnish over the transfers before progressing on to the weathering.

I think that the camera flash has caused the red lining to flare somewhat!  It's nowhere near that bright in real life.  Now to leave it for an evening to harden, and perhaps make some progress on the chassis...

Cheers
Flymo

Success...

Just for James, as he commented on model railways, Mr Sod and his Law...

This is the result of the third attempt at putting a lamp-iron (or rather socket, in LNWR style) on the front of the smokebox.

At least I managed not to make anything else fall off whilst putting this on.

Cheers
Flymo

Today's discovery...

If you put amps from your Resistance Soldering Unit on the 4.5V setting through an LNWR lost wax casting of a lamp iron, it *very* rapidly collapses.

Which is a shame, as using the 3V setting hadn't allowed the solder to make a strong enough join.  It's a good job that I have spares...

Cheers
Flymo