16 hours ago, Galteemore said:

I started the ‘Enniskillen’ saga with a long post so may as well finish with another one. You may wish to make a mug of tea! I promise that when you’ve battled through the text, there are pictures. Lots of pictures, as I got rather carried away....

I have long admired those - including those on this illustrious forum - who can take an expensive box-fresh model and gaily waft an airbrush over it, to great and convincing effect. I’d never have the nerve for that! 

So you can imagine how anxious I was about weathering an engine that has taken me almost a year to build from scratch. But weather it I had to do. It wouldn’t fit with the layout if I left it, as it would stick out, and all the details I’d added would be hidden in the plain unvarying black.

Martyn Welch’s excellent book was my guide - and I had the gall to contact the guru himself for extra tips. I also practiced on some old Wrenn/Hornby Dublo bodies - sorry @WRENNEIRE - but hopefully the sacrifice was worthwhile!! Welch warns that bad weathering looks like a loco has been attacked by an incontinent bullock and I know what he means. Even the SLNC’s overwhelming cattle traffic couldn’t justify that ! So I determined to follow his approach religiously. BTW I don’t have an airbrush....so this is all hand applied. I think it could have turned out worse. 

First off is a coat of gunmetal/grey/leather stippled on with a brush. The lovely black engine starts to look like a shotgun barrel - what have I done !  But hold your nerve - carefully applied weathering powder tones all down nicely - but do work from photos and not what you imagine. Hours have thus been spent on studying grime......Underframe and wheels are a similar process - with lots of talcum powder added. Even the lovely red coupling rods were plastered in gunge. 

Much detailing work remained. Coal and glazing were added to the cab, plus screw couplings and dummy inside motion, made from plastic rod and strip. I had the chance to poke my head between Lough Erne’s frames a few years ago which was helpful for this.

The crew were painted up and glued in, along with the boiler backhead and Wakefield lubricator (although it should really be a Detroit). The crew’s position in the cab is based on a quote from the SLNC CME Mr Egan, who described how crews on the steep banks would anxiously watch the water disappearing from the gauge glass and pray for a third injector to appear. That’s exactly what they are doing in this pose...

Before we let loose on the photos, which are taken in a mixture of day and LED light, and show details plus overall views,  I do apologise for the cheesy cotton wool ‘steam’. I did get carried away..

One last vignette. N W Newcombe travelled behind ‘Enniskillen’ in Apr 57. I read his piece 30 years ago and recently rediscovered it. Here’s a brief edited excerpt - I’ll let him have the last word. If my small effort does any honour to this wonderful railway as he describes it, I’ll be happy with my year’s work. But the next project will be plastic - I’m over soldering and filing for a while....the cab roof needs stuck down, and she is still a bit light on the front drivers so I’ll squeeze some lead in -but we’re now effectively signing this off!! 
 

‘Enniskillen’ laboured terribly on the restart from Glenfarne, climbing to Kilmakerrill. Soon we were belting along in the dusk, a fine moon coming up behind us. It felt like 50-60-70mph but the sober evidence of my watch said it was just over 16mph. ‘Enniskillen’ was simply pounding along, waggling her shoulders so ferociously that I had doubts we should arrive safely at Manorhamilton. It must have been quite exciting on the footplate too. I saw now and then the driver’s head against a lurid background of fire, sometimes it protruded against a greenish night sky. Now and then showers of sparks went up from the funnel, once even a rush of fiery smoke billowed out from the cab itself.  And always there was tremendous black smoke....

Love the wood Bufferbeam !

Its Alive!!!

Managed to bring down the port hole after lowering the deck, Happy with that.

Leccy were being worked on today before I had to do some garden work and another change in the Receivers where they have an in built button to bind to the transmitter, No more little bind plugs! There is telemetry also on this receiver for 24 quid, Unreal price.

I have run everything through a power board from Action electronics, at first the there was no power, Lots of head scratching before I noticed to on off switch on the speed controller, Ah great, Went to hit that and the switch fell apart, I bared the wires and have power that way for now until I get another better switch.  I'll be making  little tray to hold the Receiver, speed controller and Fan control unit Another step forward now to getting that deck on.

What the Lads say, There has been plenty of Layouts in MR that don't in my eyes cut the mustard so to speak and they do have loads of repeats too. 

This Layout speaks in volumes with your pictures and is fantastic in its a simplistic layout and in the way you don't have tons and tons of stuff on it crowding out the message Signals, Points working, Magnetic Gubbins and you do your own sounds. Don't get nowhere without trying!

A lad from Kerry used to pop into Marks regular, His modelling was funded by lobbing in articles of his latest builds, Barrow Roundhouse was one. 

Keep bashing up the photos though.

On 9/4/2021 at 2:34 PM, BosKonay said:

Just a quick update, A23R is now completely sold out on preorder.

Sold out on IRM Pre Orders or are they available from other retailers?

Luckily one of the ones I chose!

1 hour ago, irishmail said:

You may be better off with Railway Modeller as they do publish articles on Irish layouts.  Model rail don't do overseas articles, as I  made enquires to them once.

Did not George Dent do some Irish Stuff and they also review the Irish Models too so thats a wee be odd?

Good Afternoon Gents,

Looking forward to the weekend now!

Still working away on this one, Lots of tidying up with the white metal parts and my order from Cornwall Model Boats arrived with the replacement cowl vents which look fab, I think they look to be 3D printed.

I was hoping to have the sound unit installed but these are not able from Action just yet so I have installed the speaker and I will work on how to install the other wiring but the next big step will be the deck and after placing all the bits n bobs on the deck I noticed something is just not right.......

As per the photo I have the Main Deck Level as the bubble indicates (these are not calibrated BTW!)

Also the Superstructure stuff is not glued on so don't panic! (just yet!)

I'd be banging up and few words and some good photos and sending them off to Model Rail, Get a few quid for yourself too.

Smashing job on the magnet gubbins too!

3 hours ago, Noel said:

I've said it before Eoin doesn't look his best in this photo but his engineering work is simply out of this world. Excellence. Hat's off.

Could of polished his shoes too!

1 hour ago, Noel said:

Just wondering did these ever materialise Dave? 

they did and  it was a tiny metal Washer that went over the bogie pivot pin. I got them but never actually got around to stick em in.

On 31/3/2021 at 4:47 PM, WRENNEIRE said:

OO Works J15's

Black

 

Nice outer

 

 

 

 

And The Grey

Nice Spelling

 

 

US Market Gray option I'd say. Last pic is off the rails Dave? loosing your touch?

12 hours ago, Noel said:

Sure. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option some years ago and was the only way I could source an EGV for €60 in this livery.

And TBH I though 60 notes was a heavy enough price!

55 minutes ago, popeye said:

Nice to see some women with an interest in containers. 

its probably a selfie or checking the eye liner. Different liner to what we are interested in.

Nah Following the footsteps of Hattons and Hornby. may as well cash in I suppose.

Lots of thought went into these and it creates a massive cost saving for modellers on a budget. Inter changeability will be the next thing, Swapping coach bodies on a generic chassis. Cant wait for my stuff to come.

I would actually love to see this up on the Ebay to see what you get for them!

Order gone in lads. finger on the pulse as usual!

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/163570-new-accurascale-coach-range-welcome-to-our-haulmark/

I just used Copper clad PCB board cut down and the wires soldered directly to that. 

It seems all sorts of fancy stuff out there now. Are these the ones the Wexford lads used on the O Gauge Layout?

I started also on the leccy side with a sound box for the speaker being made and installed, I need to work on the where will the best place will be for the other leccy bits n bobs I need.

And the Boat Yard is on O/T this week. Windows in, Gun Platform more or less done

I need to get better cowl vents and the ones supplied are just very poor and too thin to tidy up as per the pics and the hole that has appeared in the one I tried to do.

and the leccy stuff is being worked on and where best to place what is needed where, Although it is s huge hull the batteries and smoke unit take up 

NOCH 15959 for those figures Dave. 

With a week off managed to tip away between the Garden and the Shed so a good jump in progress.

I had to replace the lost rivets and used snipped Peco track pins for the Rivet heads.

With some consultation and research I have discovered these ships were painted in Home Fleet Grey which was a much darker shade which now makes the ship more sinister and war like! Humbrol 145 was used, initial coat with pre shading done.

13 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Lots of media noise over trade wars with China at the moment.

I hope that IRM haven't made any anti-China public announcements over the past twelve months!

Can we have a hint as to the quantities, and of which A's, that are running low on pre-order, please?

People tow the Party line, China at best is a shadowy place complete with poor work practices. Maybe slowly changing but I personally would not live there no matter how great the lads are, It only for the Yankee Dollar they please.

11 hours ago, Noel said:

Yes I got one of those little 'gift's from Marks today with their latest delivery. Have to wait until Lent is over before testing for level of chocolateness!  

Lent..whats that....:)

Yes I saw it on the first view I had, Just so cool!

Some bits came through from Blighty today, No Customs so managed to save 20 notes! Speaker, Relay switch of the Searchlight, Power board and a variable speed Fan unit. Got a nice surprise from Marks Models to, Will be having this with a cuppa at 9PM

Also the grab rails and Stanchions with handrails were done for the gun tub. 

1 hour ago, murrayec said:

Yes @Georgeconna it's a shame the track up the road is not used and left to rot!

Interestingly though! that 3.5 inch gauge Royal Scott I mentioned above in this thread, is back on the list for repair & restoration to live steam running!! The chap also says if we can get it running he will build a track in his 'large' garden- this could be interesting? We have discussed about making it look like a Class 800!!

Eoin

 

Corr!! that would be great to see this beauty on the go again!

On 12/6/2020 at 2:37 PM, murrayec said:

@Midland Man yes pretty sad- I heard that the chap who built it- his family from the UK came visiting and asked could they call to the house to view the layout as it was their father's pride & joy, they were very disappointed when they saw the track in it's over-grown state.

I will be building a 3.5" straight track in my garden to run the Northumbrian loco when complete, I may invite the now owners of the track to come and view it running and that may light a spark!!

Eoin

That's a right ol shame, Happened to Crosshaven's track too, in the end it was ripped up. I imagine there is just not the interest here to support this type of engineering modelling in Ireland. the missus came across a Video of it in the 80's recently, Was jammed packed too.

When I lived in Hounslow in the 80s I used to pop up to Harlington on Sunday am to watch their live steam stuff

19 hours ago, Galteemore said:

Nice work George - what material is gun tub made out of ? 

Gun Tub is Styrene Galtemore, Quite pleased on how it turned out TBH! Here are some more pics showing the stowage boxs and the Companion ways build, Sealed and sanded ready for a splash of colour. Its starting to look a bit busy now!