Tullygrainey

And I hope you won! Go for it JB. No pain, no gain

Another Hunslett shunter on the bench, an 0-6-0 side tank from CSP Models this time. Like the Hawthorn Leslie that began this thread, it's a 4mm version of a former Agenoria 7mm kit. Superstructure in brass with some very fine lost wax brass castings, chassis in nickel silver. Everything needed to build the kit is here which saves shopping around - various gauges of wire and rod, handrail knobs, even copper clad strip for pickups. Couldn't ask for more. Wheels from Gibson, gearbox from High Level. The supplied motor looks like ones I've seen on the Tramfabriek website. Gearbox is a Minispinner+, a recent addition to the range and a new one on me. It's a cut down version of High Level's RoadRunner Compact+ which takes up even less space. There are two sets of frames and two sets of coupling rods to choose from, allowing different versions to be built. Just as well because I destroyed one of the rods (broke an end off - does this sound familiar?) while soldering up the laminations so had to use the other set. Managed to get those done without further mishap. The instructions describe a rigid chassis with drive to the middle axle but I'm building it compensated with drive to a fixed rear axle and hornblocks on the other two. The frames have half-etched lines to help get the cutouts in the right place. A compensation beam will be needed so that's been made from two thicknesses of scrap nickel silver etch. With its edge touching the two axles, a pivot point is drilled through it and into the frames. Frames ready for assembly and the compensation beam tidied up. Enough for one day. More soon. Alan

I couldn't possibly comment

Looking good! Magic too. Goes by itself. No crew, no coal

Kilmore had an outing to the Ulster Model Railway Club exhibition at Dundonald High School this weekend. Very enjoyable two days. Many thanks to the UMRC for a well organised show. The new venue seemed to work well. I've posted some photographs in the 'What's On' section. Thanks as always to Kieran Lagan for sharing running duties. Between us we managed to keep trains moving throughout the 2 days without any major dramas. The odd derailment and a few decoupling moments were about the extent of it. We're still getting the hang of the Gaugemaster Infinity controller which didn't help us by refusing to power up first thing on the second day and then wiping the loco roster from its memory when it did. Operator error maybe. However the BlueTooth did mean we could operate the layout from some nearby soft chairs when the oul legs began to give out. IMG_5619.MOV

Many thanks to the UMRC for a really enjoyable show. Great venue, great layouts. Some photos from the two days...

Hunslett just about done, bar a crew and coal load IMG_5559.MOV

Hunslett is just about ready for paint. Tank not quite seated properly in these pics. IMG_5507.MOV Another one from the roster. A Drewry diesel with a High Level chassis kit under a Dapol plastic kit body with extra detailing. Mashima motor, Gibson wheels.

Cheering for you here Darius. Hang in there.

Two more shunters from the roster, these with Irish connections. H&W Harlandic 0-6-0 DM in its final UTA days and a Ruston and Hornsby 0-4-0 DM, a nod to the ex-CSE loco currently with the RPSI at Whitehead. Both built from Judith Edge kits. If you're wondering why the the 3-link couplings on the front of the locos are defying gravity, there's an uncoupling magnet under the track just there

Beautiful runner

A brilliant job, from beginning to end. And speedy too! A credit to you.

The Hunslett gets brakes. What a fiddly job. Half way through. Rigging is 0.45mm brass rod. Easier to cut things over length and trim back after the soldering is done. No short circuits. Yay!! Some lead weight tucked between the frames front and back. There's more lead secreted in the saddle tank too. Since the boiler is largely covered by the tank and won't be seen, there was nothing stopping me from cutting lumps out of the top. So I did. More elbow room for the motor/gearbox which is mounted on a floating axle and needs to move about a little bit. Pickups fitted (31swg phosphor bronze wire) with flying leads... ... and a chip hardwired into place - a Layout Concepts (DCC Concepts as was) ZN8H.2 with the 8 pin plug cut off. It's a fairly tight squeeze but it works ok. The blue, black and white wires are intended for a stay-alive but I doubt there'll be room for one. The smallest I have just fails to fit inside the smokebox or anywhere else for that matter so I may just trim those wires back. More work still to do on the bodywork, including adding all the resin cast bits but it's always encouraging to get the little beast running. It'll also need a good scrub before any paint goes on! Alan

Great work. Love to see step by step pictures of a build. Keep posting!

It can be challenging for sure but very satisfying when it goes well. Even when it doesn't, it can be an incentive to try harder and the satisfaction comes from solving the problems (or taking a hammer to the insoluble ones - just joking, there's always a solution). In actual fact, it's likely that visitors often don't notice that you're having a bad time because many don't spend long observing any one exhibit. And if nothing is moving on the layout they just pass on to the next exhibit, leaving you to have your nervous breakdown unnoticed

Pickups!!! Founder members of the Little Things Sent To Try Us Club. Nothing like an exhibition to expose the things you didn't know were wrong However it sounds like you've banished most of the gremlins now David. Onward and upward.

Some progress with the Judith Edge Hunslett 14" kit. The saddle tank was tricky to keep square and took ages to do. Annealing the metal made it easier to roll. A number of goes to get those little steps - one each side - to solder securely. Trial fitting of the tank. It's just wedged in place. The instructions suggest weighting it so I'll put some lead in there though it might be somewhere to stow a decoder. There's precious little space elsewhere. Wheels are tiny - 13mm diameter this scale. The usual struggle to get the crankpins in straight seemed even harder with these for some reason. Having fitted running plate supports and brake hanger cross shafts to the chassis (not to mention painting everything), I realised they'd prevent my GW Models wheel press from being used. I find that more reliable than trying to quarter the wheels by eye so all that stuff had to come off again. In the process, 3 of the four guard irons let me know they weren't firmly attached either Once wheeled up the rolling chassis moved freely under finger power which is always an encouraging sign. A High Level Iron Core motor fits better than the coreless one but it's still a squeeze. The gearbox has to be tilted backwards, as in the photo and fed into the boiler. First runs on the rolling road weren't great. A tight spot and weird things happening with the middle axle. But after pickups were fitted on the front and middle axles, things improved. First tryout on the shuttle plank. IMG_5447.MOV Seems to run ok without pickups on the rear axle so I might not bother with those. We'll see. Brakes next - I decided it would be easier to fit the brakes round the pickups than vice versa. Alan Two more from the shunter roster - a pair of Hibbert Planet diesels of very different construction. On the left a whitemetal body kit from Roxey Mouldings on a High Level 4wd bogie. Weighs a ton! On the right a Planet Industrials kit - 3D printed body shell with nickel silver overlays and a 3D printed chassis.

Now that is looking great. Really coming alive.

There are some minor amendments and 3 extra chapters. The first concerns the Cameo Competition that arose on the back of the original book with photos and descriptions of the competition entries. Two further chapters describe projects Iain was involved with at the time of his death - Longwood Edge and Pitt Hill.

Lovely book. I’ve been pouring over my copy for the last couple of weeks. Essential reading. Inspirational.

Glad to hear you managed a fairly trouble free second day David but appreciate your concerns about the future. In my experience DCC sometimes seems less tolerant than DC and like John, I've built locos which ran ok on DC but less well when the DCC chip was installed. Having said that, the problems have usually been ironed out after a bit of messing around with the Control variables (CVs) This needn't be as complicated as some descriptions imply. A loco that seems reluctant to get going just needs its starting voltage increased and one that seems to take a lifetime to get up speed needs another adjustment to the acceleration curve. Changing the values of two or three CVs can usually sort this and there's always the option of a factory reset if it all goes belly up. To be honest, despite all the elaborate settings offered in some chips, I've rarely gone beyond these basics and haven't felt the need to. Going DCC does of course involve adding decoders to all the locos and given our propensity for building our own, it can be a tricky job - no nice socket to plug the chip into unless we fit one ourselves but either way, there's soldering involved and the challenge of finding somewhere to stow the things. One weakness of DCC equipped locos is that they are susceptible to any break in supply. A DC loco can often plough on over a bit of dodgy track where a DDC one will stop dead. Adding 'Stay-Alive' modules to the wiring is the standard solution. More space needed. Have to say, I envy the room you 7mm folk have at your disposal Whilst it seems that these things are an extra level of hassle, the advantage is that they do give you more control over how locos perform and each one can have its own optimum settings - getting round the problem of using a DC controller which works ok with some locos but not with others. I might be mistaken but I don't think your exhibition layouts make much use of section switches so the oft quoted simplification of wiring may not be of any great advantage. You mentioned the Gaugemaster Infinity system above. I don't know what the DC version is like but I bought the DCC version to use with Kilmore. The main advantage is the Bluetooth wireless feature which allows us to roam around at exhibitions. So far it's worked well but setting it up in the first instance wasn't particularly intuitive - installing locos into the system's library was a pain. Could be that this is a DCC problem and the DC version may be more straightforward. I'd recommend getting hold of Gaugemaster's instruction leaflet to see how it feels to you. And yes, I thought it was expensive too! Decisions, decisions! If you can find a reliable DC controller that meets your needs I would stick with DC, if only because it's less hassle and considerably cheaper. Good luck, whatever you decide to do. Alan

Oh dear, what a day. Demoralising to put it mildly. Hope tomorrow brings some improvement. Hang in there.

That is beyond bad luck David. That’s a malignant force at work! All the best for the show

Nice one Patrick