Tullygrainey

Now that's an ingenious approach which had me examining all my files closely.. and realising what a desperate state they're all in. Shocking! I'll keep this one in mind. Many thanks. Alan

One problem I foresee in building bodywork is louvres, with which D1 is well endowed. Not sure how to approach this. I've searched on-line for suitable etches but haven't found anything. I've got some Archer 3D resin decals but not enough of the right size to do the job. All suggestions gratefully received. Alan

It runs!! Forwards AND backwards. (If it hadn't, I'd have just tiptoed quietly away ) The non-driving wheels are skating a bit rather than turning but some weight and maybe a bit of tweaking of the pickups will sort that I hope. Pickups are 31 SWG phosphor bronze wire. One advantage of this one has been - no faffing around with crankpins and quartering So... have to build a body now. What could go wrong! Alan Diesel D1.mov

I can't remember now where I first encountered Iain Rice's writing but I know that I always enjoyed anything he wrote. His Wild Swan book "Locomotive Kit Chassis Construction in 4mm" encouraged me to try kit building for the first time and guided me as I stumbled along. He wore his knowledge and experience lightly and his light-hearted writing style was always eminently readable but also packed full of information and good practical advice. He was a huge guiding influence on this hobby that gives us all so much pleasure and satisfaction. Thank you Iain.

A coat of paint on the frames. Axles and final drive gears in, wheels on. The gearbox turns the driving wheels smoothly (Thank you Chris @ High Level). Time to fit some pickups. PCB pads epoxied to the frames ready for these. The moment of truth approaches Alan

Reading about this build has been a real pleasure and truly inspirational. And what a wonderful finished model. Exceptional! I've learnt a lot. Thank you Eoin Alan

Pivot for the compensation beam in place across the frames. Brass tube, 1mm ID, rotating on 1mm brass rod soldered at one end. Managed to avoid soldering the whole thing up solid The compensation beam will go in once the wheels are on. Wheels are a little larger than the prototype's 3' 7" but were the best match I could find. Rolling soon, I hope Alan

Some photos of the bearings going in. Starting from the fixed bearings already in place, the coupling rods came into play again to keep things parallel. The rubber band kept the rods located on the ends of some temporary pinpoint axles while the soldering got done. The spring trapping the horn blocks in place came out of a biro pen, if memory serves. Will it work? We'll soon know Alan

Thank you, GSR800 & Mayner for all the suggestions. Much appreciated. However, the fitters on the early shift signed off on the job before I managed to read this thread. The brass fillets for the centre axle are in! "I am not convinced that you will need to patch the center axle cutouts & form oval axle holes, the combination of the High Level gear carriage and subframe will maintain the axles in their correct position." Now that I think of it, you're undoubtedly right John. The centre axle surely doesn't need 2 sets of bearings. Belt or braces, not both Alan

Ha.. it was all going too smoothly wasn’t it. Had to go belly-up at some stage... Setback the first: There isn’t enough clearance between the chassis frames and the gearbox sides to fit hornblocks on the middle axle. The designer has been severely reprimanded and told to make more use of his measuring devices in future, instead of winging it like he usually does. Not wishing to remake the chassis frames, the fitters considered: a) narrowing the gearbox extension - not really feasible b) reversing the bearings in the hornblocks - end result too wide for the back-to-back on the wheels, so... Their solution is to solder fillets of 0.015 brass across the hornblock cutouts with oval holes filed to allow ordinary bearings to move up and down a bit. Not very elegant but hopefully effective. Maybe hornblocks were over-complicating it. However, there’s plenty of room for them on the third (sleeping partner) axle so we’ll fit them there anyway. Tomorrow Onwards and sideways, Alan

High Level Spacesaver hornblocks with 2mm bearings. The etches fold up and a little folding tab locks the whole thing together, no soldering. The tab then locates up against the top of the chassis cutout to automatically get the height right. Clever stuff! A little polishing of the bearing surfaces helps things along if they seem tight in the hornblock though sometimes the legs of the hornblock can get misaligned in either plane causing the bearing to jam. A little bit of gentle tweaking usually sorts it. Alan

Versatile stuff, those coffee stirrers

Fixed bearings in. The High Level gearbox is designed for 2mm axles. OO spacers from Alan Gibson soldered in. Frames assembled. Doing this on a sheet of glass helps keep it straight. Trial fit of the gearbox. Looking promising. Travelling hopefully , Alan

Thanks to everyone for all the information and encouragement. To reiterate what Patrick said recently, as a support network, this forum works really well. Thank you for the GA drawing Killian. Lots of information there and a chance to gauge relative proportions, which is very hard to do from photographs. Those are beautiful models Patrick. The bar just got quite a bit higher. No pressure then More soon, Alan

That's really helpful. Many thanks! Alan

BCDR No 2 has outside frames but because there are no outside cranks or coupling rods, the axles on the model don’t need to pierce these and they don’t need to be structural. They can be merely cosmetic and the chassis frames of the model will hide behind them. The intention here is to make a chassis with one powered axle in fixed bearings and the other two axles, one also powered and one just along for the ride, floating on hornblocks, with a compensating beam between them. Having said the loco has no coupling rods, the first thing I made after the gearbox was two coupling rods.. well, just rough strips of nickel silver really, with pilot holes drilled to match the wheelbase of the High Level gearbox. They allow the frames to be marked up and drilled and they’ll be used later to position the hornblocks and get the whole thing square (he said with confidence). Frames were tack soldered together for drilling and cutting... .. and then separated, ready for frame spacers and bearings. Not the best piercing saw work I've ever seen but it should be all right because the hornblock positions are adjustable. Onward and upward, hopefully Alan

That water is very convincing!

I'm starting this thread with some apprehension because I'm not sure if I'll be able to see it through but anyway, here goes. Built for the BCDR by Harland and Wolff in 1933, this diesel electric loco was a bit of a pioneer. It's an odd looking beast with hints of steam loco in its chimney and apparent side tanks and bunker. It saw service on the Ballynahinch branch and survived into UTA times. I've wanted to have a go at building this one in 4mm OO for a while now but wasn't sure how to tackle a six wheel chassis with no coupling rods. I reckoned that drive on only one axle probably wouldn't work too well - skins on rice puddings come to mind. (As an aside, a very fine model using an Athearn bogie was described by Denis Bates in New Irish Lines, Vol5, No. 2, Nov 2008). Then I read in Desmond Coakham's BCDR book (Colourpoint, 2010) that the prototype only had traction motors on two axles, causing me to think of High Level's range of 4 wheel drive gearboxes/bogies, some of which I've built before and which work very well. Two axle drive would be better than one (wouldn't it?) And so, the plan began to hatch. Does anyone know if drawings of this one are to be had anywhere? At the moment I'm working from some basic dimensions in the Coakham book and the few photographs which exist. The wheelbase, at 6ft + 6ft means the nearest match in the High Level range is the one designed originally for the Roxey Planet diesel whitemetal kit which has a wheelbase close to 24mm. So that's where I've started. If I can make a chassis that works, I'll attempt a body from plastic card. If not, end of story Here's the gearbox etch... ... and here it is assembled. Wish me luck, Alan

Thanks JB, that's helpful. I like the idea of the Peckett and there's one in Cultra to be pored over, just down the road from me. I have to say I've never seen such a patched smokebox!

Apologies for the shaky camerawork Tintown Yard.mov The locos here all started out as something else. Four are based on the Hornby 0-4-0 chassis, either with a new body or a hacked original, another started out as a Bachman Percy and there is an Electrotren 0-6-0 chassis powering a Smallbrook Studio resin body. All in all, the effect is diverse, idiosyncratic and a bit incoherent, partly because each one was a little learning exercise in itself and not necessarily related to the one before. I was more concerned with extending my modelling skills and exploring what was possible than reproducing a prototype or assembling a fleet. This forum is full of fine examples of modelling which is historically and/or prototypically realistic and I have enormous respect for all of you who do that. It requires extra effort on every front to pursue that sort of accuracy and the results, however good (and there are wonderfully good things here), are forever vulnerable to being held to account against the real thing. Fictitious flights of fancy are easier because there’s no reality to compare them unfavourably against. Or at least, excuses are easier to come by. So..., much as I love my disparate collection of motive power here, some prototypical accuracy probably wouldn’t go amiss and that ought to be a future project. But if we pretend, for the sake of argument, that this is some hitherto unknown corner of the North Antrim mineral industry, what sort of locos? Answers on a postcard...

The workmanship and attention to detail in these models is just a joy. And all built long before the availability of all the materials, support and ready made bits we have access to these days.

Most of the buildings on this layout are mounting card shells covered with embossed plastic sheet but the workshop in the pics below is clad in scribed DAS modelling clay, a technique demonstrated to perfection by David Holman of this parish on his wonderful layouts. Thank you David for the inspiration. Two things I learnt from this exercise: 1) Don’t skimp on the DAS. It doesn’t need much but I spread it too thinly in places with the result that the stones are too flat and 2-dimensional to look realistic. 2) Keep some photos to hand of the kind of masonry you’re trying to represent - not in order to slavishly copy it but to help keep you on track as regards shape and size when marking out and scribing. I found that it was very easy to end up with blocks having over-pointy corners, more like pillows than cut stone Next one will be better! This is one of the few buildings with any sort of internal detail but because of where it’s placed, you can’t really see into it Alan

Cheering for you here Patrick Alan

Wonderful stuff. That Donegal railcar is a gem.

Thanks everyone for all the positive feedback. I have a fondness for modelling rusty metal (You guessed!) especially corrugated iron, so building this layout let me to do plenty of that. There’s endless variety to be had, from pristine - not a lot of that hereabouts - through peeling paint to heavy corrosion. Halfords grey primer makes a good base coat, sometimes overcoated with Humbrol Metal Cote 27004 and polished a bit. I then use matt enamels, mostly Humbrol 70, 98, 100 & 110 with a bit of artist’s acrylic Raw Umber here and there and Humbrol weathering powder, Rust and Dk Brown. A stiff brush is useful for blending the colours on the surfaces and dusting weathering powder onto the wet paint adds texture as well as colour. The mill building was my first experiment with using hairspray to produce a peeling paint effect. You may be familiar with the technique but if not... First the base colour is applied (Halfords primer), then the rust colours are brushed on where needed, left to dry and then the whole thing coated with 3 or four generous layers of hair spray. Next spray the top colour, in this case Humbrol acrylic Brunswick Green from a rattle can. Finally, some warm water, an old toothbrush, a toothpick and some judicious scrubbing causes the hairspray to dissolve and lift the top coat. I have a tendency towards making things too large in the first instance and the mill building eventually lost its top storey, like the station at Donaghadee Alan