Angus

Hi David, a post on RMweb has just reminded me of an issue with DGs. If you have long stock and sharp curves body mounting the couplers can cause derailments. The loop pushes on the coupler vertical of the wagon in front sideways pushing it off the track. With a 2mm scale diesel (about 4" long) if the couplers are body mounted it will push anything longer than a short wheelbase wagon off the track on and A5 point (although I think the curve exiting the point is slightly sharper) I now bogie mount my couplers. It might be worth checking all your stocks works through your point work before progressing any further.

Just measured the wire that comes with the 2mm couplings and it's 0.3mm diameter. I'd guess this would be strong enough for 7mm?

Hi David, DGs are the chosen coupling in 2mm finescale circles with about 70%of people using them. My experience is to use as thin a wire as possible to form the loops. This is better visually but also operates better as the loops slide over one another easier. In 2mm the DGs come with thin phospher bronze wire which is also a bit springy. I'm guessing this also helps.

Just got a copy of the September Railway Modeller. The photos look great, a really good example of how a small layout can appear much bigger than it is.

I notice in the "coming next month" column in this month's Railway Modeller there is a photo of a rather attractive MGWR green loco...... Looking forward to reading this next month!

Chapeau Ben Healy, He deserved the win today.

I'm sorry, I refuse to believe that is a work bench, I can see the wooden surface beneath.....

Hi Darragh, Try: https://www.modelbrickyard.com/en You can customise colour, bond and mortar. Not sure if you will get the shade you are looking for but worth a play if you have't tried.

That looks stunning David. The dark green suites the loco so well.

I which case I must have been sat by you last night and didn't realise. I must make more of an effort to introduce myself! It was a great talk though.

Also not convinced there is anything to "Cash in on" here. Most of the finescale societies (2mm, 3mm, S Scale etc) have produced their own plain track bases. These are all pretty similar, normally six sleepers on a web through which the rails are threaded. The 2mm Scale Association's 8' 6" product is shown above. From memory the development of the tooling for these was a considerable investment that had to be backed by the product development fund financed by the society's membership subs. The only commercial offerings that are similar are from British Finescale who offer a the above for standard N Gauge but for code 40 rails, finer than all commercially available track. They do offer points kits in other scales 00, 00SF & EM but as can be appreciated these are all scales with a large following. I doubt the interest 21mm gauge matches even the smaller of the specialist societies. That's not to say it can't be done. It just needs a co-ordinated effort and investment from those interested.

Hi, just a question I'm struggling to find a definitive answer to. On broad gauge vans what size are the G and S in Great Southern days, the lettering seems to cover 3 planks so I am assuming 18" but we all know what assumption do..... Thanks

Hi David, Great progress with the changes, I'm looking forward to seeing the transformation as the Swilly (my spell checker altered that to Willy which would have taken this post off in whole other direction.....!) has always been a favourite of mine. When transferring drawings to plastic sheet I found I could scan a drawing then print it out onto the plastic sheet. My cheap home ink jet printer will feed 20 thou (0.5 mm) plastic sheet without a problem. Leave the print to dry and apply some sealing spray otherwise the print just rubs off when you touch the sheet. I always check the print size on a piece of paper first as they often need rescaling slightly. Onviously this is limited to A4 size (unless you've got a posher printer) which isn't much of a restriction in 2mm. It does save a lot lot of faffing about with pencil and paper, and avoids my inevitable inconsistency.

Thanks GSR800, I did read the reference. I'm more wondering what the source was. Rumours will always abound, not all have any truth.