David Holman

Sorry Angus, 90 is fine, 45 not quite. Must be the way I tell it! Fingers crossed, sorted now, though am sure there are other things yet to bite me...

Few things are more tedious than ballasting!

Many thanks, Ken, much appreciated. Have ordered a basic Roadrunner as a replacement - the first one was a Roadrunner+, with the extension cradle and 60:1 gears, so have gone for 45:1 this time, to keep things simpler. However, fear you are right, as I did indeed file those pips off before I read the instructions! Lesson learned!I There is no doubting the quality of HL stuff, though to me fixing the worm to the motor with cyano seems odd. In 7mm scale it is always a grub screw. Speaking of which, the self same to fix the final drive gear to the axle is definitely an accident waiting to happen. Thought I'd lost mine, but fortunately it had attached itself to the motor.

That sounds familiar, Alan. I wondered if I'd got a bit of superglue in the gears, but couldn't find anything. The HL gear boxes seem very good, but from years of 7mm working, where you usually get stuff ready assembled, boy are they fiddly, to me anyway. Very much making it all up as I go along and as I mentioned in the Questions thread, don't have a definitive guide to follow, so will create one for future reference. Hopefully there will be a Swilly 4-6-2 and Donegal 4-6-0 to follow. Jointed rods being worked on at the moment and coupling rods to follow, then cylinders, crossheads, slidebars and dummy axles boxes, before the front bogie unit. I've built an entire loco in less time that this chassis!

Two steps forward, but one back at the moment - plus sore fingers too. Many thanks to those who helped with ideas re quartering the cranks. I used the old John Ahern book to make a simple jig so the six crank pins all have the same throw, then it was a case of filing and grinding the initial 2mm brass rectangles to shape. One hole is 1.7mm diameter, to go over the end of the Slater's wagon axles, the other is 1.2mm to take a 12BA bolt, fitted from the rear, soldered and then the head filed flat. Slater's crank pin bearing then go through the coupling rods and are held in place with 12BA nuts and washers. So far, so good. The arrival of a High Level motor-gearbox meant that, once this was assembled, I then had to take one of the centre drivers off its axle, so the gearbox could go between the frames. Those who read my post in the question section will know I had managed to quarter the cranks successfully enough, but more at 45 degrees than 90, so on refitting the cranks I quickly fixed problem and was ready to test the motor in the chassis. Unfortunately, here was where the problems started. Again. The motor gearbox seemed to work well enough on the bench, but fitted to the chassis it was decidedly clunky. At first I thought it was the quartering that was out [though the chassis rolled nicely on its own], but eventually it became clear that something in the box wasn't right. Indeed, it looked like the top gear, working from the worm was trying hard to strip its nylon teeth against the brass. Whatever, I now need to order a new 'box, because in dismantling it for further examination, said gear pinged off into the far, darkest reaches of the workshop & has run away to join the circus. So, while waiting for a new box to arrive, have started making parts to create jointed coupling rods in the hope that I will eventually be able to add a degree of springing to the chassis. One day. Eventually.

Excellent stuff John and some very useful tips too.

Don't need one for 7mm scale HT, as Slater's axles and wheels have square ends which takes care of the problem. Not sure a jig would help with outside cranks, so used the old school method of simply setting the first pair as the datum, then added the second pair, with the rods, quartered these as an 0-4-0, before adding the third pair of cranks and doing the same. Had got it all running nicely when I noticed one crank wasn't pushed in far enough and in correcting that bollixed the whole thing up, breaking a golden rule of stopping for a break beforehand. The cranks are soldered to the axles, by the way. The cranks are home made from 2mm brass strip, drilled in a jig for the axle ends and crank pins. Have used the Slater's set up for the latter, with 12BA bolts soldered in for the pin and top hat bearings on the coupling rods so pins can be fixed with nuts and washers. By leaving the bearings off, there is enough slop to quarter the wheels in pairs. However, my High Level motor gear box has now arrived, so I"m going to need to remove the centre axle to fit it, so might as well move it all to 90 degrees anyway. Am also thinking that that, with the keeper plate giving me a small amount of vertical movement, I might as well make the coupling rods jointed and fit a bit of springing to the outer axles. One of the problems of scratchbuilding is the lack of instructions and because I haven't built a loco for a couple of years, it is all to easy to forget some of the conventions. With at least two more outside framed locos to build, I must write myself an aide memoir for future reference, once I've got this one working properly! Hopefully a report and pictures soon.

A technical question for those with an engineering background: Have managed, after much messing about, to get the outside cranks on my Swilly 4-6-0T, sort of, quartered. However, having got the drivers to go smoothly, I then discovered they are not at 90 degrees, but more like 45. Is this going to be a problem? Seem to remember that there were examples of drivers set at 135 degrees, but would be interested to know what the technically minded of you think.

Much pondering this week on the chassis & am grateful to Alan [tullygrainy] for his advice on Gibson wheels and [going way back] to John Ahern's book on loco construction. My concerns centred around the Gibson wheels, which as a long time 7mm Scale modeller seem a bit less robust than Slater's. At this stage of building a model, wheels need to come on and off many times: quartering not an issue until the cranks go on, but when they do, I don't want to have to mess about after that. Here's where the Ahern book comes in. First published in 1949, obviously a lot of the ideas are very old school now, but still worth looking at and it was a section on using keeper plates which caught my attention. A keeper plate means that all three axles/six wheels can be dropped out in a single unit, complete with the motor gear box. However, before this, a problem arose in that though the axles in the chassis aligned well enough, when I tried to add the coupling rod blanks, the rear section was out by getting on for a millimetre... Deep sigh, various profanities etc, so what to do? In an effort to cut my losses, decided I could probably still use the original inner frames as the outer ones, but there was little alternative than to cut some new inner ones and set the coupling rod blanks more accurately this time. Kept these new frames very simple, because they won't be seen, so it didn't take too long, but the photo below of my workbench shows the amount of tools I ended up using. Before the frames were assembled, I marked a line across the base of the bearings and then removed the metal level with this, followed by cutting out a section of each bearing to create slot for the axles to drop into. I then fitted two pieces of thicker brass between the frames and cut a larger rectangle for the keeper plate. Holes at each end were then drilled to take 10ba bolts, which fit into captive nuts in the two new spacers. The final picture shows how the previous inner frames might yet be used as the outer ones. Dummy hornblocks and springs will hopefully hide their origins.

Mmmm.... Clever, very clever! Looks great too.

For those interested 1039 Models trade on Ebay:1039models.com

It was indeed very cold. Felt sorry for the traders. The rest of the sport centre was fine but this hall was more the ice rink next door.

An 0 Gauge Trade Show is always interesting, because you get to see traders who rarely come out for other events and the range of stuff available ranges from a couple quid to several thousand pounds. Thus it was today at Guildford. Top class kit makers like Connoisseur and Finny rubbed shoulders with custom loco builders like Lee Marsh, where a mainline loco will set you back over £3000. With the demise of Eileen's Emporium, Squires have taken on the role of tool and material suppliers, while it is always nice to see the likes of Roxey, CPL and Slaters. Like as not many of these names won't mean much to some, but they are bastions of 7mm scale modelling. A new name to me was 1039 Models, but very welcome as they stock a wide range of whitemetal castings - vital stuff for me like wagon underframe parts, buffers and so on. Turns out they are trying to pick up the pieces of JPL Models, who ceased trading last year following the death of the proprietor. Seems a lot of stuff could well be lost forever, so it is welcome that at least some is being saved. Email 1039models@gmail.com A blast from the past is John Day Models, where the old ABS range has been purchased from the late Adrian Swain's estate. It was a vast range of stuff, which is being slowly reintroduced and upgraded. See www.johndaymodels.co.uk for the website.

Yep, I seem to be dribbling... Don't how the lining goes, but did it on my MGW coaches by using a gold gel pen on the raised beading. Alternatively, leave well alone - they really are splendid.

Fine model of a lovely locomotive.

Fine models - coaches really are a trial of endurance!

First of all, many thanks to Paul, Galteemore and Airfixfan for their advice and help with the Barclay tanks, which did indeed follow the usual conventions. The next stage for me was to start on the chassis, now that I have a basic body structure. I always like to get the working parts of a model done as soon as possible, because once that is assured, the rest is cosmetic. So far, the approach has been very conventional, starting with the coupling rod blanks. These are two strips of brass, soldered together, then marked out and drilled for the crank pin holes. They will be filed to shape later. Next, two more strips of nickel silver sheet were soldered together, then the relevant part of the chassis plan was cut out and stuck to the sheets with Pritt Stick. The frame sides were then cut out to this profile, using a slitting disc in the Dremel. Crude, but effective, not least because these inner frames will be hidden from sight and don't need any detailing. The coupling rod blanks were then clamped to the frames and drilled through for the axle holes., opening the frame holes out to just over 1/8th inch. The frames were then separated and the axle holes opened a bit more to take the axle bearings, which could then be soldered in place. Previous 3' gauge locos' frame spacers are 15.5mm wide, so some more brass strip was cut and filed to shape to make four of these. The two vertical spacers were now soldered to one of the frames and then, using three, 300mm pieces of stainless steel rod to align both frames, the other side was soldered to the first two spacers and then two more horizontal spacers added after than. So, a decent start on the chassis, but the tricky bits, namely the bogie and [especially] the outside cranks are still to come, while an order has been sent off for a High Level motor gearbox. The final pictures shows the Slater's wagon axles in place. The Alan Gibson wheels will go on the 1/8th inch part of these and the outside cranks [when I have made them]will eventually go on the 1.8mm diameter outer ends.

Many thanks chaps!

Bit of a wing and a prayer for this one... My workshop thread is now focussed on building one of these Swilly tanks. I have most of the books and have been browsing Ernie's Archive Swilly album, but a few questions remain: Any details of the interior of the cab would be welcome, though am guessing it will be standard Barclay stuff, so can probably look this up on the web The tops of the tanks do not seem to appear in any of the available photos, & anyone looking at my Workbench thread will have seen that I've cast doubts on the Worsley etchings for this: For the life of me, I just can't see how the above arrangement would work, though if you look at the photos below, the front of the tanks are definitely profiled to match the curve of the boiler. What I need to know is whether the top of the tanks were indeed a single sheet [a bit like a GWR Pannier] with a flat arc of the boiler poking above, or if it is just the front plating of the tanks that is flush with the boiler and the inner tanks sides are conventionally vertical behind that. Note that there are no etchings on the Worsley sheets for either boiler, smokebox or cab interior. Any thoughts will be most welcome and pictures especially so! Many thanks.

Now that interior really is rather splendid.

Barclay 4-6-0T Made a start today with the Worsley Works etches and as Galteemore intimated a couple of weeks ago, they don't take long to put together. However, because there are no instructions, there is a bit of detective work involved. Began with the footplate, adding the valances first, then the cab front, where a slot and tab help alignment. The cab rear has two half etched lines to help fold it to shape. Next came the combined cab, tank and bunker sides. There is a half etched line here too to bend the tank fronts. So far, so good, but there was one etch that caused a lot of head scratching. A curious large rectangle, which I initially though might be for the boiler, but two more etched lines for folds shown that it wasn't. Eventually noted that as well as two large holes, there were also six smaller ones, three each side along the edges. Curiously this etch is meant to fold up and fit the space between the tank sides, with the two large holes being for the tank fillers and the six smaller ones for hand rail knobs. Well, that ain't going to happen! Really not sure about why the etch was designed this way - unless these Barclays had completely flush tops to their tanks. This seems unlikely & in any case there would then be the awkward task of making up a section of boiler top. Instead, I plan to cut the big etch to just include the tank tops and then make new inner tank sides. At least this way I can take advantage of the etched holes for the hand rail knobs and tank fillers. Do let me know if the tanks were actually like this, please! The photos also show the smokebox saddle and what looks like a former for the smokebox itself. However, this is too short, so when I roll the boiler tube, some careful surgery looks likely to make sure it all fits. So, the basic shape only took a couple of hours, which certainly shows the value of Worsley etches, because they have saved me several hours of marking and cutting from sheet brass. However, don't think this is a quick build - far from it. These Barclay tanks had a lot of small details to be added, while there is the small matter of an outside framed chassis which needs scratch building. One final picture for now is of Northport Quay, where you can see the track that has been replaced is now reballasted, though still awaiting a bit more detailing. At least I can run trains again.

Great fun, but also brings the layout to life. And before you remove thereof foliage entirely, Broithe's photos of Ballybrophy are food for thought!

Lovely work, though sometimes 'less is more'. Really like the simulation of moss on the roof and ivy growing up the walls, but not sure about what is in the gutters or growing around the chimney pot and stack. Few plants of any size would grow in such positions: buddleia seems happy to grow out of brick walls, but most other things would need their roots to be in the ground.

Impressive though this is, remember, you don't have to use P4 standards if you want to go 21mm gauge. You can use existing 00 finescale wheels and clearances - the latter being one millimetre flangeways between the vee and the check rails on the point crossing or frog. Andy Cundick has been doing this successfully for years with his Valentia Harbour and Courtmacsherry layouts and I copied this in my 7mm scale, 3' gauge Fintonagh. Compensation or suspension on stock isn't needed because of the deeper flanges compared to P4, but the track looks just as good. I built my points on Fintonagh using Templot templates. They actually produce an Irish EM version at 20.2mm gauge. Never heard of anyone doing this, but a simple matter to enlarge to 21mm on the home printer/copier. Anyone with diesel outline stock, assuming it is not a vast collection, could therefore convert to 21mm fairly easily. Yes, you have to make your own track, but C&L provide ready made parts for both plain track and points, so only a track gauge needs to be sourced and everything after that is welding plastic chairs to sleepers. With current rtr stock being so good, it almost seems a shame not to!

Might be worth checking the Alphagraphix catalogue for card kits to use as the backdrop, though your artistic and photographic skills are more than up to the task.