David Holman

The cup holder you mean!? My wife likes the picture and I quite like the cupholder. NPQ doesn't have a tea shelf (unlike Fintonagh), so definitely need to add something b before the next show.

Some impressive carpentry there!

Lovely to see you Joe - though not sure about the photo!

Super pictures making a fine memory of a lovely day! The visiting SLNCR stock is every bit as good as it looks here and it was great to have them all, along with the three bogies too. Overall, not bad for a first outing and the experience will hopefully make it better next time. That will be Portsmouth, on 18th November.

Not the worst day, but not the best either... A bit like Belmullet's debut two years ago, a couple of annoying problems blighted much of the day. First was a dry joint on the entry track to the fiddle yard, but the major problem was a trestle in the wrong place, which caused both a serious ridge between the two scenic boards and put a bit of a gradient in the fiddle yard itself. Unfortunately, the latter had to wait until late in the day before there was nobody around and could empty the train table and remove the fiddle yard base so the offending trestle could be shifted to the right place. As a result, both 0-6-0s tried to detail at the baseboard joint, as did some of the 6w coaches. Thankfully, shorter wheel base and bogie stock was not affected, though a push to make switch for the uncoupling magnet in the loop seems to have failed and will need to be replaced in the morning... 1950s day tomorrow, when we hope to have no less than five Sligo Leitrim tanks on show.

Probably the best show in SE England, though not because Northport Quay debuts there tomorrow! No less than five Iain Rice layouts, plus others and excellent trade and society stands. Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

So they are! Seriously cool dudes, or a posed picture? Either way an interesting option for a couple of ModelU figures....

Might be worth considering the DAS clay route, as you can scribe the mortar lines across the corners... The main issue with adding extra detail is that it then means you need to do the same for everything else on the layout, increasing building time even more. However, if that brings satisfaction, then why not? Our hobby caters for all tastes - builders, operators and all points in between. The standard of ready to run models is fantastic these days, so why not aim to present them against matching buildings and scenery? Nothing wrong with trying to improve skills and sometimes this can be about being a 'smarter' modeller. Back in the day, I used Howard Scenics embossed card for brickwork. Still available and sometimes still use it, because it is quicker than scribing a whole building. However, I long since have up painting all the bricks individually (I know!), because I learned about easier, quicker ways!I Perhaps it all boils down to the 'two foot rule', because if it can't be see from this distance, then is it worth the effort?

Proof that the image quality of early cameras could be fantastic.

Thanks folks, though I feel the same way about CAD, Ken. Happier to stick with what I know!

After all the concentration of marking and cutting out the sides, what follows is fairly straightforward and [relatively] quick. First job was to separate the sides after which attention moves to making an inner shell. This is really little more than a plastic box, with openings in the sides to cover the main door and window areas. Assembly includes the ends and internal partitions to provide strength and squareness, though using 40thou/1mm sheet helps too. The picture below is from the Jenkinson book which hopefully helps explain things. Swilly coaches had a small amount of tumblehome in the lower part of the sides, so to make this strips of plasticard are added longitudinally at the top and waist line, then once everything has set, the carefully prepared outer sides are fixed to the inner shell, starting at floor level, then carefully adding to the waist line and eventually the roof line. After this outer end pieces are cut and fixed to hide the gaps. Thankfully, the panelling on Swilly coaches is all square corners, so this can be added using 20x40 micro strip. This is [mostly] fairly therapeutic after all the previous marking and cutting - you just need to be careful to avoid leaving smears and finger prints if you are over enthusiastic in the use of solvent - which is D-Lemonine by the way. Note too the drop lights on the doors, which are rectangular pieces of 20thou, fixed behind the outer opening. The final bit of work thus far was to add the guard's lookout, never my favourite exercise because of the awkward shapes, but with more than a bit of muttering and grumbling, one side eventually got fitted. That will have to be that for a few days, as attention turns back to getting Northport Quay and final preparations for its debut at Uckfield next weekend.

Coming along beautifully! Love the sharpness of all the buildings and scenics.

One thing I have found very useful over the years is to draw a plan of the layout. Most times it will not come to anything, but the exercise can be very cathartic and extremely useful in terms of exorcising the ghosts of such projects. Occasionally, they even get built, though the success rate is not grest...

Too many to list, but 7mm scale continuous run, with a narrow gauge feeder. Just need a 15m x 6m space to build it in, plus the essential time and money...

Looking good - how has the brickwork been created/coloured?

Thanks Patrick. About a week so far, broken up in short spells to make it tolerable. Fifteen hours or so? Sometimes 30-60 minutes in the morning, often a couple of one hour sessions in the afternoon, otherwise a stiff neck can be the result, as per this morning. Herself was out most of yesterday, so probably did too much. Lesson without words!

Anyone need any 20thou plasticard rectangles? David Jenkinson's book reckons that creating a pair of coach sides is more than half the overall scratch build - and he's not wrong... One reason the marking out took me so long is the lower sides are panelled, which made for endless scribing, while being very careful about it too. The next step was to cut out the window openings. To make life easier, I pricked the corner of each window, in the hope of not slicing through sections that don't need this. A result of this bit of work is multiple small rectangles of white plastic mentioned earlier. While in the middle of this, the post arrived with a package from Slater's - my 2'7", 3ft gauge wheels. The impetuous side of me meant I had to transfer my attentions almost immediately to the three wagon kits from Alphagraphix. Brake gear aside, these are fairly straightforward & I wanted to get an idea of how larger wheeled stock would look alongside my Clogher Valley wagons. The answer to that is 'not sure', but as they are unlikely to run together, hopefully this won't matter. Only two of the wagons are Donegal, by the way, the one on the left is a Swilly.

Having opened the packets of Donegal wagon kits, very soon found myself stuck because of a complete lack of wheels. Clogher Valley Railway wheels, as per Fintonagh, were 2' diameter = 14mm in my chosen scale. However, both the Donegal and Swilly used 2'7" wheels, which creates a bit of dilemma. 14mm wheels are not a problem because in 4mm scale that equals 3'6, which is what I have used on Fintonagh, but 2'7 wheels work out at about 18mm, which is 4'6 in 4mm scale and the only things that might work would probably be spoked tender wheels of some sort. Fortunately, Slater's do 7mm narrow gauge wheels of the correct diameter and given that all the coaches and wagons I now want to build use this type of wheel, I decided to go ahead and order 15 sets. Slightly painful, because it came to £180 - just for a few wheels! Solace comes from the fact that £180 barely buys a 4mm scale locomotive these days, while I will have the means to underpin three coaches and a dozen wagons from my hard earned. So, while waiting for the wheels to arrive, I decided to make a start on a couple of Swilly coaches. As is my want, the basis for these are the Alphagraphix card kits. Their dimensions seem right, so have begun transferring these to some 20thou [0.5mm] plastic sheet. At the same time, I dusted off David Jenkinson's 'Carriage Modelling Made Easy', a much thumbed tome over the years & which is invaluable for this sort of work. The photos below show progress thus far. Scratchbuilding a coach is certainly not a quick fix, with the marking out alone something that certainly tests patience, eyesight and hand/arm muscles. Woe betide if you get something wrong at this stage too - been there, got a draw full of T-shirts and created many new, colourful combinations of rude words... So far, so good though & will expand on the techniques in the Jenkinson book as we go along.

The Slater's RCH 'standard's tank wagon kit is one of the few prototypes to make it across the water (I think). It is however a challenging model to make & my own one is just a static model at the moment because the axleboxes are too tight to run well.

Thanks both!

Thanks, though further investigation is making me think that casting is not part of any of the three wagons. The photo below, taken from Roger's excellent book 'The County Donegal Railways Companion' shows a hybrid wagon, converted from a Ballymena, Cushendell & Red Bay vehicle, used as a low loader. Note the raised ends, which look very like my casting - though it appears there are only two uprights, not four... Thus far, I can't find any photos or drawings showing a wagon end like this & why is there only one, not two? All three of my wagons have one piece resin castings for the bodywork. Maybe I won't be using that bit!

Ok, time for some new projects, namely three Tyrconnel/Alphagraphix Donegal wagon kits. However, find myself slightly bemused re the brake gear. Nothing new there, as have always found such things a challenge. I've only got one set of instructions, which am guessing are meant to be generic, but a couple of things aren't clear. The first picture shows all three kits laid out. As you can see, each one is different. The middle kit is a one plank, the other two are three plank. The second picture shows the brake gear of the left hand kit in more detail. The brake levers and vacuum cylinder/lever are obvious, as are the two pairs of brake shoes. Am assuming the three small castings at the bottom of the picture are for lining up the brake shoes, but what is the larger, fourth casting, bottom right? See too the instruction sheet in the last photo. The other two chassis seem more straightforward - well, less pieces - but any comments welcome, please!

All power to your pedals!

Great to see these wonderful models!