David Holman

Looks good to me too!

What a fine piece of modelling and creative thinking. Lovely job!

Wow, thanks Ken! Imagineering made real.

Baseboard crates (for exhibition transport)? Storage siding baseboards? Very neat, whatever they are.

Thanks folks. Must admit to have been coverting that shield for the last five years. It replaced the previous 'best overall' club trophy in 2014. The latter was nice pewter cup that we think might have been a golf trophy in another life. In the beginning, this sat on a wooden base, so that little plates with the winner's name could be fixed to. However, over the years, extra layers were added to the first base until the whole thing was bigger than the cup. Managed to win the old one a few times over the years, but not the new one, until now. Club competitions can bring mixed feelings when just as you think you've done your 'best ever', someone else comes along with their own acme which just happens to trump yours - and there are some very talented modellers in the Chatham club! Though really just a bit of fun, with the added intention of getting people making something to bring along and share, it certainly helps improve standards too.

Hard to believe this is 4mm scale. The close ups really highlight the skill required. Don't let anyone tell you a coach is just a box with windows...

More scenics After a bit of a gap over Christmas & the New Year, action has recently focussed again on the baseboards. Number three, nearest the fiddle yard, was reasonably complete, while the middle, number two board had not really been started. First up then was to try and finish off BB3. This meant waiting until after the Chatham club's annual competition, as I wanted to enter the loco shed, to which I also added the coal stage/water tower. And it was worth it too, as the models not only won the 'Buildings' shield, they won the overall shield too, which you can see from the photo is a rather splendid thing. Anyway, competition over, I could now go ahead and fix the sub board with the shed to the main layout board, while the coal stage soon kick started work on BB2. Work was the usual tedious, but ultimately satisfying mix of scenics: Filling in gaps and creating ground cover with my usual mix of filler, PVA and acrylic paint. Several layers, each one a bit thinner, aiming for a light gravel surface in the yard areas and rough ground for the scenic bits Once dry, the next layer is a mix of slightly watered down PVA into which Woodlands medium 'crumb' is scattered. This gives a nice uneven surface of the sort you might see in rough ground or moorland. While this is still wet, the next step was to hit it with the static grass machine, loaded with a mix of 4-6mm fibres of different greens, keeping well away from the bright ones. This was then allowed to dry, after which further treatment was added ranging from extra layers of fibre [stuck with spray mount this time], through fine, dark green scatter sprinkled on to PVA brushed lightly [& sparingly] on the tips of the grass, plus clumps of Postiche, sprayed and sprinkled with fine scatter, to represent brambles. The final layer has used Woodlands flower scatter, mixed with fine crumb, to represent weeds and flowers. This really brings the greenery to life and is quite subtle - so much so that it shows up less in the photographs than it does on the model. I've included a few close ups to try and show what I mean. So, BB3 really is [mostly] complete, albeit still needing a couple of figures and a vehicle of some sort outside the distillery. It is currently minus its sky scene & in fact I'm not planning to add these until all three boards are finished. The more observant among you will have noticed that the white cottage from Arigna Town is missing. I'd intended to use this as a feature at the join of BBs 1 & 2, but it just didn't' seem to fit in, so instead some basic rough ground is there instead. To this will be added a patch of hawthorn, as per the back scene, to help hide joins and blend things together. I've also hit on the idea of putting a small area of hard standing next to the goods shed, with the suggestion of a harbour wall and pier on the the back scene. Belmullet seems to have two harbours, linked by a short canal across the neck of the peninsula. The harbour on the north east side is deemed to be served by the branch, while the other is close enough to the station for produce to be carted twist ship and train. That's the theory anyway!

So atmospheric!

Must challenge you on not being a painter! The scenes created in those cameos show more than a bit of artistic ability. Didn't know it was called Ben Bulben, but certainly recognised the dramatic landscape from my one and only trip to Sligo. Lovely stuff.

Fine looking model of fine little loco.

Lovely stuff!

Unusual project, but also some lovely modelling.

Try Magnets4U, or an internet search for rare earth magnets will give you lots of options. For electro magnets, Dingham couplings ones are good.

Classy.

Sorting Fintonagh As some of you will have read, Fintonagh was misbehaving at the weekend, with four main culprits: The turnout to the turntable The turnout at the entrance to the yard The turntable Uncoupling magnets The first two were covered in the Layouts thread, but the turntable has needed a complete rebuild, while the magnets remain work in progress. The turntable is a Peco N gauge one, with a wider deck to take 21mm track. Its 15cm diameter is just right for the Clogher Valley locos, while to many visitors' surprise, the railcar fits on too. Just. However, its operation is far from prototypical in that all the weight of the loco is born by the centre 'boss'. As this is where the sprung, plunger pick ups are located as well, what happens is that my heavy CVR tanks make the deck drop down about 2mm as they drive on to it and also tend to skew it sideways as they drive off too. Not good then... I've lived with this for a few shows, but wear and tear has started to cause problems, mainly a very stuttering rotation, especially when it is cold for some reason. The weight of the loco should be born by the single 'rail' in the well. This is simply a raised, moulded line on the model, with four, moulded, none rotating 'wheels' under the deck which rub on the rail and therefore simply hinder progress. A solution came to me from building the new South East Finecast table for Belmullet. Here, four ball bearings act as carrying wheels for the deck, so the weight of the loco is taken on the outside of the well and everything is thus better supported. You can see what I've done from the two photos, which show the underside of the deck. First, I cut two pieces of 8mm brass strip, to act as carrying arms for the four new outer wheels. At the outer ends of these, I drilled four holes and reamed them out to take Slater's loco axles. Working in 36.75mm gauge, I have plenty of spares of these. What I did, was grind off the squared ends, still leaving enough of the tapped hole for the wheel nut. A section of each axle was then soldered into the holes in the brass strip, leaving about 4mm sticking out, to make stub axles. On to these have been put a Slater's brass wheel bearing, to act as rollers on the deck bearing, with these being held in place with wheel nuts. All that was then needed was to use a junior hacksaw to cut a slot in the underside of each end of the deck, just inside the former dummy wheels. Finally, I bent the brass strips to match the curve of the rail in the well. Hence the deck is now supported where it should be, at its outer edge and there is no drop when a loco drives on or off. Happily, the plunger pick ups in the centre boss still transmit current to the deck rails! The real test will be at the weekend, when Fintonagh is operating at the Canterbury show, so cross everything, as they say. However, thus far, I'm rather pleased with the result, which owes a little to good engineering practices than my usual bodging techniques, with special thanks to SE Finecast forgiving me the idea in the first place. The magnets are a different story though. I use [mainly] 5mm diameter, 10mm long rare earth rods, in holes drilled either side of the track centre line. These attract [most of the time] the dropped wires on the Kaydee No 5 couplings I use. However uncoupling can be erratic at times, with in the worst scenario wagons failing to uncouple when place over the magnet, but actually coming undone when pulled across one. Very annoying, and more difficult to solve on Fintonagh, where wagons get turned around after each sequence because I have a turntable fiddle yard. Hence, no matter how much you practice/test, there are a great many combinations of wagons pairings, some of which, for whatever reason, do not work reliably. Talking to one of the Burnisland crew at Stevenage, it seems there are a few issues I hadn't considered: Apparently, it can help to have the rare earth magnets slightly staggered, rather than opposite each other, as this helps stop the dropper wires being pulled in the same direction It is important to make sure that all the magnets are pointing the same way. Not sure which is best [all north or all south], but one way gives a wider magnetic field for some reason. Perhaps somebody out there can enlighten? It helps if the magnets are as far apart as possible, though even if your track gauge is 21mm, using 5mm diameter magnets doesn't allow that much space. Interestingly, I put 3mm dia magnets in the train shed and these work fine, as do the 5mm ones in two places further along the platform. The 5mm ones in the end loading dock have thus far foiled all attempts to get them working properly, so am going to replace them with two of the 3mm ones, to see what happens. Otherwise, it has been a case of sticking rigidly to the same wagons on each train and with each train shunting a single siding [exchanging just a single wagon each time], hopefully I can eventually rule out the 'rogues' and put them aside for future fettling. If it sounds like Fintonagh is not running well, fear not - generally derailments only occur through operator error and the couplings are around 80-90% efficient. However, when stuff is working well, it is a real pain when it doesn't as the whole illusion is spoiled. On these occasions, all I can say is that it is a good job any children present don't know what I'm thinking!

Great to see you at Stevenage!

Many thanks folks. For those of you who like the green I've used for the water tank, it is Humbrol 131.

Stevenage Weekend Having exhibited several times at the CMRS show, St Albans, I was more than a little interested to see how their new venue in Stevenage compared. St Albans was always a fine show, but in a challenging venue, Stevenage occupies a large sports hall and indoor bowls green, so from both access and moving around, it was immediately no contest - so much better. However, the show itself remains its previous highly enjoyable self. Fine layouts, excellent trade support and knowledgeable, friendly visitors. Add in the fact that on Saturday night I had dinner with Gordon and Maggie Gravett, Tony Wright (Stoke Summit, Little Bytham, loco builder extraordinaire, etc), Barry Norman and Adrian Colenutt (Uckfield show manager), then it had to be a fine weekend? Well, almost. Fintonagh's previous outing in November was almost problem free, plus there was the award for best layout too. At first, all went well at Stevenage, with all trains operating faultlessly, until the first visitors appeared at 10am, that is! We had derailments, poor uncoupling and the turntable was juddering round like it needed a dose of Ritalin. We put it down to the hall being cold early on and things did improve as it warmed up and certainly through the afternoon, but Sunday followed the same pattern, plus we managed to knock one of the point motors off its mounting while going back to the car. Oh yes, and we are at the Canterbury show next weekend!I Back home and with the boards accessible on the workbench, it didn't take long to fix the point motor, while another half hour saw the cause of the derailments hopefully fixed. This was the turnout to the turntable, which wasn't closing properly. At the show, it seemed like the operating wire had almost gone soft, but it is the same gauge as the others. In the end, I resoldered the tie bar a couple of mm over and this seems to have done the trick. While on the bench, I checked everything else underneath, not least because a different Tortoise point motor had suddenly dropped its operating wire halfway through Sunday afternoon. Am now trying to decide what to do about the turntable. It is a Peco N gauge version, with a plastic centre hole which really needs bushing. A basic fault is it rotates on the centre boss, so the outer rail track does no work and the deck rocks up and down on its centre pickups when a loco goes on and off. Have a plan to emulate the SE Finecast turntable I've put on Belmullet by adding some home made rollers that will actually run on the pit rail. Do I do it before Canterbury, or risk another show, knowing the next outing isn't until Allypally in March? At the moment, methinks the former, but will sleep on it and report back in a day or so. I also need to check the including magnets as I learned from one of the Burntisland free that not having them all the same way up can cause problems, along with some other advice I want to test too. Looks like it could be a busy week!

That is just stunning! Almost seems a shame to paint it. Lovely work.

Lovely thing. Suggest testing it with a couple of wires to the wheels, to see how many it picks up from. Rule number one though, make sure the gears and axles are lightly oiled and the wheels and pick ups clean!

Certainly doesn't look like a resin casting!

Modeller.

Thanks for the comments folks, though seems I may need a bit of artistic licence to portray pre grouping days. That, or citing red/green colour blindness!

The water tower and fortress coal stage is now largely complete. As the photos hopefully show, the additional work since last time comprises the doors and louvred window - the latter, as predicted being a real pain to make. What you see is the mark 3 version. I used a piece of UPVC pipe and then cut 7mm wide strips for each louvre, separating them with micro strip. The coal doors are simple enough & I used some leftovers from the SE Finecast turntable kit for the top rollers. Most of the time though was spent on painting. It took quite a while to match the render to colour photos I have of the real thing, while the green of the water tank pretty much defies analysis - it all seems to depend on how long it has been since the last repaint. Colour albums range from almost carriage green to totally washed out turquoise: at one stage I was seriously tempted to paint it black, as per Sligo in the 1950s. Part of the problem is that Belmullet will be depicted in two periods, early 1900s and the 1950s. My impression is that building colours didn't change much over the years, but if they did in this case, I may have to make a second model. Hopefully JHB will provide the answer! Brickwork is painted individually, not as hard as you might think in 7mm scale, with a limited amount of weathering thus far - back to the twin period problem again... Coal is the real thing, proper Welsh stuff that I found lying around years ago at a traction engine rally and much better quality than the stuff I found at the Arigna concentration depot back in 2013. Fintonagh, meanwhile is at Stevenage this weekend, so as ever, come and say hello if you are attending.

Full page ad in Feb RM and it looks stunning.