Horsetan

The saga of the Olumpic alien mascots is an object lesson in why ye should never accept a consultancy's opinion of what children are supposed to like, still less pay them massive fees for coming up with the equivalent of UHT milk - lasts ages, "but there's no demand for that 'cos it's s***".

Completed cutting the second driving axle just before leaving for work this morning, so I now have both driving wheelsets test-mounted and gauged to 19.85mm back-to-back. Was a bit unhandy with the piercing saw on the second set, so there are a few scratches on the tyre faces I think L-shaped spacers from n/s or brass provide more support than the square ones. What I could do with is more frame depth in the area of the driving wheels, particularly over the hornblocks, to provide a bit more strength to the topline of the frames. I know the original design which persists to this day was the most expedient way of catering for most builders, which is fine and would have worked well for the many people who bought and built these kits over the course of two decades-plus; I just wanted to see if I could develop it a bit further. I am looking at assembling the footplate/ cabsides / valances as the kit stipulates, and then assembling and test-fitting the cab interior (which the instructions say is for 21mm gauge anyway - grand ). Putting these sub-assemblies together will hopefully show me how much room I've got for the chassis, and whether I can add material to strengthen the latter whilst I install the CSB suspension system. The bogie also looks as though it can tolerate a change in assembly.

They still frequent eBay. Many of them pay top dollar for sh*te!

That was mental!

That may just be what it has become. The website is equally moribund - it hasn't been touched for over four years. Lack of money doesn't help either.

A role filled these days by the Rubberbandits, but with a lot more swearing. I mean, you wouldn't hear that type of language from a docker!

There are loads of screw-in brass spacers in the kit I acquired, but they all measure 11.1mm wide. I'm not quite sure what other purpose they could be used for - possibly reinforcing the insides of corners, maybe? Let me cut my own first. If I get into real trouble, I might have to come back to you.

This:

OK so, this morning I scribed horizontal lines through the driving axle centres: Generally mark on the inside of the chassis frames, not the outsides which would be visible to the public. The whole point of doing the lines is to have a visible guide to where the axles should rest once the suspension system has been introduced: I will need to scribe yet more lines to take account of where the leaf springs will run, and where the fulcrum points should be (midway between the driving axles, for example). Since this particular kit was produced before Ireland changed over to the Euro, I had expected bits to be missing. In fact the only things that were absent were dedicated wider spacers for 21mm gauge builders. Not sure if "Weshty" / Des has been able to supply wider ones since taking over the SSM range, but they certainly wouldn't go amiss. For my part, I'm making my own. The first major part is the upper rubbing plate which sits above the bogie, which you see here at the top left corner of the fret: As designed, it's for 16.5mm gauge only. I need to make a wider replica of it, keeping the same overall length and fold lines for now. In order to end up with an overall chassis width of 17 to 17.5mm wide, the estimate is that the spacers should be at least 16.7mm wide.

Am just after being informed by Allen Doherty that a kit for the "WT"/Jeep 2-6-4T is being worked on, with etching to take place at some point in the near-future. Apparently will come with castings. I think the chassis will follow a similar format to his "W"-class mogul, in that you can specify spacers for 16.5mm or 21mm gauge. Excellent news; I am going for one, as I'd like to have a go at replicating no.4

For me, that was the whole point of having them. Low resistance, low current consumption. And you don't need to undo any screws to disengage worm gears, because the thing will backdrive all day long. If you're going to be doing a bit of messin' with it, see if you can introduce different spurs to vary the overall ratio. I'm going to be experimenting by replacing the Escap motor with one by Maxon, which is supposed to be even stronger, using the same bevel gearbox. Meanwhile I've started to draw out the chassis spacers for 21mm gauge on nickel-silver sheet......

Have you eliminated all the cul-de-sacs in Wellington?

Would that be the new caravan?

That would be the easy part. There'd still be considerable import duty to pay once you get it into the country. Not sure it's something you can hide in your luggage as you slip through the EU/green channel either...

Clearly some phones are more flexible than others.

Sawing off the excess axle length means I have a grand total of ONE completed wheelset ....so I could start putting the coupling rods together: 2 layers for each rod. Aluminium hairgrip is all you need to keep 'em together during soldering: Then remove the rod from the fret in order to file down and clean up the excess solder: An evening's work: I think we'll start sawing out some chassis spacers next..... That would be a Chivas Regal 12-yr-old. It will be mostly empty by the time this engine is finished.