Glenderg

40mm paint round, for context

bogie centres 141 has 22'6" 121 has 20'9" hunslet has 23'6" C Class has 21' either way there'd be a bit of choppin involved, but knock out 11mm out of a 141 chassis, and there's the ideal platform for a 121, bogie sideframes and all.

Chassis only? Yes indeedy....plans afoot...

i would - just leave the body in a bath of brake fluid overnight. If you want to leave it as is, give it a thorough scrub in warm water first, a gentle rub down with wire wool/ light wet and dry to remove decals or stripes, then apply the new coat when it's dry. No need for primer. Richie

For that kind of loot, I'd expect it to be hand delivered.

Superb video, the quality is wicked. I posted the drawings of them in their previous form sometime ago (2 years?) Anyway, when I get a chance to update them, perhaps over the weekend I'll get them and a few photos into the resource section.

Not sure there were two different builds Rich, but it would appear there were additions made to the original 50. Open to correction, of course. Old Style - August 2012 New Style - Added hoods at the rear to avoid clogging up at the ends, a central clamp between two containers that stops them moving, and additional bracing from the lower quarters upward. I reckon this is to support the angles inside the wagon when the jcb or whatever scrapes out the contents. May 2014 Richie.

Given one of Model railways' urban myths is that at Colin Massingham's funeral the lid didnt fit on the coffin its a fair bet that the kit is a pile of "merde" as they say across the channel. He made the MTK stuff.

As my wife says - "grown men talking about toys" - bit of perspective here folks. No-ones going to seize up over a 141/181.

Yes, I have them to offer, but their not public cos i've far too many commitments with the weedspray set, and it takes a phenomenal amount of time to do instructions for any future kits. But i have the roof detail, side overlays, ssm decals, fuel tanks, and both sides for both bsk and bck variants. Props to wally for making the bck variat happen incidentally. Pm me if you've an interest in a "blind" kit. Richie Edit - windows also supllied in a finished or u finished state.

That's a sliverfox model noel, either rtr or kit available. Boxcar willie has just completed a kit build with mousa overlay brass etches - another option. Richie

The poor wife and dog (3:20)sitting on the couch listening to that...

Any varnish at all, except humbrol clear gloss varnish (water based). Weshty has provided me with decals for same van of late and they're spot on. He'd be the man to ask. In the interest of fairness railtec also supplies - item 5646. R

In a past life, i did a lot of work with liturgical brassware, and one chap who spent his life restoring it always said that his biggest hate was when lazy cleaners simply varnished the brass to avoid a bit of elbow grease. The varnish would not come off easy. Ever since i've washed brass in vinegar first and then given a coat of varnish, left to harden for 24hours before the finish coats go on. I have a cheat for you though if you want to put the tamiya back on and straighten up the lines. Apply masking tape - spray with airbrush, get hairdryer, set on max, and like airbrushing dry the paint. Give it another coat and repeat with hairdryer. The hairdryer will soften the adhesive of the masking tape and it will peel off like a rotten banana leaving your paint finish dry and intact. R.

some nice looking projects afoot keep us posted.

Very nice work on the van Mike, the roof treatment is a cracking idea. I'm not familiar with solvaset, but I reckon that a coat of sealer/varnish should be enough to blend the surface of the model with the lip of the decal so that the weathering powders don't catch on the decal in future. Perhaps a thinned coat of the grey airbrushed on around the outside of the decal would soften the edge, holding a bit of card over the numbers and let the overspray do it's thing? R.

humbrol 48 ?

Dhu - are you Strictly enamel or acrylic. There may be a bit mixing involved in either code.

No, lol. I'm not a reluctant subscriber to the concept, in fact i think it's a superb control solution - ipads, phones, automatically control etc. Bosko's Amiens St being a case in point. I would love to go dcc, but theres something niggling at me, that being that chips produced for around 10p are sold for frankly ludicrous sums of money, not to mention sound chips, speakers and all that. It's quite an investment for a novice to change control method and install all the chips. R.

Superb livery choice, credit to all round - it has the "smell of money" about it, just what the Yanks are after! From a modelling point of view, it's much more straightforward than other blue and yellow one, though the 1" black line might be a tricky prospect with a lining pen.... *heads off to mix some blue paint...*

Holy foam cutting batman! That's impressive progress Dave. As for the Labrador, not impressed with his/her work ethic! R.

DC makes the loco go back and forward. DCC makes more than one go back an forward at the same time. Can't see any reason why you'd want to do that in fairness. or install sound. My missus keeps telling me us menfolk are not equipped with multitasking (we are DC creatures). The ladies are generally speakin the truth rich R

Uhm....look who's talking! My layout is only a fraction of a thing in comparison to what's going on Kent wise! As far as marine modelling, if it fits one of the unfilled era's then it's go, waterline from now on, those hulls are a hoor to get right! USS Slater is currently a sad sight, but I'll get some photos next week of her. The guinness barges and their larger draughted aunties are also on the cards incidentally.... I'd really like to have a crack at one of the coal boats that came over from wales early in the century. There was a great story of a mother who had a fling with a "coloured lad" and she produced a boy of colour at the turn of the century, who ended up working on the coal boats, disgorging it's cargo onto the coal trains that were sent around the country. This coloured chap was a bit of an oddity at the time, as you'd imagine, but he drank pints at the rate of knots and beat the heads off all comers and was as good as any in Mayor Street. His mother was interviewed around 1966 and asked why it was that she tied a red neckerchief around her lad's neck going to work every morning, given that he'd stand out anyway. Says she "shur they were all bloody darkies bee the time they were done wid da coal, twas de only way I could find 'im for his dinna" Another tale was that the famous "one and one" came from that era. A chap came over working on a boat from italy and jumped ship. Think he was a stevedore but he quickly realised that the lads on the docks were relying on their mammies to bring down cold pasties etc. for the grub so he set up a little hot oven with a bicycle to serve cheap and cheerful to the masses. After a few months, he had made enough to bring his missus over, and whilst he served the north quays, she was allocated the south quays. Problem was, she hadn't a bloody word of english, so the men of Townsend Street would queue up and point at what they wanted. "Wun o dat, and wun o dem" they'd say, trying to break the language boundary. (Apparently she was a bit of a looker too, italian lassies!) She would respond with "Uno y Uno?" pointing feverishly and the transaction would be completed with a nod and an exchange of a few pennies. Evermore, the expression of a "one and one" became commonplace in chippers with the imbibed of Dublin. Why am I telling yee this? No reason, really, just when researching all this lark you find these gems of real life that infects the modelling ideas. I've thought about using adjustable lighting and looped audio to help with ambience, perhaps to offset flange squeal etc., from loco speakers and set the tone without wrecking my head - reeling in the squeals? Thanks lads for the positive vibes - and shem - if I can get Weshty to produce enough GSR wagon stock, I'll have Larkin giving a speech surrounded by the huddled masses, and the peelers bailing in 1913 stylee! R/

Other things I really want to capture was the process of painting brickwork with signage, that hinted at times past, particularly when Dublin was the second city of the British Empire, and then subsequent graffiti tags such as "No to the EEC" Then there are the German built bascule bridges which are iconic remnants of that era. I've inflicted a "you've no choice" policy on this one, and I think it'll be worth it. This will form the scenic break at one end of the layout. A second board has been designed which will have it's bigger sister, featuring the customs building, coroners court and the harbourmasters office. There also has to be ships at some point - one of my other hobbies. I have the hull complete for the LE Eithne, and a 1:76 of the Canon class USS Slater destroyer done, so they will satisfy the marine part for the 80's and the 40's respectively. The will be on a separate shelf that attaches. Track layout has been fun designing, but I've still a bit to do with wagon turntables and narrow gauge guinness stuff. Here's the test run of the track on the kitchen floor. That's fine in practice, but how does it work in theory? I've always wanted to use a scissors and prototype formations early in the century used this to come from private owners sidings onto the main line - for the life of me I don't know why. Anyway this is how it all ties together, and it's taken me about 3 years to get to this point, so I'm going to allow myself 54 months to complete it. For the 1944 layout, it will be mostly coal wagons, steam shunter Sambo, and transfer of MGWR, GNRI and GSWR wagons from the main line to the goods shed, and back into the wagon yard (fiddle yard). As it moves on to the 60's delivery of new 121's will feature, more goods wagons etc. but by this time my fictional MGWR transfer yard has become a Guinness Yard, so there will be early guinness traffic. For the eighties, CIE have taken back the yard, and the scrapping of laminates etc. has begun within, plenty excuse for old black and tan stock to appear dockside. Pushing onto 2004, I can have deliveries of MK4's, tara's (alexandra road exploded so this is a re-route ) and so on. I know this sounds fairly mad and ambitious, but I won't be getting the hands dirty anytime soon. I've more than enough to finish for you lads before that happens! Thoughts welcome. Richie.

Evening All, It's called Arthur's Quay for three reasons - I grew up in Limerick City right across from it, I wanted an excuse to include some guinness traffic and 1'10" gauge stuff, and I needed a name that was synonymous with Dublin, without being a specific location. It's very loosely based on a part of the North Wall in Dublin, but takes plenty from the south side of the river before it was replaced by Googleland etc., so it's kind of a historic nonsense layout, but it's a multi-period layout - 1944, 1964,1984, & 2004 give or take a few years either side. Like many here, I'm restricted with both space and time to work on this, so the dimensions for the layout are 296mm x 1400mm, designed to fit onto an IKEA Lack shelf, so I can hide it away when not in use. It also means I can work on small bits at a time, rather than having to tackle it all in the one go. Anyway back to the plan - This part of the docks had an amalgamation of MGWR, LMS, and GSWR all jockeying for the most traffic, and along the frontage were these enormously long goods sheds which handled the main goods - cattle, timber and so on. There are two of these sheds remaining on the south side of the river which I've surveyed three times in the last few years. As part of the multi-period, it functions as a shed up until the 80's period, and will then become a shed for rail traffic. I also want to use off the shelf code 100 track, using odd formations to create a shunting puzzle or three. I've had good fun dreaming up a scenario - "Breakdown Brake Van" - more of this when it gets going. But I'm aware of the nasty look of 16.5mm versus 21mm so I'm going to cobble the entire area with varying patterns to blend the rails into the surface. Yip, much fun ahead but this is the effect I'm after. But there's the buildings there too, and some are mind blowingly epic, so I've chosen a few around the area, some long gone, some from other similar parts of the city. The Multi-period thing is defined by the fashion, posters, vehicles, rolling stock and minor changes to buildings, so I intend to create each building in it's 1924 condition, and as each period rolls around, fill in windows with steel shutters, or cover with period billboard posters as necessary. One building - the Ivy House above, will be modelled in two states though as I need one that really highlights the grim conditions of the early eighties - roof missing and steel supports etc. to be continued next post...