Noel

Hi Paul. The TAN was mixed from Tamiya X-6 Orange and a tiny quantity of XF-64 Dull Brown (i.e. about 8 drops into half a mixing jar of orange). Possibly a drop or two of red might might be needed for some era's shade of tan. The MM cravens orange band have a little more red in them than my coach example. Noel

Got 10 more wagons very lightly weathered tonight, and ten more black chassis banished to middle earth. Looks a bit stark directly under the bench lamp, but hopefully look a little more subtle in daylight tomorrow. If not will touch them up a bit tomorrow. Then will leave 48hr to cure (probably OTT but don't want any interactions), and then spray can of matt varnish to seal them. Put some of SSM's decals on a few of them yesterday using 'Decal fix' straight onto matt finish without a gloss patch (as an experiment just to see how they would take). I prefer painting in natural daylight rather than indoor light. The two Valve design beat wagons look more acceptable after I brush painted them to slightly fill the 3D pitting and then air brushed very light weathering. Dapol chassis.

Remember these oldies - Hall's pictorial weekly and the Riordans!!! It wasn't that long ago this little country was a very very different place The Riordans - Tea, Taboos and Tractors

It's in Southeast Asia near Burma isn't it, or maybe I'm mixed up with a South American country, or a city in Nigeria? Now I know "County Laois-Offaly", cause its in the telly every general election, there is always some red-necks leaping up and down screaming hullabaloos in soprano voices, carrying an old red faced guy around on their shoulders with a badly fitted toupee when the election count is read out and somebody has won something.

Thanks Fran eMail sent. Order placed in 2015 for 12 wagons was fully paid over a year ago. Looking forward to delivery of the products. Noel

Hi Patrick. Thanks, but because the 'Exhibition/Shows' such as Stillorgan and Blackrock are not until June and October respectively, can folks who elected for 'Exhibition/Show Pickup' now request the stock be delivered by post, and pay for the postage via the IRM web site using their login account? And if yes, could we expect postal delivery of our orders on or before April 22nd? Thanks. Noel

Hi Patrick. Thanks for update. What date do you expect to deliver to ROI customers? Noel

PS: Forgot to mention, that NR coach is absolutely stunning. Noel

Ah, Comprende. Many thanks DV, that makes perfect sense. Noel

Thanks DV Hmm I'm probably missing something but I thought 'inkjet' printers cannot print the colour white. Railtec and I think SSM sell waterslide transfer sheets with various depths of white stripes for coach lining, is this what you suggest using? I guess applying a 1mm wide transfer thats the length of a coach could be quite tricky, but would something like humbrol decal fix help buy time to adjust the strip into position and ensure it is absolutely dead straight. I guess the transfer including the transparent bit could be 2mm wide with the 1mm white strip along the centre with 0.5m either side to make it wide enough to handle and get off the backing paper. Noel

Hi Dhu Varren. Thanks, that's another really great tip. Will try next time. I only thought of it afterwards. One thought did cross my mind though was had there been any masking bleed, would it have been easier for me to touch up the black or the tan colour with a paint brush afterwards (i.e. black being darker)? A very tricky one is now facing me, to add both tippex white lines to a mk2d super train EGV to convert it to IE/IR EGV livery. The white lining is only 3" in real life which would be 1mm in 1/76 scale. It looks like I will have to remove the roof and all the black grip rails and handles from the coach sides. It will be tricky to use two masking tapes and leave exactly 1mm between them. Reverse masking not an option as the coach is already painted, but if I make a dogs ear of it, I'll have no option but to do a full respray, and then reverse mask using 1mm tape will come into play (and while I'm at it paint the correct deeper shade of orange for ST era). Noel

Well Paul, I know little myself about 'reverse asking', but it sounds like a technique how I get out of something my dear wife has asked me to do around the house! Now as to 'reverse masking' I only picked up this tip myself recently from some of the talented and experienced folk on the forum and over on RMweb. Basically instead of two parallel masks to create white stripe (very difficult to keep absolutely straight and parallel), use one piece of masking exactly the width of the required strip to cover over white paint already applied, paint over the lot (reverse masking the white to keep addicted colour off it). Hope this makes sense. 1. Spray white paint roughly where it will be on the model (no masking needed) (top coach) 2. When dry (48hrs) put masking tape over the white paint where the stripe will be (bottom coach) 3. Then air brush the model including over the masking tape which is hiding the white (you can just see the tape under the black on this pic) 4. After about 4 hours of drying pull off the thin masking tape strip to reveal the white under neath

Don't let them do a decoder reset by writing 8 to CV8

Thanks for the encouragement JB. I'll sleep easy tonight. BTW, an adjunct to the '2ft rule' is the added bonus of over 40s eye sight - wouldn't see a rivet at any distance without a magnifying glass I aim to please - gungey brown chassis weathered below. I'm gradually getting to eradicate black chassis from all our wagons. Applying CIE decals tonight from SSM using decal fix.

Which white line? If the 1972 model - paint brush in the steady hands of a child with a child's eye sight to match, if the 2017 model, reverse masking using 2mm tape.

A bit of fun comparing re-paints. 1974 brush painted (not 100% sure if it was 1972 or 1974) 2017 recent respray training Both side by side. Recent 2017 respray to CIE livery on left, 1974 hand repaint to CIE livery on right

Best wishes Dave for a good outcome, comfort and rapid recovery.

Good points Eoin. We used 3x1" vertical support around the edges of the baseboards, with 2x1" vertical cross members on both axis, all screwed and glued to the ply baseboard. The legs are free standing on their own folding sub-frames. I've only moved the layout twice before. It took a whole day to split the sections using the butterfly bolts, move it, and reconnect everything. Each board has its own sets of old style 25pin D-type computer connectors for the electrics (i.e. track feeds to the old DC sections). The 3" vertical edges seems to have created a degree of stability as well as strength. I can climb up onto the boards if needed no problem.

I recently picked one of those up from Marks and plan to spray the two white stripes onto it (IE/IR tippex livery). Costs less compared to sometimes silly eBay prices. The previous IE/IR orange roofed EGV that was on eBay went for over €250, so €73 wasn't bad value but €56 is better still.

Richard's EJ youtube channel is very educational and informative, and I managed to extract some very useful guides and layout methods from him, and also some methods not to employ. As he said himself there is no one right nor wrong way, instead many ways, and some may suit some folks better than others. Looking forward to his re-build. With hindsight if I personally was to start again, I would build a smaller layout than our current one. I find myself agreeing with him on helix's, I never liked the idea of one on a layout, but I can see their advantages in certain circumstances.

Nice photos as ever Finbarr. Especially like 220+mk4 on the bend. What is happening in Killarney.

"If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck." Or an alternative is the "two foot" rule Both of which can be applied to model trains. I find both apply quite well to most rolling stock, especially stock that has some poetic license, is not super detailed, or has some technical compromises, paint shades a bit off, but visually looks close enough to what it is mimicking to pass the "duck test" or "two foot" rule. I do appreciate and respect that for some the "duck test" is a bridge too far.

Hi Paul. That's what I'm hoping to achieve with many of my early era Bachmann UK goods wagons - pseudo CIE 1950s-1970s that pass the 'duck test' after some decals, weathering and/or resprays, with some genuine scale Irish wagons in RTR and kit form added for the same era. Noel

I'm sure he will, Richard is a human dynamo. Everard Junction layout thread on RmWeb http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87264-everard-junction-br-1988-1990/page-1

He used MDF baseboards which he says warped over time in his loft. What a shame, his layout construction videos are legendary. Watching that video I'm glad we chose marine grade 9mm ply 23 years ago. Its heart breaking seeing that. Redoing the electric cabling alone would be a massive task.