O Gauge arrivals Dec 2016

We have four new Locomotives, 2 Dapol 08 Shunters (at last) for my son and two Ebay purchased steam loco for me.

Firstly the Dapol 08’s. These had been on order for well over two years and we were excited when they eventually turned up. The research for the 08 needs to be thorough due to the many variances in Door Handles, Footplate Cabinets, Door Hinges, Drivers Doors and number of Exhausters. These subjects have been covered many times and I do not intend to go over these yet again. However I will detail the work I carried out to each loco and also say which donor loco I used.

08141 Manvers

The donor loco was D3045. I removed the ladder as this is not required, ensure the ladder mounts are retained.  All engine room door handles were removed and holes filled. Foot plate cabinets are correct and need no alteration. The connecting rods were repainted ‘yellow’. The Cab roof was repainted ‘blue’

08375

The donor loco was 08202. It came with no ladder, that was OK. All engine room door handles are retained. The foot plate cabinets on 08202 are correct for this conversion although different to D3045. The buffer beams were repainted ‘red’ and the cab roof ‘blue’. An extra handrail was added above the front footsteps as per prototype. All handrails were picked out in white. Extra black lines added on the nose.

Dapol missed the windscreen wipers completely and the bonnet lifting lugs are missing. I have made no attempt to rectify this, hoping an industrious detailing supplier will come forth with an etch soon —–Please!!!

Overall this is a fantastic Model, the price is unbelievable and it deserves to be a big hit. However I will point out again that thorough research must be done if renumbering, a photograph of both sides and both ends is a must.

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The first steam loco was a kit built Connoisseur Models Class Y7. I purchased this on a BIN on Ebay for £125. I could see by the photographs that it was of a reasonable build quality, but it did have some body issues. The paint finish on the model also left a bit to be desired. The ‘verbal’ said it was an excellent runner, so I purchased it. On arrival I tested the running and it was as stated, very good. I separated the chassis and body and stripped the body completely, I then visited the obvious problem areas and re-soldered them after a thorough clean, all went well. I also made and added some small details that were not present. A full repaint and lettering then took place followed by a coat of varnish, I have not got around to weathering yet, but a medium level is anticipated. This loco was a Stratford, 30A pilot in the early 50’s.

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My final purchase was another Connoisseur Models kit built loco. This time it was a J71 and was made and painted to a good standard. Again the ‘verbal’ said it was an excellent runner, so I  purchased it for £300. On arrival I inspected the loco and it was indeed made and painted to a very high standard. I then tested the running, sadly it was a very poor runner. On inspection I could see that the pick-ups were in a very poor state. I decided to replace the whole pick-up system, it now works very well. Again I have not weathered the loco yet, and as it was an early BR York pilot, a light to medium would be appropriate.

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Pointless (well nearly)

I recently joined in a thread on RM Webb about pointless layouts. After an initial surge, it quickly drifted off to a trickle. I must admit that I was surprised and slightly saddened as I had hoped to contribute further.

I firmly believe that small layouts are a great entry-level into our hobby and further more they are great for modellers with limited space. I have had several friends that jumped straight in with larger layouts that later floundered and never got anywhere near finished. A small layout can be as complex as you want and is a great learning curve for bigger projects.

I find the use of traversers and sector plates great money and space savers and also reduces overall layout size.  I have produced several layouts with space-saving devices and most are under 6′ x 2′, however one of my latest is 10′ x 15″ and is two 4′ boards plus the sector plate. When you consider that each point in O gauge needs a point motor, CDU, wire and possibly a chip, you rapidly approach £70 per point, with OO coming out just under half this price.  If you also consider the size of an O gauge point you can see why it is wise to engineer as many as you can out of your layout designs. I have not used traversers or sectors in N gauge as by it’s nature it is a space saving gauge.

I have often been asked how I came up with the sizes on my smaller layouts. I always say, that’s easy, I measure the boot of the car. If you can not transport a layout, you probably can not attend Exhibitions.

A small by-product of having small layouts is that over the years I have had many Exhibition invites to ‘fill gaps’ in the floor plan. Some Exhibitions are obviously limited for  space and have to keep exhibits small or medium-sized. On the other hand some of the bigger Exhibitions seem to only go for the medium to large layouts. As good as they may be the larger layout is mainly outside most people’s capabilities. I am not putting down large layouts, we are blessed with some fantastic ones at present. I just think that the bigger Exhibitions should have some small or even micro layouts to inspire potential new modellers and the widest presentation of our hobby should be portraid . Size is a factor at an Exhibition and is just as important as country, scale, era, gauge and location

The under 6′  layouts have appeared in previous posts on this site, they are:-

SEFTON YARD                               O gauge             one point       Sector plate

MERLINS LANE                             O gauge             one point       Sector plate

NORFOLK COKE AND TAR         O gauge             pointless        Traverser (single track)

LOWE St.                                      OO gauge              one point       Sector plate

And the 10′ layout is:-

MORLOCK HEATH                       O gauge              one point       Sector plate

Please have a look if you have not already.

RECOMENDED READING —-

Building Micro Layouts By PAUL A. LUNN

Layouts for Limited Spaces By NIGEL ADAMS

 

 

A tale of Two DRS Class 20’s

I will start with 20307, I made this using an A1 Models conversion kit and a Lima model as the  base, this was before Shawplan had done their finer etched conversion. I would have used the Shawplan parts had they been available. This was probably about ten years ago. It is very lightly weathered.

20303 was purchased, by a friend from Ebay recently. It was purchased with a different number, I changed it before weathering. It also had screw couplings but as it was to run as a second loco it had to have tension locks at both ends. The base loco is a Bachmann and it is assumed the conversion was using Shawplan parts. I would say the work was carried out to a good standard. The paint however was very glossy either by design or accident, so a dulling down coat of varnish was applied before quite a heavy weathering.

Conclusion, of course the Bachmann/Shawplan is the best way to go, but I still have a soft spot for the Lima Class 20. I actually recently purchased a further A1 DRS conversion for class 20 which I hope to do soon.

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Wagons for Oldshaw

As I said in a previous post, a friend of mine has purchased the EM Exhibition Layout ‘Oldshaw’. Nick has decided to have a different running era so that extra wagons are required. The below wagons have been spratt and winkled and weathered for him. Note that one brakevan has a spratt and winkle at both ends to enable run rounds and to shunt the bogie wagon.

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Merlins Lane Auto-coupling

I have now added spratt and winkle couplings to the wagons used on Merlin’s Lane Fuelling Point. As the only shunting loco on the layout is an 03, and I run it with a shunters truck, I decided to fit a spratt and winkle to the shunters truck only.  All other wagons have a loop at one end,  this enables me to auto shunt one wagon at a time. Although this is a minor operation on the Fuelling Point, it does however add interest. The shunters truck attaches to the 03 by three link coupling. The opposite ends of all wagons retain their three link couplings.

I have also built a custom stock box to hold the wagons for Merlins lane. I have left space for another wagon.  See my previous post on ‘Stock Boxes’ for further information.

Current available wagon stock are:-

Stores Van – Waste Oil Tank – Diesel Tank

The Stock box also holds the shunters truck and a brake tender.

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Recent O gauge weathering

October so far has been a bit damp and dreary, so little weathering has been possible. In the last few days a few dry spells gave me a chance to look at some wagons for a friend. I also repainted a Fowler Diesel  shunter as ED.1. Although the Industrial version is not strictly the same as the version the LMS (BR) had, it’s a fair representation and gives you something a bit different. I had held on to this model for some time for a friend, hoping that a conversion kit would become available, but sadly not. He made the decision to just have a cosmetic repaint of the Industrial version.

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Batch of Loco’s for some Friends

Here we have a batch of locomotives, all in OO that I have had for several months, some are even off to Australia. I tend to batch my mates weathering work so that I can keep material costs down.

The two steam Loco’s are for the same friend and it amazes me how the different manufacturers interpret the BR Green and the Loco Lining –  I can not remember these variations in real life!

The Class 50 is for my mate Nick, who is the new owner of Oldshaw the EM layout. Nick intends to run a different era from Alan and Maggie. I look forward to seeing it soon.

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Baseboards Used

Over the years I have tried most types of baseboards. When I started I used the traditional format of 2″ x 1″ for the frames and a chipboard top. I think my first three layouts used this formula, but due to the 2″ x 1″ traditional size getting smaller due to metric conversion or was it the suppliers wanting more profit! I then moved to 3″ x 1″, or the metric equivalent. Although this put my mind at rest as far as warping was concerned, it did nothing for ease of movement with the extra weight.

The next move was to move from chipboard tops to  plywood, this certainly helped a little with the weight, but I still found the weight a problem. I even reduced the size of boards I was making to help with movement and setting up at Exhibitions. This still caused some problems because to get the layouts loaded into the car I had to ‘top and tail’ the two boards with bolt on sides to form one unit to load.

Around this time I purchased an estate car and this certainly helped, I could now load individual boards. This goes back over ten years now and although I still have the same car, a  big decision has to be made regards the future as there is no way I can afford another large car.  After trying different methods I really got nowhere, what I saved on weight, I felt I lost on strength. The nearest I came was using the sandwich method,  two strips of Ply with softwood blocks to form the sides and ends.

About three years ago I spotted a couple of people offering ‘laser cut’ baseboards. I duly spoke to them both, and with no real preference I ordered two 4′ x 15″ self assembly boards. I really did not know what to expect. When they arrived I started to assemble them straight away. Within four hours I had two functional baseboards, they were very light and by the next day, after drying time, they were very strong. This was the way to go for me.

Conclusion, well for me, all my future Exhibition Layouts will be made using Laser Cut Boards, they do everything I want. However, if I was making a permanent layout at home,  I would probably stay traditional and use 3″ x 1″ bracing with Ply tops, strong and cheaper than laser cut. So there we are, horses for courses.

One point I would mention is that the quality of wood has always been an issue. I never use pre-wrapped timber, from large DIY stores without asking an assistant to take off the shrink wrapping, I then chose the straightest wood. I really made a nuisance of myself once, asking the assistant to undo four packs!!!!  Ply has less issues, but I always go for the better quality.

The below are 4′ x 2′ baseboards (2) with 1/8 Cork on top – for an O gauge Layout.

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Bury St Edmunds Exhibition 2016

I do not usually hold an inquest into my most recent exhibition, but this was our first time out with our O gauge layout Merlins Lane, DCC Sound and operators with virtually no training.

Well the operators, apart from me, performed very well. Thanks go to my son John, who left at 2pm and then worked a 10 hour shift. Thanks also go to Graham Minshull for helping in the afternoon, Graham has far more DCC knowledge than me and was great at ‘showing us the ropes’.

As I said in the Merlins Lane post, I did not get the loco’s weathered before the show due to running out of time because of other tasks. This was a big mistake and I apologise to all for not doing this, six very clean loco’s and stock on a weathered layout just did not work!! A start has been made and I assure everyone the whole layout and all stock will be finished by the next Exhibition, Dereham Feb 2017.

Although a Fuelling Point, it was designed for some limited shunting. Fuel Tanks, Waste Oil Tanks and Stores Vans can all be accommodated. However I forgot just how much frustration three link couplings can cause. On several occasions the shunting manoeuvre was abandoned because of unsteady hands and the feeling the watching public wanted to  see something move! By the next Exhibition all shunting will be performed ‘hands free’ using ‘4mm’ Spratt and Winkles.

Well there we are, an excellent Show, well organised by the Bury St Edmunds Club, great company and some very nice comments from the public.

As I weather the Loco’s and amend the wagons for hands free shunting I will add a few photographs to this post.