Photo review of Narrow Gauge North in Leeds

I'd never been to Narrow Gauge North before so this was an eye-opener. The venue was easy to find, although the roads approaching have speed cameras about every 100 yards - beware!

The venue was a school and it worked pretty well although the halls were quite a way apart and it was easy to miss something if you didn't use the map provided. Food was good but seating area too small I suspect (we were lucky).

Traders were good - parkside, worsley, andrew neale books, 009 sales stand, 7mm sales stand, blackham transfers etc

I purchased a load of bogies and wheels for all these cars I've been soldering together recently and also picked up a few more carriages to go onto the work bench (I've already cut them from the frets last night). The new additions include 104 and 105, which will need some extra beading adding, and bug box No. 1 (zoo car).

So what about the models then? First up we have the Holdsworth collection - superb here is a Baldwin gas mechanical:

A WW1 Baldwin - 590 anyone?

A superb L&B coach
Sand Hutton the latest model from Peter Kazer (he wrote the wonderful wild swan narrow gauge modelling book): beautifully modelled track, buildings and rolling stock,

Here's a cheeky Russell with VERY bright colours on Avyn a Lyin

16mm Blanche:



Then we got round to looking at the best layout there by a country mile: Dinas - Blaenau in 7mm scale DCC (Lenz) and even sporting smoke units (seuthe)!
This beautiful double engine (Taliesin) was built by Frank Sharp and was lent to the layout for the day:
The incline:

Little Giant under construction:

An assortment in the hidden sidings, 7mm waggons a De Winton and a 4mm scale James Spooner (converted to 8mm gauge with sound on board and smoke!).

An England shunts a slate train:

Some of the beautiful stock:

Colin

Videos of Narrow Gauge North Action

Dinas - Blaenau (7mm scale DCC with sound and smoke units):

Sand Hutton by Peter Kazer

and another two...

Got home quite late from at meeting at Grand Central's offices in York, so didn't expect to do any modelling tonight, but at about 9pm I started cutting bits from frets and it continued, so much so that 2 hours later, the other two WHR 13m saloons were all soldered up. They need a bit of cleaning up and fettling, but otherwise are complete and ready for primer.... cool.

and a shot of what they'll look like in the end:

Colin

A big dog!

My word it's big! It's massive, considerably long, very hefty, humongous, immense, substantially sizable, voluminous; a hulking gigantic heavyweight!

Of course I'm talking about 2043 - the first of the 13m long WHR(C) saloons that I have put together - it's 160mm long! The DKE that such a long car will need may require some changes to the scenery of the layout it's so huge!

Of the three 13m saloon kits I have, all have had their chassis populated with door steps and underframe detail as well as the necessary holes for attaching floor to body having been drilled.

Coach 1 (2043) has now been completed up to 'box' level (ready for spraying in primer) with doors attached to sides, ends attached to doors and buffer beams attached too. The right angles attached to the interior ends with 10BA nuts on were then added too. Floor and body came together and we get the below:

On another note, I found that the plastic seating moulding inside the Liliput Murtalbahn coaches are the perfect width for my FR and WHR cars, so with a bit of judicious cutting, they can form the basis for the interior detail, sitting on top of a false floor.

I have never been into interior detail really as in 4mm scale once the roof and glazing are in, you can't really see in anyway, so if the detail gives enough for a few passengers to be added, I'm happy. Of course a quick plasticard table isn't hard to fabricate and install later either...

The liliput coaches also have great bogies with integral bemo couplings on, so I'm thinking of using those too. I'll replace the liliput bogies with nine lines cheap plastic ones, add some surplus wheels and sell them on with the replaced bogies and interior detail missing - an interesting thought is how much those would then make on ebay???



Colin

Man with a van (well 2 actually)....

Progress tonight - FR cars 11 and 12 (called van 4 and 5 now), all droplights in, duckets both sides and bogies attached too.

I also added bearings to one of the bogies for the WHR ex SAR brake van, before running out of the correct size bearings!

Colin

A Walk in the Park...?

The second in my supplier series: Parkside Dundas .

To many beginner modellers Parkside is where it all begins - easily available (most model shops stock a few of their kits), well made, relatively simple plastic kits (they do a few etched kits too but it's mainly plastic)...

They have a decent range too, although it is disappointing that the range has been static for a number of years now - there are plenty of vehicles/waggons that have no kit - so come on guys!

All kits come with quality instructions and are generally well cast and only require a little cleaning up of flash etc.

Also, should you lose a part (or think you haven't had it in the first place) they will kindly and with no bother post you another -a superb service. How many suppliers are like that? I know of plenty who would argue about whether it was or wasn't in the bag, or try to charge you too! Of course Parkside take the opportunity to post their latest catalogue with the part - given you're in a good mood when the replacement part arrives I'll bet that more than often further orders are forthcoming...!

I have had few problems with their kits, in fact it is the super detail that is often the issue - some small hand wheels or brake gear parts are very fiddly to attach and have next to no chance of standing up to handling!

But overall I recommend their kits wholeheartedly and it just might be that many modellers would never even start in 009 had they not started on these relatively easy kits first!

http://www.scalefour.org/parkside/ngindex.htm

Colin

Progress

Progress over the last few weeks has included:

- Cutting out from the etched frets 10 carriages, all of which were then tidied up, the floors and associated chassis detail assembled and 10BA nuts soldered over the relevant holes to attach floor to carriage. This has then created a backlog of carriages ready for assembly into their 'box' shape, then ready for painting.

- Those that have now been completed up to 'box' level are, FR/WHR No. 23:

FR Observation car no. 111

FR Car No 117
FR Car No. 119
To follow soon are the three new WHR 13m long saloons, Romanian car 2060 and an assortment of heritage vehicles such as the turtle roofed van, bowsider 19, 2 vans (ex cars 11/12)...

and I'm running out of solder again!

Colin

Reponse to recent comments

Thanks for the comments:

I'll try and find a way to tag all the supplier reviews (parkside dundas is next this weekend) and present them together later.

Brush painting in 009 should be effective, just make sure your only work with the wet paint, if you miss a bit, wait for it to totally dry and do another coat then - once the paint half dries it can be fatal! Also make sure you mix the paint well (a battery powered stirrer comes in useful - IKEA sell them for 99p as latte frothers!).

Colin

A nice niche

This is the first post in a proposed series on narrow gauge suppliers: first up is Worsley works.

Firstly, let us be clear here, without a supplier like Allen Doherty's worsley works, it would be very hard to model many railways, in particular the more modern varieties (such as the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland!). Everything would have to be scratch built as the other manufacturer'skits that are available tend to be very heavily biased towards war department and earlier stock only.

For the sheer number of carriages I require for Rhyd Ddu, the task of scratchbuilding without a kit would be a mammoth undertaking - enough to probably put you off even trying! Some have done it of course - David and Rob Waller of Dduallt and soon to be Bron Hebog fame scratchbuild FR and WHR carriages from plasticard strip and make an excellent job of it, but that is not for me, or indeed for most modellers out there.


So, worsley have a nice niche in the marketplace - they provide excellent quality etches of sides and ends plus (usually) the floor and bogie frames and they do so at a reasonable price (considering the low quantities the market demands of the more esoteric kits and the cost of brass). A normal carriage costs between £15 and £20 which is good indeed.

Allen has a decent range of FR and WHR kits available incorporating most of the heritage vehicles (although in some areas actually duplicating other commercial kits). As mentioned above, the real benefit is in the more modern carriages and with the exception of a few items such as the new FR observation saloons 100 and 102 (I'm on to him about those - don't worry!) he covers most of the fleet. The oddities and weird are also well provided for - take the
Dacauville Aine, Petit Bourge, Paris stock or the Campbeltown and Machrihanish coaches for example.

One major issue is keeping up with the ever changing policies and designs of Boston Lodge/Dinas - beading changes, window lines alter and all that means multiple versions of the same kit. In fact few at Boston Lodge could tell you when what was altered!


Obviously, you still need to build up any interior detail you need, add a roof (pretty easy on most FR/WHR kits), add door details such as handles and glazing etc but all those elements are pretty easy to find - just spend an hour wandering around a big show.

Some images of his products are below - so I urge you to give them a go, they are pretty easy in the main to solder up (in fact they make good learning items) and the etched detail is really well done.


The latest kits that I picked up at Shepton Mallet are the 3 WHR(C) saloons - the new 13m long ones completed in 2007 No.s 2043-5 and the Romanian Coach 2060 - now available so get your orders in!

Oh and he does some locos too, notably the FR and WHR(C) funkeys! Keep up the good work Allen!

http://www.worsleyworks.co.uk/

Colin

Shepton Mallet review

Shepton Mallet 2008:

16mm - ooooh lovely!

Hayesden - very nice snow effects, the lady operator said never again(!) yes you can cover up mistakes and dodgy bits with the snow but you still have to put most of the work into what is later hidden anyway!

Threlkeld quarry - love the backscene and frontscene effect (look carefully), the excavator worked (see video below) by a kind of pull string method (like puppets and not motorised!). Extremely nicely done and weathered - and by a young man too!

Charmouth - fabulous layou, cracking colours, top running and gorgeous stock too - simply stunning!

and an innovative method for attaching the sector plate...

Russell on the live steam layout...


and an attempt at modelling 143, not quite right (coal fired for one!), but good enough.




Then there was the bizarre : PBSSR loco (electric traction for a precursor of the WHR) and the Eclipse (a steam loco converted to electric overhead running at Llechwedd) on the Mercian stand


And Bramble Bottom - well what can you say - really cool!

and finally some live steam action:

Colin

NG15 news

The FR have published the below drawing as the likely look of a restored NG15:

At the Shepton Mallet show this weekend (review coming) I saw this:

Scratch built by Paul Windle, this is clearly a very nice model, although of course it is constrained by the availability of a decent N gauge chassis. Ignore the tender on the model as the FR version is considerably remodelled from the originals than ran in South Africa.

I liked the look of the model and half considered asking for another for myself (backwoods have promised a kit at some point but not for a while and ceratinly not before one of the WHR NG15s are restored).

However something else doesn't look right to me - the boiler looks too short, rather like it has been cut down to fit the chassis a bit too much.

Below is another NG15 built by Ian Turner [who kindly sent me these shots] which looks right to me (again ignore the tender):

I think that is pretty conclusive, I am not sure therefore whether the Paul Windle project was meant to be shorter for some reason or whether it was a necessary compromise for the chassis. Let's hope it was the former.

Colin

Beyer-Garratt News

Hi,

As 138 is being taken apart for a boiler overhaul/exam:

Dad is closing in on finishing my model:

However, this is where it will stop for a while, as we know 138 will probably come out of her 10 year overhaul with a load of changes to pipe runs etc - Boston Lodge/Dinas have quite a track record for changes like that! There is no news on livery either so who knows??

Colin

The anatomy of a scratch-aid carriage (and no they're not coaches!)

Or how to finish a scratch-aid carriage in many easy steps:-

Start with the Worsley Works sides, ends (and sometimes bogies too)

Add nine lines plastic bogies (they come with wheels) or add decent metal wheels if using worsley bogies and bearings

Add 10ba nuts/bolts to hold the floor down and attach the bogies, using spacers to get the ride height right

add bemo couplings, attached to the bogies to allow them to swing and thus take tighter curves without locking and derailing the carriages

add interior detail on a plasticard mock floor using proprietary 4mm seats

initial paint spray of body and interior separately in halfords primer first, then the relevant colour.

Add detailed painting on panelling/lining- add door handles from Roxey mouldings or even lace pins filed down

add glazing

add roof (I'm going to ask a resin moulder if he can do me a load of these) and hand paint said roof

add vac pipes

add people inside and any extra detail like lighting or drinks on tables etc (or is that going too far!).

and that's that...Colin

Stir crazy!

Why are so many models that come up for purchase second-hand so badly painted? I reckon there are a few common mistakes:

- Forgot/didn't bother to clean the model before painting, meaning grease and flux deposits affect the paint


- Didn't mix the paint well enough giving lumps

- Didn't use thinners and applied the paint straight on causing too thick a layer and loss of detail

- Overpainting of previous liveries with a new colour, again causing a reduction in detail and an overscale look.

- Using too big a brush

- Being too enthusiastic with spraying - quick mists are better

I hope to avoid these, but I also avoid such models as undoing bad paintwork can be a pretty big job too. Shepton Mallet show next weekend will show up again how bad secondhand can be...



Colin