Chuffnell Regis

[MrWolf]

9 minutes ago, Graham T said:

I bought some heavy duty magnets for my girls a while ago, to teach them about science.  The things are lethal!  (The magnets, I mean...)

 

 

Turning your children into fridge decorations may keep them out of trouble, but I suspect that social services would take a dim view.

 

Or they might get smart and teach you a lesson by sticking themselves to a bus.

 

Then you will have to explain to their mother why they were brought back from Innsbruck in a police car....

 

 

[Graham T]

I shall try to give that a miss; I have enough trouble with their mother as it is.  That'll teach me to marry a lawyer...

 

[Rowsley17D]

Bal-ham, gateway to the south.

[Graham T]

Mine's finished 🙂  Even managed to catch a window in the weather earlier today and get a squirt of primer onto it.  Will post some pics tomorrow, just putting the final touches to a Cambrian LMS 6 ton fish van at the moment (I've no idea why I bought that, maybe the local river is stuffed full of trout or something...)

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Graham T
The LSWR van is finished, is what I meant!

[Graham T]

Here's the finished fish van, complete with wonky brake lever that I only spotted, of course, once I looked at the photo.  Will have to try to fix that...

 

[Nick C]

I always have problems getting brake levers straight on plastic wagon kits. I ought to look at upgrading with brass parts like others do on here...

[Graham T]

I was thinking the same as I was going through my wagon building binge; the plastic levers really don't look that great (nor do the buffer heads).

 

[Graham T]

Here's a sitrep on the wagon situation.  The two new opens have had lead strips glued to the underside of the chassis, which hopefully will prevent any misbehaviour on my shoddy trackwork.  All but the fish van have had a coat of Vallejo primer.  They all still need couplings fitting, I need to steel myself to make up a new batch of three links...

 

Roof still needs to be fixed on the NE cattle wagon, once I've painted the inside.  And the brake lever on the LMS fish van is now about as close to vertical as I think I can get it, without breaking the blasted thing!

 

All the wagons on this siding are kit built, all Cambrian apart from the Cordon.  It's been a bit of a learning curve!

 

[drmditch]

11 hours ago, Graham T said:

Roof still needs to be fixed on the NE cattle wagon, once I've painted the inside.  

 

I think (subject to correction by those who know more) that the insides of cattle wagons were left as bare wood; given the propensity of cattle to lick everything and the ingredients of 1930/40s paint not being that good for them.

 

One of those times when one has to mix paints to hide the use of paint!

I never manage to do this very well!

[Graham T]

That’s what Cambrian suggest in the destructions, so I was lazy and just daubed on some flat earth, as it will be pretty much impossible to see anyway.

 

[Andy Keane]

There are some interesting photos of the effect of the lime used to deal with cattle wagons - basically the lower half of the wagons is almost white.

[Harlequin]

The use of lime as a disinfectant of cattle wagons and cattle docks was abandoned sometime between 1924 and 1927. I'm trying to find a reference.

 

[Andy Keane]

This is quite a nice link

https://www.steve-banks.org/prototype-and-traffic/258-cattle-traffic

 

[Graham T]

1 hour ago, Andy Keane said:

There are some interesting photos of the effect of the lime used to deal with cattle wagons - basically the lower half of the wagons is almost white.

 

1 hour ago, Harlequin said:

The use of lime as a disinfectant of cattle wagons and cattle docks was abandoned sometime between 1924 and 1927. I'm trying to find a reference.

 

 

Thanks for those.  I was aware of lime being phased out, so won't be showing any on my wagons.  My timeframe is a bit flexible, but let's say from the 1930s onwards!

 

[drmditch]

3 hours ago, Harlequin said:

The use of lime as a disinfectant of cattle wagons and cattle docks was abandoned sometime between 1924 and 1927. I'm trying to find a reference.

 

Well, would you like to stand around with your third and fourth toes/fingers in a caustic substance?

(Cattle being even-toed-ungulates)

 

The Steve Banks link mentioned above is very useful.

[57xx]

On 29/01/2023 at 15:50, MrWolf said:

Buffers on plastic kits are a pet hate of mine. I think that the plastic kit companies are in cahoots with the people who make expensive metal buffers and some of those need as much fettling as the plastic ones.

Ratio managed it on some models, Slater's also have nice metal buffer heads, it's not going to cost the earth to upgrade or to offer metal buffers as a sideline - are you listening?

 

I hate the buffers on certain makes of kit where there's a tiny housing collar to clip off the sprue and glue onto the buffer shank / feed to the carpet monster.

 

That's why 90% of my kit uses the Lanarkshire Models cast buffers. There are very few I will use the ones included. If it's not that silly little collar being a to cut off the sprue, then the heads are not true (usually due the mould not being aligned properly) or the detail on the buffer housing is poor/totally wrong.

 

I went to make a start on my O30 kit at Christmas and then realised the buffers guides included are all wrong and not the "short rib RCH" ones as per the illustrations in Atkins et al, so it got parked until my next order goes in the LMS.

[57xx]

On 01/02/2023 at 16:30, Graham T said:

Strangely enough, it's now stopped.  But still not especially pleasant.  I think an evening at home sniffing glue is called for!

 

On 01/02/2023 at 17:01, MrWolf said:

Careful what you wish for....

 

https://youtu.be/rf6Yv4lMhhs

 

Spooky, I didn't even need to click the link to know what tune was behind there. I clicked anyway because I then couldn't resist.

[MrWolf]

14 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

That's why 90% of my kit uses the Lanarkshire Models cast buffers. There are very few I will use the ones included. If it's not that silly little collar being a to cut off the sprue, then the heads are not true (usually due the mould not being aligned properly) or the detail on the buffer housing is poor/totally wrong.

 

I went to make a start on my O30 kit at Christmas and then realised the buffers guides included are all wrong and not the "short rib RCH" ones as per the illustrations in Atkins et al, so it got parked until my next order goes in the LMS.

 

I've not used their cast buffers, no GWR specific ones although I believe they do RCH?

I've dismissed cast buffers in the past except the heavyweights such as on flat wagons because they were a bit lumpy, head too small and shank too hefty because of the weakness of white metal. More recent items are a big improvement, must be using a harder mix that is more like zamak and getting better definition.

I always found the best compromise was the Ratio / Slater's brass buffer, shank and collar all in one that fits a plastic stock, rather like the better fixed RTR loco buffers.

Oddly I'm not all that fussy about unmodified locos, but if I build, upgrade or modify (bodge) a loco, it gets fancy sprung buffers.

[MrWolf]

21 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

 

Spooky, I didn't even need to click the link to know what tune was behind there. I clicked anyway because I then couldn't resist.

 

I remember glue sniffers, what class acts they were.

[57xx]

5 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I've not used their cast buffers, no GWR specific ones although I believe they do RCH?

 

On the contrary, they do a lot of GWR style buffers. Long, short, self contained, large/small heads, early, late. The detail is extremely crisp, the only clean up I do is putting them in a mini drill and polishing the buffer face on some high grade wet'n'dry.

[MrWolf]

Admittedly I haven't looked at the site for ages, it seemed to be mostly LMS and BR when I did. They do look very good though.

[BWsTrains]

2 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

On the contrary, they do a lot of GWR style buffers. Long, short, self contained, large/small heads, early, late. The detail is extremely crisp, the only clean up I do is putting them in a mini drill and polishing the buffer face on some high grade wet'n'dry.

 

Perhaps you could do us inexperienced types a favour and list their buffer models  which will suit GWR wagons (please)

 

Colin

[57xx]

Their range is continually expanding, always worth checking in on there.

[gwrrob]

Dave Franks service is second to none too.

[57xx]

4 minutes ago, BWsTrains said:

 

Perhaps you could do us inexperienced types a favour and list their buffer models  which will suit GWR wagons (please)

 

 

Sure, GWR types:

 

B006

B019

B020

B021

B022

B023

B030

B048

 

and if doing a diagram that used RCH buffers:

 

B002 or B003