Jack P

Yep - @Bluebell Model Railway did some surgery on a Birdcage brake coach, a very effective cut and shut. Apologies Matt, i'm sure there are photos somewhere, but maybe you'd like to share them here too?

Always look on the bright side aye Truffy! Do we have any update for the later DCC/Sound fitted versions? My understanding was they were supposed to be in at the end of the week that the DC versions arrived. No rush, just wondering

Yep - I'm pretty sure from memory it was a Roadrunner + Dave did an absolutely amazing job (thanks again Dave!) - the loco really needs to be finished, it's been in construction for over 2 years!!

One of them had the motor burn out, the other ended up with mangled valve gear. I used bits from each to cobble together one functioning loco. I've still got the spare tender and the old loco body will be going off to my friend for him to use in his U1 project. After putting in a call to Dave at SEF (Such a nice guy!) and ordering the wheels, I made some more progress with the W last night: I soldered some offcuts of brass inside the tanks so that they didn't have massive gaps visible. I then filled the tanks with lead sheet, they ended up being a pretty tight fit but I superglued them in for good measure. I then soldered on the tank tops. Then, I tackled the cab, The issue I've now found is that the tanks full of lead act as a massive heat sink. The cab wasn't fully seated on the left hand side, and try as I might, I haven't been able to de-solder the cabside and align it properly - it's been time to get a new iron for a while now, so i'll probably take the opportunity to upgrade to a higher wattage. The right hand side went on nicely, and I think Dave's suggestion of making the middle part of the roof removable is the simplest option. Once the new iron arrives, I'll de-solder the entire cab, clean it all up and try again. Until then though, the W is going back in its box and will be picked up again when the wheels get here. Thanks all for suggestions and help so far! It's not going to be the most perfect build but i'm hoping it will pass muster (time will tell though)

You know what though, I do wonder if this is the exception. If you had kept looking, would you have been able to find one for less than £90? If so, How much lower; £80, £70? How long would you have had to look for, would it have been in as good condition? I really don't want to sound like i'm lambasting you - i'm actually encouraging you! I often decide there is a scale of how much things are worth vs how common they are, how often they come up, condition etc. and it's up to each person to decide where they want to slot in on the scale. Ebay Madness is (I think) when these factors are completely out of line and the scales don't tip in the right direction! Personally, I think the Postal Trailer looks fantastic, as does the rest of the TGV!

Thank you for your input Dave, I did start to wonder if I was overthinking things. I actually just went through your thread from start to finish for some inspiration! I think if you look at the above photo, the 'hole in the roof' is actually going to be pretty large, and should afford a decent amount of space for me to paint/ detail as required. As you rightly mention, there isn't actually much that needs to go in there apart from the backhead and some gubbins. I'm now not sure if I should be soldering the etched overlays for the sides on first, or leave them and araldite them on afterwards. Soldering is the preferred option, i'm just worried about how the overlay will react when the bend is introduced. I could bend both and then solder them together? I'll bend the sides tonight and re-assess. Should I still try and make the boiler removable for painting? I'm starting to think I could paint the hard to reach areas first and then attach the boiler and finish painting. I managed to distract myself from the W last night for a little while. Got up close with the new Bulleid stock - they are nice bits of rolling stock. I know they never(?) strayed from ex-lswr lines, but Kernow was having a sale on the set and lockdown made me weak! Chip arrived for the USA Tank, All done and runs beautifully! I need to get out to the model club once it's open, which should be soon - For those wondering there are still social distancing regulations in place, New Zealand currently only has 23 active cases, and hasn't had a new case in over two weeks. However I usually head to the club at night, and have only had one instance of coming across another person, so I can be safe AND play trains! I also turned my anger towards my two N class locos, I decided to try and make one running one from the two dead ducks - success (and DCC fitted too!). No photos yet as ex 1406 is now in the paint shop, but will probably emerge with 1863's straight sided tender and a new identity to match. Apologies that there hasn't been much variation of late. Hoping to make some progress on a few things - I work x4 10hr days at present, and it's Queens Birthday on Monday - so i'm happy! Thanks for tuning in!

I understand the initial sample was of mostly metal construction, is that still going to be the case or has plastic been chosen instead?

That van looks fantastic - are the buffers sprung, or just metal inserts in plastic housings?

If you pop the bogies off and use some gentle force, you can move the brakes away from the wheels. I've found on many of the Ex-LSWR coaches this is an extremely common issue, pretty much all of them benefit from some slight tweaking.

The front end was cleaned up a little, still not completely solder free, but butter than it was - you can ee the rivets on the smokebox saddle now! I ordered an ultrasonic cleaner recently, no idea when it'll get here though, but i'm excited by the prospect of getting rid of gunk in hard to reach places. Ignore the messy solder around the smokebox saddle. I spent most of last night building up the comet gearbox and texting everything to make sure it fit nicely and ran smoothly. Once the wheels arrive it i'll keep tinkering to make sure it runs sweetly. I chose to drive the loco off the middle axle as I was told that this reduces the risk of the valve gear binding. I need to find my cutting discs to trim the rear shaft of the motor. I've started making the pickup pads - some forethought will be required because this loco will be DCC fitted. I also araldited the smokebox wrapper on, and then used some tape to hold it in place overnight. I'll check it once I get home from work to make sure it's all on there nicely. This is the cab arrangement i'm faced with. In order to make the cab removable my thoughts were to: - Using the floor, and the chassis slot/tabs to hold the cab fronts/sides in place - Tack the cab front and left cabside together, tack the cab rear and right cabside together - Tack the bunker backhead (?) onto the rear sheet and right cabside piece - Remove the floor and cut/file off the locating tabs - Form the cab roof, and fix the two cab halves together - Using some PCB board, build up the level for the cab floor and fix this to the footplate - Solder captive nuts into the the underside of the bunker backhead and drill holes for screws in cab floor - Solder BA Screw onto bottom of cab floor Theoretically this means that the cab floor will screw into cab interior, two screws holding it to the bunker backhead, and then the whole cab assembly will locate with the slot/tabs and be screwed to the footplate. The PCB board holding the footplate level should stop any distortion from only being secured via one screw, and the cab should positively locate with the tabs. I'd also like to fix the boiler to the cab front to make the whole thing one unit for painting. Apart from being more complex than standard construction, does anyone envisage any major issues with this plan? Is there another plan that is more simple while still achieving the same result? Am I over-engineering this?

I progressed a bit more with the W last night, Still lots of cleaning up to do! Tanks are on, smokebox saddle is in place too. I need to pop to bunnings and get some araldite to attach the smokebox wrapper. I realised that I need to still solder on a bunch of little details to the front bufferbeam, I'm concerned about de-soldering the stuff that's already there though. I don't have any lower melt solder than the stuff I used to laminate the bufferbeam together with - Would I be ok to use whitemetal solder to attach them or will that cause issues? I also need to fill the tanks with lead sheet. Before I do I need to build the inside of the cutout in the tanks, I didn't think it would be as obvious as it is, but seeing the above photo, I think it needs to be done! I'm now wondering if anyone has any suggestions for my next conundrum; I was going to try and make the cab roof removable, I'd initially thought I could make the whole cab removable, but I don't see that actually helping matters much. The Issue It seems many people face when building the later Maunsell engines is that the roof is one piece. The W has a join where it looks like the cab sides meet the top section of the roof, so I could make it removable from there. However, the always impressive @DLT built a finecast W many years back and made the cab floor and backhead detachable from the rest of the cab. I might see if this is an option moving forwards, probably more work than making the roof removable, but possibly a cleaner result. Theoretically it would be easy enough to tack the sides to the front and back using the floor as a former, and then cut the tabs off the sides and see if I can figure out somewhere to hide the mounting points for screws. Thoughts, advice, suggestions and abusive comments on a postcard please!

A few little jobs done: Correctly numbered M7! The modified H class had it's bufferbeam number added, plus a view that's not often seen - the cab interior I've also been tinkering with my PDK W. I was bricking myself when it came to the footplate - but luckily the right sized wooden dowels helped me get the curves right, and then the valences under the footplate help with making sure final alignment is right before soldering. I actually think I managed ok. The smokebox saddle is giving me some grief now though. So I thought i'd take a break and have a look at the cab. My original plan was to solder the cab together and then trim off some of the locating tabs and use the screw that goes through the bottom of the chassis to help locate it. The boiler/smokebox is a resin casting, and my idea was to join this to the cab and make the whole thing removable for painting, but now i'm not sure that it's the best idea. I also regret not buying the wheels sooner. I've got the chassis all sorted, and using a spare set of wheels I've managed to get it all nice and free-rolling. But so much of the chassis construction (apart from the very basic stuff) relies on you having the wheels in order to check things. I've fired an Email off to Markits to (hopefully) get my hands on the wheels. The basic cylinders are built, and just need the whitemetal bits soldered on. I'd like to get a bit more done on the body so I can cut off the lower parts of the valances (super useful for keeping the body square when working on it. The next big one will be bending the back of the coal bunker - it doesn't have the half etched bend lines like the footplate did, and I don't have rolling bars. Things are also slightly compounded because there is the basic body construction and then almost every part has half etched overlays. I might cheat here and araldite them on. The side tanks are a fully enclosed unit, so will be perfect for adding bits of lead sheet. That's all for now!

Fantastic blow by blow Dave. I don't think it can be understated just how much the blackening of motion/wheels makes a difference. While you're taking requests (!!) I'd love to know how you solder so neatly! Edit: or how/what you use to clean up.

More of a cross section, hope this helps!

Hey guys, Thanks for keeping me entertained while at work, and thanks Robin for the photos. I thought this would be the perfect place to ask due to the large amount of GWR nerds, expertise! I'm looking at building up a rake of GWR coaches from the new Hornby Collett stock, (or even some older Bachmann stuff, i'm happy to do my own detailing work if there's anything urgent that needs addressing!) i'm just not sure what I need. Would there have been a mix of the non corridor/corridor coaches? How does the left/right brake/composite system work? what does a 'standard' rake look like, and how many coaches? I'd like to do some coach side conversions/rtr/kitbash stuff at some point in the future, but for now i'll just dip a toe. I'm primarily a Southern guy, so any advice for things that would've ended up there (specifically around 1947) would be great too! Thanks in advance, and keep up the banter!

Having started re-reading this thread from the beginning (for the umpteenth time!), It seems that Dave will chemically blacken everything possible and then paint over, the reason for this, is in case the paintwork takes a knock or a scratch, you don't get bright metal shining through. I wonder if blackening helps with adhesion?

Excellent, I'll look at grabbing them from there! As Bryan said, the DP2X-UK seems to be the smallest 8 pin you can get. The Hattons one doesn't fit in either the M7 or the H, I tried one of the gaugemaster ones but they're also too big! I'm hoping the TCS decoder fits (literally) the bill!

That looks excellent! @BrightonBoi, reckon you could print these?

Thanks Connor! That's really good to know actually i'd been eyeing some of those up for my H class locos. The prospect of buying 5 of them is a bit daunting though. I see you're in Australia, which is practically the West Island of New Zealand - who do you source those Decoders through?

Thank you! It's pretty compact (compared to some) but it offers me all that I need, plenty of happy evenings spent listening/watching Railway roundabout and other old steam videos while modelling! Similar principle i'd think! Maybe I could raid the girlfriends makeup draw next time I run out! (of weathering powder) Interesting, I only use powders sparingly, so I haven't had heaps of experience with them. I usually only use them to represent that rusty/heat stain effect you get on the front lower part of smokeboxes, and ash/soot that ends up on the front of the footplate when the crew clean the smokebox out. I've never had issues with them not sticking, and don't fix them down with anything after. Hope everyone is staying sane during quarantine! New Zealand has recently moved into Level 2 of our lockdown plan - Click here for detailed info on what levels mean, if you're interested! Personally, things did not go fantastically well during lockdown. I can count my blessings that I had a roof over my head and I'm still working (things are actually very busy work wise at the moment). Some disagreements with the people we lived with meant that my partner and I relocated to a new place (closer to the city centre, and a 10 minute walk to work!). Things got pretty stressful for a while, but we are slowly adjusting to being in a new place, on our own and getting everything set up! Same workbench setup, just around the other way, more space for modelling is never a bad thing! Just after we arrived here, some of my isolation purchases arrived, 3 LNER Fish/fruit vans, and an open LNER wagon, plus a DMR K1 Kit, complete with motor, gearbox and wheels, and lining/number transfers! I didn't change region for those who are worried, but they were extremely hard to pass up on, the K1 was the sum total of £60! This was something a little more in keeping with the flavour of this thread, that I completed pre lockdown Heavily glossed, and only given the most basic of weathering, picking out the non glossy areas in a mucky colour. She does need more attention, as she shouldn't be this clean! readers of this thread from the beginning may remember that I actually had a radial previously, however it ran like a bag of ____, and was subsequently disposed of (sold). The Hornby version is brilliant, a few little modifications have been done, like the front bogie having the guard irons removed and mounted to the buffer beam, As per most of my locos, she is now waiting for the rest of the detailing work (coal, crew, lamps, tools, misc). I'm seemingly drawn back across battle lines to Ex-LSWR locos, I previously had 3 M7's, which were repainted/weathered/sold. I have now acquired 3 more M7's, this time two of which are backdated Br examples that are long-frame push/pull fitted. They have all been painted, and given the most basic of weathering jobs. But only this one (31) has had transfers applied, coz I ran out of transfers! More still to do, but they look great! Currently waiting on some decoders to arrive so I can chip them. does anyone have suggestions for a decoder that doesn't warrant the removal of one of the side tank weights? I've only just checked SEMG, which doesn't list 31 as being push/pull fitted. So that number will need to be changed! Continuing the Ex-LSWR theme, I managed to get my 700 to the stage where it's has transfers, couplings and the detail work picked out, It needs weathering + the usual list. Finally we have the USA Tank, I had one before, but the same fate befell it (sold), I decided I wanted another one and here we are! I picked S73 in 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' Sunshine livery and repainted/renumbered her. She's had a bit more than just standard weathering done, and still looks very clean, I might make her a fraction more dirty. The cab modifications were carried out in late 1947 (Thanks @Graham_Muz for the info!) and I assume she would've had an overhaul/repaint when this was done, so for her to fit in my chosen window, she probably wouldn't be completely covered in grot! Apologies of some of the photos are a bit crud, still trying to figure out the best way to light the room i'm now in! Thanks for reading guys!

I haven't yet Mr T, still need to order the correct one. What issues are you facing?

It's a bit of a shame, I was doubly disappointed because some of the photos actually look like the buffers are sprung! I stumped up for the sound fitted model and i'm looking forward to it arriving - followed by me tearing it apart and repainting it. Although it looks like i'll need to be careful putting the body on and taking it off again. I really hope Rails decide to do a 'BRIGHTON WORKS' version at some point too!

I've just ordered the sound fitted 32655, I plan to backdate this into 1947 condition, unsure which number yet. In case it's of any use to anyone else planning on doing the same thing, the numberplate appears to be a separately fitted detail. Hopefully this means it will be easier to remove than the condensing pipes, unsure though! looking forward to seeing this loco in the flesh!

Thanks @Graham_Muz! Model duly ordered and transfers prepared for number 71. Possibly a bit late to check, but would the bunker have also been modified by now?

That Thompson BG looks great, who/where is it from?